Dunno whether this fits in better here or over in design.

It seems to me that some games are just too big. Happens with established games as they go into new editions, very often the hard backed books get bigger, or there are more of them, and with each 'generation' the same game gets thicker and thicker. I'm not merely pointing the finger at D&D here, it seems to have happened with many other games too.

I don't need a game to be rules light, but I want to have just the rules that I need, and there comes a point where I just can't be bothered reading any more. I don't care if the game has 16 pages, 32 pages, 64 pages, even a couple of hundred pages, but if it goes into multiple volumes each with hundreds of pages I start wondering what all of that is about, why I would need all of that.

So do you guys agree that theres an optimal size for a game? If so, what is it? How big should a game be?

Well, it's not necessarily a trend of shorter-to-longer over the years. I've a copy of the AD&D DMG from 1979, it's got a lot of pages in rather small font...

I think really that the basic rules of most game systems could be written in a few pages. The rest are explanations of the rules, skill descriptions, rules examples, exceptions, game designer mumblings about this and that, and so on.

I mean, the basic thing is the tension between,


Any game write-up puts itself somewhere between those two. And if you want to make money, you'll go more towards the second one than the first.

Quote from: Kyle AaronWell, it's not necessarily a trend of shorter-to-longer over the years. I've a copy of the AD&D DMG from 1979, it's got a lot of pages in rather small font...

Thats certainly true, it is a rather packed book I would guess that when you take the word count of 2nd ed it would be longer, and I'd be amazed if 3rd ed and then 3.5 aren't longer again. I'd be curious to find out though.

Is there a point at which you'd just say 'sod it' and not bother with a game on the grounds that its just too big, though? Coming at the game anew, not having played older editions.

Quantitatively, I can't do, there's no page number I can give, but I can describe the type of game I like:

Keep the resolution of tasks relatively light and quick, but give the players a good variety of options. I guess Star Wars Saga is a decent description of the rules size.

There's also a difference between a well explained set of rules and poorly explained set of rules. You can write the rules for the same game twice and have two different page counts depending on how detailed the explanations are. I have seen rules both explained too generally and in far too much detail.

How long should a string be?

-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceHow long should a string be?

-clash

long enough to tie everything together.

Quote from: Mcrowlong enough to tie everything together.

Exactly, Mike!

-clash

I'm more time strapped than I used to be, so conciseness is nice to me - I want to be able to play the game with only an hour of reading and run it with two hours or reading.  I want the core book (not books) to be fully usable for months of play.  I may buy an extra book or two if it fits a niche.  Realistically, I haven't been in a campaign that lasted for more than a few months in a long time, so I don't need tons of material.  
 
One downside I've noticed of some pdf products* is that they figure that space is not limited so they can keep adding stuff with little extra cost.  Without the space pressure, they never have to decide what's important and what could be said more concisely.  So, they have a long, rambling product that bores me.
 
 
*certainly not all pdfs, some are so skimpy as to be insulting.  $5 for <25 pages!?!?  What is this, the comics industy?

Mahoosive!

I prefer a few more pages to give me some better insight into the game than a few less pages that force me to expand it myself.

Subjective impression:

Dogs in the Vineyard - 101 pages, about 8.5 x 5.5. Not too big.

Sorcerer - 141 pages, 10.5 x 7. A bit big.

Burning Wheel - 606 pages, 8.5 x 5.5. Really fucking big, but half is the Character Burner.

Pendragon 4th ed. - 341 pages, 11 x 8. Huge. Bigger than this=you got to be shitting me.

Quote from: CabIs there a point at which you'd just say 'sod it' and not bother with a game on the grounds that its just too big, though? Coming at the game anew, not having played older editions.

Not really, no. If the thing interests me, I can read 1,000 pages. If it's boring to me, I'll struggle to 10. I mean, speaking honestly, I do have enough leisure time to read a big book. Perhaps it was because I didn't have a lot of tv as a kid, but I don't have a short attention span. So it's quality not quantity that I look at.

Though Stalin said that quantity had a quality all of its own, I don't think he was talking about rpg rules.

That doesn't mean a lot of rpg books couldn't be shorter, though. I recently read through Burning Wheel, and its 600 or so pages could easily have been knocked down to 200 with no loss of meaning or clarity. But the basic ideas and systems in there would be as good or bad whether they were in 600, 6,000, or 6 pages.

Quote from: Kyle AaronThat doesn't mean a lot of rpg books couldn't be shorter, though. I recently read through Burning Wheel, and its 600 or so pages could easily have been knocked down to 200 with no loss of meaning or clarity. But the basic ideas and systems in there would be as good or bad whether they were in 600, 6,000, or 6 pages.

You don't find that if you've got 200 pages worth of quality in 600 or more pages, it becomes something of a chore finding the good stuff when you need it in-game?

Well you're talking about different things, though.

There's "quality", which is how good and inspiring and interesting and exciting the ideas of the rules and setting are, and how well the rules fit together.

And then there's "what you need to look up in play."

They're different things. For example, you might think that "levelling up" is a great idea, but you don't have to look it up in play, you just need to know how many xp to the next level, and you can usually find that quickly. Or you might think that "GM sends a Fate Point to invoke PC Aspects" is a good idea, but once you've read it you don't have to ever look it up again.

On the other hand, a critical failure table you may think is an okay sort of idea, but you often have to look it up in play, so all the tables better be at the end of the book where you can find them easily, not scattered about randomly like Traveller 4th.

"Quality stuff" and "stuff I have to look up in play" are different things.

And really I do speak from experience of rules which are "quality" but overly-long - I often run GURPS. I'm only getting sick of it because the players most keen on it are the ones who don't know the rules very well. It gets tiresome having to explain something to its supposedly biggest fans.

But the fault lies in the players there, not the system itself. I'll just have to impose on them some other system which is so simple I'll never have to explain it

Quote from: Kyle AaronBut the fault lies in the players there, not the system itself. I'll just have to impose on them some other system which is so simple I'll never have to explain it

And why aren't you playing d4-d4, which you wrote and is freaking awesome? Not to mention much lighter & smaller than GURPS...

-clash