I'm writing rules to my game. I have my own sense of how many rules is too much, but I'd like to know what other people think. It seems like it's a hard thing to pin down but people know it when they see it.

Maybe some one could give me a concrete example of a rules lite versus rules heavy version of the same thing?

For me, I try to make sure you can resolve anything in no more than 2 rolls, and try to keep the amount of time spent searching the rule book to a minimum, and make sure there's as little as possible that needs to be tracked, especially time. But I don't really know if that's rules lite. It's just what seems to work for me over the years.

And there's also a distinction between comprehensive and heavy. I get the sense that people would like to have rules for sea combat, sieges, intrigue, but they don't want each one to be too long. Maybe someone could expand on this.

I just don't want to call my game rules.lite when it isn't.

I'd say about WEG D6, FASERIP, BESM, and the WoD system one has hit "Rules Medium", and it scales up from there.

Rules Lite would be a set of rules that can be transcribed on one page or less, such as Risus, The Window, Fable, Wushu, The Pool, etc.

Examples of Rules Lite vs a Rules Medium/crunchy version of the same thing?

Ghostbusters vs Star Wars Revised & Expanded
The Fantasy Trip vs GURPs (maybe?)
Any of the old WoD Starter Games vs their published counterparts.

BX D&D is very rules light.

I think of it as a spectrum - though where exactly a given game is on it is very subjective, as is what qualifies as 'light'.

Wushu................d20................GURPS.

Pretty much every game is somewhere in there - but you probably won't get much agreement on exactly where - and I'm sure that some will bring up games beyond Wushu & GURPS - though I can't think there are many playable games which are crunchier than GURPS.  (And by d20 I mean base d20 - all of the spells & specials put 3.x/Pathfinder on the crunchier side of the spectrum.)

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;951665though I can't think there are many playable games which are crunchier than GURPS.

I think GURPs is at least a magnitude of complexity behind Phoenix Command, though I have to take it on faith from others that that game is playable.

Quote from: Tristram Evans;951668I think GURPs is at least a magnitude of complexity behind Phoenix Command, though I have to take it on faith from others that that game is playable.

Yeah, if Data, Spock or Neuromancer is your GM.

Rules-Lite depends on context. Different people have different opinions on game system complexity.

My view of rules-lite is: Minimalism. Games having character sheets that present the bare minimum to express those characters. And not one bit else.

It's a nebulous area of description. Because most everyone has a different view of what the absolute basics an RPG system has to have to truly be viable.

For me it is about efficiency. The measure of an effective rules life game is least amount of rules needed to create characters that feel genuinely different. There are a systems the cut things so fine that everything feels the same. Good rules lite games find ways to get a lot of bang out of a small footprint.

The best examples I can think of efficient minimalist game design are Ghostbusters and Barbarians of Lemuria. Both games pack a lot flavour in a very tight packages and produce remarkable fleshed out characters with very few elements.

I'm tempted to mention Over The Edge but it's been too long since I played it.

I'd also like to think Cyberblues City falls in this category. It was express design goal and was very ruthless when writing, cutting anything I felt did not entirely pay for its own way.

The most helpful answers are the ones where you give me personally what you consider to be rules lite versus medium or heavy. That's it's relative is... well, that's kind of a given, right? Just show me what YOU is rules light.

Quote from: Soylent Green;951682There are a systems the cut things so fine that everything feels the same.

The best examples I can think of efficient minimalist game design are Ghostbusters and Barbarians of Lemuria. Both games pack a lot flavour in a very tight packages and produce remarkable fleshed out characters with very few elements.

Can you elaborate this time on this?

The basic D6 system to me is rules light. One die used. Easy action resolution (#D6 vs. DN). Characters can be made in under five minutes.

Ghostbusters and Toon were among the first rules light games. I think the key to a rules light is a small number of mechanics, often just one mechanic, the covers almost all action resolution. It should be simple enough that once learned no reference to charts or the rulebook is necessary. Cthulhu Dark is a nice, very rules light system.

Quote from: Ashakyre;951686Can you elaborate this time on this?

That easier said than done. A system is a collection of micro-decisions that work in harmony. Explaining one feature doesn't fully express how interacts with everything else.

Ghostbusters is a very simple pool system with four Traits (Attributes) and four Talents (a broad skill selected by the player), one for each Trait. What is remarkable is that with that minimalist setup you can a vast range of modern day characters from bookish academics to sleazy conmen. On top of that you select a character Goal and have pool of meta-game resources called Brownie Points and again the way the two interact brings out the character. And all this back in 1986. There is also a subsytem about capturing ghosts, but that's it. It really a barebones system and yet it offers just enough customisation to make each character stand out.

Barbarians of Lemuria is a little more involved. The original, free, edition can be found here:
http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/barbarians-of-lemuria
The things to highlight about BoL are the Careers which act as broad skills which also create a rich background for starting characters, the way how freeform rules are cleverly constrained by some clear guidelines and finally how every design element works towards capturing the specific flavour of the sword and sorcery genre. It's very impressive.

Well, to me the real measure is "how much do you actually need during play?"  For instance, I can... and have... and often do... run OD&D with nothing but my dungeon maps, the keys (which include VERY basic info like "3 giant lizards, AC 5, 3 HD 10, 14, 17 hp, no special attacks"), the to-hit charts, the saving throw chart, and the random monster tables for the dungeon.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;951704Well, to me the real measure is "how much do you actually need during play?"  For instance, I can... and have... and often do... run OD&D with nothing but my dungeon maps, the keys (which include VERY basic info like "3 giant lizards, AC 5, 3 HD 10, 14, 17 hp, no special attacks"), the to-hit charts, the saving throw chart, and the random monster tables for the dungeon.

What do you use in place of dice and players?