QuoteNowadays I think its an unbelievably crazy thing having to read more than two hundred pages for being able to play a game with your friends

A friend of mine made the above statement when I showed him the new Runequest. At first he got very excited by the game "anthropological simulationist" premise, but when he looked the rules closer it was an almost automatic refuse.

And you know what? I think I may be reaching that point too. My group refuses to learn and play new systems that are not rules-light. The more rules-intensive games they play are the ones they learned on their youths (everyone is above 30s by now except for one member). And I see myself following those same steps. I bought lots of games recectly, including ones I was really excited about, like Continuum and The One Ring, but in the end I couldnt force myself to read it and learn their systems like I used to do 20 years ago. The systems I manage to learn nowadays are ones like Barbarians of Lemuria and Apocalypse World where you explain the rules in 2 min, create a char in 5 min, setup play in 10, and thats it.

So, what your opinions on this? Is this a trend in the hobby, the more old you get, the less tolerable toward new/rules-heavy systems you get? Or is this a effect of contemporary entertaiment, with its immediacy and simplicity over conplex and elaborare games ?

I think it's an age thing.  I still enjoy the complexity of the old systems, but I don't feel the urge to learn and memorize new ones as much anymore.

I think I'm there as well, or close to it at least. I just can't be bothered reading/learning heavy rules from scratch anymore.

I just don't think rules are that funny.

That's why I gave away my Mutants & Masterminds 2nd edition and that's why I'm currently running Lamentations of the Flame Princess and considering starting up yet another Over the Edge campaign. Easy rules, or at least rules I know by heart, is what does it for me.

When I was younger I ate up rule (heavy) stuff like Ars Magica, but today I don't think I would have the stomach for it. I would most likely grab the flavour and setting and use a set of rules I know and that I could explain to other players in 10 minutes time.

I've been this way for over a decade an a half. I don't mind reading longer game books, but I find the more complex systems just bore the shit out of me during prep and at the table.

My eyes glaze over nowadays if anything is longer than about 90 pages.

Quote from: noisms;565609My eyes glaze over nowadays if anything is longer than about 90 pages.

I wouldn't say I glaze over, personally, and I like a certain level of complexity.  Hell, my post over on the development board should be demonstrative of that, but I don't want to have to learn an ALL NEW complexity.  I'm more likely to enjoy the elements of older systems that I already know when they're brought into a new system, rather than having to learn a different way of doing things.

Quote from: Gib;565603I've been this way for over a decade an a half. I don't mind reading longer game books, but I find the more complex systems just bore the shit out of me during prep and at the table.

This, this, a thousand times this!

Honestly - playing is fun, but reading the shit in most game books is boring.

It would depend how much is rules and how much is additional stuff like skills or spells. I'd be cautious about getting into a game with more than say a couple dozen pages of core rules, but I don't mind any number of pages of skills worked from those core rules. I can look over the skill list, pick the thirty or so that I want, and read them alone.

I generally only work with my own system these days though, so I don't need to learn new rules to enjoy any given milieu.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;565601I think it's an age thing.  I still enjoy the complexity of the old systems, but I don't feel the urge to learn and memorize new ones as much anymore.

There's some of that -- I simply do not have the time I had when younger to master new complex systems and convert all my homebrew material to them. I have a "complex" job, a family, and many other time-consuming responsibilities that I did not have when I was in my twenties.  I see no reason to learn a new complex RPG system unless I consider it much, much better for my style of play than any of the systems I already know -- I'd rather spend my limited "RPG time" playing than learning a new (complex) system.

However, I went through a "the more complex, the better" phase in the 1980s. Toward the end of the 1980s, however, I realized that more complex RPGs were seldom any more fun that less complex ones -- and that the less complexity in the rules the more fun I usually had as both a GM and as a player. So I went back to less complex RPGs. Nothing I've seen or tried since then has made me want to reconsider that decision.

A lot of games can be distilled down to only a few pages of rules. When writing one I try to get that out of the way early and leave the supporting material to the end -- there might be 110 pages of material, but you can start playing after the first half or earlier (and that's 6x9 in a legible typeface, so 15 D&D pages).

Personally, I think the problem stems from list and bullet-point driven design.

Game design has, for some years now, been driven by lists of shit.  Lists of spells, lists of skills, lists of powers, lists of equipment, pages and pages of fucking lists of things that as far as I can tell solely exist so that the back of the book can have a bullet point that says "Over 9000+ garglefrunchits!" because none of it will ever be fucking used but once.

And yet even now, so many games neglect lists of shit for which actual variety is both useful and necessary, like a decent bestiary/monster list or in-game rewards or more variable generators. And they almost never, ever provide the tools they used, if any, to create the lists in the first place so that you can add your own without winging it.

The resulting problem, I find, isn't so much that too many games are too damned long, as that they're too damned long while being filled with absolutely useless shit.

Only the GM needs to know the rules.

Players just need to tell me what their characters want to do, and I tell them what dice to roll, and whether they succeeded or failed.

Quote from: The Traveller;565614It would depend how much is rules and how much is additional stuff like skills or spells. I'd be cautious about getting into a game with more than say a couple dozen pages of core rules, but I don't mind any number of pages of skills worked from those core rules. I can look over the skill list, pick the thirty or so that I want, and read them alone.

I generally only work with my own system these days though, so I don't need to learn new rules to enjoy any given milieu.

This is close to where I'm at. I could probably boil the "core" of my game down to ten pages or less.

But pregenned monsters and NPCs, and a broad set of character options, both add to the size and scope of the game. And you don't have to memorize every last bit of that in order to play. Just the options the party is using and the content you as GM throw at them.

Quote from: Pariah74;565623Only the GM needs to know the rules.

Players just need to tell me what their characters want to do, and I tell them what dice to roll, and whether they succeeded or failed.

I concur completely, but I think that most of the people talking about rules preferences are doing so from the perspective of GM's.

I think it's age, and crustiness, and possibly the Internet. I buy old RPGs now and then - Daredevils, TIMEMASTER and Starships & Spacemen are three recent ones - but I always boggle at the rules and never really consider running them. Whereas D&D-based rules like Mutant Future do get played, whether they're short like Labyrinth Lord or long like 4e D&D (eventually) and Pathfinder. I think that's partly because I'm already familiar with D&D, though complexity is a factor - it did take me a year to try 4e.