The books from which I have gained the most enjoyment have generally been in the 128 to 256 range.  There are probably a few outliers, especially on the upper end if the book is mostly supporting material.  If it's a pure reference book, such as a Monster Manual, then it doesn't matter, as long as the content quality and price are inline with the size.

I could see a D&D type game being good at under 100 pages. I can't see a book being more than about 250 pages of rules (not counting setting).

Quote from: RPGPundit;1048759I can't see a book being more than about 250 pages of rules (not counting setting).

That's the deciding factor for me.  I'll put up with a gigantic book if it is for a setting that I want to emulate and that book is mostly setting.

Generally speaking, I prefer important rules ("rules" themselves specifically, not worked examples or catalogue content) to be an easily-memorized core under 50 to 100 pages.

Practically speaking, I don't think I have any actual min- or max- tolerance by overall page count; I love GURPS which naturally has a hefty Basic Set alone, not counting the massive number of genre books and catalogues, but most of it is never referenced during play except for those things I've specifically and deliberately chosen to plug in to a given campaign (which means it should be pretty damn important), and I'm known to tweak/houserule and adjudicate like crazy for things I think should work differently, or needs a spot ruling, or things I simply don't care to look up at the time (I refuse to open books during play, as GM; familiarity helps, here, as does prepping your own material for the game you're running, same as any game).

On the other side of the spectrum I've also enjoyed playing Heroquest 2 and Over the Edge/WaRP (and even Risus and GURPS Ultralite), the rules of which can be summarized effortlessly via spoken word in under a minute and a couple of which have no more than a handful of pages overall anyway.

To me, it's more about what's sandwiched in those pages than the pages themselves. Mythras and Reign are pretty big but very straight-forward to digest and remember; Fate Core has a ridiculously short list of actual rules despite the bloated size of the core book, but it's a hell of a hurdle to digest and requires a lot of attention and consideration and mental overhead during play. Obviously all IMO, I only offer these as personal examples to illustrate my point.

It depends on what is in the book. There isn't really a minimum or maximum.

A one-line idea that I don't already have but want to use after I read it could be quite valuable. (I'm currently playtesting a game-changing idea that could be expressed in one sentence, or one mathematical formula.)

Length isn't really an issue. (I was happy to buy the GURPS 4e Basic Set at 576 pages, because I was sure it had lots of stuff I would use, and I still don't regret that I did, even though I only really use a pretty small fraction of it for my GURPS house rule mélange.) I have bought several RPG systems that I don't use at all and most likely never will, just to check them out and see if there are maybe some ideas or tidbits I can adapt for use in the games I do run.

I don't know if I have a hard and fast guide.  I've bought and played a few indie games that were only 25 - 40 pages and had a blast.  I also own Pathfinder and HERO and Numenera and those are some beasts of page count.

I guess it really depends on what's on those pages.  If I can get something more than "the GM and player both roll a d6, whoever rolls higher wins the check" I'm likely to check it out.  Although, these days I tend to be drawn more toward the briefer side when it comes to the games I'm interested in so if it's more than 200ish pages I'm expecting a lot of useful info, tools, etc and not have to shell out for supplements to fill out the line.

It might not apply since it is miniatures gaming but I've been really digging the new approach to Warhammer 40k and Age of Sigmar where the main rules are pretty light and the rest is attached to specific units.  It means I can ignore the vast bulk of the "rules" I don't care about (all the abilities of the different armies) and just focus on what matters.  This was a big part of what I liked about DMing D&D 4e.  

I'm really the only person who bought Twerps? :confused:

Longest is probably 5e, not even counting the campaign books.

I like books of just a few pages up to a maximum of a couple of hundred at tops, depending on what that page count is made up of. If it's lots of crunchy rules and tables I'm less interested. If it's lots of irrelevant guff/fluff background history that's rarely going to be of use in the actual game, then my eyes glaze over. If there are plenty of adventures and plot seeds and stuff to do then I'm more interested.

Strangely, I was nearly sucked into picking up a copy of Dungeon Crawl Classics recently. I read the reviews and saw it was a huge book. I watched some actual plays. I still nearly hit the "Buy it now" button. It looks such good value as a hardcover book. But then I realized all I really liked about it was the "character funnel" - which realistically you could do in any D&D/OSR type rpg of which I have plenty with far lower page counts. So, I've managed to stave off that craving.

Now I'm wondering whether to pick up Warhammer 4 when it's out. 320 pages sounds too big, but probably half of that is careers and hopefully some useful adventure-stuff. Or maybe just go for the starter set...although it isn't entirely clear what is exactly in the box and how much of the actual rules you get.

Well I personally love the form factor of the rulebooks in the old TSR boxed sets. Those were generally what? 32-64 pages? I don't know if I'd go out of my way to buy a rulebook that was shorter than that. It would all depend on the presentation. I'd probably have a look at the pdf first.

As for the biggest, my two biggest books are my Deadlands combined collectors edition (revised edition) and my Talislanta 4th edition books. And the latter is just too bulky and unwieldy for use at the tabletop IMNSHO. That didn't stop me from buying it then, but it would be a much tougher sell for me these days. My sweet spot is my All for One: Regime Diabolique and Savage Worlds core books. Those feel compact enough to travel and not weigh me down, but complete at the same time.  Though if I had it my way, the digest/graphic novel format would be the industry standard.

Tom

I think the smallest main rulebook I'd buy would be something like the old PHB from AD&D 2nd edition.  The largest would be the leather bound monstrosity that is Exalted 3rd edition.  Anything smaller or larger would be purchased in digital format only.

The Biggest I ever bought was the "Stars without number" Omnibus edition:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNgreLeTRnw
I reviewed it as above.   Comes in over 1000 pages I believe.. a true monster of a book.


Dunno about smallest PRINT copy of a book, depends r eally..
I have bought stuff only 20 odd pages, usually system agnostic stuff that I find useful and pay a couple of bucks for, but they are PDF only.

I guess my shortest would be Gnomemurdered, but that was a comedic game.

This is a weird question. I have no idea what the maximum is. If you can keep adding useful information keep making it bigger. For smallest, it's going to depend on price. I'd be unlikely to be interested in a 10 page ruleset, but if you've done something really interesting and you're only charging 50c, there's a decent chance I'd give you $1.

Well, I guess the notion of a maximum tends from my experience that past a certain size, rulebooks tend to have a rapidly increasing percentage chance of being bad. Because if you're at 500 pages, odds are that a really big chunk of that is endless lists of spells, feats, or skills.