I want smaller, leaner core books.

[Haffrung]

So if the rule book to Blood Rage were quadrupled in length and the mechanics were buried in lore and walls of discursive text, people would be more willing to read it?

 

[Mistwell]

Interesting. We never had any problems understanding the Gloomhaven rules at all. It turned out the game wasn't especially fun -- or, fun enough for the time investment -- but not complicated or hard to grok.

Filling your rulebook with a bunch of empty prose is not helpful. If you wanted to keep D&D the same word count you could still write it a much clearer and utilitarian format that made it a more useful table resource. As it is, RPG books by and large obfuscate the important rule bits in order to make them "readable."

Just to be clear, I am not saying that RPGs should have fluff or be easy to read. I am saying that the CORE RULES of an RPG should dispense with empty prose.

The prose isn't empty though. It's really good prose which brings color and a sense of discovery to the unveiling of the rules.

I get it's not your thing. It's my thing though, and it's the thing of thousands of people. I don't think it's unusual that a lot of people don't like sterile instruction manual rules in their fantasy gaming. And it's not about word count.

And we know that held for Gloomhaven because the company outright said that's what happened with it and was the motivation for Jaws of the Lion and why Jaws of the Lion is sold in Target but the main game is not.

I literally do not want a more utilitarian rulebook. The only utilitarian thing I wanted from it which was lacking was a better index and glossary. But I wanted the interior text to be more along the lines of what it is, and what brought some of the magic of 1e AD&D. A mystery slowly discovered as you read it and then read it again.

Sometimes I think this is part of the 4e vs 5e divide for some people. 4e was done in a more utilitarian manner where the math behind the rules was presented more up front. 5e, a call back to older versions of the game, went back to a more 1e/2e approach where there is more story and tome-like discovery of the rules as you go along.

One is not inherently better than the other approach, it's just a matter of subjective taste. So I am not saying your desire for more utilitarianism in the book is wrong. I am just saying it doesn't match my desires for such books. And both of our views have a meaningful number of people who think like that.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

And clear writing and technical manual/reference style games do not necessarily mean small book. Hero 5th reads like an encyclopedia or reference work, and almost 600 pages. Cypher system rulebook on the other hand (450 pages) with a very conversational reading style covers game rules in 200 pages (although 100 of those are list of powers, which can be chosen by type, so it's not unlike spells in D&D)50 pages of different genres and how to use them, and the other 150 pages are a bestiary and lots of GM advice.

Both universal games, and I love both games, but I know which rulebook taught me how to play while being much more fun to read (Cypher if there is any question).

 

[Crit]

Can I ask what you would take out formatting wise? Or is it just keeping the same information but it appearing different in the page. In which case that feels like a fairly superficial exercises.

After all a small page count isn’t very virtuous if everything is printed at size 6 font to make it so.

I'm not a graphic designer, but I could see spacing and whatnot being valuable to edit. Aside from that, many of the basic features like duration/range/components/casting time are listed in separate lines with the labels restated.

Here's what I'd do for Eldritch Blast.
-------------------
Eldritch Blast evocation cantrip
1 Action | 120 ft | V,S | Instantaneous*

Launch a beam of crackling energy. Make a ranged spell attack: on a hit, the target takes 1d10 force damage.
At 5th level, a second bolt is created by the spell, with a third at 11th level and a fourth at 17th level, which can target the same or different creatures. Each bolt requires a separate attack roll.

Warlock, x, y, z...
--------------------
*(Each "section" of the above would have been on separate lines, increasing vertical height drastically.)

While I can't account for font changes affecting size, I did noticeably trim the word count and eliminate unnecessary line breaks, so it's smaller however you look at it. I can imagine that other spells might have similar possible reductions, and all together it would equate to a more noticeable reduction in page count at little to no cost. It's not any harder to read.

With that said, I do feel there are some redundancies in spell options but there'd probably be a way to adjust the way those are listed.

Thunderclap, Sword Burst and one other cantrip are the same spell, other than the damage they do and the save they force the enemy to make- if there were a way to list what they have in common, and merely list the deviation, that would save space and potentially invite home-brew or something. This is a hypothetical, I don't have to make a new system.

In theory it would be something like this:
--------
(name of this type of cantrip)
1 action / 5 ft / S / Instantaneous
Each creature within range must make succeed on a save or take 1d6 damage. The save and damage types are listed below, as well as additional information for spell affects and requirements.

• (Remaining thunderclap info, like class restriction + damage/save, + the sound)
• (remaining Sword Burst Info, like other components)
• (whatever the third one was)

---------
If all of this was listed like that, 3 entries (I approximate) would take the space of one and a third, which means that you could fit in even more spells! If we were to move onward, I could see this going for other spells like shape water/control flame + other elements, or Fire Bolt + EB, and maybe other elements.
This is already how things are listed in 5e. You don't see a separate whole-thing for each subclass- you have a class, list what's in common, and then it's more efficient to just show how it narrows from there. Even in the Monster Manual, they just give you a template for shadow dragons and dracoliches, which can be merged with the existing stat blocks of whichever dragon. When you put it like that, you get way more individual dragon types than you have actual stat blocks for, so this principle could be applied in magic for more flexibility without ballooning listed information.

IMO, the standard character sheet and most monster stat blocks could do with reformatting for space/ease of reference, but that's for another time.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Yes, I hate boardgame rules. They're awful. It's something you have to do, so you can get to something enjoyable. But not something you want to do, and they're something you avoid if you can. Usually in our board game groups there's only one person who is willing to read the boardgame rules and then they explain it to the rest of us, because none of the rest of us want to deal with that text unless we really get stuck.

Me, I would rather be gaming than wading through yet another set of rules buried in half-a$$ed flavor text which has absolutely nothing to do with the campaign setting I'm planning to use.

Interestingly, my table has a couple guys who, upon request, are happy to fact-check rule details. The rest of the players glanced over 5e, got the high points, and jumped in, rather than slog through the gunk.

 

[Reynard]

And clear writing and technical manual/reference style games do not necessarily mean small book. Hero 5th reads like an encyclopedia or reference work, and almost 600 pages.

Hero -- a game I really love -- has been increasing word count with every edition since 1981 and it is entirely unnecessary. I can't figure it out, other than Stephen Long loves to write. I mentioned above that the original Champions was 56 pages and nearly as complete as the 250 page 6th Edition one book Champions edition. They just kept adding words until you have these giant bricks of text.

Now, universal games do benefit from extra words outside of the rules, because you need to talk about various genres and things. But again I am not against lengthy game books in general, just core rules.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think there are pros and cons to both approaches.

For instance, Blades in the Dark is a pretty big book at 300 or so pages. But it's well written and laid out, and has both the rules and a complete setting in one book. It's also a complete game in that one book; you don't need to buy any more books to enjoy this game.

By contrast, Mothership is also a great game. The main rule book is under 50 pages, and contains all the rules you need to play. The PDF is also pay what you want, so that's pretty awesome, too. It has no setting information at all. I have two modules for the game, each at around 60 pages. One describes a space station that is designed to be a kind of "home base" for the PCs, and it's jam packed with content. The other is essentially a large dungeoncrawl, with evocative rules and antagonists and dangers for the PCs to deal with. Again, these books are just packed with detail and suggestions and prompts.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Hero -- a game I really love -- has been increasing word count with every edition since 1981 and it is entirely unnecessary. I can't figure it out, other than Stephen Long loves to write. I mentioned above that the original Champions was 56 pages and nearly as complete as the 250 page 6th Edition one book C

My favorite edition is 5th, because I love long crunch rulebooks (or really did) and because of the support it had... but the sweet spot for length and concisness for me was 4th. I started with 3rd edition, and looking at 3rd, 2nd and 1st editions, after having played 4th... they felt like half a game. But the first three were "Champions" and 4th was "Hero system" when it went truly universal.

But I understand what you mean there. I was mostly comparing HERO 5th being a dry reference type of book, as opposed to Cypher system Core which is a much more enjoyable read. The book has all sorts of extra resources, but the core concepts of the game take like 30 pages. Everything else are just different character options for different characters - each character only needs about 5 pages of those options. Just a lot to choose from.

Edit to add - Hero 5th edition Sidekick which had most all the rules you needs (a few powers and other things were missing) with smoothed out writing was only 128 pages.

 

[Nobby-W]

I know most people love big giant hardbacks, but I really want to see the return of small, lean core rulebooks. There is no RPG that you could not present in a complete fashion in 64 pages with the right clarity of writing and layout. RPG core books are instruction manuals. They are technical writing. They can and should be much less prose dense and be much more utilitarian in design. Shove all those extra words in the supplements.

Adventures should be a mix of the two. One part should be an interesting read, laying out all the back story and interesting circumstances and NPCs and locations. And then there should be a strictly utilitarian portion designed for the sole purpose of supporting the GM in running the adventure.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

One could take Classic Traveller as an extreme case of that - 9 core rulebooks, 21 adventure modules, 13 supplements, 7 related board/miniature games (that I can think of) and a periodical, plus various revisions of the rules - getting on for 90 publications in total. Folks will argue that you only need Books 1-3, and technically correct is the best kind of correct. However, scratch the surface and you'll find most of the fanboys making that argument own dozens of Traveller publications.

However, I wouldn't miss the experience I had as a wee lad where I went to the bookshop and found a new Traveller publication on the shelf and read it with excitement. The drip-feed reveal of the universe always left me wanting for more. I think that doing that with a game is infinitely more interesting than dropping a 200-page big-book-of-canon.

 

[pemerton]

My experience is, people like the theory of a rules lite game, but rarely actually like to them in reality.

<snip>

I am not saying there is no place for rules lite games, all I am saying is, book sales seem to indicate most (not all) RPG players don't mind a little bloat.

Most RPG players are D&D players, and thus are not playing a "rules lite" game.

I don't know if we can say that most of those players don't like rules lite games in reality, since most have probably never encountered or played in one.

The free rules, one of the starter boxes and an imagination, is plenty enough to play the game forever

I don't think this is a good example of a lite game. It's still not that lite, and it's not intended by its designers to be a complete game.

I'm sure it's playable, but I think its replayability is probably less than a system that is genuinely light in its rules and also flexible in its fiction - Story Bones would be one example.