Unpopular opinions go here

[Thomas Shey]

40-100 pages lite??? No, Im sorry, I think these distinctions are not useful at all because everybody makes up a new one everyday.

I think there's a point that there's a difference between a 100 page game and a 300 page one if both are primarily rules. I don't think that's the only issue (as I've noted before, people tend to vastly overstate the feat number in PF2e because they ignore the siloing, which makes that mean a vastly different thing than the same numbers would in PF1e or D&D3e). So page length doesn't tell the whole story, but its not irrelevant, either.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think there's a point that there's a difference between a 100 page game and a 300 page one if both are primarily rules. I don't think that's the only issue (as I've noted before, people tend to vastly overstate the feat number in PF2e because they ignore the siloing, which makes that mean a vastly different thing than the same numbers would in PF1e or D&D3e). So page length doesn't tell the whole story, but its not irrelevant, either.

Exactly. A complete RPG in 100 pages is totally different from one in 300 pages (or across three 200+ page books). I used to write mostly game that didn't exceed 100 pages. My experience doing this is it tends to lead to much lighter rules systems, systems I would not regard as rules heavy or rules medium. I think there has been a shift because we have had more 1-4 page RPGs in recent years. But if you are talking RPG books, something roughly from 30-100 pages can easily be rules light (especially if those books cover everything from GM advice, to setting to core rules, character creation, and adventures)

 

[payn]

I think there's a point that there's a difference between a 100 page game and a 300 page one if both are primarily rules. I don't think that's the only issue (as I've noted before, people tend to vastly overstate the feat number in PF2e because they ignore the siloing, which makes that mean a vastly different thing than the same numbers would in PF1e or D&D3e). So page length doesn't tell the whole story, but its not irrelevant, either.

Folks are conflating many things in these categories. What they dont realize is they are often trying to tell some one how an orange tastes by the size of the bag it came in. That just needs to stop.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Exactly. A complete RPG in 100 pages is totally different from one in 300 pages (or across three 200+ page books). I used to write mostly game that didn't exceed 100 pages. My experience doing this is it tends to lead to much lighter rules systems, systems I would not regard as rules heavy or rules medium.

If you are using "rules-lite" to describe systems that have 100 pages of rules, you are using the term in a manner that is not cognizable to people who actually use that term to describe rules-lite games.

Is there a difference between 100 pages and 300 pages and 1000 pages of rules? Sure. But just because there may some difference between them doesn't make any of them rules-lite.

 

[payn]

Exactly. A complete RPG in 100 pages is totally different from one in 300 pages (or across three 200+ page books). I used to write mostly game that didn't exceed 100 pages. My experience doing this is it tends to lead to much lighter rules systems, systems I would not regard as rules heavy or rules medium. I think there has been a shift because we have had more 1-4 page RPGs in recent years. But if you are talking RPG books, something roughly from 30-100 pages can easily be rules light (especially if those books cover everything from GM advice, to setting to core rules, character creation, and adventures)

Pages is the wrong variable to go by. I could say there are two games, one has 50 pages, and another has 500. Most folks would assume the 50 pager is lite, and the 500 is heavy. However, the 500 could have hundreds of images and illustrations filling up sapce, and the 50 pager could be a text only reference document with hundreds of rules on every page.

 

[Bedrockgames]

If you are using "rules-lite" to describe systems that have 100 pages of rules, you are using the term in a manner that is not cognizable to people who actually use that term to describe rules-lite games.

Is there a difference between 100 pages and 300 pages and 1000 pages of rules? Sure. But just because there may some difference between them doesn't make any of them rules-lite.

I know lots of gamers who use rules light to describe 100 page games.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I know lots of gamers who use rules light to describe 100 page games.

I can’t believe Nixon won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I can’t believe Nixon won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him.

This is different. I think people don’t realize how much this term has changed and how much it varies. I am out right now so typing quickly (don’t want this response to come off as curt as it is not). What I can say is I have been using light for a long time to refer to systems that have smaller file books (100 pages is pretty small for an rpg), play light and fast and don’t require lots of looking up core systems. I even put out games starting 2009 that were 100 pages, marketed as rules light, described as rules light in reviews and in forums. At some point I started seeing a lot of extremely low page count games (1-4 pages) usually described as lite, rather than light). And I think those are a different beast from what I am talking about.

In terms of rules medium, that is the whole point of WOIN when it first came out as I recall (I remember Morris mentioning that in response to the two options being crunchy games and light)

 

[Bedrockgames]

Pages is the wrong variable to go by. I could say there are two games, one has 50 pages, and another has 500. Most folks would assume the 50 pager is lite, and the 500 is heavy. However, the 500 could have hundreds of images and illustrations filling up sapce, and the 50 pager could be a text only reference document with hundreds of rules on every page.

Sure. That isn’t something I would disagree with. I am just using it as a shortcut range

 

[Tony Vargas]

I know lots of gamers who use rules light to describe 100 page games.

The original Champions (1981) was 64 pages. Rulez lite would hardly describe it.