I want smaller, leaner core books.

[Jd Smith1]

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If I had known about this, I wouldn't have bothered buying a PHB.

 

[TheSword]

Bad.

Can I ask why you feel having the spells is bad. Do you prefer a system that allows more ad hoc magic? Or no spells at all?

 

[GreyLord]

Fantasy Age (and Modern Age) are relatively compact for RPGs in our day, though perhaps not quite as short or concise as the OP was asking. Cyberpunk is also rather short in general for a complete RPG.

 

[pemerton]

Can I ask why you feel having the spells is bad. Do you prefer a system that allows more ad hoc magic? Or no spells at all?

I'm just not a big fan of a FRPG where (i) so much of the game consists of PC build rules that (ii) feed into a framework that allows players to rebuild their PCs on a very regular basis.

There was a certain logic to it in classic D&D - choosing spell load-out was an aspect of playing the game skilfully. But that sort of prep-based play seems to have reduced in importance across the RPGing community, and holds very little interest for me.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I like my game books fatter and crunchier, with lots of pc build options, flavor text, implied settings, and game hooks mixed in liberally.

But, you know. It is okay for people to have different preferences.

 

[Reynard]

Cyberpunk is also rather short in general for a complete RPG.

Cyberpunk RED is 450 pages.

 

[Shiroiken]

There are a lot of beer & pretzels that don't have a lot of core rules. Kobolds At My Baby! comes to mind.

 

[John Desmarais]

Hmmm... after reading through this thread I feel I must be the oddball. I don’t care how big the core book is - but I want the core of the rules to be fairly small and concise. The TinyD6 games are a good example of this. Tiny Dungeons is over 200 pages, but the “rules” are only around 80 pages (with optional rules at the end of this section). The rest of the book is setting fluff.

 

[Crit]

82 pages of the PHB are spells. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

I can safely say that the information on those 82 pages does not take 82 pages.

 

[Mistwell]

I hate technical manuals and pure utilitarianism is definitely not my preference for rulebooks.