Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
With a small game the goal is market penetration, word of mouth, and people being excited about your game - excited enough to buy, and hopefully excited enough to then play! Because if they aren't playing, they're less likely to then buy more.I expect the biggest issue for a new, small game, from someone who isn't a known designer, or working with a fan-favorite franchise, isn't about making money in sales. It is about your game being heard of at all.
Initial cost is one barrier to entry, and open source rules lowers that barrier. For big publishers it's probably the biggest barrier to entry. But not for small publishers. I'll argue that a small publisher is significantly better off making supplemental material free, and charging for the core rules, than the other way around.