Minimalist and One Page RPGs

[Ruin Explorer]

I wonder if minimalist games might be better for long-term campaigns, because you probably don't have to dread going to another 4-hour session in which you might or might not finish the combat you started in the previous session.

Logically that follows but it is fascinating how many long-term campaigns are using games with fairly crunchy rules - I wonder if that's just a factor of history though - many, probably most of the better-designed and more engaging/less gimmicky RPGs from like, 1980 through 2010 were rules-heavy (or at least the upper end of rules-medium) by modern standards.

I haven't seen any 4+ hour combats since the we stopped playing 3.5E in like 2006 or 2007 myself, though it is to be admitted one of the reasons we stopped playing 4E was that as we levelled up, the real time it took to resolve combats was creeping back up into the multi-hour sphere.

 

[aramis erak]

I'll note that not many consider Classic Traveller to be rules light despite the physically small size... It's pretty crunchy, and fairly procedural. Most claiming it to be rules light are actually ignoring the skills chapter, where there's a special case rule for most of the skills. Its infamous solo-playability is because all the tools for solo merchant play are present in the core as procedures.

Monsters Monsters is very close to T&T in complexity... it merely drops berserking, and encumbrance.

 

[Voadam]

I played a fantasy D&D hack of Honey Heist and really enjoyed it. You roll to give yourself a multipart archetype as character creation and basically go. You have two types of skills both at 3. To succeed at a skill check when things were in doubt roll your stat or under on a d6. If you fail transfer one point to the other skill. We basically just used success or failure as an improv prompt.

Instead of the types of bears and criminal roles in normal Honey Heist it was D&D classes so instead of rolling to be a rookie black bear hacker I rolled a rookie cleric. Instead of Bear and Criminal skills it was Adventuring (fighting, casting, tough physical stuff) and Cunning (anything smooth or smart or devious).

The biggest change from other roleplaying games was removing the tactical mechanical subgame of combat and using a skill check when that came up.

Very rules light, lots of genre conventions guiding powers and such without any tracking of hp or spell slots or whatever.

When we hit a town infested with snakes I turned to the other rookie cleric and said, "Oh they covered this in Seminary! The Ireland protocol!" and we made adventuring checks to drive out the snakes while the slick knights were fighting them.

It worked great for a big group (8?) who were into roleplaying and improvising and a majority with no tabletop RPG experience as well as me with over 40 years of D&D experience.

Entire game on one page and it is free!