No More Massive Tomes of Rules

[aramis erak]

This is the part I would jettison. That's not to say it should read like stereo instruction, but that I don't want people curling up with it next to the fire. I want them playing it.

If it reads like a stereo manual, it's illegible chinglish, impossible to use at first and worse to try and decipher...

I want authoritative tone, plenty of setting info and adventure seeds, consistent single task mechanic, with genre enforcement via mechanics.

 

[Retreater]

Re: Pleasure reading
I wouldn't say that Paizo produces books that are only technical manuals. In addition to the Lost Omens world books, you have adventures & bestiaries. Even their more player-centric books (Guns and Gears, Dark Archive) have flavor text and interesting options to pour over. There are also nice libraries of books for Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer, D&D (many editions), etc.
But what isn't fun to read (IME) - Old School Essentials. It's lean and mean and ... not fun to read? While I like having bullet-point descriptions in adventures, they're not great to read for fun.
A pamphlet rules set - also wouldn't be fun to read. There's not enough to dig into.
Dragonbane - well, that's a maybe? There doesn't seem to be much that's player-facing. You can't really dig into the mechanics. Your fighter with a 12 in Swords is the same as every other fighter with a 12 in Swords.
It's good for a simple game, but I doubt it would meet my needs for more than a few sessions.

 

[Reynard]

Re: Pleasure reading
I wouldn't say that Paizo produces books that are only technical manuals. In addition to the Lost Omens world books, you have adventures & bestiaries. Even their more player-centric books (Guns and Gears, Dark Archive) have flavor text and interesting options to pour over.

Paizo is particularly egregious in the overinflated prose regard.

Dragonbane - well, that's a maybe? There doesn't seem to be much that's player-facing. You can't really dig into the mechanics. Your fighter with a 12 in Swords is the same as every other fighter with a 12 in Swords.
It's good for a simple game, but I doubt it would meet my needs for more than a few sessions.

To each their own. There are heroic abilities, but really I think the philosophy that characters need dozens of abilities to be fun to play pretty misguided.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Your fighter with a 12 in Swords is the same as every other fighter with a 12 in Swords.

Does that matter? How many other fighters with a 12 in Swords are there at the table? I can remember OD&D games in the 70s where there were dozens of players and massive class duplication and (say) "fighter with a longsword" was insufficient identification, but how common is that these days?

I get that it may be too shallow to retain interest for long, but I can't see lack of character differentiation being the major problem here.

 

[Reynard]

Does that matter? How many other fighters with a 12 in Swords are there at the table? I can remember OD&D games in the 70s where there were dozens of players and massive class duplication and (say) "fighter with a longsword" was insufficient identification, but how common is that these days?

I get that it may be too shallow to retain interest for long, but I can't see lack of character differentiation being the major problem here.

Part of it is people too used to engaging with their character sheet rather than the fiction of the game itself.

 

[Retreater]

Paizo is particularly egregious in the overinflated prose regard.

Agreed. But it does give one something to read when not playing.

To each their own. There are heroic abilities, but really I think the philosophy that characters need dozens of abilities to be fun to play pretty misguided.

There is a difference between "fun" and "interesting." I could have fun with a character that rolled a d6 and on an even number succeeded and on an odd failed. That doesn't mean the game rewards interaction with the mechanics.
Sometimes a game can be so simple that there's nothing to think about outside of the session. You don't get excited for a new ability, you don't crave a new magic item, you don't hunger to learn a new spell.
To me, that's sort of what Dragonbane is like. That's largely because skill advancement is random.
Did the GM give you a chance to use the ability? Check it. At the end of the session, did you fail your check? If so, subtract a number from it. If not, I guess you get nothing.

 

[Retreater]

Part of it is people too used to engaging with their character sheet rather than the fiction of the game itself.

It's not like a more defined rules set can't have "fiction." And it's not like a more streamlined game like Dragonbane (which I DO like, honestly) does anything to encourage interaction with the fiction. That is 100% under the discretion of the GM. A lousy GM will make a game like Dragonbane boring in fiction and mechanics; whereas a lousy GM running PF2 will have at least an interesting and robust rules set.

 

[Arilyn]

I like both. I'd hate it if either went away. There's a time, a place, and a group for every type of game!

Me too. I'm loving my 100 page smaller size Black Sword Hack, while at the same time having a blast with Old Gods and the extra bits from the KS.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Part of it is people too used to engaging with their character sheet rather than the fiction of the game itself.

 

[ART!]

I just need the rules, preferably in bullet-point format, not complete sentences, because I want to be able to find a specific rule when I need it. Fewer pages and clear presentation means less time spent referencing.

So, I like a core rulebook that's as small as possible. A big chonky book is great, and I might even buy it if the look and feel appeals, but for running/playing I don't need it.