Okay we have rules lite games any rules moderate games?

[Gundark]

I've seen a lot fo praise for rules lite rulesets. For the most part I can see the benifit to rules lite games. The downside is that sometimes maybe they're "too lite".

Any RPGs that are more middle of the road? The only one I can think of is Warhammer, however it's so tied to the setting (it's not a generic system). I would almost say that core D&D is middle of the road, it's the bazillon books that go crazy with rules.

I consider rules lite games to be things like true 20, Castles and crusades, savage worlds.

 

[Treebore]

Rules Lite, Rules medium, rules heavy is just too subjective I don't know how anyone can answer your question.

Even your examples, I would say C&C is rules lite and True 20 is rules medium with Savage Worlds between the two, but closer to True20.

So how can someone give you a good answer without a solid definition of the terms that most people can agree to?

 

[Doug McCrae]

The White Wolf system
BESM
RuneQuest

 

[Odhanan]

Rules Lite, Rules medium, rules heavy is just too subjective I don't know how anyone can answer your question.

I agree. These notions are just too subjective.

Maybe you could achieve "your" rules-medium by taking a rules-lite system and adding some selected components to it. C&C with feats, for instance. Or GURPS lite with specific elements taken from the full ruleset. Or maybe the old RuneQuest ruleset (which was Basis RP System, but with the most rules development of all the incarnations).

That's for you to determine what you concider as "rules-medium" I think.

 

[diaglo]

OD&D(1974).

rules whatever. it has seer, medium, and all the other magic user titles too.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Rules Light can be used to refer to either 'lite' versions of heftier games (True20 to d20, for example, or Cinematic Unisystem to normal Unisystem) or to extremely light games, like Wushu, where all character options are player-defined. Because the extremely light games tend to be newer, the 'Rules Light' has been defined up (or down, depending on how you want to look at it) to account for them - which squeezes the already cramped categories above even more.

If Rules Light refers to Wushu and its kin, Rules Medium encompasses True20, CineUni, Savage Worlds, etc. Basic Silhouette Core fits here, albeit at the upper end. Basic D&D and Feng Shui might, although both are stretches IMO.

Either way, Rules Medium encompasses games like BRP (some would class this with the previous category), Mutants & Masterminds, World of Darkness, etc. I would put Castles & Crusades in this category, along with AD&D. You might be able to squeeze core d20 Modern here, too.

Rules Heavy is generally tactical or complex toolbox games like D&D 3.x, GURPS, Exalted and HERO. Some people class these as Rules Medium, however, reserving Rules Heavy for the RPG equivalent of Star Fleet Battles (although this is usually an older classification).

Plus, you have the distinction of rules in play vs. character creation rules. HERO is considerably simpler than D&D 3.x in play, but character creation is much more complex. Mutants & Masterminds is arguably simpler in play than a Light-Medium game like True20, but its character creation can be more complex than a Medium-Heavy game like d20 Modern. Games with heavier character creation rules tend to seem heavier to GMs, not so much to players (unless they lose a lot of characters) - the inverse is true of games with heavier in-play rules.

 

[Stalker0]

Dnd is rules medium imo. There are systems that are vasly more complicated than it is

 

[Psion]

Averaged across number of players or sold units, D&D is rules medium.

One shouldn't let the fact that there are lots of trivial to produce trinket games on the market shift your perception of the avareage when the market share of any one is small.

 

[SWBaxter]

I consider rules lite games to be things like true 20, Castles and crusades, savage worlds.

This is an example of how subjective the definitions are, I wouldn't consider any of those light. To me, something like Feng Shui is on the outer edges of what I consider light, and that's at least an order of magnitude lighter than any of the three you mention. Since you do consider those three light, then I have a hard time conceiving of any currently published game that'd count as heavy. The current heavyweights such as D&D, Hero, GURPS, and similar games are not extraordinarily more complicated than those three, basically they have more character generation/advancement options but in play they still hum along pretty well in the hands of a group that's somewhat familiar with the rules so they fit your medium criteria. You'd have to go back to games like Aftermath or 1st edition Chivalry and Sorcery to find something really heavy.

IMHO, game design has come quite a long way, in that even games with a lot of rules generally do a good job of streamlining play. The light/heavy distinction doesn't have a lot of utility to me any more, I find it more useful to think of games as tightly vs. broadly focused, or setting-specific vs. setting-neutral, or player-fiat vs. GM fiat.