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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7529177" data-attributes="member: 4937">FATE Accelerated to me feels like a stretch of the term 'rules light'.   I agree with the 'rules medium' description.Rules light games tend to:1) Have a complete game in a single supplement.2) Use a single simple resolution mechanic for all purposes. 3) Avoid simulation of any sort.  That is to say, at no point does the game attempt to model the particulars of a challenge, such as the relative position of figures on a map.4) Have player characters described by a minimal number of traits, usually no more than 20 and often much less.In my opinion, there is no such thing as a successful rules light game.  The main reason for this is that the publishing model for a rules light game is inherently unsustainable.  Game makers make money by selling supplements.  Rules light games bill themselves as games that don't need supplements, inherently limiting their ability to dominate the market.   Typically if a rules light game becomes successful, there is a strong impetus to keep printing more supplements, and at some point it ceases to be rules light.Also, by being rules light you are inherently eschewing a certain degree of granularity that helps support long term play.  I've argued elsewhere that it is the nature of RPGs to be collections of minigames.  By minimizing the number of minigames in your system, and eschewing simulation, you are inherently driving people from your game in the long run however much they might enjoy your system for one shots or occasional play.Finally, rules light system do not actually do what people think that they do, which is greatly reduce the burden of prep.  Mechanics are probably the easiest part of prep to wing and improvise.  The hard part of prep, the part that shares a resemblance with producing stories in any other literary medium, still remains behind to perform.  Rules light almost inherently doubles down on your preparation being really good because it's so much focused on narrative brilliance as its one really satisfying element of play.  So people take up rules light thinking its going to get them out of work, and the result are games that crash and burn comparatively quickly because they just don't have enough going for them to engage a group for 40 or 400 hundred hours of play that you normally get out of an RPG.It's a trap I think that publishers get hung up on.  It's easy to create a rules light system.  Heck, I've got my own rules light system that fits on a half dozen pages of paper.   That very fact means that as a publisher you really aren't selling much to your customers.  You aren't actually selling the boutique artisanal rules you think you are selling.  You're selling fast food rules.  Because the reason gamers buy content from content producers is ultimately because your content saves them time.  They want to buy that lavish feast of rules and content that they themselves couldn't make or would spend years trying to make.  They aren't ultimately interested in paying for something that they could make themselves and bang out over the course of a few evenings.</blockquote>

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