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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dethklok" data-source="post: 6144707" data-attributes="member: 6746469">I don't think that's true. An rpg can be simpler than the above game and cover everything with a rule like all actions where the outcome is uncertain are resolved by a coin flip, where heads results in success and tails in failure. Climbing a cliff? Trying to take off your armor before you drown? Heads you succeed, tails you fail. I don't present this as a system that's much fun, but it definitely belies the notion that complexity is necessary for completeness.In theory, this makes sense, but time and again I have watched the DM stop the game to flip through his rulebook. Loads of fun sitting there waiting to find out if your character is pushed back 5 feet or stays in the same space.Having only fours classes wouldn't mean there are no multiclass options. Nor would it mean that you couldn't, as a fighter, lean to cast spells through the skill system - lots of games don't have any classes in them at all.Put the 16 toothpicks in a box and it becomes one box of toothpicks. Or  just write down "toothpicks" on your character sheet as one item.Naw, it can be in the rules. For instance, Dragon Warriors allowed characters to carry 10 items, +/- 2 for each Strength bonus they had. (It was a 3-18 system, with 3-5 being -2, 5-8 being -1, and so on.) Dragon Warriors defined an item as an object roughly equal to a weapon in size and weight. I played that game dozens of times as a kid, and never once did a problem arise because daggers had the same weight as two handed swords; you could clearly see that a character carrying 14 things was weighed down when you looked at the character sheet. It never arose that someone wanted to fill up their inventory with daggers - they wore armor, carried shields and lanterns and things. The rule was simple, but it was quite plausible and never required a GM ruling.What? Do you know of any game large and detailed enough to include potato guns, sharpened pencils, or bales of hay in their weapon lists? Wouldn't you say that the sweeping absence of rules for attacking with non-weapons and psuedoweapons is an indication that such rules simply aren't needed?Remember my first post:* Rules are 30 pages, counting all equipment and monster lists, and all special rules like warp drive, sanity, or anything else.Simple rules do not need to be generic.So? Neither do I; the market could be saturated with simple games, each very different from the next, but none more complicated than, say, the D&D Rules Cyclopedia. The real question isn't whether one simple game could satisfy all needs, but rather, whether the hobby would have lost anything if complex games didn't exist.I do see where you're coming from with the objections you're raising.  What I think is really the case, however, isn't that the rules will  restrict options or harm plausibility. Instead, I see what DMMike sees:This is the  single reason that I see designers make complex games - they're easier  to write. Because there is more pressure on the designers of a simple  system to make simple rules that work. There's no fixing a bad  rule with Band-Aids later into the books; that one rule has to be strong  on its own.</blockquote>

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