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<blockquote data-quote="nedjer" data-source="post: 5363000" data-attributes="member: 83796">Had the chance to measure this up to a point with a visiting group of players and then my own group. Played the same L10-12 D&amp;D scenario with a roughly 100 page rule set and a close to 800 page rule set. After the games I went back and looked at how many pages were used. In this (very limited) test close to 90% of the 100 page set was used at some stage. There was clearly a shortfall in terms of a good selection of wandering monsters and there was grumbling about the limited choice of classes.The 800 page set used under 20% of the pages and there was some grumbling about some players' choice of elaborate classes. Taking account of needing a wider supply of monsters and races for continuing scenarios this suggested (to me) that an optimal rule set is about 150 pages long plus a 'cream of the crop' selection of maybe 100 pages of extra monsters and magic items. Beyond that a lot of monsters were varietions on a theme and a lot of classes where, basically, sub-classes.The players needed to use or (ideally) be aware of 72 of the 100 page rule set and close to 130 pages of the 800 page rule set. Suggesting that a 'full' RPG rule set (in terms of what gets used 90% of the time) is maybe 200 to 250 pages long - of which players need to know or be supported in using about 150 pages.Was well surprised at the share experienced players seem to need (quite a lot to give them good choices) and less surprised at how little is needed before you're into the land of rapidly diminishing returns.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="nedjer, post: 5363000, member: 83796"] Had the chance to measure this up to a point with a visiting group of players and then my own group. Played the same L10-12 D&D scenario with a roughly 100 page rule set and a close to 800 page rule set. After the games I went back and looked at how many pages were used. In this (very limited) test close to 90% of the 100 page set was used at some stage. There was clearly a shortfall in terms of a good selection of wandering monsters and there was grumbling about the limited choice of classes. The 800 page set used under 20% of the pages and there was some grumbling about some players' choice of elaborate classes. Taking account of needing a wider supply of monsters and races for continuing scenarios this suggested (to me) that an optimal rule set is about 150 pages long plus a 'cream of the crop' selection of maybe 100 pages of extra monsters and magic items. Beyond that a lot of monsters were varietions on a theme and a lot of classes where, basically, sub-classes. The players needed to use or (ideally) be aware of 72 of the 100 page rule set and close to 130 pages of the 800 page rule set. Suggesting that a 'full' RPG rule set (in terms of what gets used 90% of the time) is maybe 200 to 250 pages long - of which players need to know or be supported in using about 150 pages. Was well surprised at the share experienced players seem to need (quite a lot to give them good choices) and less surprised at how little is needed before you're into the land of rapidly diminishing returns. [/QUOTE]

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