Size does matter...
Submitted by Liam on 1 May 2007 - 5:26pm. Roleplaying games
There are a lot of games out there. Hell, there are a lot of games in here too. In fact there are even more games at home. So many many pretty games.
But therein lies a problem. I could handle it if there weren't so many games, though I'd like that less. There's something truly wonderful about the fact that the games industry just keeps going from strength to strength. The fact that there is more new good quality product coming out every week now than at any time in the last nearly 9 years I've been in business makes me happy.
The problem is the size of the books. Back in the heady halcyon days of gaming when I was a lad and still wearing shorts to school you used to get games in boxes. In those boxes you'd get a bunch of stuff and maybe some dice and you'd get the rulebook. All 64 or 96 pages of it. Staple bound, mostly in black and white with (if you were particularly lucky) maybe a colour cover. Sometimes you’d get 2 books like that. A sourcebook and a rulebook or a player’s and GM’s book and the game would only cover a certain amount of stuff you could do. The thing is though that with that box you could get to know a game in no time. You could be up ad running the same day you bought it.
Now I’m not suggesting that we should be going back to those days with everything in boxes. That’d be expensive these days and it would make things harder to store on my shelves if nothing else but the principle behind the book size is what I’m getting at. I used to be able to pick up a game and start playing almost straight away. Now I have 250 page books to churn through before I get a chance to even create a character!
I have to decipher my way through endless over complicated rules explanations, skills lists (which I really should read because this one probably defines skills differently to EVERY OTHER GAME OUT THERE). I have to check my way through endless pages of spells and magic abilities that no-one in their right mind would ever want to use just in case I miss something important or relevant. Trust me there is always something of import or relevance hidden away as well.
Why do I game again?....
Anyway. Smaller books. Easy intro's. Books that get you up and running at speed in 20 pages dammit! That's all I want. It's not a lot to ask.
Oh, and as long as its not Indie either...
Damn Indie gamers and there funny looking games....
- LiAm
Dunno if you've seen this or not but Phil Reed of Ronin Arts has created a RPG which fits onto a GM Screen. vs Outlaws using his vs Monsters system but for Cowboys obviously.
Ok so it probably falls into the Indie category you mentioned but still pretty cool nonetheless.
Dave
Dave game's at ORC Edinburgh
Playing : Nothing.
Running : D&D.
Planning : Cold City, Star Wars d20, Unknown Armies, AFMBE, More D&D, Brave New World, The End and XCrawl. If I get the time...
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I thought I should explain one of the comments above as well. THere is a reason that I don't count indie games here.
Indie games (and this is a bold generalisation I know) are generally driven towards a more group driven narrative storytelling game with various twists.
That is not what I'm looking for in a game. I have a huge amount of respect for a lot of the Indie games out there. There are a bunch of them I'd like to try out at some point. They just aren't (in general) what I'm looking for in a game.
I basically want a nice simple easy to read and pick up fantasy (preferably) roleplaying game that I can learn the guts of in 30 minutes reading. I spent 2 hours on the Pirates of the Spanish Main RPG. I know how to build characters and I know what a bunch of the skills, hinderances, edges etc do but I still have no idea how the game actually works or even what the default style of play is. It's a good game from what I can see, but its been 2 hours solid reading and I can forsee another 6 hours before I feel I could even attempt to run it.
SO in short, I don't hate Indie games, they are (in general) not the kind of thing I would choose to run.
Now, where's my old copy of Red Box. I have a hankering for the Little Keep on the Borderlands sometime soon...
- Liam
I am your gaming god, in my temple of Geek.