"Keep it simple or 300 pages of rules?" Topic

Do you prefer rules that can be summed up in 50-75 pages and leave some things open-ended for house rulings?

Or do you prefer 300 plus page hyper detailed with rules that cover every army and situation?

I prefer rules of 5 – 15 pages that are designed well enough that there is no need for lots of house rules*. Is that an acceptable choice?

Regards

*Need being important. If *I* decide to mess around with them, that's different!

50 pages seems too long to me.

I don't think any of the WRG's rules made it to that length, and they generally managed to be more comprehensive than almsot any other in their period, and were widely copied.

"Hyper-detailed" rules are normally a sign that the author is making up an awful lot of stuff. I am more impressed by solid historical research and a bit of cunning in the design of the rules.

All the best,

John.

I've definitely been migrating towards the KISS school of thought in the last few years.

Doug

50-75 pages? My eyes roll up into my head and I become comatose. 5 pages or under are much preferred.

Two sides of A4 please. As for 50-75 being on the simple end, Third Reich had a shorter rule book than that, although it did have quite small print.

Care to name some of these 300-page monstrosities? Outside of some RPGs, I've never seen one.

Some rules are too short; I couldn't get into Buck Surdu's vietnam game, for example, as it seemed to throw too much at me without explaining what was going on, and Force on Force is getting a reputation for that at our club. Pages spent on explanatory diagrams and worked examples of play are well spent.

The only game I can think of at the moment with a page count approaching 300 is the board wargame Advanced Squad Leader, a game I still enjoy, but I do tend to stray towards the fewer pages the better for a set of rules. I've been playing ASL off and on since 1987 but I don't think I could pick up ASL and learn to play the game today.

It's how I get to sleep at night, wading through rule tombs. :-)

Seriously though, I find most of the large sets of rules to be filled with lots of pictures and side notes. I think it is more important the the reference sheets be no more than two pages since that is what I am going to be referring to during the game.

Matthew

Yeah, keep it simple for me too!

Either works for me.
10 pages or 300+. It all depends on the system itself. And how much of it I want to use.

Condensed version of the rules max 2 pages.

Extended version ( with some more verbose wording and rationale behind some rules) 25 pages maximum.

If you're thinking about books like WFB or WH40K, those are not rule books, they are flavour books, also containing some rules here and there.

1 to 2 pages is long enough for me.

Size is irrelevant (who said that?). It's the quality of the system that matters.

Keep it simple – a couple of pages or so is enough.

KISS. Then lots of pages with examples of play, scenarios, army lists, background are OK. But keep the rules short and sweet.

Yeah, anymore 20 to 25 pages is my limit for rules, unless they are really, REALLY good.

Interesting. A big question that does need one clarification: are we talking actual 50 typed pages of rules or 50 pages including eye candy, title pages, fluff, examples, diagrams etc.?

I read a LOT of rule books. A LOT. And I would break them down this way (all pages refer to actual rules, omitting extras):

Short: 10 pages or less.
Medium: 11-40 pages
Long: 41-75 pages.
Very Long: 75+ pages

Force On Force is "Long." A lot of that book is army lists, etc. But they do need a lot of rules for helos, riverine, irregulars, AFVs, APCs, civilians, tunnels, booby traps, engineers, etc, etc. They have a decent level of granularity so there's just an awful lot to cover.

Charlie Don't Surf from Too Fat Lardies is also "Long". 72 pages of rules. Take out the examples and diagrams and they probably run 60 pages.

But I agree the QRS should be brief. But even there it can be deceptive. People complained about the double sided, trifold charts from "Republic to Empire." But that "length" was deceptive. There were a number of melee charts – one for infantry vs infantry, one for cavalry charging infantry, one for cavalry charging cavalry, etc. – so it was the same chart repeated 4 or 6 times. Takes up space but actually makes the game play simpler (no need for lists of modifiers for infantry vs cavalry – it's all in the chart already).

And complexity of the period adds to the rules. How many weapons are there in the Old West compared to, say, Vietnam with artillery, air, naval, mortars, etc.

Also simple does not necessarily equal short.

Give me short, simple rules any day!
One aspect of the issue is that many of today's rulebooks try to be all-inclusive guides to the historical period, painting figures and modelling scenery as well, resulting in heavy tomes that are quite unsuitable for use during a game. In the old days, rules were simply rules; wargamers were expected to acquire their historical information and uniform details elsewhere..
A QRS sould be no more than two A4 pages, or one double-sided A4 sheet, in my opinion.

The house rules we use for our AWI and our ACW games are 5 pages or less and that includes charts. Loads of FUN.

The two ideas are not exclusive.
A simple set of rules where the mechanics are only one page, then additional (but still simple) rules for specific situations could be added.

An example might be a simple set of rules that have a section on smoke screens. The smoke rules are still simple, but they add to the page count. On the other hand, they may not be used by you very often.
Adding things like that, situational specific rules, would increase the size of the book without increasing the complexity.

Even so, I do prefer rules that are on the slimer side.

On the whole, the KISS open ended approach. Because lets face it, we are wargamers, therefore hands on iconoclasts, so we will tinker…..

But what I look for in a set of rules is if the holistic outcome seems to give a authentic feel for the period concerned. And I DO NOT equate authenticity with complexity!

Hence Black Powder is simple and open ended, but allows better led, more mobile forces to overcome greater odds by exploiting their manoeuvreability – to me the essence of Napoleonic warfare. All this through a simple mechanism.

Same same FOW – Although the rules are now quite long, at their heart is a few elegant mechanism which, overall, once the smoke has cleared, deliver outcomes that reflect all arms high intensity battlegroup warfare at the Company level.

I'm beginning to experiment with the BKC/CWC/FWC stable and am finding the same thing – simple mechanics producing credible outcomes….thats what I need in a ruleset.

The rules that my dad and I wrote have 30 pages of rules. With that being said, we have 44 examples of play embedded in those 30 pages. We also included over 20 pictures, 8 charts and 1 full page sample roster in the rules.

The rules don't seem to be too much for anyone who has picked up a set and contacted us as of yet.

Granted I have played numerous of Wally Simon's rules that were never more than 6 pages often only 2.

Shorter + Simpler = Better (for me)

Simple rules for me as well. Something about the size of TSATF would be just fine.

I like shorter rules that don't cover every eventuality, but I play with a like-minded group of friends. Perhaps that's why long rules-sets are so long, they are geared toward tournament settings where every detail must covered.

If the rules include army lists then they may stretch to 48 pages. Remember it is best to have them in multiples of 4. For just basic rules 24 pages (without fluff photos) should handle a good in-depth set of rules.

I would say that most of my rules since 1979 have been in this range.

Adding fluff adds useless pages

K.I.S.S., as much as is possible. But that doesn't mean the rules should be one page— it just means try for the simplest approach that fits the flavor, goal and intent of the game.

I used to like the big rule books, but that was when I had more time than I knew what to do with. Know I have more figures and rules than I know what to do with in the time available. So it's the short, well thought out, rules for me.

it depends on what you have to leave out to make it short, and what you have extra in to make it long.

The problem with many wargaming rules is that they often lack a core mechanism to resolve situations.
It is very easy to write a ruleset that has different mechanisms and procedures for all sorts of things and special weapons. Every bit of hardware has its own set of rules. Mines? New rules. Booby traps? New rules. Smokescreen? New rules? Recon by fire? New rules. Etc.

It is much more difficult to design a framework that is able to resolve a whole series of situations, and give the players some foundation to work on, and to make it feasible to internalize the rules, rather than having to look up every specific situation. If the rules for alls orts of situations are based on a common resolution mechanism, the rules also have internal consistency and they become easier to apply.

Roleplaying games often do a much better job in providing a general core, then go into specifics for some often-encountered situations.

I like Extra Crispy's categories. Given that, I think the ideal is having a "short" (10pp) core playable with a QRS that fits on an index card, but "medium" (up to 40pp, and a full size but single page QRS) including waffling, diagrams, optional rules and army lists is more practical for some periods.

Interesting. A big question that does need one clarification: are we talking actual 50 typed pages of rules or 50 pages including eye candy, title pages, fluff, examples, diagrams etc.?

Examples and diagrams aren't "eye candy". They should be considered as part of the rules, IMO.

I can't get on with those rules which are written in a conversational style with no paragraph numbers and a false sort of jolly, all gamers together, lets ramble on a bit longer, now you see what I mean, but then it is the game that matters not the detail, or is it, but then you know that don't you or you wouldn't have bought these rules.

If you see what I mean

I have always preferred the case numbering system. It always made it easier to explain rules and find a specific rule in the book.

However some of my work for other companies have been in the flowing paragraph form as requested by them.

I likes less pages of acutal rules, and more pages of examples of rule in use.

If the QR doesn't fit on both sides of one sheet of A4 something's wrong.

Extra Crispy's 'medium' category suits me.

Short is good too.

I'm not that keen on diagrams, and dislike magazine style eye candy (rules should be 'rules' … some diagrams are necessary very occasionally, but too many pictures would put me off) …

I also agree with Dark Knights about QRSs

Phil

The 300+ page ruels sets we see these days usually consist of 200+ pages of color photos.

Keep it simple, even 50 pages is about 5 times too long.

That said one of my favorite sets is the Wargame by C.S. Grant it is a book and not mostly pictures. However now I have less time and want to be able to understand rules in one sitting and be able to play then.

300 pages is fine, if that is your only game/period…
I prefer the fewest possible rules, when I'm trying to remember stuff for a plethora of games etc.