Why Play Rules-Light Games?
Given that fighting monsters and delving into dangerous dungeons is an engaging formula, every edition of Dungeons and Dragons has a similar problem - it's difficult to onboard players. Creating one’s own character can take upwards of an hour, and even with premade characters, the game’s rules are not quick to explain or easy to intuit. With that in mind, I have listed three games with much simpler rules that are easy to explain to new players.
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Image: jogaod20
It doesn’t get much simpler than Knave. This game takes the roots of Dungeons and Dragons as a game about scoundrels defying fate to find their fortunes, and prunes away every aspect that isn’t integral to the experience. All seven pages of it are available for free on the Internet Archive or for nearly three whole dollars on Itch.io. The game contains an overview of the rules and two long lists of equipment and free-form magic spells. Characters in Knave don’t have access to special rules (often called abilities), and are therefore defined more by what items they carry and what they do, which requires players to think creatively and engage with the facts of the narrative. Knave is perfect for players who are brand new to role-playing games and looking for a D&D-like experience, and programs that need to onboard players quickly and fit a lot of content into a short time frame.
Image: Runehammer.com
The Index Card RPG, or ICRPG, brings with it a few more rules than Knave, but uses those rules with great effect to create a consistently exciting experience. The game includes a section only for the game master that provides advice and guidelines to running the game and keeping the experience exciting. The titular gimmick of the game is that everything that the players and game master need for reference are kept on index cards, which keeps information brief and prevents extended reference periods from slowing down the game. At its core, the ICRPG is a streamlined and focused game perfect for programs that want fast paced and exciting game sessions.
Image: Dicebreaker.com
If I had to pick a game to replace Dungeons and Dragons in the mainstream role-playing culture, it might be Root. Based on a board game of the same name, the Root RPG follows a group of woodland animals taking the roles of adventurers and fighting against oppressive systems, also personified by small animals. The default setting of the game is surprisingly morally complex given its aesthetics, owing somewhat to predecessors like Mouse Guard and Redwall, tackling themes of war and conflict with nuance and care. Outside of that setting, the rules are evocative and engaging. Root is a game in the Powered by the Apocalypse, which has a long history, but in practice it means that every roll of the dice leads to interesting consequences, and failures are often more fun than successes. While it is the most complicated game on this list, all of its player-facing rules fit on a sheet of paper, which is intended to be distributed to each player. This can be printer intensive, but it means that every player has everything they need to know to play at their fingertips at all times. The Root RPG is a great choice for an involved program that has some time to master its rules, and that is interested in adventure tempered by real moral quandaries.