Post originally by SteelCaress at 2005-03-12 06:50:18
Converted from Phorums BB System

When I was 12 years old, back when dinos still walked the earth, I was able to take even the relatively new "Advanced D&D" and digest and memorize it all. The tables on the DM's screen helped with the rest.

The 12-year old son of my best friend was told to "read the rulebook" when he wanted to play D&D 3E. Months later, he *still* didn't know how to make a character.

According to test scores, his reading comprehension is really high.

I've personally found the 3E manuals a great cure for insomnia.

Lighter rulesets like Risus are far more powerful in the hands of a creative group. I don't advocate all rules-lite games, but things where you create your own options always struck me as better. If my ruleset can handle everything from superpowers to sci-fi weapons to starships and d&d type characters as well as modern day, using 13 pages of rules, then I'm happy.