Many moons ago, James Maliszewski of Grognardia put up a short post summarizing the total page count of various editions of D&D:
OD&D (LBBs only): 56 full pages (112 half-sheets)
OD&D (LBBs + 4 supplements): 183 full pages (366 half-sheets)
Holmes Basic: 48 pages
AD&D 1e (PHB, DMG, MM): 470 pages
To this post, I responded by saying:
It would be interesting to do a page comparison between editions without taking into account:
(1) Monsters
(2) Spells
(3) Classes
(4) Races
The theory being that adding more options within these categories is not necessarily adding bulk to the actual rules of the game.
(To that list I would also like to add “magic items”, “sample scenarios”, and “indices”.)
Basically, my thought was that you could take AD&D and strip out all the monsters, spells, magic items, classes, and races that weren’t found in the original OD&D and you would still have a completely playable game. In fact, someone observing you playing that game would have no way of knowing that you were doing anything other than playing 100%-by-the-book AD&D. (Unless, of course, you told them that you had limited the size of the menu.)
In other words, having those extra options doesn’t meaningfully increase the complexity of the actual rules of the game.
I intended at the time to eventually put together such a post, but got distracted by other concerns… until now. So, without further adieu, and for whatever use it may be, the total “rules only” page count for various editions of (A)D&D:
OD&D (LBBs only): 29 full pages (58 half-sheets)
OD&D (LBBs + 4 supplements): 64 full pages (128 half-sheets)
OD&D (including Chainmail): 86 full pages (148 half-sheets)
Holmes Edition: 19 full pages
Moldvay Edition (Basic + Expert): 64 full pages
BECM: 163 full pages
BECMI: 221 full pages
Rules Cyclopedia: 142 full pages
AD&D 1e (PHB, DMG, MM): 192 full pages
AD&D 2e (PHB, DMG, MM): 223 full pages
D&D 3e (PHB, DMG, MM): 257 full pages
D&D 3.5 (PHB, DMG, MM): 294 full pages
NOTES
For more information on the different editions of the game you can check out my Nomenclature of D&D Editions.
The BECM entry total include only the Basic, Expert, Companion, and Master Rules. The BECMI entry includes the Immortals boxed set.
The 2nd Edition entry is based on the original 1989 rulebooks.
I’m not including either the Unearthed Arcana variant of 1st Edition, nor the Players’ Option variant of 2nd Edition.
First Impression: It’s interesting watch the slow, inexorable expansion of the game.
Second Impression: The relative pointlessness of the entire exercise is indicated in the comparison between the BECM and Rules Cyclopedia page counts (which are the same rules, except the former is bloated somewhat by the need to repeat and reintroduce information four times over). It’s also indicated in the comparison between 3.0 and 3.5 (where the expansion was largely due to the WotC’s ever-increasing font sizes).
ARCHIVED HALOSCAN COMMENTS
Echo 7 Items
Justin Alexander
The fundamental difference is that the typical skill system doesn’t feature modular skills. Specifically, in most skill systems every character is assumed to have a rank in every skill. (Even if they haven’t put any resources to that skill, they’re usually still assumed to have some basic level of competency in it.) That means that a system with 500 skills is greatly increasing the complexity of every single character in the system.
This is clearly not the case with classes or races: These are modular packets which are largely isolated from each other. If no one at the table is playing a druid, then the rules for druids never come into play.
Spells and magic items aren’t quite as clear-cut, but I think the proof is in the pudding: When you add the Spell Compendium to a 3.5 campaign, for example, it doesn’t feel like the game has suddenly 150% more difficult or complex than it was before (as the page count would suggest under your hypothesis).
I would agree that entirely new power systems (like incarnum or psionics) do add to the complexity of the system; which is why the pages describing the basic rules for both magic and psionics are included in my page count from various editions.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010, 1:37:54 AM
Aya Shameimaru
I’m with Peter here. Two otherwise identical games, one of which has 10 skills and the other has 500 skills, are not the same thing, not in theory and not in practice.
Friday, February 12, 2010, 6:47:06 AM
Peter Williams
One problem is that too many options can still complicate things.
Spells in particular, are still rules.
Certain spells have extra rules text hidden in a completely separate place in the rulebook, but even then, each spell gives you some insight into the unwritten rule about what a particular kind of spell may be, and how powerful a spell of that kind has to be to do a particular thing.
The same thing goes for feats, psionics, incarnum, magic items, and all of the rest of it.
There is also the whole issue that every time I add a feat or a spell that lets you do something, I’m implying that you have to take that option in order to do that thing, even if beforehand the DM was prepared to wing it.
I think that all of the “lists of other stuff” text is still just as important as any other rule, really.
Friday, January 29, 2010, 3:00:12 PM
Justin Alexander
I was going to say it was beyond my resources to do that practically. But I suppose you could do some counts to figure out average words per page and then go from there.
Might be awhile before I get around to it, though. Smile
Saturday, January 16, 2010, 11:02:18 PM
Tetsubo
As an aging gamer I actually appreciate a larger font. I am currently reading a copy of Deathstalkers (a terrible RPG) and some passages have such a small font I literally can’t read them. I would need a page magnifier. Annoying as my eyes aren’t that bad and I have a proper prescription.
But yeah, what are the word count comparisons?
Saturday, January 16, 2010, 6:21:12 AM
Confanity
Seems like what you’d really want to look at is word count.
Friday, January 15, 2010, 3:06:13 AM
Jeff Rients
So Holmes feels breezy for a reason!
Thursday, January 14, 2010, 1:27:21 PM