A little over a year ago I posted “Size Does Matter?“. This was, essentially, a response to James Maliszewski of Grognardia in which I looked at the size of each major edition of the game since 1974 excluding spells, monsters, magic items, classes, races, sample scenarios, and indices. (The theory being that adding more options within these categories is not necessarily adding bulk to the actual rules of the game.)
These are the numbers I came up with:
Original (LBBs only): 29 full pages (58 half-sheets)
Original (LBBs + 4 supplements): 64 full pages (128 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
Advanced 1e (PHB, DMG, MM): 192 full pages
Advanced 2e (PHB, DMG, MM): 223 full pages
3e (PHB, DMG, MM): 257 full pages
3.5 (PHB, DMG, MM): 294 full pages
Where does Legends & Labyrinths land in this reckoning? 84 pages.
(The full rulebook will be somewhere between 180 and 200 pages, depending on exactly how much space the Grimoire and Bestiary entries take up.)
What does that tell us? Well, not much. It’s certainly not as “breezy” as Holmes (as Jeff Rients says), but for the most part this is just something to tuck away into the curiosity file.
