Most regular readers know that, given the choice, I will take a rules-heavy RPG over a rules light one any day of the week. I enjoy being able to really tinker with systems, customize characters in meaningful ways, and explore a wide and varied toolkit of options. With that said, I understand there are also players out there who like a game they can pick up and play with minimal learning curve, and who don't need an extensive underlying skeleton to enjoy the game; they just want to get into the action.
If you're one of those players (or you just feel the need to put your complex planning instincts on a shelf for a little while), there's plenty of stuff out there to try. And if you haven't tried the following games, these are a few that I would actually recommend along with what I think makes them a cut above the competition.
#1: Grimm
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| Get your hands on it if you can. |
Sadly it seems like Fantasy Flight's Grimm is out of print at time of writing, though I'd highly recommend checking back from time to time to see if a copy resurfaces... because this game is great!
Originally a complicated offshoot of the D20 Modern line, Fantasy Flight stripped Grimm down to its essentials. Players take on the role of children lost in the horrific realm of the Grimm Lands, and they have to figure out a way to survive and escape using only their wits and imagination! The game takes about 10 minutes to learn, and really takes nothing more than 2d6 to play. It's cut down, super simple, and the world it's set in is strange and bizarre enough that the archetypal nature of the classes sort of fits the theme. While the kids are still characters, they're also very clearly being pressed into broad archetypes of children, and allowed to fill traditional roles in a story.
I gave this one the top slot for a reason.
#2: Feng Shui
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| Hong Kong action theater, anyone? |
Feng Shui was the first time I'd ever played a rules-light game, and it was an engaging experience. Billing itself as a Hong Kong action style game, it's far more concerned with the story beats, cinematic descriptions, and awesome look of a scene, rather than in overly complicated die rolls, precise distances on a map, or the exact radius of the explosion caused by the grenade you threw.
What really makes this game work is that it leans into the cinematic conceit, making it something of a ball for fans of action films who want to let loose their inner John Woo. My two cents, that's the key to enjoyment; if you lose that, "This is supposed to be a movie," feeling then the game is going to start going sour pretty soon.
#3: Savage Worlds
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| If you're going to get one game, get this one. |
Some folks might argue that Savage Worlds doesn't belong on this list because it provides you with a huge variety of options and game genres you can play. However, a rules light game is one with relatively simple mechanics, and in my experience you can teach someone to play this game in about half an hour or so. Most questions they've got will be completely answered within the first hour of a given session, and from that point onward they're good to go.
Where Savage Worlds really excels is in the sheer variety of genres and settings it offers, all using this simple, near-universal system. Whether you want to do Weird West shenanigans in Deadlands Reloaded, or you want to stalk monsters through the London back alleys in Rippers Resurrected, there's something for every taste with this game!
#4: Pie Shop
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| This is one of the weird ones. |
Pie Shop is one of the most bizarre RPGs I have ever played. In case the Sweeney Todd reference didn't give it away, you and all the other players are serial killers. There's no metaphysical happenings, no demons, no vampires... you're all just deeply disturbed individuals who feel a compulsive need to murder other people.
What makes Pie Shop so strange is that in order to create a workable premise for a party (since serial killers so often work alone) you almost have to put together some bizarre, fantastical setup. Whether it's a dark web gladiatorial bout, or a government experiment using murderers as disposable assassins, or some underground convention of crazed killers, it can get ridiculous.
My two cents; embrace the discomfort of the premise as it's delivered. This is a game for adults, and if you feel squirmy playing it don't worry... that just means you're not really a serial killer on the inside.
#5: Dread
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| Ah... we meet again. |
If you haven't heard about Dread, what makes this game infamous is that it has a particularly unique mechanic. In short, it uses a Jenga tower instead of dice, cards, or something else to determine the results of your actions. Even if you're good at moving the pieces in one of these tower games, the very mechanics of Dread means that sooner or later one of your actions is going to fail. And when the tower comes down, that's lights-out for your character.
That said, if you want to give the rest of the table a chance, you can opt to knock the tower over to sacrifice yourself to save the others.
I will add a caveat to this endorsement, however. Because while Dread is a phenomenal system for running one-shot horror games where it's likely that most (if not all) of the characters are going to die horrible deaths before the night is done, the game is not really good for anything beyond that. This makes it an extremely niche activity that's really more use for seasonal one-offs or occasional light fare... you're not going to get a long-running campaign out of this unless you pull a Friday the 13th and the only recurring character is whatever monster the GM keeps killing you all with!
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