One of my biggest ploblems with FFG games is that they always have very long rules /about 48 pages :)/. It's always difficult for me to start playing a new game. How is this with you?

Really, this depends on the game. Most of the games that have long rules also are much more complex in how they are played. Twilight Imperium and War of the Ring, for example, are not "light" games. I think their rules length is acceptable based on the complexity of the game.

On the other hand, the rules for Warcraft and Runebound are pretty short, and the games are proportionally less complex.

The question is, how would you want the rules for some of these complex games trimmed down while still providing the necessary explanation of the rules themselves?

For me the good rules are much more intuitive

bikinilord said:

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this. I agree that good rules tend to be more intuitive than "bad" rules, but LENGTH of the rules has nothing to do with it.

If you decrease lengthy, you decrease complexity in most cases. And many games would be much less fun if their complexity was reduced too much.

yeah, but u should find the way to explain one mechanic in 10 rolls not 2 pages

Are you referring to a specific rule here? I can't think of many mechanics that take 2 pages to explain, unless they are a lengthy mechanic sequence.

Brevity can be good, but sometimes (often?) comes at the expense of clarity, too.

Well, most of the rulebooks of my games are 20-48 pages, but a lot of space is given to pictures and, what´s more, full page examples explaining different rules (even those not that much intuitive... which are, by the way, quite abundant in FFG games). Still, I don´t have much problem first-reading any rulebook in less than two hours (mind that I am not a native speaker). The second reading usually takes barely half of that time.

I am with Zion here.

Most of the rulebooks i own are full of pictured examples. And that takes up most of the space.

Also there are often some optional rules taking up 2-3 pages.

And 2 pages of content at the start. And one or two pages of rules-overlook in short about how to play.

So 5-7 pages are just "support" courtesy of ffg.

I don't find the rules in the games overly complex. The way they are laid out is to be read from first to last page and for that purpose they are good. The problem I have with the rules are that they commonly have an other rules section, which could be incorporated in other rules segments. This makes it very hard to look up things and makes it a little bit confusing.

I much like the approach FFG has to rules than some of the war games have. To take an example, the rules of ASL starter kits are quite small, but the examples are too few and doesn't really explain difficult situations. Besides they doesn't argue why you do it this way. These games would be easier to understand if the rules were longer.

I have one question about rules online. I'm living in Russia. I've played FF Games for a long time buying them in US or UK. Recently I've bought Starcraft in Russia with translated texts. Translation isn't clear and I'd prefer to read rules in English. Could someone give me a link to rules online, please? I would be grateful. Thanks.

You can find links to the Rules for both the base set and expansion here:

new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp

bikinilord said:

hmm, I don't know, I always read complete rules (a couple of times, if necessary) before starting, and use the rulebook during the game.

the more explanations the better - I hate when something is not explained very well and you have to stop playing to figure out what to do.

also, I agree, the sheer length of rules doesn't mean that they're not intuitive. it may take some time to get used to them if the game itself is complex, but when you do - the real fun begins.