First rules-light roleplaying game?

[thrash]

Originally Posted by thrash

Agreed. There seems to be a still-active fan community at dinkydungeons.com. Perhaps I can get someone there to comment.

From Chris Nail, the owner of dinkydungeons.com:

I don't have any documentation of Dinky Dungeons offering itself as a pick up and play game in writing, however it was very much advertised that way at conventions in California. It was obvious from the signs at the dealer's room table, and the people selling the game certainly described it that way. That is what sold me on the game when I first bought it.

In the 80's, people wanted to sit down at the table and play a game, without learning a ton of rules or spending a lot of money. New players were frustrated by the complexity of D&D and how long it took to make a character; back then, it was a 45-minute time investment before you'd even get to play. This turned many people off and away from gaming tables. Dinky Dungeons was sold as the solution. You could buy the game for a dollar, walk your table-full of strangers through character creation in about 10 minutes, and get to adventuring. This made it much easier to recruit people into tabletop roleplaying games.

I wish I could give it to you in writing, but the rulebooks were extremely small and had only the most critical text in them. They didn't have room to explain what niche they intended to fill. That was left up to table advertisements and word of mouth.