From the Introduction:
This document is a doorway, a modest one to be sure, into the ancient, grand tradition of stories that feature talking animals as the heroes, or the hero's companions. From Aesop's Fables to The Guardians Of Ga'Hoole, these kinds of stories have fascinated audiences for thousands of years, but have rarely been the focus of a roleplaying game. Great & Small: The Roleplaying Game Of Animal Fantasy (or G&S for short) hopes to change that, by giving you a simple, easy-to-learn set of rules for creating and playing animal characters in a variety of roleplaying settings.
G&S is based in large part on the rules of the world's first fantasy role-playing game, created by Gary Gygax and David Arneson. It also converts, develops and advances concepts from another early roleplaying game by B. Dennis Sustare and Scott Robinson. The latter game was inspired by the classic novel Watership Down, and focused on rabbits as player-characters. Great & Small makes it possible to play rabbits, of course, but also seeks to expand roleplaying options to just about any animal species.