Playing or reffing?

If I'm playing and the referee is willing to hold my hand I don't care how complex the rules are.  However, the ref needs to understand that there is virtually no chance that I will ever buy the rules, or even read them.

Reffing? For fantasy it would be a huge task to make me get more complex than OD&D. West End Games' Star Wars d6 first edition is the upper limit of complexity for a game I'll be willing to run.

I spent a couple of hundred bucks on Star Wars d20 and regretted it after, because six months after the first campaign ended we all realized that we had fun despite the rules, not because of them, and none of us have touched them in seven or eight years.

I'm the same way with wargames; many modern wargames are far more complex than ones written 40 years ago, but are not more fun, are not faster to play, and do not at the end of the day give a significantly better simulation of what they're attempting to depict.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;918485I'm the same way with wargames; many modern wargames are far more complex than ones written 40 years ago, but are not more fun, are not faster to play, and do not at the end of the day give a significantly better simulation of what they're attempting to depict.

Sweet Arioch, this! (Not commenting on if they're "better".) Which also seems true for Android wargames.

GURPS is over the line. I ran GURPS 3e for a while, but wouldn't do it again. Not even GURPS Lite. TFT, maybe, although I probably wouldn't use the full combat system again. I just prefer theater of the mind for combat.

AD&D played RAW is over the line, especially if the late 1e material from the survival guides is added. I ran AD&D before I ran either TFT or GURPS, but never with every single rule. Certainly not timing which segment attacks and spells happen, and we only tried weapon adjustments by AC briefly. It sucked.

OD&D is about right. I can even add a few things without it being annoying. My favorite thing to do, though, is to take some things from AD&D, simplify them way the hell down, and add those in.

It's not the number of pages that matter to me. A high page count is tedious, not complicated.

It's the number of steps needed to make anything happen, and even more the number of layers that interact with each other. A few classes with a few abilities each, a handful of attributes? That's fine. Maybe add binary skills. Fully quantified skills (Crafting-12, Tracking-9, that sort of thing?) Less of a fan. Feats? No. Abilities designed for synergy between classes? If you are describing a game with that kind of language, I'm not interested in it.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;918306Additional red flags for me are:
- Multi-layered, granular skill systems.
- Important rule exceptions scattered all over the text in hard to spot and remember places (one of the key flaws of the otherwise great Stars Without Number).
- Hit location charts and called shots that aren't abstracted.
- Related to the above, average single attacks that involve more than two rolls on anyone's part to resolve.
- Elaborate vehicle creation rules.
- Character creation that clearly takes an entire session to do.
- Any single point in character creation that requires players to choose from more than 7-8 options.
- More than two of any of the following 'special' attributes: honor, glory, renown, sanity, corruption, composure, potency, spirit, etc., etc., etc.

Pretty much agree with all of that.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;918485Playing or reffing?

If I'm playing and the referee is willing to hold my hand I don't care how complex the rules are.  However, the ref needs to understand that there is virtually no chance that I will ever buy the rules, or even read them.

Agree here, too. But more specifically: if I'm playing, I want the rules to matter only to the referee. If it's a game designed so that you have to optimize your character or choose the action with the best modifier, then even if I'm ignoring the rules, it probably won't be fun.

When I run games now, I embrace the rule "modifiers don't stack". I give a modifier of +/-1 to 2, based on overall advantage or disadvantage, rather than calculating modifiers for every little thing. Games that don't work that way don't interest me, even if I'm just playing instead of reffing.

Quote from: talysman;918495But more specifically: if I'm playing, I want the rules to matter only to the referee. If it's a game designed so that you have to optimize your character or choose the action with the best modifier, then even if I'm ignoring the rules, it probably won't be fun.

UPVOTE!!!  

I link complexity to satisfaction. I don't mind if a game is somewhat complex as long as that complexity serves to provide a satisfying game. I don't like complexity in my D&D games because of the abstraction level. I can accept more complexity in a GURPS game because of the level of detail it provides.

Complexity designed to simply showcase mechanics the designer thinks are clever is a major turn off. There needs to be a payoff if the mechanics aren't fairly simple.

Known good: Labyrinth Lord (basic)

Known bad: D&D 4e, D&D 3e w/ many splats

Borderline: D&D 5e, ACKS

Moldvay D&D hits my sweet spot.

I need to be able to play/run from the character sheet and a QRS. Any more than that and no.

Quote from: Onix;918291At what point (or points) do you look at a game and say "This is too complicated"? Is it page count? Number of attributes? Number of steps in a turn? The existence of tables that need to be referenced in combat?

What things make you put the book down and not run it because it's too complex?

Now I know you fellows are apt to do whatever it is you want, but lets lay down some rules.*

1. Your line is your own, I don't care to read arguments over what is complexity or that your favorite game is not really that complex. Those things are lame.
2. You can up vote someone else's complexity line by quoting it.
3. You can ask for clarification if a post is unclear, or you're really interested in what makes that thing complicated in the poster's eyes.
4. Don't worry what someone else thinks is complicated and you love. Just don't. Let go Luke!

*Do I really get to do that? Lay down rules for a thread? I don't know, lets find out.

HERO is GM porn. And I like GM porn. Its system-heavy with every form of mechanical minutiae covered but in that complexity is potential for a very well-crafted world, scenario and character simulator.

WHRPG (let's stick with Only War for simplicity's sake) is a heavy system that attempts to appear medium. It fails on a number of fronts and apart from the specific style of game that it prescribes, it requires significant overhaul to make it for freeform/sandbox gameplay and/or "large" groups (say, 6+ players), which is what I specialize in. Though as a package the character one creates come together quite nicely and setting up encounter difficulties isn't too bad (about the same as Pathfinder), even the combat system on which the game is predicated is flawed with very little in the way of "generic" results (big one is take a certain cumulative level of damage and you're done -- this level is static; derivative stats is a big no-no). It doesn't help that skill-use is not encouraged past, again, what is prescribed.

The Void's system is medium but it appears at surface level to be heavy (skill catalogue effect!). Combat is pretty dicey and with some modifications can be made incredibly tactical and satisfyingly so. Freeform character creation is encouraged by the system and it is a surprisingly skill-based system which is always a good thing. Top three for sure!

Storytelling System is what I primarily GM with: the fact that I run a club exclusively hosting NWOD probably tells you what I think about the system.

Savage Worlds is a medium system that has light tendencies but those distract from the core system (which itself is overrated but serviceable). The dice sub-system (the whole you get more sides to roll thing) is great for newbie players because it's instant representation of their skill but annoying for power gamers in my experience. It's version of Merits is workable and that's where a lot of the power that comes from the system is based so it's good if you like talent trees. I'd still go with The Void.

Edge of the Empire is a solidly medium-system game. Of course it can't quite touch Storytelling but it's damm close at times. It takes the best design traits from WHRPG but discards the vast majority of that system in favor of skill encouragement and specializations that actually feel like specializations and not, "this is how you play bitch" (I know that was a big reason why my guys gutted Dark Heresy back in time). It's its own beast and the fact that, similar to SPECIAL, Characteristics may be upgraded occasionally and skills a lot more is pretty good. The talent tree versus general skill increase is also a nice paradigm. And combat is pretty meaty if not particularly dicey.

Pathfinder is the classic heavyweight. It's a pretty spectacular feat of engineering (not so much as HERO and definitely not Storytelling but definitely a top five for sure!) and it works at all levels for all kinds of players. Unlike WHRPG where the system punishes you for creativity and skill-use and implicitly condones asshole/incompetent GMs also designing aganist those same directions, here it's just simply the GM who ruins the simple yet very workable skill system. Magic is OP as fuck at high-levels but then that's the point and that's a plus in my book when that's a deliberate decision.

Eclipse Phase is a mix of The Void and Pathfinder: it's fairly heavy-going like Pathfinder but also surprisingly freeform and encourages character diversity like The Void. Again, nothing on Storytelling but then what is!

I can't do system-light games. I like my rules nice and meaty. And a significant number of them aren't really RPGs past a certain point, especially those which focus more on group narrative rather than character development (which, funnily enough, is most/all of them).