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Author Topic: High Crunch: Helpful to some?  (Read 2262 times)

Shrieking Banshee

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High Crunch: Helpful to some?
« on: January 17, 2021, 02:24:46 PM »
While I would say I always like to make a character around a theme or concept more than around mechanics, I had just entered a discussion with somebody that prefers the character 'crunch' to help them make a character and understand the 'things you can do'.

I always attributed this behaviour to just power gaming or being munchkiny, but the person I had this conversation with is a good friend who has never been somebody like that.
It got me thinking about the other people I know or have played with that prefer high crunch because well...They probably have light autism.

I had recently been disavowing crunch in my games, but the nature of how higher crunch can be helpful to some has just got me thinking.

What do you think about the subject?

Itachi

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Re: High Crunch: Helpful to some?
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2021, 02:37:15 PM »
Since the system is how the in-game "physics" work (in a way), I agree it's a valid argument.

Notice though that the rules don't need to be complex for it to be valid. Even lighter systems can have the same effect. Things like PbtA with it's moves and Fate Acelerated with aspects and approaches are just as valid.

Zalman

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Re: High Crunch: Helpful to some?
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2021, 03:38:43 PM »
While I would say I always like to make a character around a theme or concept more than around mechanics, I had just entered a discussion with somebody that prefers the character 'crunch' to help them make a character and understand the 'things you can do'.

In a sense, everything is some measure of "crunch", and needs to inform the character creation. A "theme or concept" has to fit with the proffered race and class combinations, for example. A player needs to understand the scope of their options to create anything. And I suppose some players may never have heard of "elves" before, so the existence of that race option in the game opens up a whole new set of concepts for them.

Likewise, a player might not have much idea about, i.e., fighting styles for a warrior. Extra crunch like unique bonuses and penalties for each weapon type, fighter style kits, or specialization rules might provide that player with all sorts of character concepts, which itself would be useful.

The thing is, in a low crunch game all of those same character concepts are typically already available, and adding the crunch to codify them really only eliminates any other options -- those for which there is no crunch. Sure, more crunch for each option can be added, but here I'm looking at the crunch that already exists, as it pertains to the player's perceptions at character creation time.

Examples and prose and such of the same character concepts might be just as informative, but maybe not as readily absorbed by the sort of player with a more mathematical approach to conceptualizing. Perhaps ideal in this regard would be for the player to read the options for a high crunch game, and then create a character for a low crunch game. But I suspect that such players will also prefer the greater measure of regimentation provided by a high crunch game during actual play.

I think it's mostly an issue of left- vs. right-brained dominance. Tabletop RPGs are a neat mixture of both, with low-crunch favoring the right brain and higher crunch favoring the left brain. I think a lot of RPG players are relatively centered on that spectrum and enjoy the sensation of exercising both sides of their brain together. But few will fall exactly in the middle, and where the balance sits for each player may partially determine how much crunch they'll enjoy the most.
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Stephen Tannhauser

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Re: High Crunch: Helpful to some?
« Reply #3 on: January 17, 2021, 06:05:59 PM »
From a GM point of view I have to admit that I like crunch because the more specific the rules are, the fewer judgement calls I have to make which risk provoking player objection. Rules lawyers can be annoying, but I've always found the reality lawyers to be even more so. (Full disclosure: I speak as someone who's done this himself more than once.)
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hedgehobbit

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Re: High Crunch: Helpful to some?
« Reply #4 on: January 17, 2021, 06:20:40 PM »
While I would say I always like to make a character around a theme or concept more than around mechanics,

The question here is, why make a character around a theme or a concept if the game mechanics in no way reflect your character's theme or concept? For example, if you want a character to be a nimble, quick witted, swashbuckler but the game mechanics don't distinguish between a nimble fighter and a tank.

Higher crunch is necessary to mechanically distinguish similar, yet different character concepts. By starting with mechanics as a base, you are ensured that you can make your character functionally different from other characters and that difference will bear out during gameplay.

The goal of any RPG is to support the maximum number of possible character types in the minimum number of rules.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2021, 06:23:02 PM by hedgehobbit »

Shrieking Banshee

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Re: High Crunch: Helpful to some?
« Reply #5 on: January 18, 2021, 04:24:19 AM »
The question here is, why make a character around a theme or a concept if the game mechanics in no way reflect your character's theme or concept? For example, if you want a character to be a nimble, quick witted, swashbuckler but the game mechanics don't distinguish between a nimble fighter and a tank.

I largely agree. I'm, not a low-crunch guy. I like good mechanics to make my character design feel significant. I hated D&D 5e for that reason. I was 15% different from everybody else at most. Horrible feeling.

It's more a case of I have been recently erring towards more flexible interpretational rules that put more decisions on me as a GM as opposed to a mechanical system. I thought this would also be easier for some players to understand, but some of them prefer dictate by a mechanical system because as I said -  mildly autistic and they find improvisation difficult.

Steven Mitchell

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Re: High Crunch: Helpful to some?
« Reply #6 on: January 18, 2021, 09:26:54 AM »
From a GM point of view I have to admit that I like crunch because the more specific the rules are, the fewer judgement calls I have to make which risk provoking player objection. Rules lawyers can be annoying, but I've always found the reality lawyers to be even more so. (Full disclosure: I speak as someone who's done this himself more than once.)

As a GM, I like crunch that makes calls for me that I don't want to make and dislike crunch that makes calls for me that I do want to make. The problem is that so many games don't seem to cater to my mix. :)

Crunch that is mostly suitable or at least in the ballpark, and somewhat mutable, is good enough crunch.  It is something with which I can work to my purposes.  No crunch means I might as well make the game myself.  Too much crunch in the wrong place is so much time ripping stuff out that I might as well make the game myself. 

I have found a few players that seem to like crunch for itself and a few more that wanted specific crunch that I wasn't willing to provide.  Different approaches in how "skills" should work seem to be the crux of those issues.  In fairness, there is a relatively narrow band of crunch that provides notable niche protection, allows room for distinguishing grades of ability, is easy to manage, and doesn't block the desired character concepts.  It doesn't take much difference of opinion on how the game and game world should work to fray the edges of that band.

I get the objection to the lack of distinctions in D&D 5E.  I've heard that a a couple of times.  OTOH, I don't think WotC has the game design chops to make a game that provides those distinctions without piling on a lot of other crunch that makes the game all but impossible for me to enjoy running.  Making the player happy with their mechanical widget doesn't do much good if it drives the GM away from the table. :)

Stephen Tannhauser

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Re: High Crunch: Helpful to some?
« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2021, 11:21:57 AM »
As a GM, I like crunch that makes calls for me that I don't want to make and dislike crunch that makes calls for me that I do want to make. The problem is that so many games don't seem to cater to my mix. :)

Out of curiosity, how would you describe that mix? Where do you like having judgement flexibility, and what do you prefer to have the rules do for you?

For myself the single biggest place I want rules support is in determining initiative and action order in combat. The one thing that provoked more at-the-table fights than anything else I ever handled was in figuring out whether a PC had time to try to stop something bad happening to him or not.

Quote
In fairness, there is a relatively narrow band of crunch that provides notable niche protection, allows room for distinguishing grades of ability, is easy to manage, and doesn't block the desired character concepts.  It doesn't take much difference of opinion on how the game and game world should work to fray the edges of that band. ...Making the player happy with their mechanical widget doesn't do much good if it drives the GM away from the table. :)

That's one of the great player-GM divides in game design, I think, which I've noted before: players like design schemes which reward greater time investment on individual characters, whereas GMs want design schemes that facilitate efficient time investment on many elements at once, yet both often want the results to feel identical in play.
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Steven Mitchell

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Re: High Crunch: Helpful to some?
« Reply #8 on: January 18, 2021, 12:06:55 PM »
As a GM, I like crunch that makes calls for me that I don't want to make and dislike crunch that makes calls for me that I do want to make. The problem is that so many games don't seem to cater to my mix. :)

Out of curiosity, how would you describe that mix? Where do you like having judgement flexibility, and what do you prefer to have the rules do for you?

For myself the single biggest place I want rules support is in determining initiative and action order in combat. The one thing that provoked more at-the-table fights than anything else I ever handled was in figuring out whether a PC had time to try to stop something bad happening to him or not.


For me, I don't know that it is in any one place like initiative so much as in how each place works.  A lot of mechanical widgets bug me with their details.  It's not more/less crunch in particular but a case of where there is more/less crunch.  I can talk about this in more detail if you are interested, but perhaps an extended discussion belongs in another topic?

As a short answer appropriate for here, consider how "surprise" works.  It's that 1d6 roll in early D&D. That's OK as long as it was really early, but I didn't care for the mechanic when the ranger became a thing.  In 3E with the way skills work, it is very precise for the players but doesn't simplify my life as a GM at all.  5E is closer to what I want, but leads into perception becoming the uber skill that steps all over niche protection unless you go out of your way as a GM to not use it very much (which can also be unsatisfying to the players that were expecting the mechanical widget to give them a big payoff).  Whereas in my own d20-based game, I've made "Perception" one of the six ability score and there are no "skills" that tie into it automatically, although there are "terrain" abilities that can modify it and a few other options.  Now the players interested in mechanics can still get to, say, "my elf can spot you in the forest," but how that operates for me as the GM is relatively simple to manage.

More abstractly, I don't like choices that are tacked onto a system almost assuredly for the main purpose of making players feel good about themselves but don't do much useful in the game without a lot of GM fiat.  The 3E craft system is an example of that.  The 5E money economy is another.

Iron_Rain

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Re: High Crunch: Helpful to some?
« Reply #9 on: January 24, 2021, 11:02:21 AM »
While I would say I always like to make a character around a theme or concept more than around mechanics, I had just entered a discussion with somebody that prefers the character 'crunch' to help them make a character and understand the 'things you can do'.

I always attributed this behaviour to just power gaming or being munchkiny, but the person I had this conversation with is a good friend who has never been somebody like that.
It got me thinking about the other people I know or have played with that prefer high crunch because well...They probably have light autism.

I had recently been disavowing crunch in my games, but the nature of how higher crunch can be helpful to some has just got me thinking.

What do you think about the subject?

I don't know about Autism per se, just that People from more numerical disciplines often enjoy crunch way more. Of the games that I like with high crunch (Ars Magica, Star Wars Saga edition, Exalted 3E) etc. An unusually high % of the players are Mathematicians, Statisticians, Physicists, Programmers, Engineers, or Accountants.

Rhedyn
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Re: High Crunch: Helpful to some?
« Reply #10 on: January 24, 2021, 03:50:19 PM »
The good of crunch is how it informs a player what their PC can do without having to bother the GM. This helps when making plans and is essential when the RPG veers away from a shared understanding (not standard humans of most OSR). If you are doing an RPG about superheroes or fairies, everything has a different assumption how those work and what they can do. Crunch can settle the debate without discussion.

The bad of crunch is when it takes up more time at the table or makes GM prep work more lengthy and arduous. Everyone has a certain tolerance for this.

Itachi

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Re: High Crunch: Helpful to some?
« Reply #11 on: January 24, 2021, 05:50:41 PM »
The good of crunch is how it informs a player what their PC can do without having to bother the GM. This helps when making plans and is essential when the RPG veers away from a shared understanding (not standard humans of most OSR). If you are doing an RPG about superheroes or fairies, everything has a different assumption how those work and what they can do. Crunch can settle the debate without discussion.

The bad of crunch is when it takes up more time at the table or makes GM prep work more lengthy and arduous. Everyone has a certain tolerance for this.
Great summary.

GnomeWorks

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Re: High Crunch: Helpful to some?
« Reply #12 on: January 25, 2021, 11:45:23 AM »
It got me thinking about the other people I know or have played with that prefer high crunch because well...They probably have light autism.

What do you think about the subject?

I think that idiots like yourself who decide to paint with a broad brush anyone who likes mechanically heavier systems have fucking brain damage and are probably too retarded to comprehend mathematics more complicated than counting on their fingers.

See what I did there?

Fucking jackass.
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Shrieking Banshee

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Re: High Crunch: Helpful to some?
« Reply #13 on: January 25, 2021, 12:06:16 PM »
Fucking jackass.

No, I mean it's because the guy told me he was on the spectrum. I just didn't get the exact terminology of it or whatever.

Jesus cool your jets.

Chris24601

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Re: High Crunch: Helpful to some?
« Reply #14 on: January 25, 2021, 12:10:11 PM »
It got me thinking about the other people I know or have played with that prefer high crunch because well...They probably have light autism.

What do you think about the subject?

I think that idiots like yourself who decide to paint with a broad brush anyone who likes mechanically heavier systems have fucking brain damage and are probably too retarded to comprehend mathematics more complicated than counting on their fingers.

See what I did there?

Fucking jackass.
I am a non-autistic math lover who also loves improvisation (another thing he accuses people who like crunchier systems of lacking)... and I approve GnomeWork's message.

Fucking jackass.

No, I mean it's because the guy told me he was on the spectrum. I just didn't get the exact terminology of it or whatever.

Jesus cool your jets.
Dude, you weren't discussing one specific individual... you were assigning autism to everyone who likes heavier mechanics. Maybe you didn't intend it, but you absolutely deserved the pushback.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2021, 12:12:37 PM by Chris24601 »