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Author Topic: On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Much Crunch do You Like in Your Games?  (Read 3986 times)

trechriron

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On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Much Crunch do You Like in Your Games?
« Reply #15 on: March 07, 2019, 09:01:08 PM »
Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1078113
This is bullshit.

Here's a far improved and not at all incredibly biased one:
...

I like this list better.

To answer the OP; I want medium complexity. 1 is too light and 10 is too crunchy. Looking at the new SWADE (Savage Worlds Adventure Edition) and it seems like a good compromise. I agree it's about a 4 - 5. Complexity is not just character gen/options for me but also points-of-handling, modifiers, procedures, etc. Frankly GURPS is harder to run with a bunch of the cool dials turned up than say Rolemaster (yes I've played both). By "harder" I mean there's more to keep track of.
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Steven Mitchell

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On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Much Crunch do You Like in Your Games?
« Reply #16 on: March 07, 2019, 09:06:44 PM »
Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1078117

Hero & GURPs have all of their rules meshed together - which can be cool in some ways - but it does mean that you need to understand the bulk of their complexity before you can play at all.

That's true.  Having mastered all three, it is no longer an issue for me.  Moreover, I don't mind spending time upfront, if it pays off in the long run, which Hero and GURPs do.  

Now admittedly, that's still an issue when bringing in new players.  But with new players, I don't want to start with a game that complex, period.

Chris24601

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On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Much Crunch do You Like in Your Games?
« Reply #17 on: March 07, 2019, 09:13:24 PM »
I'd say I'm probably 7.5. Even with feats enabled 5e is too light on the customization options for me. Conversely, while I can do it, 3.5e is a bit too crunchy for my tastes.

The system I'm writing is obviously at my sweet spot. Pick your species and a species trait (mine are pretty broad; humans includes elven, dwarven, avatar and orcish bloodlines rather than having a bunch of half-X as distinct species). Pick a class, one special attack action and one specialization. Pick a background, three skills and two utilities from it. Assign your ability scores, record derived traits, get your starting equipment and you're good to go. At each level you make one choice about how you improve.

That feels like the right level of character complexity to me.

In terms of in-play options, 2-4 regular choices for each of your actions feels about right (rarely employed/edge-case actions don't count for that list). Heroic-tier 4E had about the right number of options for me... paragon+ you started to get to "option paralysis" stage pretty quickly, especially if you only chose standard options for everything and a bunch of feats that threw a bunch of conditional bonuses on top.

Skarg

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On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Much Crunch do You Like in Your Games?
« Reply #18 on: March 07, 2019, 09:16:31 PM »
I too think crunch ratings are subjective. Particularly when one is used to a type of game. For me, TFT is very low crunch, and GURPS is medium-crunch, but games I'm not familiar with can look very crunchy.

My scale of how crunchy things are is a bit like:

10 - some ridiculous homebrew experiments I've done with impulse movement, momentum, etc
9 - Phoenix Command, Attack Vector: Tactical
8 -
7 - GURPS 4e character creation options, GURPS as I play it with various house rules, GURPS Technical Grappling
6 - GURPS 3e
5 - GURPS 1e/2e
4 - GURPS Man To Man, Orcslayer
3 - TFT
2 -
1 - Microscope

I can deal with up to about level 7, and am willing to do so if and only if I think it's worth it to do so.

But I don't want crunch for crunch's sake. I only want crunch that serves a purpose I care about. Like, yes, I do want to track specific wounds suffered by important characters, because it's interesting to me, it's often very relevant to whether they succeed or die and what happens to them, and I like games that are about such details and have satisfying mechanics about them. I'm also so used to doing it, that it doesn't feel very crunchy to me to do so. I only developed a taste for doing that after years of play.

Oh, and I also tend to insulate most players from most of the crunch I do as GM. I can run crunch-7 GURPS without the players needing to know anything about GURPS, by translating everything into English.
« Last Edit: March 07, 2019, 09:18:59 PM by Skarg »

Aglondir

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On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Much Crunch do You Like in Your Games?
« Reply #19 on: March 07, 2019, 09:25:34 PM »
Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1078113

10 = HERO
9 = Eclipse Phase, Shadowrun 5e
8 = GURPS, SLA Industries, Runequest
7 = WHRPG, COC, CP2020, Traveller
6 = D&D 3.5e, Pathfinder 1e, TWRPG
5 = Storytelling/NWOD, Savage Worlds, EOTE
4 = D&D 5e, SOTDL, LOFTP = 4
3 = S.I.T.R.E.P


Depends if I am playing or GM-ing. I love playing Hero, but there's no way I'd GM it.

7 for Traveller? I guess it depends on the version. I'd put MongTrav at a 4 (w/o starship building or combat.)

Shasarak

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On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Much Crunch do You Like in Your Games?
« Reply #20 on: March 07, 2019, 10:43:54 PM »
Using the  PrometheanVigil standard, I would put myself at a 7.
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Razor 007

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On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Much Crunch do You Like in Your Games?
« Reply #21 on: March 07, 2019, 11:26:22 PM »
Quote from: PrometheanVigil;1078113
This is bullshit.

Here's a far improved and not at all incredibly biased one:

10 = HERO
9 = Eclipse Phase, Shadowrun 5e
8 = GURPS, SLA Industries, Runequest
7 = WHRPG, COC, CP2020, Traveller
6 = D&D 3.5e, Pathfinder 1e, TWRPG
5 = Storytelling/NWOD, Savage Worlds, EOTE
4 = D&D 5e, SOTDL, LOFTP = 4
3 = S.I.T.R.E.P

*wink*

*At below 3, games enter Storygame-ville by default and subsequently aren't indicative of a traditional understanding of system complexity measurement.

**And of course, more shameless plugging of my own game, mwahahaha.


No, it's Not Bullshit.  I only attempted to rank rule sets imho, because another poster asked me to....

Your list is equally Bullshit, because this whole thing is Subjective.

However, I do confess to being a D&D genre isolationist.

I don't want to play anything more crunchy than D&D 5E.  Pathfinder exceeds my crunch limit.
« Last Edit: March 07, 2019, 11:29:23 PM by Razor 007 »
I need you to roll a perception check.....

asron819

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On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Much Crunch do You Like in Your Games?
« Reply #22 on: March 07, 2019, 11:29:59 PM »
Well GURPS is my favorite system, with Classic Unisystem coming in 2nd (though i haven't played that in years). So I'd say around 5 or 6.

Steven Mitchell

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On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Much Crunch do You Like in Your Games?
« Reply #23 on: March 08, 2019, 08:04:22 AM »
Any list that has Hero has the most crunchy end of the scale is messed up before it gets started.  It indicates a lack of knowledge of the crunchier end of the spectrum.  (My ability to make a list that did justice to the lower end of the scale would be similarly ill-conceived.)

Tod13

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On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Much Crunch do You Like in Your Games?
« Reply #24 on: March 08, 2019, 09:24:02 AM »
For prep: It depends. Almost anything if the result is cost-balanced with great flexibility. Not interested in "realism" or "simulation" outside of a computer game.

For game play: Very low. Our home brew doesn't even use addition or subtraction for game rolls or distinguish between types of armor (except in role-play terms). Every roll is an opposed polyhedral die roll with the players trying to meet or beat the GMs roll.

Rhedyn
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On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Much Crunch do You Like in Your Games?
« Reply #25 on: March 08, 2019, 09:47:02 AM »
For me the crunch has to be justified. Pathfinder is a tad more crunchy than Starfinder or the last PF2e draft, but the latter two games have majority boring crunch.

ArtemisAlpha

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On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Much Crunch do You Like in Your Games?
« Reply #26 on: March 08, 2019, 10:06:11 AM »
There was a time in my life that HERO 4th was my favorite system. I'd unabashedly answer polls with questions like 'if you were trapped on a island with only one game system, what would it be?" with HERO, smug in my assertion that HERO could run any kind of game. I'm pretty much done with games of that level of complexity, now.

These days, I like BRP (the Call of Cthulhu system, for those of you who don't prefer to just have acronyms thrown around) for gaming where the characters are supposed to be 'real people'. I haven't quite landed on a system that's my preference for action movie or even superhero movie level gaming.

I'm using Cypher for a superhuman level game now, and Stars Without Number for a sci fi game that's action movie level; and both have some bits that are crunchier than my group is apparently comfortable with. While it makes me roll my eyes as I say it, levelling up in Stars Without Number has been a bit like herding cats. Yes - roll your hit points, calculate your base attack bonus, spend your skill points was way more problem than it should have been. Though, that being said, I'm really liking how Stars Without Number runs, and our game is around 5th, nearly 6th level. It's handling 'action movie' kind of play pretty darn well.

Brad

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On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Much Crunch do You Like in Your Games?
« Reply #27 on: March 08, 2019, 10:31:48 AM »
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1078172
Any list that has Hero has the most crunchy end of the scale is messed up before it gets started.  It indicates a lack of knowledge of the crunchier end of the spectrum.  (My ability to make a list that did justice to the lower end of the scale would be similarly ill-conceived.)

The HERO system itself is pretty easy after you make characters, so this whole scale doesn't make a lot of sense to me. D&D 3.X and Pathfinder are pretty complex during character generation AND at high levels when you have a ton of feats. Amber is about as minimalist as you can get from a character generation view, but is highly complex in actual play (which is a really good thing). I'd go so far as to say the sort of complexity exhibited by Amber makes the game better, but the reliance on mechanics playing D&D 3.X makes the game worse.

So is this specifically about published mechanics, or the complexity of the game in play? Those are two totally different concepts. If it's the first one, I'll admit I really love playing stuff like Starfleet Battles and Advanced Squad Leader; ridiculously complex boardgames are enjoyable to me. In a roleplaying game, I've had fun playing Rolemaster, HERO, GURPS, and D&D 3.X, but I don't think I'll ever play those again anytime soon. I started running a new AD&D 1st edition game a couple weeks ago, and after a few sessions it was obvious I was glossing over a lot of the sub-systems and really running it more like B/X. So that is probably my sweet spot for published mechanics. I played D&D 5th for several years, and noticed I didn't really pay attention as much as I should have because half the game was concerned with the mechanics and not actual play. When I'm more worried about flipping through ruiebooks than focusing on the game, an rpg ceases to be interesting. I suppose there's a level of system mastery that should be expected during play, but the older I get the less bullshit I want to worry about. Trying to explain that to rules-lawyers who spend twenty minutes figuring out the optimal way to do some task and get a +1 bonus or advantage is frustrating and a waste of time.
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Razor 007

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On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Much Crunch do You Like in Your Games?
« Reply #28 on: March 08, 2019, 01:57:47 PM »
Quote from: Tod13;1078175
For prep: It depends. Almost anything if the result is cost-balanced with great flexibility. Not interested in "realism" or "simulation" outside of a computer game.

For game play: Very low. Our home brew doesn't even use addition or subtraction for game rolls or distinguish between types of armor (except in role-play terms). Every roll is an opposed polyhedral die roll with the players trying to meet or beat the GMs roll.


Ah.....  Simplicity!!!
I need you to roll a perception check.....

Joey2k

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On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Much Crunch do You Like in Your Games?
« Reply #29 on: March 08, 2019, 02:48:48 PM »
Quote from: Itachi;1078119
Lol no way CoC is more crunchy than PF/D&D3.

Neither is Warhammer (although I am not familiar with the current edition, 2E was my last experience with it)

Probably 3-6 for me. Or to put it another way, as complex as it needs to be to model the game/setting and provide the experience I am looking for, not one bit more.
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