der_kluge said:
Changing the focus of the thread a bit, do you think there's a way to create a happy medium in RPGs? Do you think there is any RPG system out there that will allow you to quickly create a character, and to create a character with a lot of detail that takes a lot longer?
Is there a way to balance complex character creation with a simplified ruleset?
Discuss.
First I think you have to define what is complex character creation. No two people have the same set of rules neediness. I can play in complete narrativist games with no written rules and I can play GURPS. I can play the same character in both styled systems and not bat an eyelash that in one system I have to role a die to remember something and in the other I don't.
Skills (and to a lesser extent feats) in D20 make it difficult to create a
complete characters on the fly. The point of a class-based RPG is that saying "I'm a fighter" conveys meaning about your abilities. Layering a point system and an attribute system on top of the class system reduces the power of that statement of your abilities. This is complexity and apparently it sells.
Personally, I think there should either be no classes, just feats (the basis of my Dungeon Crawl game) or there should be many more classes with fixed abilities and a multiclassing system that works better. With more classes, you could distinguish between I'm a swordsman and I'm an archer by having classes (or talent trees if you like D20 Modern) that provide those archtypical features. With just feats, you just have sword or archer feats and someone looking at the feats can see what you specialize in.
Heck, just add a quirk system (see GURPS) to D20 and you can have a fighter who specializes in Babylonian myth without needing a skill system to back it up.
And to those who complained about my handwaving: rules are just a collection of agreed upon gestures in the handwaving of RPGs. At some level, it's all handwaving. Hitting someone with a sword has
nothing to do with rolling an icosahedron.