Most of my RPG history has been with Rolemaster and MERP, games that many people deride as extremely over-the-top rules heavy. Rolemaster was interesting, because it was incredibly complex to make a character (comparatively, in hindsight) but really simple to play. That suited me very well, you could tinker with building just the character you wanted, but in the end, that complexity did not slow down the game sessions. I thought that that is what I wanted for a very long time.
I have been playing 4e, then 5e and enjoying it, but still niggled by the lack of customization. I don't mind complexity that plays quickly at all, neither do my players. In fact, for a long time I thought it was married to character customization. I thought that adding in more complexity was the answer to cookie cutter characters.
Then I played some PDQ, where the entire system is basically, roll 2d6 against a target number. Character design is basically, make four statements about your character, if any of those apply to a roll you are making, add +2/4/6. Suddenly, the most simple system available was adding in character customization at an astounding level. Not just the "oh, its all in the way you RP it" stuff, but actual mechanical differences. There were no stats, no skills, just character concepts as the core building blocks of the character sheet.
I still don't mind complexity at all, if it does not affect game speed. Now at least I have learnt that it is not tied to character customization. So far it seems that very rules light games and very rules heavy games tend to have the level of tinkering I am interested in.
I have been playing 4e, then 5e and enjoying it, but still niggled by the lack of customization. I don't mind complexity that plays quickly at all, neither do my players. In fact, for a long time I thought it was married to character customization. I thought that adding in more complexity was the answer to cookie cutter characters.
Then I played some PDQ, where the entire system is basically, roll 2d6 against a target number. Character design is basically, make four statements about your character, if any of those apply to a roll you are making, add +2/4/6. Suddenly, the most simple system available was adding in character customization at an astounding level. Not just the "oh, its all in the way you RP it" stuff, but actual mechanical differences. There were no stats, no skills, just character concepts as the core building blocks of the character sheet.
I still don't mind complexity at all, if it does not affect game speed. Now at least I have learnt that it is not tied to character customization. So far it seems that very rules light games and very rules heavy games tend to have the level of tinkering I am interested in.