What is the most complex TTRPG of all time?

[darjr]

I suck at that one.

Same. I keep saying I’ll DM a different one but it never happens.

 

[aramis erak]

I've heard FATAL is pretty complex, but we don't talk about that one . . .

FATAL's not really that complex. It's just additions to a 3E/d20 SRD base. Disturbing rape-fixated additions. Complexity wise, Space Opera leaves it in the dust, just by having a different skill chance calculation for each skill.

Phoenix command lite, better known as Aliens Adventure Game, took me an average of 5 minutes and at least 3 rolls to resolve a single attack. Rhand: Morningstar Missions, a close variant of Phoenix Command, took longer still, and the tables alone were multiple pages each table. (A different edition than I had was a straight up supplement for Phoenix Command).

Tri-tac's various games are similarly complex, but more math and less tables by comparison to Phoenix Command. ANd armor locations exceed 50 on a human. Belt Buckle is one of them... and we're not talking texas style ones, but military undress web belt sized buckle. Skill formulae. The best known is probably Bureau 13... I don't know which spawned the other, but the RPG and the novels are directly related. And I really can't recommend either of them.

 

[Davies]

I suspect it's a race between Phoenix Command and Aftermath, and I don't really want to know who'd win.

 

[aramis erak]

I suspect it's a race between Phoenix Command and Aftermath, and I don't really want to know who'd win.

Having played both, Phoenix Command. Hands down.

 

[GuyBoy]

From my old school perspective, Chivalry & Sorcery was the one that we all considered to be the most complex.

 

[Blue]

I can't think of any that are so complicated as to require an aerospace engineering degree, but both Champions and RIFTS did stand out for how ponderous they were do to the number of basic math operations needed during character creation and gameplay.

Champions had math heavy character creation. Math during play was simple addition and subtraction.

 

[pemerton]

Complexity wise, Space Opera leaves it in the dust, just by having a different skill chance calculation for each skill.

Space Opera is the most complex game I've engaged with. A group of hardcore Rolemaster players spent an evening doing PC gen. We never actually played.

Burning Wheel is quite complex. In a good way, for those who like it, but it terms of complexity of interlocking systems its up there.

It's certainly not rules light! But I don't think it's as complex as RM.

 

[aramis erak]

Space Opera is the most complex game I've engaged with. A group of hardcore Rolemaster players spent an evening doing PC gen. We never actually played.

It's certainly not rules light! But I don't think it's as complex as RM.

The modifier list for combat in SO has some real gems... like the bonus to hit for being a PC instead of an NPC.

 

[pemerton]

The modifier list for combat in SO has some real gems... like the bonus to hit for being a PC instead of an NPC.

I've got nothing in principle against a bonus for PCs compared to NPCs - it's a version of a "mook" rule, on the attack roll rather than damage side of things.

I don't remember much about our Space Opera PC gen, except that my character had a monofilament katana and a staff that had a gravitic-type field that shifted all the mass to the striking end at the moment of impact. (I don't know if these were by-the-book or GM innovations.) One of the other players succeeded on the check for psionics and his PC seemed quite broken as a result.

 

[John Dallman]

Space Opera is the most complex game I've engaged with. A group of hardcore Rolemaster players spent an evening doing PC gen. We never actually played.

For a while, my college group would try to generate an SO character if we weren't involved in any of the scenarios running that day. I don't think anyone ever finished, and I'm pretty sure we never played. Having that many d100 rolls for stats (there was a lookup table to convert to a 1-20 range, I think) basically ensured that every character would have some cripplingly low stat. One chap started trying to re-organise the system to make it more playable, but gave up.