Will the complexity pendulum swing back?

[Parmandur]

What I see asan interesting trend with aomw of the recent big new games, specifically Daggerheart and the Cosmere RPG, is being in the same "medium crunch" space of 5E, and while crunchy alsoleaning into the sort of fuzzy table adjudication that relies on human judgement calls instead of mathematical rules determinism.

 

[Parmandur]

I agree and am a big fan of the idea that we can leverage VTTs to make some games more detailed and granular without slowing down play.

While VTT seem cool for people who want to do that...at the plomt where you need to leverage computer tools, why not play a computer RPG...?

To me, TTRPGs shine when they provide what a computer cannot do.

 

[Fenris-77]

While VTT seem cool for people who want to do that...at the plomt where you need to leverage computer tools, why not play a computer RPG...?

To me, TTRPGs shine when they provide what a computer cannot do.

I remain pretty relentlessy non-VTT. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either and with a lot of games I think it can take away more than it adds.

 

[Reynard]

While VTT seem cool for people who want to do that...at the plomt where you need to leverage computer tools, why not play a computer RPG...?

To me, TTRPGs shine when they provide what a computer cannot do.

This is a false dichotomy. Nothing in "crunch" impacts what TTRPGs do that CRPGs can't. I think the "why don't you just play a CRPG" underscores a lack of understanding of what crunch can bring to play, based on a p[reference for lighter systems.

As to the idea of "why bother if the VTT is going to do the math" folks -- have you never played a complex CRPG or ARPG? The computer handles all the math there, too, but the fun some players have is looking at the granularity of the subsystems and leveraging them toward "builds" or whatever. Imagine being able to have loot drops in D&D that have the same level of detail while still remaining meaningful, because the systems for both generating and implementing the loot are handled by the VTT rather than the GM. The player still decides between the drops.

I find it a little ditressing that even after all this time people bring out the argument that complexity is somehow related to whether the game is a "real roleplaying game" or no. I am afraid someone will soon post ROLLplaying as if it were 1993...

 

[zakael19]

With a couple of notable exceptions, such as Pathfinder 2E, it seems like the TTRPG industry has been trending toward simplicity for years now. But with the recent releases of Daggerheart and Draw Steel -- medium and heavy crunch system respectively -- maybe the pendulum is swing back toward at least some degree of system complexity and crunch.

What do you think? Is crunch coming back? And is that desirable, in your opinion?

I think that maybe we’re seeing a lot of recent games picking a narrower area of focus and designing as much rules overhead around that as they need to hit the game feel they want. If we’re defining “crunch” as “has enumerated subsystems the game expects you to use” then yeah, I think lots of games coming out are doing that to hit a vision.

D&D 5e and even PF2 I think are fairly broad games. Things in the NSR space can be hefty but are doing crunch with a single aim (see: the contrast between His Majesty the Worm and Mythic Bastionlands); DS! is crunchy in a couple areas to hit its goal of “heroic tactical;” Daggerheart has rules around narrative and flow it expects the GM to follow; etc.

 

[Parmandur]

I remain pretty relentlessy non-VTT. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either and with a lot of games I think it can take away more than it adds.

Yeah, absolutely nothing against them, but since my experience of RPGs is mainly TotM a simple Zoom call suffices.

 

[Parmandur]

This is a false dichotomy. Nothing in "crunch" impacts what TTRPGs do that CRPGs can't. I think the "why don't you just play a CRPG" underscores a lack of understanding of what crunch can bring to play, based on a p[reference for lighter systems.

I don't have a preference for lighter systems, though...? I just wouldn't want play a TTRPG where I can't do all the math in my head, like with D&D or Pathfinder, lt games renowned for being light.

As to the idea of "why bother if the VTT is going to do the math" folks -- have you never played a complex CRPG or ARPG? The computer handles all the math there, too, but the fun some players have is looking at the granularity of the subsystems and leveraging them toward "builds" or whatever.

Yes, I play complex video games like Fire Emblem or The Broken Sword. I wouldn't want to play those on tabletop.

Imagine being able to have loot drops in D&D that have the same level of detail while still remaining meaningful, because the systems for both generating and implementing the loot are handled by the VTT rather than the GM. The player still decides between the drops.

I mean, they can be handled by a VTT, sure, if you are into that sort of thing, but they can also be handled very quickly by a DM. I wouldn't want a TTRPG so complex that using the VTT felt necessary.

I find it a little ditressing that even after all this time people bring out the argument that complexity is somehow related to whether the game is a "real roleplaying game" or no. I am afraid someone will soon post ROLLplaying as if it were 1993...

Who said a computer game isn't a real RPG...? Just that I wouldn't want to play a system with VTT being foremost in mind during design.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah, absolutely nothing against them, but since my experience of RPGs is mainly TotM a simple Zoom call suffices.

In this space age of technology I might also use a shared whiteboard to stand in for that stained and much-erased re-markable Chessex battlemat everyone used in the 90's.

 

[Corinnguard]

2024 5E isnt crunchy enough?

Compared to Level Up: A5e, 2024 5e received a tiny dollop of complexity and crunch in what it was offering to the Players. It made some improvements to 2014 5e while making some questionable changes in other areas of the RPG.

 

[cranberry]

I suspect that as more younger people join the hobby, and older people leave (one way or another), games will get simpler just because there are more distractions, and demand for such games will eventually dominate.

D&D will likely remain the dominate player for the foreseeable future, and with 5E2024, they made the game more streamlined, so other will probably follow.

Just my 2 cents.

As always, I try to encourage people to walk the right path, but I'm a realist.