NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 4282119" data-attributes="member: 21169">Increased complexity is the natural state of things. It's an essential feature of the splatbook treadmill. OD&D got more complex with the release of Blackmoor and Greyhawk. AD&D became more complex after Unearthed Arcana. The only time complexity might be reduced is when a new edition is published, the examples from D&D being 2e (1989) and 4e (2008).I disagree with your idea that the 90s was the decade of increased complexity. The top selling games of the period were 2e (less complex than 1e prior to the splats) and Vampire (which I would characterise as medium complexity). GURPS and HERO, both highly complex and reasonably well selling games, debuted in 1986 and 1981 respectively. The 90s was, if anything, the decade of a return to simplicity with the publication of Feng Shui and 7th Sea.Mutants & Masterminds isn't particularly simple. According to Ken Hite's State of the Industry column, Troll Lords had 1% market share in 2005, which is insignificant. Compare D&D at 53% and White Wolf at 19%.That doesn't make sense. If 4e was trying to capture these fans (all three of them) it would be of equal complexity.A far more likely hypothesis is that by far and away 4e's main target audience is fans of 3e. It was created by doing market research to find out what the flaws were with that system. The results highlighted issues such as class balance and SoDs, which 4e fixes.</blockquote>

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