Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="TrippyHippy" data-source="post: 7775409" data-attributes="member: 27252">It's not snotty. It's criticism. There does seem to be a tendency on this site recently for certain people to treat the two things as the same - as a source of defensiveness and conflict. It's not intended to be, but if people can't be critical of things they have an interest in, then what is the point of discourse? And, to be sure, this is a pointed criticism itself - some of the responses by a certain individual over contentious issues on this site recently have been disappointing to say the least. I was a patreon and a customer too. And while I certainly get that some like gamers like some systems more crunchy than others, in practice I actually think it's an overstated claim for the rpg market at large. Other games that have ended up with oversized books have found it to be problematic, ultimately, in their own fanbases - eg Champions/Hero, Traveller 5 or 20th Anniversary WoD books, and a number of others. If you have the same system presented in a concise fashion, rather than an oversized  book, it's frequently because it's been more fully considered and polished to appeal to new audiences. Rules are easier to reference, become more intuitive and it's more straightforward at the game table to use. The notion that 'crunch sells' became popular with the D20/3/3.5 editions that Pathfinder managed to successfully maintain for a decade. However, I think the main reason for this is that books that gave lots of 'toys' to players - new classes, feats, etc - sold more than other supplements because it appealed to players, and players are more numerous than GMs. For GMs, however, rules crunch - or 'bloat' as others call it - actually make the game more difficult to run. So, in my view, yes - more complex systems for games is a design flaw, not a feature of good design. And massive page counts for core rules is often a signifier of that.Time will tell in terms of whether it is right for Pathfinder. But 600 pages for the core rules? I just need to state that fact and swathes of gamers I know will immediately overlook it. Just sayin'.</blockquote>

Verification