How Complex Do You Prefer Your TTRPG Systems In General

[Ruin Explorer]

Not everything needs a rule, but a game that is supposed to be about doing X thing should give me at least some idea about how to handle doing X thing. If I essentially need to create my own game to be able to handle a core aspect of playing a game, that ends up being extra complexity.

Yes this. I'm not going to name names but there are a couple of FitD and PtbA games that have really cool concepts and a some good rules but are just also missing rules for stuff that naturally comes up a ton due to the setting/themes, and it's particularly problematic because of the limited/tailored stats and abilities those games have. I will say MASKS is not one of them, and most FitD/PtbA games don't have this as a major issue. But I've seen it even with really rules-heavy games, where they'll have detailed rules for like SCUBA in a game mostly about superhuman beings blowing each other way, but fail to have any real rules for say, vision/detection.

 

[stonehead]

Though, honestly, the cases where that's true sometimes make the problem worse because people will sometimes want to, but never get used to them. I saw quite the difference between the versions of Fantasy Hero using hit locations or RuneQuest (where the hit locations are used by everyone, all the time) and GURPS or Savage Worlds (where its usually voluntary), and it wasn't particularly to the benefit of the latter two.

Oh, sure. I didn't mean to imply that having a wide gap between complexity floor and ceiling was necessarily a good thing. Just that two different people playing in the same campaign could legitimately see different levels of complexity.

I agree with all of that.

Also, the last part of what you said there is why there are "rules-light" games that, to me, are more complex than some heavier games. Not everything needs a rule, but a game that is supposed to be about doing X thing should give me at least some idea about how to handle doing X thing. If I essentially need to create my own game to be able to handle a core aspect of playing a game, that ends up being extra complexity.

Heck, I'm even okay with (and have learned to prefer) the 'ruling not rules' mentality, but I feel that, to make a ruling, I still need to have some idea about what to base a ruling on. I don't need things completely spelled out, but at least give me some idea of what language the words I'm trying to spell are in.

Every game needs to answer "why should I play this instead of another game?", and very "rules-lite" systems can sometimes have a harder time doing that. You can say your game is about emotional, character-driven space battles between anthropomorphic alligator-people and time-travelling french mimes, but if the mechanics are just "describe your action, roll your dice, add your bonuses" then why shouldn't I just use Fate or Cypher, or Elemental to run it?

The practical answer is probably that setting guides don't sell as well as compete rpgs, but I would prefer many of these "1-page"/"ultra-lite" systems to just be settings instead.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Oh, sure. I didn't mean to imply that having a wide gap between complexity floor and ceiling was necessarily a good thing. Just that two different people playing in the same campaign could legitimately see different levels of complexity.

Well, that's probably present in 75% or more of games with mages in them, as the same people who will want complex and detailed magic systems will sometimes go for nearly schematic combat systems or systems for things like intrusion.

Every game needs to answer "why should I play this instead of another game?", and very "rules-lite" systems can sometimes have a harder time doing that. You can say your game is about emotional, character-driven space battles between anthropomorphic alligator-people and time-travelling french mimes, but if the mechanics are just "describe your action, roll your dice, add your bonuses" then why shouldn't I just use Fate or Cypher, or Elemental to run it?

The practical answer is probably that setting guides don't sell as well as compete rpgs, but I would prefer many of these "1-page"/"ultra-lite" systems to just be settings instead.

Well, I'd expect in many of them they feel "ready to play" (to the degree that means anything with extremely light rules systems) is a benefit in and of itself.