D&D 5E How crunchy is D&D 5E

[UngeheuerLich]

Solid 5.
Not more, not less.

I strongly support the distinction from umbran and morrus. The game itself is not very complicated. Children that can add a few numbers can play a character from dnd and be efficient enough.

The rules boil down to tell what you want to do. Get a target number and an ability to roll on. Roll high.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And I've noticed that although the DM to Player ratio is nowhere near its 3.X nadir it has absolutely plummeted from its 4e high.

For all my criticism of 5e in terms of player-facing stuff, this is by far the worst way it abandoned something from 4e. The tools, advice, and information in 4e to support effective DMing were some of the best the game has ever offered, and it is a genuine shame that 5e took such a radically different path on that front. I understand that they were concerned with the "DM feeling hemmed in by rules" problem, but such a radical flip to "you're the DM, you figure it out!" was not necessary.

 

[TheOneGargoyle]

I went with a 6 but there's a non-zero chance I'm unconsiously adding in crunch from previous editions that isn't reflected accurately in 5e ... so maybe I should've voted a 5 instead LOL!

Not to hijack the thread, but would love to hear other people's ideas of what constitutes a 10. Rolemaster & PF2 have been mentioned, any others people think ?

 

[Laurefindel]

I went with a 6 but there's a non-zero chance I'm unconsiously adding in crunch from previous editions that isn't reflected accurately in 5e ... so maybe I should've voted a 5 instead LOL!

Not to hijack the thread, but would love to hear other people's ideas of what constitutes a 10. Rolemaster & PF2 have been mentioned, any others people think ?

Actually, Rolemaster isn’t that crunchy. It has like a million tables and numbers are higher due to RM using d100, but 3.x D&D (which was really similar to Rolemaster using d20 instead of d100, minus tables) was crunchier than RM in my opinion with feats, prestige class, and all. RM is a notch or two above 5e D&D, but not a 10.

I remember Shadowrun being pretty crunchy (cant recall which edition I played) and so were a few early 90s RPGs whose character sheets felt like a tax-report form (especially when printed on continuous stationary with sprocket holes still attached), but I wonder to what extent they really were that rule-heavy.

 

[loverdrive]

Voted 7. I don't think any game where "melee weapon attack" and "melee attack with a weapon" are two drastically different things can be classified as anything but "rules-heavy".

 

[Audiomancer]

How crunchy is 5E?

Well, my wife bought an air fryer in a Black Friday sale, so over the weekend I chucked my spare PHB inside and fired it up for 4 minutes. Served it up with an IPA I got from a local brew pub.

The front and back covers came out pretty crisp, but the interior pages were actually still pretty chewy.

About a 3 overall, I’d say.

 

[Aldarc]

So let's be clear here. It seems that we have three descriptors floating around this thread: (1) complicated, (2) complex, and (3) crunchy. @Umbran does not believe that the first two are synonymous, and I agree with his assessment. But does establishing the distinction between (1) and (2) necessarily answer the question of the OP: how (3) crunchy is 5e D&D? Or even address how (1) complicated or (2) complex 5e D&D is?

 

[Azzy]

I went with a 6 but there's a non-zero chance I'm unconsiously adding in crunch from previous editions that isn't reflected accurately in 5e ... so maybe I should've voted a 5 instead LOL!

Not to hijack the thread, but would love to hear other people's ideas of what constitutes a 10. Rolemaster & PF2 have been mentioned, any others people think ?

Oof. I'd say Hero System/Champions and GURPS.

 

[Umbran]

So let's be clear here. It seems that we have three descriptors floating around this thread: (1) complicated, (2) complex, and (3) crunchy.

Well, I gave mine because I think some folks were dismissing the idea that having more content (being complicated) was an issue, when I think it can be.

But does establishing the distinction between (1) and (2) necessarily answer the question of the OP: how (3) crunchy is 5e D&D? Or even address how (1) complicated or (2) complex 5e D&D is?

No, and it wasn't intended to.

These are all relative terms. There is no International Standard Unit of "crunchiness" , like there is for length or mass. You can at best answer whether you think 5e is crunchy compared to some other game. And I don't think comparing it to the "average" game will help, because we will all have constructed our concept of "average" based off our own experiences with various systems, and we all have different experiences.

 

[Deset Gled]

So let's be clear here. It seems that we have three descriptors floating around this thread: (1) complicated, (2) complex, and (3) crunchy. @Umbran does not believe that the first two are synonymous, and I agree with his assessment. But does establishing the distinction between (1) and (2) necessarily answer the question of the OP: how (3) crunchy is 5e D&D? Or even address how (1) complicated or (2) complex 5e D&D is?

To me, "crunchy" deals with the rigidness of the rules, not just the complexity. "Magic A is Magic A, Magic B is Magic B" type stuff, regardless of how deep the systems are for either A or B. Game design like the Firefly RPG or Dread that actively encourage the GM to decide on the fly, for purposes of dramatic effect, whether or not a die roll is needed are inherently low on the crunchiness scale (gummy?). Elements like the different ship scales in WEG Star Wars d6 are baked in crunchiness, because the game explicitly tells you what is and isn't allowed in certain situations (i.e. you can't just punch a Star Destroyer).

To some extent, this also means that crunchiness isn't just about the rules themselves. It's about the application of rules, and therefore about the community as well. Some OSR groups are all about adhering strongly to previous edition rules and are very crunchy, while the free kriegsspiel side of things is much more gummy. It's also about the evolution of a ruleset. D&D 2e and 3e got much crunchier over time as more rules were released, which codified mechanics that were left to interpretation when the system was first published. 5e is removing some crunch over time, as they do things like eliminate racial ASIs and good/evil mechanics.