How Crunchy is Too Crunchy, For You Personally

[overgeeked]

I’ve found that engaging content is more interesting than rules. I find the crunch an annoying barrier that must be crossed to reach it.

My thoughts exactly. It's not the system that's fun and interesting 99% of the time, it's what your character is doing in the fiction that's the fun and interesting part. Crunch is more often than not the hurdle or obstacle to the fun and interesting stuff.

 

[Umbran]

For you personally, what is your "crunch" limit in regards to RPGs?

Lacking a useful measure of crunch, it is had to say.

The ultimate test is not in "how much" crunch the game has, but in the results and impact that crunch as on play. How much time or cognitive effort is spent on considering rules, and how much time is spent on other aspects of play?

 

[Corinnguard]

Crunch is more often than not the hurdle or obstacle to the fun and interesting stuff.

When isn't it a hurdle or an obstacle to the fun and interesting stuff? There have to be moments where the crunch actually helps you reach the fun and interesting stuff. Creative moments where you look at the crunch and think on how to surmount the hurdle or move around the obstacle.

Lacking a useful measure of crunch, it is had to say.

The amount of crunch is pretty subjective. For instance, Level Up adds a level of crunch to 5e that I find appealing. But another player might look at Level Up and think that it is too crunchy for their tastes.

 

[John Dallman]

I'm willing to have quite complex character generation, and to trade that for fairly simple resolution mechanics in play. I seem to be unusually willing to do mental arithmetic in play: I mostly play GURPS, and I'm happy to do the arithmetic for highly-skilled hand-to-hand fighters (base skill, +size mod, -hit location, -3xnumber of extra attacks) or for the Ritual Path Magic improvisational magic system during my turn.

I do, however, put time into making myself cribs for these numbers so I don't have to search for them. That would be far too slow.

 

[Blue]

Amount of crunch for me? Not a straightforward answer in a couple of different axis.

First, there is a huge difference between off-table and in-session crunch. Take a look at character creation in Hero System (nee Champion). Really wants a calculator if not a spreadsheet. But that particular crunch rarely hits the table during a session. I don't mind crunchy character creation and/or advancement subsytems, as long as the result plays quick at the table.

Okay, so what about what's at the table. First we have the tomato sauce effect - there's no one type of tomato sauce because there's no one preference. Even for me. I enjoy games like Star Fleet Battles, which is crunch personified. I play Fate or PbtAs, which is very light when it comes to crunch. I can enjoy different games with different play goals, and having the right level of crunchiness to meet those goals is a good thing.

Something adjacent to crunchiness and definitely affecting my tolerance for it I'll call "zoom". For example, look at a nice simple mechanic, say one or more dice plus a modifier. But for some types of scenes you are "zoomed out", and it's just a few checks for an entire scene. For other types of scenes you zoom in, and every player plus the GM are likely doing multiple checks for every 6 seconds of game time. There is not even a multiple, but an exponential cost to every little tidbit of crunch. So systems that do extreme zoom-in like D&D must discard all crunch but the most basic otherwise those scene will bog down mechanically. Every version of D&D is an example of this, but they are still rather steamlined compared to some other game systems so it isn't apparent to those who mostly have D&D experience, it's just seen as normal. Really, an transitional or minor action scene should be 5-10 minutes and a major scene could be 20 or even 30. If mechanics overload any type of scene to be more than this, it has too much crunch.

Organization/intuitiveness is another bit, and that's not even wholly a system issue. I remember in 3ed or 3.5 having to look through multiple books trying to find rules for characters wading waist deep in water, because they existed and several players remember seeing them. Something like cover and difficult terrain I think. But crunch in-session needs to be rapidly accessible otherwise it gets in it's own way and is functionally much heavier in the detrimental ways, without any of the potential positive ways a crunchier system can be.

A final dimension is session time. I now play primarily evenings after work. I find we get significantly more done when time spent interacting with the rules is lower. So I am predisposed right now towards lighter crunch games because they meet my current gaming availability. But when I have more time I don't mind the additional crunchiness. I'm also a board game afficionado, and sometimes I want a light 20 minute game, and sometimes I'm playing Twilight Imperium for 11 hours. So even within myself this can vary based on outside circumstances.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I am someone for whom the mechanics are meant to support the adventure, but not an activity I care about in itself. So 5E is probably more crunch than I prefer, while Pirate Borg and Shadowdark are a touch below what I'd prefer.

That said, I have a number of players for whom playing with the mechanics of RPGs is a big part of the appeal for them, so 3E and now 5E appeal to them in large part because they can snap more Lego onto their characters or the rule system and create mechanically interesting characters to play.

 

[Lanefan]

Depends on where the crunch is and why it is there; also on why I'm at the table.

As a player:

Char-gen: I want it dirt simple, such that I can go from blank page to playable character in ten minutes or less with the fine details to be filled in later as the game goes along.

Level-up or advancement: again, I want it dirt simple. Few or no choices, just take what the class/build/path/etc. gives me and move on. Ideally I should be able to do this within a few minutes during the session.

In play: crunch is fine where it supports realism, e.g. I'm fine with encumbrance, ammo tracking, etc., but it's not fine when it gets in the way of my playing my character. If I have to refer to the character sheet all the time to remember various feats and abilities, that's over-crunchy. That said, I also prefer more-granular resolution systems, e.g. if a d% roll can give more variety or fine-tuning to an outcome than can a d20 then use the d%. And, rules that prevent or plug loopholes and exploits are always welcome.

As a GM:

Give me all the crunchies. Crunch is my job. I deal with crunch so players don't have to.

 

[Corinnguard]

That said, I have a number of players for whom playing with the mechanics of RPGs is a big part of the appeal for them, so 3E and now 5E appeal to them in large part because they can snap more Lego onto it and create mechanically interesting characters to play.

I have tried doing this since I started playing 5e. I think my second character ( Bugbear Ranger) is better than my first character (Dragonborn Fighter) because I looked at the mechanics and tried to understand how they worked.

 

[overgeeked]

When isn't it a hurdle or an obstacle to the fun and interesting stuff? There have to be moments where the crunch actually helps you reach the fun and interesting stuff. Creative moments where you look at the crunch and think on how to surmount the hurdle or move around the obstacle.

Sort of. When the crunch supports the fiction and pushes for something you wouldn't normally choose as a player, I think that makes it interesting. But really only in those edge cases.

 

[overgeeked]

Give me all the crunchies. Crunch is my job. I deal with crunch so players don't have to.

I feel the same way, only I want that crunch to be as close to zero as possible. I've played these games for almost 40 years and internalized several editions of D&D along with a dozen other game systems. The players only need to tell me what they want to do and I can either narrate what happens or tell them what to roll, then narrate what happens. We don't need 500-pages of rules getting in the way of that.