How Crunchy is Too Crunchy, For You Personally

[Campbell]

For me what generally matters is how complex a particular piece of crunch is and if there are stacking passive effects. I really dislike mechanics that happen twice on a full moon during leap years or that have a bunch of attached caveats.

Pathfinder Second Edition feels pretty good to me where 5e often does not despite the former being overall crunchier. More than anything I like games with a lot of fun interactions, but with less overall crunch. L5R Fifth Edition with its stances, opportunities and strife to consider with isolated abilities that are individually not that complex layering on top of ia very interactive combat system feels damn near perfect. It's like the Goldilocks of crunch to me.

 

[GrimCo]

Best example of too crunchy for my taste is PF grapple flow chart. When i saw that, it made me do 2 things. Never attempt to grapple and buy Ring of freedom of movement asap for any character that i played.

Too crunchy is if i need more than 15-20 minutes to make basic starting character.

Multiple sources of bonuses to same thing that all stack with each other. Especially if some of those are temporary or conditional.

5e is just right amount of crunch.

 

[Thomas Shey]

A +1 to skills from many sources but which are very situational (some turn off or on and you tabulate a lot) “nope, this only applies when the social encounter is related to buying things” does not evoke anything and takes me out of it.

I mean, you're going to feel what you feel but that is really telling me the fact my character comes by his social skills in a merchant context, something that gets swept under the rug because of lumping in too many systems. A +1 can or cannot be trivial depending on the structure of the game.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Just don’t tell anyone the bad guys’ numbers go up to match the PCs’ numbers resulting in the illusion of progression in 99% of crunchy games.

You seem to think most people who play crunchy games are unaware of this. Most of the useful progression in them is in options, not in values.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I dont think I can ever play or run 3rd ed again.

The only thing that keeps me from playing Shadowrun more often is the system.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Just as an aside: I don't think those are inherently related. You can prep rules lite and improv high crunch.

I don't think he's talking prep; I think he's talking about "This situation that normally doesn't come up has occurred, and the rules in the light game don't tell you how to handle it."

 

[Reynard]

I don't think he's talking prep; I think he's talking about "This situation that normally doesn't come up has occurred, and the rules in the light game don't tell you how to handle it."

Huh. It didn't read that way to me.

But if that's the case, we'll, that's the whole point of a light system isn't it? Whatever it is, roll this standard test and see what happens.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Huh. It didn't read that way to me.

But if that's the case, we'll, that's the whole point of a light system isn't it? Whatever it is, roll this standard test and see what happens.

Is the standard test what's appropriate? Will the GM think so? If you don't think so as a player, what grounds will you have to suggest otherwise in a system that has limited samples to work from?

 

[Warpiglet-7]

I mean, you're going to feel what you feel but that is really telling me the fact my character comes by his social skills in a merchant context, something that gets swept under the rug because of lumping in too many systems. A +1 can or cannot be trivial depending on the structure of the game.

Yeah. Fewer meaningful bonuses are relevant. Bounded accuracy helps with this as do fewer little things in aggregate.

 

[billd91]

I suppose it depends a lot on the nature and fiddlyness of the crunch. I don't mind certain kinds of crunch with respect to character gen such as in a superhero game like Champions or Mutants and Masterminds. Particularly since I can use it to define to much of the character as a whole.
But I don't want to have to constantly revisit a crafting system like in PF2 to keep my gear up to date. I don't want to constantly work with character-specific subsystems that nobody else uses with like dealing with building a rigger in Shadowrun.

I find myself really liking 5e's level of crunch.