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How Crunchy is Too Crunchy, For You Personally
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<blockquote data-quote="Blue" data-source="post: 9214320" data-attributes="member: 20564"><p>Amount of crunch <em>for me</em>? Not a straightforward answer in a couple of different axis.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Blue, post: 9214320, member: 20564"] Amount of crunch [I]for me[/I]? 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. [/QUOTE]
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