How much complexity is right for you?

[Verdande]

I'm currently writing my own roleplaying game. That's not the point, just a side note.

When writing my weapon table, I'm honestly not sure if I want to keep the weapon table I have or go with a vastly simplified one. The one I have has individual weapons with individual damages, prices, and weapon qualities, each unique. But the game isn't about tactical combat; it's more about a sword and sorcery, swashbuckling game. My armor table is already divided, quite simply, into Light, Medium, and Heavy, and I was thinking about doing the same for the weapons. There would be Light, Medium, and Heavy weapons.

Again, that's not the point.

The real question is: How much granularity do you like for your games to have? Do you prefer games that have four kinds of weapons and five kinds of armors, or do you prefer the approach where you give a different stat for Elvish Thinblades than Dwarvish Thickblades and there is a game-mechanical difference between Steel Plate Armor and Iron Demi-Plate with Greaves and No Helmet?

Similarly, do you like for your games to have vastly detailed combat, down to tracking hit locations and the like, or do you prefer a more freeform, "zoomed out" kind?

 

[steenan]

I definitely wouldn't like a game to have more than about 25 kinds of weapon. It may have much less.

In general, the more cinematic the game is, the simpler the system should be (up to and including all weapons being mechanically equivalent). A game that aims for more realism may be more complicated, but even in this case I like to have a few distinct items instead of hundreds of variations of a polearm.

 

[xechnao]

Point #1: Tactical combat and complicated weapon tables are not the same thing.

Point #2: Vastly detailed combat is not the same as tracking hit locations and the like.

Point #3: It is a gameplay design issue. You have to ask yourself: What does tracking hit locations may add to the game?

Point #4: It depends how you get it designed. For example you may have complicated weapon tables without allowing the players to buy weapons. Instead they randomnly find weapons and they can carry only one. I suspect this totally changes many assumptions I suspect people have regarding what you are saying. Such a feature would have a different gameplay effect than allowing players to pick weapons from the list (mastering builds). Instead they would make strategic choices on the spot (do I pick this weapon or go on with my weapon?). Assuming of course that weapons are of equal general value and do not synergise partcullarly well with certain other things one may have.

Having said that, weapon tables as of D&D for me are not worth it. They add nothing to the game. Similarly regarding hit locations as of rpgs I know: I have not seen a game that has made anything interested with hit locations. It does not matter to me if my player is hit in the right arm or right leg. What it matters is if he is in danger or not and in what condition is he in (can he fight?, can he walk? etch) You do not need hit location tables to track this. It is much more efficient to track exactly this: danger and condition.

 

[Verdande]

Point #1: Tactical combat and complicated weapon tables are not the same thing.

Oh, no, of course not. I didn't mean to suggest it was; I was just wondering, as a general rule, how much complexity one likes in a game. I remember one poster on a forum asking publicly how they could enjoy such a complex one as being discussed, and another responded that they simply could not enjoy such a simple one! My question is in more of that vein than of a lumping together a tactical complexity with a rules complexity, although they tend to conflate in many games.

Point #3: It is a gameplay design issue. You have to ask yourself: What does tracking hit locations may add to the game?

In my view, nothing. The only game I'd ever seen it done with any sort of utility was the Warhammer Roleplay series of games, where it's more of a flavor thing that sets the tone; you could lose an arm with an unlucky hit, or lose your head. I always liked the fact that both of those results were possible.

Point #4: It depends how you get it designed. For example you may have complicated weapon tables without allowing the players to buy weapons. Instead they randomnly find weapons and they can carry only one.

This is the reason I posted my generalistic question online- I'd never thought of going in that direction, and it could be really interesting. Thank you for the brain food!

What it matters is if he is in danger or not and in what condition is he in (can he fight?, can he walk? etch) You do not need hit location tables to track this. It is much more efficient to track exactly this: danger and condition.

This is more or less what my game's stat tracking ends at. It keeps track of the wounds you've taken, and one has only a small handful. Condition and danger are linked, naturally; the more wounds you've taken, the more the next one hurts, until you eventually bite the bullet and go down. Matter of fact, it's the one part of my game that I really like. The rest can be changed, but I like how I've got damage tracking done. I'd honestly be surprised if nobody else has used it yet.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

This is more or less what my game's stat tracking ends at. It keeps track of the wounds you've taken, and one has only a small handful. Condition and danger are linked, naturally; the more wounds you've taken, the more the next one hurts, until you eventually bite the bullet and go down. Matter of fact, it's the one part of my game that I really like. The rest can be changed, but I like how I've got damage tracking done. I'd honestly be surprised if nobody else has used it yet.[/QUOTE]

So the real question with any attack/hit is whether it succeeds in scoring a wound? You might want to fold everything in to one die roll.

Based on the d20 mechanics, for example, it might look like:

1d20 + attacker's to-hit-bonus + weapon's penetration factor - defenders defense bonus. For each 5 points of the end result, the defender suffers one wound.

A skilled defender is not only more likely to hit, but to score more serious wounds as well.

A weapon's penetration factor models both its capability for causing wounds and its ease of handling.

In the base version, each weapon would have only one value, the penetration factor.

 

[xechnao]

Danger can mean more things than actual wounds though. It may mean how much you can get yourself exposed to some attack that can be critical. For example when you fight and your enemy gains advantage danger to get hurt rises. When your enemy loses that advantage your danger status may get lower.

 

[Khairn]

I really enjoy spending over an hour rolling up a new character in Rolemaster, I love detailed and deadly combat, while at the same time some of the best games games I've ever played are considered rules-light (SW) or even diceless (Amber).

Build it and they will come ... or in this case they will play.

May I suggest that your best plan might be to create a game that you would like to play, make the rules and design consistent, and then have folks you don't know play-test the hell out of it. Now comes the hard part ... listen to what those play-testers say.

Todays market appears to be dominated by a veritable plethora of playing styles. From rules light to crunchy. So tailoring the game to fit one part of the market might not be the best way to go.

But then again I'm usually wrong about these things, so do what you want.

Best advise I can give.

 

[IronWolf]

I believe tend towards the middle ground on rules complexity. Simply providing some core mechanics to handle most situations works for me, but I don't necessarily need every single thing spelled out - I am happy with on the fly rulings for actions or situations not covered specifically by the rules using some core mechanic.

Essentially, I prefer the rules to be the framework to the game, but not intrude so much to take our focus off of the game and the actions our characters are trying accomplish and switch that focus to the rules themselves.

 

[Rechan]

I much prefer loosey goosey rules light things, thus less complexity is good to me.

 

[scourger]

The real question is: How much granularity do you like for your games to have?

In general, I prefer coarse granularity. When playing, I like a little more fine granularity--like the Player's Handbook. When DMing, I prefer more coarse granularity--as with Savage Worlds or Omega World d20. As a DM, I would even like to run an RPG based on D&D minis or Star Wars minis. I want to focus on the action and the story, but I am more of a power gamer and storyteller. I find that my gaming friends who are more into tactics & strategy prefer more fine granularity as it fits their preferences better.