If it's "crunch" that you want, where do you want it and why?

[Thomas Shey]

Sure, not bullet proof, but the recent Mongoose 2E makes it pretty solid.

Oh, I was only speaking of the older ones. The more modern incarnations of done a lot of things to hose down some of the more egregious results of the old Black Box version.

 

[Thomas Shey]

By the by, I'm a big believer in having as much of the in-play as you can on the character sheet; I just don't necessarily mean for that to make for a simple character sheet.

 

[kenada]

As a GM, I want my crunch in the game’s procedures because that is what will tell me what it’s about. For NPCs and creatures (and hazards), I’d prefer to have as little as possible. Just give me a table of values. They don’t need to be built like PCs. They don’t need five different skill values for skills they’ll never use. Keep it minimal but functional.

For players, give them enough crunch that they’re happy with their ability to customize their characters and have fun playing, but don’t make it so much that they have to keep looking up how their characters work. When this conflicts with the GM stuff, defer to that.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I’m a big fan of keeping the core rules of a game relatively simple and easy to use, and having any crunch come in the form of player options.

I’ve been running Spire, and the actual rules of the game can fit on a nice one page summary. Every action attempted by any PC followd the same core rule process (roll a pool of d10s, results based on highest die roll). It doesn’t matter if you’re trying to sneak up on someone or scale a wall or convince someone to back down or to hack someone with a blade, you follow the same core rule.

Where the crunch comes in, is in the class abilities. Each class has a bunch of abilities to choose from anytime they would get an advance (equivalent of leveling up). Those abilities give each class their flavor and help define their role in the game. And there are a good amount, so it can take some time to learn them all. But there aren’t really any trap options. Just about all the abilities are cool in their own way and you don’t suffer for your choices. They just expand what you can do.

I like this because the core game is easy to grasp and learn….it takes minutes. But there are enough options to kind of look at and select when the time comes, which is something players tend to enjoy because doesn't like a cool new ability?

Simple core with lots of player options. It’s a strong combo.

 

[Jd Smith1]

As a GM, I want my crunch in the game’s procedures because that is what will tell me what it’s about. For NPCs and creatures (and hazards), I’d prefer to have as little as possible. Just give me a table of values. They don’t need to be built like PCs. They don’t need five different skill values for skills they’ll never use. Keep it minimal but functional.

For players, give them enough crunch that they’re happy with their ability to customize their characters and have fun playing, but don’t make it so much that they have to keep looking up how their characters work. When this conflicts with the GM stuff, defer to that.

If you have players who can't be bothered to learn how their PCs work (after a couple sessions), the system isn't the problem. The players are.

 

[kenada]

If you have players who can't be bothered to learn how their PCs work (after a couple sessions), the system isn't the problem. The players are.

For a crunchy systems like Pathfinder, there’s a bunch of stuff you need to keep straight. Players may know what their common options are, but they’ll usually have to look up some of their more rarely used abilities or spells. I’ve just never played in or run for a group where everyone could keep everything straight without some sort of reference or time spent looking things up. Tools can help, but that’s just changing where you look up the information.

I guess what I’m saying is I’d rather PCs have a handful of cool things that are broadly useful than a bunch of situationally useful ones that they might forget or slow down the game looking up (because wouldn’t it be nice if players were always prepared for their turns ahead of time …).

 

[Jd Smith1]

(because wouldn’t it be nice if players were always prepared for their turns ahead of time …).

If you are doing your job as a GM (IMO), combat should be fluid enough that players will have to continually deal with tactical developments, but I get your point.

Personally, I don't think of Pathfinder as 'crunch'; its just a deluge of silly options to make player feel special. 5e isn't much better.

 

[Thomas Shey]

For a crunchy systems like Pathfinder, there’s a bunch of stuff you need to keep straight. Players may know what their common options are, but they’ll usually have to look up some of their more rarely used abilities or spells. I’ve just never played in or run for a group where everyone could keep everything straight without some sort of reference or time spent looking things up. Tools can help, but that’s just changing where you look up the information.

I guess what I’m saying is I’d rather PCs have a handful of cool things that are broadly useful than a bunch of situationally useful ones that they might forget or slow down the game looking up (because wouldn’t it be nice if players were always prepared for their turns ahead of time …).

I still stand by my opinion that a lot of this problem is an artifact of exception based design; when playing designs less wedded to that, even ones more complicated in basic mechanics than D&D derivatives, I've seen much less of that.

 

[kenada]

If you are doing your job as a GM (IMO), combat should be fluid enough that players will have to continually deal with tactical developments, but I get your point.

Sure, sometimes something completely unexpected is going to happen, but I wouldn’t expect that to be the common case. If everyone is playing tactically, then they should be trying to anticipate what’s going to happen and be ready to respond to it. If you do that, then you can be ready for your turn (more or less).

Alas, my players aren’t that tactically minded, so we don’t play those games anymore. I find the way Worlds Without Number handles side-based initiative works much better for us compared to those other games. It also has about the right amount of customization for my players.

 

[kenada]

I still stand by my opinion that a lot of this problem is an artifact of exception based design; when playing designs less wedded to that, even ones more complicated in basic mechanics than D&D derivatives, I've seen much less of that.

Yeah. We have far fewer problems in other games. It’s just that I’m our usual D&D (or adjacent) referee, so I can’t really avoid those problems. Fortunately, I’ve been able to mitigate them somewhat by picking a system that matches how we operate. There’s some choice, but it’s not too much.