To me, they are. There's no definition I know of though; it's just whatever the word says to you. I think different folks use it slightly differently.
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If you heard the term "crunch renaissance"...
- Thread starter Morrus
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To me, they are. There's no definition I know of though; it's just whatever the word says to you. I think different folks use it slightly differently.
I recall a report to that effect somewhere. And it makes some sense. It is related to how as tend to see fewer threads about "Hey, this particular rule is terriffic!" - folks are more likely to speak if they have something negative or opposing to say. They respond less often just to say, "Yeah, I like it" or "Me too!" Since you've already stated (or, to their minds, implied" a positive position, they don't feel much need to respond in agreement.
You start to see the effect less with secondary responses - once a few people jump on opposing the OP, then folks step in opposing that opposition.
Neonchameleon
Legend
That's not what I remember because the questions weren't mirrors. And both have given the answers I'd expect.
Thread 1: Is a certain approach to gaming inherently bad?
Answer 1: No. This is independent of whether it's my fun.
Thread 2: If you heard there was a major movement around a certain approach to gaming would you be keen?
Answer 2: Not very. I'm having my fun. And I don't believe it would fit either my table or new gamers.
Play whatever you like. Unless it's FATAL or RaHoWa it isn't a bad thing and the more in this hobby the merrier. But that doesn't contradict the idea that certain approaches won't help grow the hobby and are going to provide me with headaches.
(Incidentally I hold both position 1 and position 2. I think GURPS is a great game if that's what you are looking for and own more GURPS sourcebooks than for any other system - and that's hardly crunch light. But I'm happy that we have much more elegant mechanics these days and wouldn't want to try running GURPS or introducing it to non-roleplayers. I don't consider this a contradiction.)
Huh. That's not even slightly what I was trying to ask in this thread.
I was trying to ask:
Me: "This catchy little phrase; what does it say to you?"
Folks: "It says 'movement to revive rules-heavy stuff"
Me: "Huh. Thanks for the info. I wasn't trying to suggest a movement of any kind; looks like it's a bad phrase"
Balesir
Adventurer
Oh, well "renaissance" definitely seems to imply some sort of cultural shift or movement to me, so yeah.
Yeah, it's not a great phrase. Still, that's why I floated it! I'd hate to use it on a product cover and find people were getting an impression I didn't intend.
Agamon
Adventurer
Well, gasoline aside, there's currently a "clean driving" is better opinion. Not sure that a Fossil Fuel Renaissance is required, though.
(Bad analogy, I know, just a joke to show that shoving aside the 800-lb gorilla that is PF isn't an easy task to make a point).
i wouldn't mind a shift in how we approach the implementation of crunch in games. debating if a game should be heavy or light in the rules has never been a problem for me, but rather how crunch is used and presented that gets my goat.
seeing games take a good hard look at how they approach their rules in ways other then sheer volume, or rules kept simply for the sake of "it's how it used to be done" would do TTRPGs as a whole a much bigger service then simply giving the players & GMs less or more.
quality of rules will almost always trump quantity, whether large or small. well written and implemented rules are intuitive to learn and use regardless if you're a new or old player.
i would see a crunch renaissance as a positive as a whole.
seeing games take a good hard look at how they approach their rules in ways other then sheer volume, or rules kept simply for the sake of "it's how it used to be done" would do TTRPGs as a whole a much bigger service then simply giving the players & GMs less or more.
quality of rules will almost always trump quantity, whether large or small. well written and implemented rules are intuitive to learn and use regardless if you're a new or old player.
i would see a crunch renaissance as a positive as a whole.
Campbell
Relaxed Intensity
I'm not really seeing a general trend away from crunch when you take a look at major releases. I mean Pathfinder, Shadowrun, Edge of the Empire, FFG's 40K RPGs, Blood and Smoke, and even Numenera (as much as it pretends to be rules light) are pretty much filled to the brim with character options, equipment, adversaries and rules material. The core rules books are all at least 400 pages. That's not exactly rules light in comparison to anything other than GURPS or Hero. Coming up this next year we have D&D Next, Exalted 3e, Dark Heresy 2e, and Demon the Descent. Demon is one of the more intricate New World of Darkness splats, and Exalted is not exactly known for its lack of crunch. I would be surprised if Next ends up on the light side given the play test material and from what I've seen of the Dark Heresy beta it's not exactly light reading. Fate Core which is arguably the least complex of this year's major releases still clocks in at about 300 pages with no setting material.
I don't think crunch is in all that much danger.
I don't think crunch is in all that much danger.
I agree, most of those are crunchy. It's only a list of a half dozen out of a few hundred releases though. Not that I'm saying there aren't plenty more.
I wonder if rules heavy stuff lends itself to bigger tent pole releases? It tends to - as you point out - lend itself to physically larger products, although not exclusively so. I would guess that the development time is longer, with more moving parts.
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