If you heard the term "crunch renaissance"...

[Campbell]

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.

I was mostly considering the question from the view of gamer mind share and overall market share. I do think that you are more apt to find simpler systems being released from small press operations because complex systems require significant resources if you going to execute them well. They are more difficult to design and test. I'd also hazard that burgeoning designers who have a head for crunch tend to focus on creating material for existing systems first, given the scope of freelance opportunities available from major publishers.

 

[Bluenose]

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.

High crunch rules sets lend themselves to books full of crunch - in D&D terms, Monster Manuals, Magic Item Compendium, Complete Warrior and similar titles. "List Books", with more spells, paragon paths, equipment, enemies, feats, and whatever else the game uses. Low Crunch games don't - arguably, can't - do that, since there's no place for those things in the system. Instead they get new supplements, new genres, or different games entirely. It's not as if the Fate Core rules are particularly thin, and if the System Toolkit had been part of it then it would have been thicker. But it's not a crunchy game despite the page count. It's perfectly possible to see different games based on Fate as entirely new games, making up several new releases, while new supplements of crunch for existing games aren't perceived the same way.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I would laugh a bit, as to the term renaissance, hard to be a renaissance when the current most popular and best selling RPG is crunchy as a pile-o-gravel!

 

[Neonchameleon]

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"

In which case I think the thread's done very well

And big game lines have always gone for crunch. You can easily fill books with powers, feats, or prestige classes. Rules light games are normally one-book-and-done.

 

[billd91]

I think I'd want to throttle the marketing fool trying to coin a buzz phrase. I'm so sick of the whole crunch/fluff thing and other metaphors.

 

[Morrus]

I think I'd want to throttle the marketing fool trying to coin a buzz phrase. I'm so sick of the whole crunch/fluff thing and other metaphors.

Wow. Remind me to stay a long, safe distance away from you.

 

[howandwhy99]

It's a little confusing at first because it seems to imply long ago there were games heavy in "crunch". I think there were simply bigger games with more content and that content was playable.

The key difference between the thousands of RPGs from the past and the comparatively very slim rulesets of today is most games now are about creating a story. Games where players are meant to create content into a largely empty space. Older games were about playing a pre-designed game in the imagination and so all of those rules meant more content. More rules, more content, more finely weighted material all tied together, more fun for hardcore gamers. And good rules added huge amounts of content with only a little effort.

This is the greatness of complexity in games like Go or Chess. It isn't crunch that needs to come back. It's the actual playing of games focused on the games, not some other activity.

 

[Umbran]

This is the greatness of complexity in games like Go or Chess. It isn't crunch that needs to come back. It's the actual playing of games focused on the games, not some other activity.

Needs to come back? Setting D&D and it's variants (which are the leading games, and crunch-heavy) aside...

It seems to me that the overall games market (not just RPGs, but games in general) is rather flush with boardgames that feed the hunger for strategy and tactical exercise. In a given month, I have access to more board game nights in my area than I do to RPG game sessions!

So, does crunch need to come back, or is it being served through a different channel these days? If I want to play a game that's focused on the game, I can very easily do that without all this Role Playing baggage!

 

[ExploderWizard]

I would be dumbfounded and wonder how taking a dump could EVER go out of fashion.

 

[Henry]

I would laugh a bit, as to the term renaissance, hard to be a renaissance when the current most popular and best selling RPG is crunchy as a pile-o-gravel!

Have to give a "+1" here. Wait until FATE or Fiasco is the top-selling game before we have a Crunch Renaissance.