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Message: <blockquote data-quote="phindar" data-source="post: 3307885" data-attributes="member: 37198">Personally as an experienced-- nay, gifted-- gamer, I feel the D&D rules are slightly more complicated than they need to be.  The theory being that simple systems are fast but not as detailed, whereas complex systems are slower, but provide a satisfying level of crunch, a feeling that you know where every stray bullet is going.  Every group and ultimately every gamer is going to have a different opinion of how much detail is needed, and how slow is too slow.For my money (roughly $30 a book), D&D has some complex areas that don't have any real corresponding level of satisfaction in terms of the detail they provide.  Combat maneuvers like Trip, Sunder, Bull Rush, and Grapple (just to name a few) tend to be like this.  My group almost always has to stop and look the rules up (unless a particular pc is specialized in one maneuver and has the rules already pasted on his sheet), because we don't want to just rule by fiat ("Roll good and you trip him,") but we don't want play to grind to a halt every time somebody has to grapple someone.  Nor do we want to fall into a "Well, I'm just going make a normal attack because I don't want to slow things down by looking the rules up."  D&D is a game of heroic fantasy (let's say), so doing neat things in combat should be something the rules facilitate, not hamper.My group falls somewhere north of True20 in terms of rules complexity (we tried it and found it a little light for us), but not willing to go whole-hog D&D (Bo9S, ToB, et al).  I prefer a rules design that falls back to a few, easy to remember axioms ("Tie goes to the Defender", "Always Round Down") that apply across the board.  You boil the system down to as simple and fast as you can, and then you add the complexity and detail back in where you want it.  That said, systems do things, and if your group is having fun with the way another system works, I say stick with it for that game, at least until you are comfortable branching out.  Whether or not you are having fun is really the only mark by which a game succeeds or fails (though "fun" in this example is as ambiguous as you need it to be, tactical wargamers and improv theatre groups are both having fun, but they probably shouldn't rent the rec center room on the same night).</blockquote>

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