TTRPG Genres You Just Can't Get Into -and- Tell Me Why I'm Wrong About X Genre I Don't Like

[Micah Sweet]

Cosmere, Daggerheart would be in the same category as D&D 5e.
I think Warhammer Old World would be heavier.
I haven't read Legend of the 5 rings either but I'd guess it's heavier.
Pathfinder, 3e are both significantly heavier than 5e so if 5e is heavy then we need another category.
GURPS is also heavy though most of that is GM and Player setup and not gameplay which is medium.

I think we can also differentiate between character creation and in game complexity. I think 5e is low in game play complexity but it is a bit higher in character creation.

The current version of L5R is much more narratively-based (mechanically) than it used to be before AEG sold the license to FFG. Don't know if that makes a difference in rules weight, since I stopped following the game (which until then I kept up with obsessively) after that happened.

 

[Emerikol]

Which ones specifically do you disagree about? I could understand saying something similar to @Micah Sweet re: overall viewpoint but I cannot immediately/easily see any logical basis for even attempting to argue most of the games are lighter. Perhaps I've overlooked something? There are 2-3 I could see being potentially arguable as close to 5E, but I wonder if it's those you're thinking of.

Re: light/medium/heavy my definition is similar to the one others seem to be using (albeit you can have a different starting point, again cf @Micah Sweet but the basis of judgement remains broadly the same). Specifically the amount and complexity of "main" rules you have to understand to play/run the game RAW is the the main factor, with exception-based rules also playing in (albeit obviously weighted much lighter, though some exception-based rules do need to be understood even by people not subject to them). Inconsistency and quirky-ness of rules, as well as rules being counter-intuitive would to my mind also make a game heavier.

Cosmere, Daggerheart would be in the same category as D&D 5e.
I think Warhammer Old World would be heavier.

 

[Cadence]

The one thing I have the most trouble with is anything set in the mid-90s to present where supposedly real world finance, communications, and technology might come front and center. If there is anything that should be real world doable that can't be done in the game it really annoys me. Similarly, if there is some well-beyond-real-world level of hacking that can happen, it always makes me wonder why the rest of the real world stuff still exists that the hacking would break. On the other hand, if my VtM character is street level muscle, I'm good with that.

I love Super Hero games (ICONS is my go-to).
I love Westerns (Wild West Cinema is amazing!)
I love fantasy (The One Ring and B/X D&D)
I love sci-fi (Traveller, via Cepheus Light, and Far Trek)
I love post-apocolyptic (1e Gamma World)

I haven't had a chance to play in the non-fantasy ones of these in ages (at least for more than a few sessions) and wouldn't mind doing so. I am not a huge fan of forking out $xx to get the rules to try something new that might not take, so a cheap .pdf reduced ruleset or srd would help.

 

[John Dallman]

The one thing I have the most trouble with is anything set in the mid-90s to present where supposedly real world finance, communications, and technology might come front and center. If there is anything that should be real world doable that can't be done in the game it really annoys me.

Me too, which is why if I run something in that period, I'm always willing to be contradicted by facts I didn't know. I prefer running stuff set before 1960, simply because there are a lot less technological escape clauses.

If I'm running anything set close to real history, I'm perfectly happy for the players to do historical research of their own. I did have to say recently "That particular Lovecraft story (At the Mountains of Madness) doesn't exist in this setting" but the players found out why quite rapidly.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Cosmere, Daggerheart would be in the same category as D&D 5e.
I think Warhammer Old World would be heavier.
I haven't read Legend of the 5 rings either but I'd guess it's heavier.
Pathfinder, 3e are both significantly heavier than 5e so if 5e is heavy then we need another category.
GURPS is also heavy though most of that is GM and Player setup and not gameplay which is medium.

I think we can also differentiate between character creation and in game complexity. I think 5e is low in game play complexity but it is a bit higher in character creation.

Daggerheart is massively more straightforward than D&D in terms of rules complexity. I've played both recently. It doesn't even have initiative or actions or movement ranges in any conventional sense. I take it you're basically unfamiliar with it?

Cosmere is also more straightforward based on all the rules I've seen, with more consistent and direct rules.

Re Warhammer Old World and Lot5R I take it you're just guessing?

We don't need another category though - 3E/PF1 is just up towards the top end of Heavy crunch (in large part through its truly demented approach to which modifiers do and don't stack and extreme non-exception systemization of combat and movement) whereas 5E is towards the other end.

Re: character creation vs actual play I agree that you can separate them but disagree that 5E has more complex chargen than play. That describes things like Shadowrun.

 

[Reynard]

Re: character creation vs actual play I agree that you can separate them but disagree that 5E has more complex chargen than play. That describes things like Shadowrun.

5E character generation is about as simple as it has been since 1E.