Units of game-design complexity?

[greywulf]

Maybe each complex item could have a Challenge Rating (CR), but we actually use an Effectiveness Level (EL) to measure it, and use the CR to work out how important they are. And the CR gets increased by two points if the complexity doubles. It'll be measured against the Level of the book, but the book's level might have a Level Adjustment if it's only meant for GMs or it's more powerful in some other way, so the Level isn't really the level, but the Effective Complexity Level (ECL) is, and that's compared with the EL but the CR is used to compare the complexity and this tells us how complex it is.

Oh, wait..........

 

[A'koss]

I was thinking about this on the way home from work today. It should be cute and catchy...

Grues!

1-Grue mooks to the 5-Grue stat abominations...



Now we just need a chubby little icon going "oooo"...

 

[paradox42]

I could get behind both Grues (abbrev: gr or gu) and Sages (abbrev: sg). Both are appropriate for genre conventions, though I think Sages gets the point of the subject being measured across better. After all, who do PCs go to when they need information about some obscure or complex subject...?

Oh, and the idea to split out the complexity of tactical vs. political vs. social is brilliant. I heartily agree, though there should probably be some way of converting the sub-measures into a single overall one for simplicity and good quick quotations of study results.

 

[Cor Azer]

As GuardianLurker mentioned, perhaps a "dual-unit" system... or rather, two different measures.

One measures how tough it is to integrate a rule into an established game (THAC0), while the other measures how tough it is to use that rule in play (Gygaxes).