What’s the most complex RPG out there?

[The Crimson Binome]

Based mostly on listening to the System Mastery podcast, the top runners that I'm aware of for at-the-table complexity are Synnibarr (which has every rule ever in it) and Living Steel (which is the RPG counterpart to Phoenix Command). Nephilim (mentioned in a previous post) is probably not in the top three.

Honorable mentions go to the old DC Heroes game, The Great War of Magellan, and first edition Skyrealms of Jorune.

 

[Blue]

Twilight 2000

Twilight 2000

Complex character creation and then complex, slow play.

HERO has a payoff for it's complexity, and while creation/advancement is definitely complicated, play is moderately heavy at worst.

Twilight 2000 had no excuse.

 

[Blue]

Not quite an RPG, but Star Fleet Battles is about the most complex game I've ever played. It's difficult to understand, and complex to play.

I used to love SFB, but I won't disagree with you. When it's organized like laws and had things inserted with new expansion and it's just crazy.

"Okay, I've been prepping my Wild Weasel for two turns, so I'l going to launch it and several pseudo torpedoes (one of which is a faux pseudo torpedo), do a High Energy Turn, and then I had plotted a mid-turn speed change during power allocation phase. Oh, and I dump batteries to ECM."

Impulse 17: Everyone glares.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I used to love SFB, but I won't disagree with you. When it's organized like laws and had things inserted with new expansion and it's just crazy.

"Okay, I've been prepping my Wild Weasel for two turns, so I'l going to launch it and several pseudo torpedoes (one of which is a faux pseudo torpedo), do a High Energy Turn, and then I had plotted a mid-turn speed change during power allocation phase. Oh, and I dump batteries to ECM."

Impulse 17: Everyone glares.

Yup. We tried to break it, but it was surprisingly robust. Had one game that had a fake missile pack shuttle launched, the eating of a full S torp so as to maintain missile lock, 2 emergency stops, a wild weasel, a suicide shuttle that actually connected (totes awesome, btw), and ended with two crippled ships using transporters to beam assault teams back and forth, and ended when I managed to get a shuttle (my last) full of Kzinti marines to actually make contact with the Romulan ship. I abused the hell out of my shuttles, and I'm sure Kzinti central accounting would like to have a word with me about wasting valuable shuttles like that.

My favorite thing about that game was just how unique each race played. Fed busses, Kzinti missle boats, Klingon snake dancing, Romulan sub tactis, just superb how they captured the feel of the fiction in the game rules. Way, way, too complicated though.

Federation Commander, though, is a streamlined version of SFB that managed to capture the magic SFB had and still be easy enough to teach a new player how to play in 15 minutes, without ever using the rule book. FANTASTIC successor to SFB.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

SFB is probably my all-time favorite sci-fi space battle game. Loved playing Hydrans and Tholians.

But one of my favorite moments in the game, I was playing a Gorn Dreadnought against its Federation counterpart, 1-on1 (and using plotted movement, so we couldn’t improvise). We both rushed into the center of the map, forward shields reinforced, weapons on overload. As anyone would expect, those shields got dropped and internal damage was done to each ship. Photon torpedoes and plasma torpedoes at close range get messy, fast.

What he DIDN’T expect was that on the next turn, I executed a high-energy turn- extremely dangerous for my particular ship- to do a complete about face, and reinforced my rear shield as he continued to advance.

...right into the nuclear space mines I had dropped behind me as I entered the fray turn 1. Since my rear-facing phasers made short work of his barely there front shields, he ate every last one of those mofos as pure internal damage.

Turn three, he was using every bit of power to try to escape as I took a stately and leisurely turn to bring myself around again and started prepping my remaining plasma torpedoes.

Good times.

 

[Blue]

Yup. We tried to break it, but it was surprisingly robust. Had one game that had a fake missile pack shuttle launched, the eating of a full S torp so as to maintain missile lock, 2 emergency stops, a wild weasel, a suicide shuttle that actually connected (totes awesome, btw), and ended with two crippled ships using transporters to beam assault teams back and forth, and ended when I managed to get a shuttle (my last) full of Kzinti marines to actually make contact with the Romulan ship. I abused the hell out of my shuttles, and I'm sure Kzinti central accounting would like to have a word with me about wasting valuable shuttles like that.

My favorite thing about that game was just how unique each race played. Fed busses, Kzinti missle boats, Klingon snake dancing, Romulan sub tactis, just superb how they captured the feel of the fiction in the game rules. Way, way, too complicated though.

Federation Commander, though, is a streamlined version of SFB that managed to capture the magic SFB had and still be easy enough to teach a new player how to play in 15 minutes, without ever using the rule book. FANTASTIC successor to SFB.

Good times, good times.

When creating our own fleet battles by BPV, I seem to remember really likely Gorn tugs but I don't remember why. Well, I remember them being over-muscled so I had a lot of power to work with, and they didn't break the bank, but not if there was anything more than that.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Harnmaster is trying to be realistic, its the opposite to 5e in terms of injuries and combat. Don't get into sword fights if you don't want to spend weeks laid up. Or you better be good and lucky.

Hackmaster 5e is not the parody version and tis got a great initiative system...but its too cumbersome. I'd love to play it with a sober group of veteran gamers though.

 

[Jhaelen]

Not quite an RPG, but Star Fleet Battles is about the most complex game I've ever played. It's difficult to understand, and complex to play.

I think Magic Realm, also first released in 1979 is more complex. The current version of the rule book clocks in at 273 pages, and there's a 282 page 'Book of Learning' that is meant to serve as an introduction to the 16 character classes you can play in the game. I still haven't fully figured out how combat vs. several opponents works!

And then there's the thematically somewhat closer High Frontier: You know the saying "this ain't rocket science", except this game very much _IS_ rocket science

 

[cthulhu42]

I purchased Of Dreams and Magic last year and was very excited by it's be-anything every-genre concept, but I found myself re-reading paragraph after paragraph over and over again until the words just became meaningless marks on paper. I even watched a few demo vids but it just never clicked. Eventually I just put it on the shelf and haven't cracked it again.

A shame, because it really is an interesting concept.

 

[Ratskinner]

I know tastes vary, but my idea game has loads of background complexity with a simple front-end in play.

Care to elaborate on what "background complexity" means?

I would take it to mean that the "pre-play" or "Housekeeping" phase(s) like character generation, equipment selection, session zero, or levelling up would be complicated things, but that the actual grind of combat or whatever would be much more straightforward. Yes/No?