What is the most complex TTRPG of all time?

[Umbran]

So, if you want a really complicated game (though, admittedly, it is more live action than tableotp), there's one unpublished game, called Professions and Paychecks. Literally everyone is playing it these days...

 

[Zubatcarteira]

I've heard FATAL is pretty complex, but we don't talk about that one . . .

 

[niklinna]

Somehow I knew, coming into this topic, that Synnibarr and FATAL would come up right away.

 

[J.Quondam]

The most complicated table-top game I've ever endured is any holiday dinner with extended family and in-laws.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Phoenix Command, perhaps. According to Wikipedia "Phoenix Command is regularly held up as an example of the extreme end of RPG complexity."

Phoenix Command (and the simplified Living Steel) were the point when I finally realized that simulation couldn't be the holy grail.



I am thinking of a game that you would have to be a rocket scientist

The designer of Phoenix Command went to on to work for NASA's JPL. Does that count?

 

[dragoner]

I think the most complex I ever played was Aftermath, which we emphasized the "After Math" and I am a engineer, so that math is my life, it was not doing it that was so bad, it was that it took too much time. Any "but realism" arguments are usually mooted by think about realistic healing: roll 2d12 for the months it takes to heal, and do saves against losing stat points ...

 

[Fenris-77]

• Synnibar: "Rule Zero of every role-playing game is supposed to be either "The GM is always right" or "The rules shouldn't get in the way of the story", right? Not so in the World of Synnibarr! The GM is required to write his adventure notes down before the game begins, and then show them to the players after the adventure is over — and if the GM deviated from his written notes, the GM is required to award them bonus experience points. Worse still, the rulebook states that the GM "may not, however, deviate from the rules as they are written, for if he or she does and the players find out, then the adventure can be declared null, and the characters must be restored to their original condition, as they were before the game began." As such, rules-lawyering is openly encouraged in this game."
  
  Holy Cow!

Complex isn't the same as stupid.

 

[Fenris-77]

Burning Wheel is quite complex. In a good way, for those who like it, but it terms of complexity of interlocking systems its up there.

 

[Ace]

Phoenix Command, perhaps. According to Wikipedia "Phoenix Command is regularly held up as an example of the extreme end of RPG complexity."

I played this once. Never again as the complexity doesn't increase the amount of fun and is in fact an open hindrance to enjoying the game.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So, if you want a really complicated game (though, admittedly, it is more live action than tableotp), there's one unpublished game, called Professions and Paychecks. Literally everyone is playing it these days...

I suck at that one.