What is the most complex TTRPG of all time?

[Arilyn]

Avalon Hill released a game decades ago called Powers and Perils. They had great plans for the game to rise to the top. Don't know if it's the most complex rpg ever but it was very fiddly and hard to grasp. Didn't last long.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I always considered things like this something akin to making sure you had included pi out to 12 digits while ignoring that another variable limited the accuracy of your results to 3 sig figs. If you don't address how a game might be doing the wonky 'everyone takes their turn and then freezes while those on the next initiative beat acts' model most TTRPGs use, or have automatic weapons used exclusively to shoot massively-multiple shots at an opponent (instead of as suppressive fire, as it is often used IRL), then all the silhouettes and internal organ charts in the world aren't going to make a game combat system more "realistic." Inventive resolution mechanics, absolutely; realistic, no.

Ah, but ME had wonderful suppression fire rules.

But ME focused on CQB, where short, aimed bursts are the norm.

 

[Larnievc]

I haven't read it, but from what I have heard, Synnibar is unreasonably complex.

That one is batshit insane “and then there were eight wars and billions of people were killed. And then the Travellers arrived and there was decades of peace and the Spider-People built the Ultimate Uridium and challenged the Night-Men for supremacy of the …..”.

 

[Blue]

Unless you used Variable Power Pools, in which case you could be doing character creation-style calculations mid game (or even mid-turn). Mind you, the books included a bunch of admonitions about not setting yourself up for that kind of headache and that the GM should moderate what is and isn't allowed based on how it would effect gameplay, but I think if we're doing a pure, contextless complexity comparison, that probably needs to be included.

True, but to be complete it VPPs were labelled with a Stop sign to have a discussion with the GM before even being allowed by default.

Many VPPs had limitations like "only change in lab" or "only change in armory" or other to stop it from happening on the fly. A player with a VPP could (and in my experience did) have a lot of pre-built powers to simulate specific weapons or gadget so could off load much of that to outside the session.

With the stop sign, the GM could also only allow cases that they estimated wouldn't slow play at the table.

So yes, there was one power, not allowed without DM approval, that could allow more ad-hoc character building, and while it could often be worked out between sessions, it was not impossible to have to do it at the table.

By all means say it for completeness sake. But that's not part of the general play math; it's an by-approval-only outlier.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Ah, but ME had wonderful suppression fire rules.

But ME focused on CQB, where short, aimed bursts are the norm.

Okay, well good for it. I don't know that specific system. I am taking in generality of the pitfalls that games which seek to attempt "realism" can run into -- all the fine tuning on X, Y, or Z can run headlong into another gamist assumption (initiative, gun usage which may or may not emulate real world usage, percentile/D20/3D6 dice resolution, what-have-you) which completely wipe away the intended realism.

True, but to be complete it VPPs were labelled with a Stop sign to have a discussion with the GM before even being allowed by default.

Many VPPs had limitations like "only change in lab" or "only change in armory" or other to stop it from happening on the fly. A player with a VPP could (and in my experience did) have a lot of pre-built powers to simulate specific weapons or gadget so could off load much of that to outside the session.

With the stop sign, the GM could also only allow cases that they estimated wouldn't slow play at the table.

So yes, there was one power, not allowed without DM approval, that could allow more ad-hoc character building, and while it could often be worked out between sessions, it was not impossible to have to do it at the table.

By all means say it for completeness sake. But that's not part of the general play math; it's an by-approval-only outlier.

I brought that up right in the part you quoted. I am arguing that the stop sign mechanism does not stop a complex ruleset from qualifying as complex in a pure complexity comparison, regardless of how it gameplay at the table might end up being. I don't know anyone that used the GURPS 3e: Vehicles rulebook to create the complex malarkey for which it is noted, but that doesn't mean it isn't a complex game system.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Okay, well good for it. I don't know that specific system. I am taking in generality of the pitfalls that games which seek to attempt "realism" can run into -- all the fine tuning on X, Y, or Z can run headlong into another gamist assumption (initiative, gun usage which may or may not emulate real world usage, percentile/D20/3D6 dice resolution, what-have-you) which completely wipe away the intended realism.

Ah. Well, I always got around that by choosing veterans with whom to game.

 

[John Dallman]

That one is batshit insane “and then there were eight wars and billions of people were killed. And then the Travellers arrived and there was decades of peace and the Spider-People built the Ultimate Uridium and challenged the Night-Men for supremacy of the …..”.

That was pretty much where CthulhuTech lost me. Just tried to cram too much in.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

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?

I remember playing this in high school and firing an m60 in game.

the whole time we played resolved a firefight. I shot snd m60 and if memory served each shot calculates separately with modifiers for how many shots came before it.

I got shot and died.

do not recall any significant roleplaying on character. It was more her is a compound u gotta take it…

D&D is enough for me. So is combat commander. You can keep squad leader…

 

[Jd Smith1]

D&D is enough for me. So is combat commander. You can keep squad leader…

Your wargamer cred is rendered suspect in a single sentence, heretic!

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Your wargamer cred is rendered suspect in a single sentence, heretic!

I admit it! My fun to work ratio has changed over the years from bachelor with beer in hand to career guy with a bunch of kids!

I am a shell of my former gamer self!