Will the complexity pendulum swing back?

[Micah Sweet]

The OSR started with OSRIC, the retro-clone of AD&D, which is not "rules lite" in anyone's estimation, I don't think. The move toward lite games, including in the OSR, is a recent phenomenon. That's why I called it a pendulum.

Relatedly, OSRIC is getting a new edition.

Yup. OSR is not synonymous with rules-light. That's just a popular playstyle.

 

[Umbran]

I did not use the word "selling" so im guessing that is more of a you issue?

You said you weren't buying it.

How, on this good green Earth, do you buy that which isn't for sale?

Which is to say, there is a sort of implied relationship in that ohrasing, that those with differing opinions are supposed to or are trying to "sell you" on their ideas.

I am pushing back on that. Them talking about their ideas does not imply an intent or goal of getting you to accept them. And not having you buy it... is irrelevant?

 

[TwoSix]

I did not mean that you could not have rules that impacted roleplaying. I meant that I don't buy the notion that rules complexity in general impinges upon roleplaying, which some folks in this thread has strongly suggested.

I think the communication issue is that rules complexity will, by necessity, conflict with freeform dialogue and thespianism; these are the practices at the table that people often label as "roleplaying". The conflict is that expressing your character through character design and actions taken is just as much "roleplaying" as talking like your character in non-rules mediated dialogue.

 

[kermit4karate]

The OSR started with OSRIC, the retro-clone of AD&D, which is not "rules lite" in anyone's estimation, I don't think. The move toward lite games, including in the OSR, is a recent phenomenon. That's why I called it a pendulum.

Relatedly, OSRIC is getting a new edition.

I feel like AD&D is/was rules lite. Everything before 3 was rules lite, IMO. It was with the addition and expansion of skills (went beyond NWPs) and feats that things went off the rails, and D&D has been trying to unwind those decisions ever since.

 

[ezekielcroe9]

Every table runs its own game though, so the craftification you're talking about helps those GMs make the game more in line with what they want for play. None of us have the right to suggest they shouldn't bother adding new subsystems they want because the game didn't come with them. That's tantamount to telling people 3pp shouldn't exist.

Oh, it's not my intention to mean that it's a bad thing to design and add crunch! My main point was that (i) being drawn to more crunch seems to be a common occurrence for more experienced players and designers, and (ii) the whole space is still evolving in terms of grappling with how we design and add crunch.

I was a person who went through the exact thing I described: I designed a very intricate crafting system for my groups because they loved asking whether they can craft potions or weapons if they harvested monster parts or random herbs. I thought the crunch would be well-received especially since it would allow them to craft more powerful stuff and have cool interactions with their loot and equipment, but instead, my groups were quite turned off by it and preferred an approach that was more free-form.

Building on that, my hypothesis to the original question is that the whole TTRPG space as a whole is going through what I (on a smaller scale) went through:
a) We started with a few hit RPGs, and then us fans and budding designers started to layer more rules and crunch in our own games, so that they would be more complex, more interesting, more fun.
b) However, a lot of the crunch designed are heavy, cumbersome, and ultimately not that meaningful to a large proportion of players, so over time we switched to stripping away rules to focus on the core gameplay that we found that would entertain the majority of people.
c) With more and more designers coming up with compelling systems and the space as a whole being much more mature in designing rules and systems, we are starting to see more clever designs and rules that are better received, better integrated into the core game, and crunchier to boot.
d) And that's why we are seeing the pendulum swing from rules-lite to crunchier games.

I am open to being shown that I'm wrong though! Just found the topic very interesting to discuss and share hypotheses.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I feel like AD&D is/was rules lite. Everything before 3 was rules lite, IMO. It was with the addition and expansion of skills (went beyond NWPs) and feats that things went off the rails, and D&D has been trying to unwind those decisions ever since.

I sincerely doubt WotC or any other 5e designer is trying to remove the skill system. Are you talking about other companies and other D&D-like games? Some of them could be described as doing what you're saying.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

I'm a DM who likes crunchy rules. I consider 3.5e to be peak D&D, and I've happily played Champions 4e in the past.

One thing that would be useful in a highly crunchy system is good set of simplified creation rules & stat blocks for monsters and nameless NPCs. I'd prefer such rules to err on the side of making the monsters/NPCs weaker than those created with the full crunchy set of options.

 

[kermit4karate]

Yup. OSR is not synonymous with rules-light. That's just a popular playstyle.

Do you think most OSR games are lighter than D&D 3, 3.5 or 4 were? I can see that a case could be made for 5e being less crunchy than the older D&D versions most OSR games are based on because it was a clear attempt to turn back the clock in some ways, but how about the 20 years that preceded 5e?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Do you think most OSR games are lighter than D&D 3, 3.5 or 4 were? I can see that a case could be made for 5e being less crunchy than the older D&D versions most OSR games are based on because it was a clear attempt to turn back the clock in some ways, but how about the 20 years that preceded 5e?

Most OSR games IMO are lighter than pre-5e WotC D&D IME, but not all, and there's just no good reason to paint with a broad brush unless you're trying to sell something.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

I feel like AD&D is/was rules lite. Everything before 3 was rules lite, IMO. It was with the addition and expansion of skills (went beyond NWPs) and feats that things went off the rails, and D&D has been trying to unwind those decisions ever since.

My experience with AD&D 1e was that it was an extremely rules-heavy system, so much so that practically everyone ignored most of those crunchy rules. That made it rules-light in practice, as it was played in most groups. But the rules-as-written were heavyweight ones.

Although my mileage probably varies from yours. I consider the incorporation of skills and feats - especially skills - to be one of the best parts of 3.x.