Will the complexity pendulum swing back?

[Maxperson]

that is entirely personal, I think 5e should be slightly simpler

That's what starting and ending with "I think..." means.

However, I also think the success we are seeing with these a bit more complex games means that not an insignificant number of people are also where I am.

 

[dbm]

What other kinds of complexity are there?

I think systematic versus exception-based design is another big factor in complexity.

In play, GURPS isn’t actually very complex as it is very systematic - the rules work the same way consistently pretty much all the time. What varies are modifiers and procedures. This might seem like sophistry but for me it means once I have internalised the system I can do pretty much anything with it.

Compare that to systems like AD&D which has multiple examples of exception-based rules (spells and monster abilities in general) that are often very different for no real benefit. You have to memorise these things or look them up.

Modern D&D has shifted to more consistency from 3e onwards, with defined statuses reducing the need for spells to define their effects from first principles every time.

Additionally, the number of procedural steps to resolve common actions adds to the feeling of complexity. Here GURPS can be legitimately criticised if people want to: roll to hit, roll defence, roll hit location, roll damage, possibly roll versus stun. If you use all the detail available it is quite a few steps for every 1-second round. So a ‘complex’ game may actually be more of a ‘slow to operate game’.

 

[SableWyvern]

I see no reason to believe crunch ever left. Mythras and BRP have thriving communities with new material being released and Mythras, at least, leans to the heavier side. Rolemaster is in the process of releasing a new edition. GURPS and HERO are still around. ACKS II and Ascendant have been successful. WFRP 4E is still getting new releases and (although I'm not paying a huge amount of attention) I suspect some of the other C4 games are reasonably crunchy.

As others have mentioned, the barrier to entry is much lower these days and if you just want to get something out there, the barrier is by far the lowest for lighter games, so it's no surprise there are more of them. As a result, more complex games make make up a smaller proportion of the total range of games out there, but there are still as many (and probably more) of them out there, in total, than there have ever been.

 

[zarionofarabel]

I definitely think games with a lot of rules exceptions, usually in the form of "feats" or other "special abilities" inherently make a game crunchier, or more complex/complicated. The more often my brain needs to "remember how X works differently" the harder it is for me to parse a system's rules. The more things work in the same or very similar manner, the easier it is to remember, the less likely I will need to double check stuff, and the more likely that a quick "ruling to maintain flow" is likely to be more or less correct (or at least in line with the overall spirit of the rules). Case in point (for me anyway) are the various d100/BRP/RQ "family" of games, like Mythras, Pendragon, CoC, etc. While they look complicated on paper, and may even seem complicated when reading them, most of them don't use exception based rules, so are much easier to internalize. The various aspects like, Attributes, Skills, Passions, Personality Traits, etc. all function pretty much the same, they just apply do different parts of the narrative experience. So much easier to use than a system where do this, except in this situation, or if you have X ability, or only if that happens, or sometimes but only when Y applies. Exception based rules are WAY harder to memorize and make "rulings" for IMHO.

 

[Umbran]

There are thousands of rules light games released every year… and maybe a handful of heavy games. Just look at marketplaces like itch.io. The market is very, very heavily in favour of rules light games

To nitpick a bit, what gets released on a self-publishing platform, what gets bought in the broader market, and what gets played are three very different things that are not proxies for each other.

Which means we need to be careful - seeing a ton of rules-light games for sale doesn't tell us what players are actually doing at their tables at home.

There are then at least three different pendulums, and we shouldn't confuse them.

 

[dbm]

I don’t think that @Reynard was commenting on games being played, I think it was more about new games being made.

There are definitely an order of magnitude more light games released each year, for all the good reasons given. I think the original question was more a case of - with big numbers success for medium and heavy weight games, will more people try to emulate that?

 

[mamba]

I don’t think that @Reynard was commenting on games being played, I think it was more about new games being made.

There are definitely an order of magnitude more light games released each year

how many games are being released is far less interesting than what is actually getting played however.

I get a lot more print advertising than I buy books, that doesn’t mean the advertising is more popular (or even wanted) around here

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think systematic versus exception-based design is another big factor in complexity.

This is why I've claimed that a lot, maybe most, incarnations of D&D are actually more complex than the Hero System once you get away from the most simple fighter types. There's actually vastly less special casing in the later, and a lot of it only comes up rarely or with specialty characters, where its pretty much baked into the spell and magic item systems (at least; its not exactly missing in the versions that lean into feats, either) of the former back to day one.

There are a couple of exceptions that mostly show Hero's age (the fact that combat rolls and other skill rolls don't work quite the same is an artifact of a particular bit of its early origin) but on the whole, if you understand how the structure of the system works, you mostly understand all of it.

In play, GURPS isn’t actually very complex as it is very systematic - the rules work the same way consistently pretty much all the time. What varies are modifiers and procedures. This might seem like sophistry but for me it means once I have internalised the system I can do pretty much anything with it.

Compare that to systems like AD&D which has multiple examples of exception-based rules (spells and monster abilities in general) that are often very different for no real benefit. You have to memorise these things or look them up.

And of course there's usually a very large number of the former at least. Not everyone has to engage with them, but any spellcaster player and the GM at least does (and again, versions that lean into feats don't let fighter players off the hook here).

Modern D&D has shifted to more consistency from 3e onwards, with defined statuses reducing the need for spells to define their effects from first principles every time.

Additionally, the number of procedural steps to resolve common actions adds to the feeling of complexity. Here GURPS can be legitimately criticised if people want to: roll to hit, roll defence, roll hit location, roll damage, possibly roll versus stun. If you use all the detail available it is quite a few steps for every 1-second round. So a ‘complex’ game may actually be more of a ‘slow to operate game’.

Yeah, some subsets of Hero can add on a of subsystemic load if you find those particular systems (hit locations and effects for example) worthwhile, though even there its usually a case of integrating some tables (for games without a lot of nonhumanoid opponents, basically one).

 

[Thomas Shey]

how many games are being released is far less interesting than what is actually getting played however.

Probably true, but also much harder to actually identify; at best you can look at some statistics on VTT platforms and maybe convention games, but that's going to tell a biased story.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Additionally, the number of procedural steps to resolve common actions adds to the feeling of complexity. Here GURPS can be legitimately criticised if people want to: roll to hit, roll defence, roll hit location, roll damage, possibly roll versus stun. If you use all the detail available it is quite a few steps for every 1-second round. So a ‘complex’ game may actually be more of a ‘slow to operate game’.

To complicate the discussion a little bit more (sorry), what GURPS ends up incentivizing you do can increase this 'slow to operate' style of complexity, outside and above the number of rolls and checks it asks one to make. Especially for something like modern-or-later firearm exchanges. Damage really hurts, cover is great, compounding penalties can make shots effectively implausible, shooting on the run is penalized, full-auto being used to maximize attack-rolls-on-target is a non-optimal strategy, etc. You are incentivized to potentially spend multiple full 1-second rounds slowly creeping around in hiding or behind cover trying to maximize your benefits/minimize your penalties or even forcing your opponent to be the first one to pop out and expose themselves to your prepared attack (or pin them down while you allies move to flank, etc.). All of which is incredibly realistic (or emulative thereof at least), but at times ponderous and reactive.