Will the complexity pendulum swing back?

[aramis erak]

Bladerunner was not a bespoke system, though, right? It is based on Year Zero Engine, which is not especially crunchy or complex.

It does enough different that it's effectively bespoke. You never roll more than 3d... but what size matters, using d6/d8/d10/d12 by att and by skill, 6-9 is 1 success, 10+ is 2.
Standard YZE is always d6's. So far, only T2K and BR use step dice, but even they are significantly different from each other

 

[dbm]

I would describe YZE as a ‘house system’ model where a system is modified for different applications while retaining some shared qualities. I’ve read one (Forbidden Lands) and played another (Alien) and they were very different. More different than similar in my opinion.

 

[Fenris-77]

I would describe YZE as a ‘house system’ model where a system is modified for different applications while retaining some shared qualities. I’ve read one (Forbidden Lands) and played another (Alien) and they were very different. More different than similar in my opinion.

The basic mechanical chassis that runs both games is functionaly identical. It's the set dressing and additional mechanics that make them feel so different.

 

[aramis erak]

No.

Have you ever seen the 1E DMG?

There’s no RPG book in existence that even comes close to it in crunch and complexity.

I'll raise and offer up a bunch that are more complex than AD&D... many from the AD&D 2e era, some the 1e era. And T5? Marc's been working on it since 2014... and has the core out...

• Tucholka's TriTac system... many many complex rules, in smaller print, with less art, and while better organized, so much more cruft. Armor by location... each location being about a square decimeter. I have run AD&D 1, even with most of the rules in use... but this one? Broke me.
• LEG's Phoenix Command. 4 minutes using a calculator to work through the charts for one attack. I'm told experience gets it down to 3. Sure, you know which organs are damaged, and how bad, but figuring out the healing time is done after combat, and can take a while to figure
  I've run it. It got 3 sessions, one of which was 6hrs getting 3 characters done. The second was a single small fight.. mostly... in 5 hours; the first two hours of session 3 were finishing it. Automation would make it playable for me... wasn't an option at the time.
• Wilf ..Blackhaus/FGU's Chivalry and Sorcery 1st ed. Rolemaster numbers of tables. As a typed manuscript, it would have been at least 2.5" thick, but it was optically reduced to 50%, so 4 typed pages per printed page, and a hair over 1/2" thick, crunch galore, and like AD&D, not entirely optimal organization. Covers more ground, too, as it includes landholding. the more recent editons split into multiple better organized books, but keep the tables, and replace the skill mechanics. Rebirth edition is comparable to AD&D in complexity and rules crunch, as it kept the crunch of 1E, but in a much better package. Haven't bothered with it since I got Pendragon 4th, as it does the genre easier. Much easier.
• dreams: a 3/4" thick sheaf of punched mimeographed pages inside a shrink wrap. Character gen is scattered throughout the first third, it lacks a bestiary, and is full of items that clearly are intended to do like Arduin did... but failing on so many points. Nifty ideas in a Gygaxian spew more imprentrable.
• Traveller 5. over 500 pages of which about 50 are not mechanics. No gear lists, but instead processes to build your gear lists. Same for vehicles. There are sample ships... I've run CT1, CT2, MT, TNE, T4, T20, MgT 1ePT, MgT 1e, T2300, 2300AD... but I can barely ford my way through the mire that is the world gen in T5... and that's the simplest subset of the rules, and the closest to the other editions I've run. (I've not played/run MgT2, GT, nor GTIW of the official versions; HT was only for some solo brainstorming.)

I think the game really needed to be simpler than 3e or 4e, but that WotC went too far the other direction and over simplified 5e. Games like Daggerheart which are more complex than 5e, but less so than 3e or 4e are hitting that sweet spot I think.

DH isn't more complex than 5E. It's about dead on par, maybe a bit easier, as it's fewer exceptions to standard mechanics in class design. It also lacks the niche protections.

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.

BRP and Mythras are both about on par with 5E complexity wise, perhaps less since they deviate from core mechanics less.
GURPS and Hero are argued both ways; GURPS uses more crunch in play; Hero uses more in Character Gen, front loading it.
In play, Rolemaster is less complex and more self consistent than 5E; most of its complexity is character generation and advancement. And that of the core 12 classes, 9 are casters. 6 of those? In D&D, they'd be stacked with special abilities, but RM only does those as spells. The issue is all the optional material in splats... there's a 7 page multi-column checklist of options, not counting new classes and their spell lists... in one of the splats.
Spacemaster is the same game as Rolemaster, just different classes and spells psions.

You don't see pseudoclones/retroclones of Phoenix Command, TriTac or Web Game System. You do see retro-/pseudo- clones of RM/SM (I'm too lazy to look up the names at the moment; they streamline a few bits here and there.) And of AD&D (both 1e and 2e had clones; the 2e one seems to be off the net now). And of BRP (see also Mythras, Jackals {a BRP pseudoclone - enough different that it's its own thing, but close enough to see what was lifted})

The ones at the top of this post? They all put crunch majorly into the play-space, not the generation/advancement spaces.

 

[aramis erak]

Note that I do not think grids are universal here. Some use square grids (Draw Steel, Cosmere). Some use hex grids (Lancer). Others use zones (Warhammer - The Old World), range bands (L5R) and some even use completely narrative positioning (Fabula Ultima).

L5R prior to FFG uses fixed number ranges and expects tokens on the map if not minis on the terrain, but notes TOTM is doable (and usually, it is). Most don't use that, but it's there.
L5R 5 is the only one with Range Bands... and it includes an option for grid based.

 

[aramis erak]

I would describe YZE as a ‘house system’ model where a system is modified for different applications while retaining some shared qualities. I’ve read one (Forbidden Lands) and played another (Alien) and they were very different. More different than similar in my opinion.

See, I've run Tales From the Loop and Vaesen... they're pretty close, mechanically. Close enough that swapping one to the other would be a nuisance due to minor differences . Tales and Things from the Flood are almost identical except for the age related mechanics.

I've also run Alien, Blade Runner, T2K 4e, and tried to run Coriolis: The Third Horizon. Each is its own thing in many ways. I've got and have read MYZ and several additionals for it. Never ran it.

Coriolis: the Third Horizon is closer to Mutant Year Zero than to the others I've read; Coriolis: The Great Dark looks like someone rewrote the core mechanics of John Carter of Mars to use a d6 dice pool instead of a (2⋯5)d20 dice pool.

But still, the things used most? The initiative system, the major/minor actions (in various names), the effects of bonus successes... those interface elements are more the same than different, and the differences are JUST enough to be annoying.

Damage is in several groups: There are HP systems (T2k 4, Alien, BR), Attribute Damage (FL, MYZ), Conditions (TftL, TftF, Vaesen)... the conditions ones? Pushing is mark a condition - severe and note worthy. The HP systems? Different push effects each. Attribute Damage? 1's on the att dice become damage to att....

I haven't gotten to the detail read of Electric State

 

[dbm]

More data points definitely needed to fully understand YZE

 

[Micah Sweet]

I was thinking of a lot of things that aren't narrative material per se, such as metacurrancy that is a way of abstracting things that are still representative, or things like character design generation rather than random-centric character gen (I have a pretty strong sense of when the first of the latter was).

Sure, but there's plenty of metacurrency that doesn't abstract representative things too, like the various "inspiration" and "luck" mechanics out there.

 

[Micah Sweet]

L5R prior to FFG uses fixed number ranges and expects tokens on the map if not minis on the terrain, but notes TOTM is doable (and usually, it is). Most don't use that, but it's there.
L5R 5 is the only one with Range Bands... and it includes an option for grid based.

I ran L5R (d10 system) for years as TotM. Never had any trouble.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sure, but there's plenty of metacurrency that doesn't abstract representative things too, like the various "inspiration" and "luck" mechanics out there.

See, I'd argue those were abstracting representative things; both luck and inspiration are things people recognize existing conceptually in the setting. They're not purely story manipulation tools, but they also don't directly relate to what they're representing.