Will the complexity pendulum swing back?

[Reynard]

I think sometime in the 2010s, complexity stopping being a pendulum. We are in a state of permanent diversity.

What were the complex games of the 2010s and beyond?

 

[Parmandur]

5E is not a complex or especially crunchy game and has been dominant for a decade.

By what standard...?

It's not GURPS or Pathfinde 2E, no, but 5E is not a rules-light game either. It is, at least. "Medium Crunch". Again, what I find interabout the major new entrants system-wise to the hobby is that they are close to 5E levels of crunch, rather than trying to be light and agile or super heavy alternatives. They are tacking their sails to ride the wind right into D&D's middle lane.

 

[soviet]

5E is not a complex or especially crunchy game and has been dominant for a decade.

I think 5E certainly is complex and crunchy. I appreciate that bound accuracy and advantage/disadvantage do reduce some of the in-game handling time. But there are a lot of levers and exceptions and details. We play it at reasonably high level (16 at the moment) and our characters have so many different options that a lot of time is spent looking through character sheets and spell descriptions.

 

[pawsplay]

What were the complex games of the 2010s and beyond?

Aside from the ones in your OP, Trinity Continuum, Fate.

 

[pawsplay]

By what standard...?

It's not GURPS or Pathfinde 2E, no, but 5E is not a rules-light game either.

I would rate Pathfinder 2e is more complex. I would rate GURPS as less complex than 5e.

 

[Parmandur]

Fate

...

What?

 

[Reynard]

Aside from the ones in your OP, Trinity Continuum, Fate.

Emphasis mine.

Interesting.

Now, i think there are crunchy Fate games -- the original Dresden game, and Valiant Comics -- but that is more "complex overlay". Fate itself is not particularly crunchy (but is crunchier than most PbtAs and related narrative games, for sure).

 

[Neonchameleon]

With a couple of notable exceptions, such as Pathfinder 2E, it seems like the TTRPG industry has been trending toward simplicity for years now. But with the recent releases of Daggerheart and Draw Steel -- medium and heavy crunch system respectively -- maybe the pendulum is swing back toward at least some degree of system complexity and crunch.

What do you think? Is crunch coming back? And is that desirable, in your opinion?

What, as the conversation seems to be getting to, needs discussing first is where we think the baselines are. I mean I can accept Daggerheart as medium crunch and Draw Steel as possibly high crunch (I'd need to play to work out if it's high or medium) if and only if we use a baseline that 5e is high crunch.

I use a four point scale with anyt

• Low Crunch: Rules fit on a single side and barely need remembering, character sheets an index card (not counting fluff). Examples: Grant Howitt games, Dread
• Medium Crunch: Rules fit on several sides. Character sheets a couple of sides containing everything you need with everything accessible. The only rulebook regularly consulted in play is a module or monster manual. Examples: Call of Cthulhu, Apocalypse World
• High crunch: Rules (such as spells) need consulting from a rulebook or numerical results (or faffing through an ultra large character sheet) take more than a second or two
• Very high crunch: Pausing to look things up or calculate results is common and routine

And yes how adept people are with rule systems can slide the crunch up or down a level, as can redesigning character sheets.

One thing we've got better at since the 2000s is the impact:crunch ratio. A good example would be Fate 3 Vs Fate Core; almost the same impact but a lot less crunch for Core.

Daggerheart uses some very deft design up to and including the cards to keep the crunch down and impact up. The character abilities you need in play are all either on a single side of a character sheet or on five to twelve (depending on level and life choices) cards in front of you (potentially plus some face down ones not currently in play).

 

[Reynard]

What, as the conversation seems to be getting to, needs discussing first is where we think the baselines are. I mean I can accept Daggerheart as medium crunch and Draw Steel as possibly high crunch (I'd need to play to work out if it's high or medium) if and only if we use a baseline that 5e is high crunch.

I use a four point scale with anyt

• Low Crunch: Rules fit on a single side and barely need remembering, character sheets an index card (not counting fluff). Examples: Grant Howitt games, Dread
• Medium Crunch: Rules fit on several sides. Character sheets a couple of sides containing everything you need with everything accessible. The only rulebook regularly consulted in play is a module or monster manual. Examples: Call of Cthulhu, Apocalypse World
• High crunch: Rules (such as spells) need consulting from a rulebook or numerical results (or faffing through an ultra large character sheet) take more than a second or two
• Very high crunch: Pausing to look things up or calculate results is common and routine

And yes how adept people are with rule systems can slide the crunch up or down a level, as can redesigning character sheets.

One thing we've got better at since the 2000s is the impact:crunch ratio. A good example would be Fate 3 Vs Fate Core; almost the same impact but a lot less crunch for Core.

Daggerheart uses some very deft design up to and including the cards to keep the crunch down and impact up. The character abilities you need in play are all either on a single side of a character sheet or on five to twelve (depending on level and life choices) cards in front of you (potentially plus some face down ones not currently in play).

While I largely agree with your overall points, I don't think 5E is anywhere near "high crunch." There's are a lot of PC specific rules and exceptions, to be sure, but they nearly eliminated all the other granularity, complexity and subsystems from 3.x (the primary historical high crunchy D&D).

 

[Parmandur]

While I largely agree with your overall points, I don't think 5E is anywhere near "high crunch." There's are a lot of PC specific rules and exceptions, to be sure, but they nearly eliminated all the other granularity, complexity and subsystems from 3.x (the primary historical high crunchy D&D).

The core game is in 3 books totalling over 1000 pages.

There are certainly much crunchier games, and 5E opted for very elegant mathematical formulas across the board, but I think one has to be pretty deep into RPGs to see 5E as anything other than complex. 7 out of 10 on a more gradual scale of crunchiness.