Will the complexity pendulum swing back?

[aramis erak]

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?

I think you think Daggerheart is higher complexity than it actually is.
on a 0 (FK) to 5 (Tucholka/Tri-Tac), Pathfinder is about 3.0 in both editions' core.
Even the decidedly over-complex Traveller-5 is only about a 4.5 compared to the various Tri-Tac games, or to BTRC's Space/Time or Timelords.

I don't see much future for fully human play of highly complex rulesets; VTTs make the complexity more managable, at the cost of hiding the complexity with automation and making GM flexibility harder.

I've watched the peak complexity dropping over time. I expect that trend to continue.

 

[Fenris-77]

I don't think we've been shorted on the crunch side, nor that there's really a big pendulum to swing. High crunch systems are a LOT of work to design and write and I think that at least to some degree the prevalance of lighter systems reflects the changing complexion of who writes RPGs and how as much as it does any other particular trends in the hobby. Small and one-man indie operations just aren't as likely to even try and produce 500 page rules-dense tomes. I'm sure it happens, but I think it's a very particular itch that a lot of designers don't feel the need to scratch. You can't riff on HERO system in an interesting way and produce a fun little game or adventure in the same way you can with Knave, say. A trend I do think plays in is that many RPGs are far more likely now than previously in the hobby to be very focused in tone, genre and content. Very specific in other words, and very specific games also don't need high-crunch design in most cases.

A historical look at the hobby certainly reveals the something that looks like the trend you identify of course. There was a time where high crunch rules, and universal rules systems, were a coming thing. I don't think that this is simply evidence of changing tastes in the marketplace though as much as it reflects a historical moment in the devleopment of RPGs, and one that can't be repeated.

 

[dbm]

I’ve often thought about this split between ‘heavy’ and ‘light’ systems. I put a name on the shift towards lighter systems as ‘appification’. What I mean by that is - consider desktop applications like Word, Excel and so on. They can do lots of different things but they are very complex and expensive to make. Contrast that with the earlier days of phone apps where they would do one thing well and not try to do anything more (the complexity / capability of mobile apps has crept up the scale in more recent times).

So, big and chunky ‘do anything’ systems like GURPS, HERO are more on the Word end of the market and short, focussed games are more on the app end of the market. Both can be great and useful. Apps, and light RPGs, are easier to make, priced more competitively, and also easier for people to learn. So the volume of such games goes up in the market place (lower barrier to adoption). Big and expansive games / programmes are much harder to make, get to quality (testing issues out…), more expensive, and more effort for people to learn (higher barrier to adoption). So the numbers are always likely to favour making more small products unless you really want to make that expansive one. And then getting a big enough ‘install base’ to support it becomes tricky unless you already have a strong brand presence.

I think crowdfunding can help in this regard, however, as it can potentially allow creators to find an under-served market in the ‘big game’ space and serve that market. Draw Steel is an excellent example of this happening - Matt Colville had a vision of a chunky game he wanted to make (along with his collaborators) and had the profile to parley that into a big crowd funder.

Will more follow? I am sure they will since creators will be inspired by his success and more likely to try. I wish MCG would have another stab at their Arcana Unearthed system, keeping the level of complexity but moving further away from main-line D&D as a base. They have the design chops and market presence to pull it off.

 

[John Dallman]

My personal projection, though, is that we'll eventually see a schism between pen-and-paper TTRPGs and VTT RPGs. VTT RPGs already make it much easier to handle complexities like exact distance measuring and handling weight/encumberence. Eventually, someone will figure out how to capitalize on that and will make crunchy RPGs that are designed specifically for VTT play.

I see two problems with that idea:

• Gamers will resist needing a VTT, provided by some third party, to play. When a company changes its offerings, oh, look, our three-year campaign that was about to reach its climax is gone. Forever.
• People who play crunchy games usually modify them, at least a bit. The more automation in a VTT, the harder it will be to tweak the rules. That might be fixable by creating software tools specifically for expressing TTRPG rules, but that's definitely a bigger job than just implementing rules inflexibly.

 

[John Dallman]

Regarding crunchy RPGs and VTT doing the heavy lifting. Does playing in that manner scratch the itch regarding heavy crunch?

I can only speak for myself. I play a lot of GURPS, but I don't do so "because I like a lot of crunch." I seek verisimilitude, the feeling that the story is plausible terms of the characters, events and setting. I don't try to make GURPS do settings it doesn't handle readily, but there are plenty of those. In them, it gives me verisimilitude easily and naturally.

 

[TerraDave]

It has. In 2024 in fact. In hundreds and hundreds of pages.

 

[NN]

2024 5E isnt crunchy enough?

 

[Morrus]

And we should note there are lots of simple games that have high page counts because the designers and authors decided to put effort and attention into non-rules areas.

Sure. I was commenting that rules heavy game development is resource intensive but yes, people clearly write other types of material too.

 

[Fenris-77]

2024 5E isnt crunchy enough?

I think it's more chewy than crunchy.

 

[Morrus]

Gamers will resist needing a VTT, provided by some third party, to play.

Of course, some will. And some won’t. I suspect that’s why he used the word “schism”.