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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 9693913" data-attributes="member: 22779">I know this sounds snarky but what exactly do we mean by complex vs simple?To me, rules complexity is defined by the number of places where rules need to be applied in order to resolve the task. Adnd combat is a great example. You need to go through about ten or so steps to resolve each character’s action in combat. Initiative, weapon vs armor, number of attackers vs a defender, terrain effects, ranged vs melee, space requirements, etc. Granted we probably skipped most of those back in the day. But that kinda proves the point. We skip the steps because they are too complicated. Sticking with DnD, 4e combat quickly became very complex. Each combatant could impose status effects of varying durations nearly every round. Very hard to track. It’s largely why 5e backed away from that model in a big way. One thing newer games I think are leaning heavily on is putting complexity in the player’s hands. Take the finesse example. The dm doesn’t need to know anything about finesse. The player needs to know that. So the cognitive load on the dm gets reduced by spreading it out among the group.</blockquote>