#RPGaday topic 24: Most Complicated RPG Owned

[Mailanka]

I don't disagree with Brett's point about GURPS complexity. Indeed, it's often what draws me to the game (and I dislike people saying that GURPS is "simple." With games like Dungeon World or Lady Blackbird out there, "simple" games are out there, and if someone really doesn't want to play in a game full of the rigorous and nuanced detail that is honestly GURPS' selling point, they shouldn't have to), but just to be different, I'm going to cite Legends of the Wulin instead.

Legends of the Wulin has a ridiculously awesome dice mechanic that will have players spending several minutes picking over their dice to decide what their character does, which results in complex and dynamic fight scenes of flowing chi conditions (all of which have their own little rules) and interacting fighting styles (which have their own little rules) set in a larger landscape of societies and nations (all of which have their own little rules). It's combat-crunch heaven, and it was so unwieldy in the hands of some players that my campaign fell apart. But with enough training and patience, I think a group could bite down on that amazing gobstopper of a game system and get to its gooey heart of kung-fu goodness.

[whswhs]

I find it really hard to think about this. I'm not sure what a proper measure of "complexity" is. I'm wanting to say that a game is "complex" if I find it hard to figure out and unwieldy to run. But by that standard, arguably Chainmail is the most complex game I still own!

It seems to me that the early generation games characteristically had a bunch of ad hoc rules for different types of encounter and conflict, with no attempt at a unifying mechanic. Take a look even at Greyhawk-era D&D, with its universal combat matrix for fighting, but its saving throws for spell effects, and its percentage chances of success for thief skills. Or Superhero 2044, which had contests of Stamina or Ego for melee and mental combat, but a different dice mechanic for projectile and transformation attacks, and percentage chances of success for Charisma. But even those early games don't compare with the huge array of subsystems in Chainmail.

By comparison with that sort of thing, RuneQuest and Champions and GURPS all represent major simplifications. The complexity, which can get huge, is built on top of a unified foundation.

Bill Stoddard

[dcarson]

Aftermath is pretty complex. Character generation has stats, derived stats, a multi step process for what skills you have. It takes a while to get a character despite not having choices in much of it. And improving those skills has two different processes that often mean making a bunch of rolls and nothing happening.

I may be misremembering some, been a while since i played it but I think I'm close.

[PK]

Exalted.

Dear lord, Exalted. By a long shot. The dice-pool mechanic is simple in theory, until you start getting into charms. And the combat system is enough to make a person cry.

I'm really hoping that 3rd Edition fixes some of its problems, because it's a great setting and -- even with the terrible system -- it's really fun to play. It would just be nice to have a system that adds to the fun, rather than one that detracts from it so horribly.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by PK

I'm really hoping that 3rd Edition fixes some of its problems, because it's a great setting and -- even with the terrible system -- it's really fun to play. It would just be nice to have a system that adds to the fun, rather than one that detracts from it so horribly.

The story of Exalted was a big element in the backstory of my campaign Manse, though I assumed a much more total disintegration of the cosmos than Manse hinted at. But I was running Manse in BESM 2/e, which let me put together some quite workable customized magic systems for the Houses of Darkness, Glass, Life, Light, and Truth.

I wanted to run a campaign in Exalted for a long time, but I was never able to sell my players on it. So I can't judge its complexity.

Bill Stoddard

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by PK

Exalted.

Dear lord, Exalted. By a long shot. The dice-pool mechanic is simple in theory, until you start getting into charms. And the combat system is enough to make a person cry.

I'm really hoping that 3rd Edition fixes some of its problems, because it's a great setting and -- even with the terrible system -- it's really fun to play. It would just be nice to have a system that adds to the fun, rather than one that detracts from it so horribly.

I don't know much about it, but the scuttlebutt makes it sound something like Nobilis. Fair comparison?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Not another shrubbery

I don't know much about it, but the scuttlebutt makes it sound something like Nobilis. Fair comparison?

Ruleswise, not remotely. Nobilis is a lot more like Amber Diceless than any other game I've seen. Exalted is like a more baroque, or maybe rococo, version of any three World of Darkness games you like, rolled into one, but in the key of Clark Ashton Smith.

Bill Stoddard

[panton41]

The Rolemaster system from Iron Crown Enterprises. Everything, and I mean everything, is a chart. Combat is chart upon chart upon chart of effects and they don't use anything remotely like hit points, no, you have to follow chart upon chart upon chart to see how someone was injured. I swear the core book of Cyberspace would have been 50 pages if they took out all of the charts.

[AOTA]

Have to agree with Living Steel also. Great world, but overly complex system.

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Ruleswise, not remotely. Nobilis is a lot more like Amber Diceless than any other game I've seen. Exalted is like a more baroque, or maybe rococo, version of any three World of Darkness games you like, rolled into one, but in the key of Clark Ashton Smith.

I don't understand the artistic allusions. Do you mean the rules of Exalted are like a mashup of several WoD books?

I had gathered that Exalted characters were the same sort of minor deities that I associate with Nobilis.