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I get exactly what you mean, and I've long railed against games like that. I don't have any sort of slang term I use for it, though--generally what I do is criticize games like Shadowrun for having combat that is "complicated but not actually tactical." Another way of putting it is to say that there's a difference between complexity and depth.
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Sep 26, 2017 02:50
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"overwrought"?
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Sep 26, 2017 02:51
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"bad"?
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Sep 26, 2017 03:16
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The terminology problem largely boils down to the fact that it's kinda only recently that you have games that have actual like...good rules. Because they aren't all devoted to that dumbfuck "rules as physics" bullshit thing. "It's too crunchy" makes sense when rules are mostly bad - the more rules, the worse the game is. But if crunch can be good, that scheme stops working. I personally would say it's the difference between dynamic combat and static but fiddly combat.
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Sep 26, 2017 03:23
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It also highlights that "rules light" is often used in a pretty reductive way. A lot of narrative games - which are all supposedly "rules light" - actually have as many mechanics as more old school games. This is especially true when you consider a significant amount of the crunch in those older games comes from massive gear and skill lists, and most of that is just providing the modifiers for a particular item. Apocalypse World, for example, probably has as much page space devoted to mechanics as Basic D&D. FATE or Spellbound Kingdoms have even more. Part of it though is that narrative game mechanics often aren't the same as old school mechanics. Narrative games are really math and modifier light. To go back to Apocalypse World, the MC sections are often talked about as if they're GM advice. But they're not. The majority of whats in those chapters is straight up mechanics, and if you don't use them properly, your Apocalypse World game is unlikely to run correctly. But the idea that something like the Conversation and the principles and the hard move list (which is purely narrative, no numbers or math attached at all) are mechanics is really alien to many players.
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Sep 26, 2017 03:33
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Well, you have to remember that for decades "mechanics" meant "numbers", and all the GM advice was just that: advice. When you can't accept that something can be a mechanic without having a numerical or die value attached to it, that's where you get situations like people trying to graft initiative systems onto Dungeon World.
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Sep 26, 2017 03:46
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i mean i would say that "crunch" in these games equate more to choices. spellbound kingdom definately has a lot less choices than a shadowrun (though choices that actually matter might be a different story) and i'd say ORE is definitely around the same crunch level of shadowrun but it has way more thought put into it's design
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Sep 26, 2017 05:11
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Elfgames posted:i mean i would say that "crunch" in these games equate more to choices. spellbound kingdom definately has a lot less choices than a shadowrun (though choices that actually matter might be a different story) and i'd say ORE is definitely around the same crunch level of shadowrun but it has way more thought put into it's design In fact, the reason I even brought it up is a combination of LogicNinja asking about Reign in the context of Apoc World and FATE and gradenko's query about how RuneQuest stacks up to D&D, and I've had people ask before "is Reign a crunchy game or not?" and I mean my personal opinion is yeah, it's a crunchy game...it has stats and skills, it has tiered abilities ala WoD disciplines/whatever, you have a Company management system, you have lists of magic spells, it is very much not a breezy little rules-light game the way most people think about it. But on the other hand when you compare it to a lot of other typically "crunchy" games it is a lot breezier than, say, Shadowrun or GURPS or RuneQuest or probably a number of versions of D&D. Pools never exceed 10 dice max, the skill list isn't onerous (though it could still probably use a bit of refinement), combat doesn't have a ton of tactical emphasis but it also resolves itself very quickly and cleanly, there's no hunting for stackable modifiers, no bevy of +X or -Y poo poo, magic isn't its own minigame subsystem, wealth is abstracted, there isn't really much in the way of gear porn, there's no intricate ability trees ala Exalted, etc. So it just kind of stuck out at me, not for the first time, that the shorthand language we use for discussing and describing a game's various qualities in many ways still leaves a lot to be desired.
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Sep 26, 2017 05:52
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The biggest difference to me always seemed whether the game design more rewarded situational play or prep-work. Situational games favor what amounts to a more realtime experience. In something like 4e, each player has a specific role in an encounter and your best move often involved direct, mechanical cooperation with another player. It requires a lot of situational awareness: paying attention to other players' actions, everyone's positioning, etc. It rewards at-table player skill. Prepwork games...don't. You can  an objective best build, spell list, combo, etc, and you're pretty much set. It rewards off-table player skill - A well prepared character will always outperform the poorly designed character. You can net-deck an optimized character, tune-out between turns, and still outdo a better player because they're playing the wrong game.It's like difference between deckbuilding a CCG vs the actual playing. One rewards pre-playing, the other rewards realtime play.
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Sep 26, 2017 06:51
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moths posted:The biggest difference to me always seemed whether the game design more rewarded situational play or prep-work. That's actually a real good way of breaking things down, thanks.
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Sep 26, 2017 06:58
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The thing about "prepwork" games is that they're almost never designed with that intent - it's usually the result of sloppy design. Ironically, though, these games can build loyalty because they literally reward investment. The more time you put into them, the better you get at the game, which I imagine why some d20 players come to think of getting into a new system as some tremendous onus. They think they'll have to reinvest time and effort like they have with d20 all over again.
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Sep 26, 2017 11:25
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Elfgames posted:i mean i would say that "crunch" in these games equate more to choices. spellbound kingdom definately has a lot less choices than a shadowrun (though choices that actually matter might be a different story) and i'd say ORE is definitely around the same crunch level of shadowrun but it has way more thought put into it's design
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Sep 26, 2017 13:51
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To be fair, there was a lot of "Netdecking" with 4e character building, it's just that you also then had to know how to use the character in actual play.
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Sep 26, 2017 15:06
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moths posted:It's like difference between deckbuilding a CCG vs the actual playing. One rewards pre-playing, the other rewards realtime play. It's kind of a weak analogy, because a good CCG has in-depth deckbuilding and in-depth strategy.
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Sep 26, 2017 15:22
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attempts to explain the failures of modern TTRPGs by comparison to other current games is usually doomed because they tend to fail in so many different ways at once in a way that is uniquely bad, because modernizing them is heresy.
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Sep 26, 2017 16:25
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4e is a rocky example because it was so divisive, but I think it might be the best illustration. A lot of players with a background in prepwork style games were upset that there were restrictive mechanics explicitly designed to thwart repetitive play. You couldn't just have a good move and do it every turn, and your "best move" was artificially restricted to once / day. And most of those moves required coordination with other players to be used effectively. So you had players who were "really good at D&D" flat out sucking at D&D because they were trying to ram ten years of square pegs into a brand new round hole. Plus there was the "tyranny of balance," where it largely didn't matter how you built a character - because most of your choices were in the same ballpark. If your fun from gaming is mostly played away from the table, there's just not much for you. Tl;dr 4e confronted prep-style players with mechanics deliberately contrary to that style of play. Tuxedo Catfish posted:It's kind of a weak analogy, because a good CCG has in-depth deckbuilding and in-depth strategy. True, but the aspects of in-game vs out-game play is similar. Contemplating card combos is roughly the same "play" as reading PHB spells for loopholes, but an RPG more strongly rewards out-game play. You can't auto-pilot to top 8 with any deck, but you can achieve consistent results in an RPG.
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Sep 26, 2017 16:43
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moths posted:4e is a rocky example because it was so divisive, but I think it might be the best illustration. A lot of players with a background in prepwork style games were upset that there were restrictive mechanics explicitly designed to thwart repetitive play. 
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Sep 26, 2017 17:31
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I mean, the way people talk about 4E charop I'm fairly confident that (by this very late stage in the game's life, anyways) there's an adequate amount of space for character-building-as-skill. Even just using the core book some classes present a fair amount of choices in terms of how you can, for example, make a totally vanilla base Cleric who focuses on either range or melee, healing or smiting; these aren't choices that impact performance so much as playstyle but, frankly, that's ideal. Some other classes were really bland and customizing them meant either picking from nearly indistinguishable rider effects on your attacks (looking at you, Warlock) or going in deep on multiclassing feats and poo poo but with the number of expansions we have now and the resources available for you to look up non-obvious customization options if you can't identify them completely on your own, it's much less of an issue now.
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Sep 26, 2017 17:55
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I'm honestly not sure Runequest fits in that analogy on the prep-side of things because a big chunk of -how- your character improves is determined by things that happen in play. Like, skills advance based on you using them with experience rolls, or by spending money on training them. (Money you get as rewards for adventuring) So it's more a feedback loop. Like, 'build advice' would basically be "Join a cult that matches what you want to do in play and gives a discount on training those skills"
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Sep 26, 2017 18:07
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moths posted:4e is a rocky example because it was so divisive, but I think it might be the best illustration. A lot of players with a background in prepwork style games were upset that there were restrictive mechanics explicitly designed to thwart repetitive play. This is probably the absolute best codification of why I didn't like 4e. Thank you! I seriously have been trying for years to figure out what exactly the problem was with me toward the game. It is the fact that so much is taken away from the 'prep' section of a gaming session...the time before the session even starts actually. I started out as a wargamer in the mid-70s and that prep-style mindset has continued on to this day.
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Sep 26, 2017 20:39
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i too love needless homework
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Sep 26, 2017 20:43
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Humbug Scoolbus posted:This is probably the absolute best codification of why I didn't like 4e. Thank you! I seriously have been trying for years to figure out what exactly the problem was with me toward the game. It is the fact that so much is taken away from the 'prep' section of a gaming session...the time before the session even starts actually. I started out as a wargamer in the mid-70s and that prep-style mindset has continued on to this day. There's a bunch of number stacking prep you can do in 4E if you really want you know, there was a very active charop scene before WotC decided to shitcan their forums. Like it's fine if you don't like 4E but "there weren't any numbers you could stack/feats you could cherrypick to do dumb bullshit" is flatly not true. It is genuinely amazing to me to this day how much "fake news" about 4E has so thoroughly permeated the discourse surrounding it to the point that I wonder how much people actually understand about 4E-the-game-that-exists as opposed to 4E-the-game-that-exists-in-their-head-and-angry-blogposts. The thing about 4E is that engaging with the number stacking charop crunch side of things wasn't mandatory. You could do it, but you could also just ignore it and pick whatever seemed cool, and there was very little chance of you being useless deadweight compared to the guy who'd spent two hours laboriously doing his elfgame taxes.
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Sep 26, 2017 20:51
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Seriously, look at this poo poo. You have to go through the Wayback Machine to find any of it anymore thanks to WotC but there was a charop forum full of this stuff.
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Sep 26, 2017 21:01
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It wasn't just numbers though. Think of our buffs worked in both 4e and 3e. Think about status protection spells. Etc, etc, etc. D&D has long been about fights that are done before you even get into the fight. It's what save or die monsters ensured.
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Sep 26, 2017 21:06
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this lineage continued all the way into Path of Exile / Diablo games, where the entire point is to optimize your build such that you think as little as possible while playing to acquire as much loot as possible, with the real work being character optimization that you do while you'r enot actually fighting.
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Sep 26, 2017 21:18
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I started to think about the gear lists in 4e and now my eye won't stop twitching.
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Sep 26, 2017 21:20
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Kai Tave posted:There's a bunch of number stacking prep you can do in 4E if you really want you know, there was a very active charop scene before WotC decided to shitcan their forums. Like it's fine if you don't like 4E but "there weren't any numbers you could stack/feats you could cherrypick to do dumb bullshit" is flatly not true. It is genuinely amazing to me to this day how much "fake news" about 4E has so thoroughly permeated the discourse surrounding it to the point that I wonder how much people actually understand about 4E-the-game-that-exists as opposed to 4E-the-game-that-exists-in-their-head-and-angry-blogposts. Frankly the idea that 4E took away the before/between session prep from D&D is laughable. It took out a lot of busy work, but 4E is still a pretty major time investment for the DM in terms of prep, and if anything making characters took longer in 4E than 3.x. To be honest I think the complaint here isn't about away-from-the-table interaction. Because if it was, it takes only a cursory examination of 4E to see there's plenty to play with there. What it's about is system mastery. You can't win 4E before you reach the table. There isn't an answer, one specific build that's better than the others. Bluntly, that seems to be the problem. Spending that time on a character away from the table won't make your character significantly more powerful than the player who auto-picked their powers, and that seems to really bother some players.
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Sep 26, 2017 21:26
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D&D is the original f2p whale game except you spend your time instead of your money. just like modern f2p games, this favors people who have enough time to blow on this kind of thing over others.
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Sep 26, 2017 21:39
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Of course, a lot of it also boils down to 4e being a game, not a character sheet simulator, which is what 3.x turned into.
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Sep 26, 2017 21:44
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Serf posted:i too love needless homework this attitude is dumb as hell, charop is fun especially in a system where options are balanced enough that it's more about tweaking it to fit your playstyle than finding the one thing that breaks everything
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Sep 26, 2017 22:09
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:this attitude is dumb as hell, charop is fun I used to think charop was fun when I was like 16 and the allure of adding stacks of numbers and selecting one of a dozen identical guns still had that new car smell to it. These days while I've accepted the fact that I'm basically an enormous waste of a human being I still value my time more than to want to repeat, say, the last time I made a Shadowrun character and it took me an accumulated five hours to do so.
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Sep 26, 2017 22:29
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Lots of options are fun. Lots of suboptimal ones and a small handful of good ones aren't.
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Sep 26, 2017 22:33
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Kai Tave posted:I used to think charop was fun when I was like 16 and the allure of adding stacks of numbers and selecting one of a dozen identical guns still had that new car smell to it. These days while I've accepted the fact that I'm basically an enormous waste of a human being I still value my time more than to want to repeat, say, the last time I made a Shadowrun character and it took me an accumulated five hours to do so. Lightning Lord posted:Lots of options are fun. Lots of suboptimal ones and a small handful of good ones aren't. It's not even necessarily "lots of options" it's just that the exact same reasoning that applies to making tactical combat fun also applies to character building -- you want meaningful options, where each choice makes a significant difference and isn't a no-brainer.
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Sep 26, 2017 22:35
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This poo poo would be more fun if your character was more mutable after creation. Doing 3 hours of mechanical character design over the course of 5 sessions, with more knowledge of the game context, is a lot more fun (IMO) than making 3 hours of decisions you have to live with for the next year of gaming. The latter with incomplete information about the game, if not also the game system.
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Sep 26, 2017 22:37
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:It's not even necessarily "lots of options" it's just that the exact same reasoning that applies to making tactical combat fun also applies to character building -- you want meaningful options, where each choice makes a significant difference and isn't a no-brainer. No I get that, I'm just no longer as enamored by games that hang a large part of their engagement/entertainment value on "playing the game when you're not playing the game." A certain degree of that, sure, that's what keeps people coming back to play, say, Kemet in part, being able to go "man next time I should draft red and white tiles and go for a huge casualty strategy, also I want to ride the giant scorpion," but the thing I've noted about games like Kemet is that because the options it presents you are all generally meaningful and impactful, because it's not a huge list of bullshit you have to go sifting through to find the few actual good pieces buried in the Lego bin, it turns out that there's less of an impetus to sit down and obsess over that stuff because your ability to do well at the game doesn't depend on it.
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Sep 26, 2017 22:39
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There's also the problem of prerequisites. We just finished a Pathfinder campaign and although the ending was pretty great, two players were upset that it ended at level 14, just one level before they would get the feat that would cap their build. That said I'm surprised at some of the 4e comments as I seem to recall that in play it was dominated by EAD.
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Sep 26, 2017 22:39
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Subjunctive posted:This poo poo would be more fun if your character was more mutable after creation. Doing 3 hours of mechanical character design over the course of 5 sessions, with more knowledge of the game context, is a lot more fun (IMO) than making 3 hours of decisions you have to live with for the next year of gaming. The latter with incomplete information about the game, if not also the game system. Yeah part of this is I have an extremely permissive attitude towards respecs as a GM. My background is from playing games where if your character died you went "welp, time to make a new guy with whatever concept excited me but wasn't #1 last time!" and even if I'm running more long-term stuff I'm probably going to say "as long as you come talk to me about it I'm probably gonna say yes, especially if it's something you weren't sure about and wanted to experiment with in the first place."
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Sep 26, 2017 22:45
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also I'd probably play an RPG where you drafted character abilities, that's the kind of randomness i can get behind
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Sep 26, 2017 22:46
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Drafted character abilities would be a perfect fit for Paranoia.
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Sep 26, 2017 22:51
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Let me tell y'all the good word on Last Stand, the game where you literally draft your character's abilities.
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Sep 26, 2017 22:52
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