I’ll give a few samples from the study about Content (information you have to keep in mind or at hand, like stat, table, diagram, special case, etc.), Crunch (operation you have to make to process the information) and Steps (actions that will require time no matter what : rolling for attack, rolling for defense, apply armor, apply damage, etc.) :
Reve de Dragon 2ed
- Brawl : 5 Contents 6 Crunches 5 Steps
- Action : 10 Contents 7 Crunches 5 Steps
- Ranged combat : 12 Contents 13 Crunches 9 Steps
- Mele : 28 Contents 14 Crunches 9 Steps
- Magic : difficult to count (cascading consequences) typically around 30 Contents 30+ Crunches 30 Steps
Wild Talents :
- Action : 5 Contents 9 Crunches 5 Steps
- Combat : 31 Contents 20 Crunches 10 Steps
Burning Wheel :
- Action : 79 Contents 34 Crunches 15 Steps
Otherkind :
- Action : 6 Contents 7 Crunches 6 Steps
Observations :
- The first two games are heavily from the wargame bloodline. Their bulkiest feature is roll for attack / roll for defense. Contrasting this with their lack of narrative structure, it’s like the game punishes the players (not the characters) when it manages to lure them into an hours long combat tunnel.
- RdDr Brawl rules (skill contest in a tie break) look good !
- Wild Talents is not upfront about its complexity : the Combat page is like, one page : declare, roll, resolve, when in fact a lot of procedures drip page by page after that, that are simply necessary to process a combat.
- Burning Wheel is wired on its reward system at. every. step. and creates cases and exceptions on purpose, to trick the innocent noobs. Look at the numbers and tell me it’s not too much.
- Otherkind is so light it falls upward. Also, all of its content is generated by the players. Compared to the “long metal pipe” combat, this seems like a “cable octopuss”, much like PbtA moves. Rolling first and narrating according to the result just isn’t for everybody.
Observations on the study so far :
Numbers are approximations but scale differences are solid. The chosen units “count easy”, without any of the difficulties I expected for special maneuvers and modifiers.
Content seems proportional to Crunch. So, maybe the difference is significant for other parts of the rules (I am thinking character / situation creation).
Wargames get a “Content Factor” around x2 for “Martial maneuvers”. It’s striking none of the two games did propose noobs to start small with “actions”, then to add “combat”, then finally “optional rules : combat maneuvers”.
I didn’t measure fictional output, because I realized every crunch produces an output, if only a soccer match commentary : “nope, this one doesn’t get through the armor”.
What could be significant wrt the Rules heavy / lite tagging of games is the amount of Structure. But that requires a scale to measure.