Can we move the discussion of what PbtA can and cannot do onto a new thread. I really like PbtA but I am subscribed to this thread to find new games that fit the topic.
What systems nicely handle more in depth, "complex" rules?
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I agree. While the original author does mention PbtA at the start of the thread, I don’t think the primary goal of this thread is to prove that PbtA is (or isn’t) deficient, but rather to explore other game systems.
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I agree on the point that for the further discussion PbtA is neglectable in terms of complexity and depth. But I have doubt that this thread is moving anywhere useful.
As far as I am concerned I have no clear understanding what this thread is about besides a sophisticated kind of complaint of PbtA being not DnD.
What are you looking for here? What requirements should a game meet for you?
We share a common concept here of “complex” in terms of “pathfinder is a complex game”. But what does the term “depth” refer to?
And what does “nicely” mean here?
I think these are all unclear terms which are too open for interpretation to produce useful results.
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Clearly he gets where I’m coming from. There is not point in endless PBTA stanning.
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It think various posters have tried. I had a go explaining why RuneQuest is my archetypal complexly game that does interesting things, but none of those posts sparked any discussion. I suspect that’s because the question of the tread is too open ended. My post on RQ answers it, but then what? I’ve answered the question. Where do we go from there?
Does a thread where we discuss all the aspects of what RuneQuest, Pathfinder, Rolemaster, etc, etc make those complex systems work well or where they struggle make sense? A thread on one of those games, with some commenters familiar with that system? Sure. We could pick it apart and see what makes it tick.
So maybe this could be a worthwhile series of threads?
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My impression is that the original point of this thread was to find games that may have many / complex rules but that work very intuitively. My definition would include games that:
- Do not require tons of rote memorization to play
- Include great indexes, player aids, etc.
- Straight-forward character creation
- Do not include many exceptions for each rule
- Possibly compartmental rules (in board game terms: a basic game with optional advanced rules)
- Any subsystem integrates well within the main game mechanics
I would love to try any games that fit these criteria for me.
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I do think that would be a worthwhile series of threads!
I also agree that these would be interesting threads
If you look what I have written some posts above
I would repeat my doubt that there is any game which fits.
The more rules you have the harder it is to stay symmetrical and consistent or even stay playable.
In order to stay playable you have to loosen the one or the other constraint.
But I am curious if anybody has something to offer which meets these requirements.
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Actually, kinda sounds like Burning Wheel. I think that hits all the points.
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Fair enough but my list would be a bit different. I figured the original list was worked through already and maybe we would have fresh input for a new list of wants in a “complex” system that still has depth.
I feel that my earlier post about Exploration of System has a lot more to say about this topic than people are giving it credit.
When I see people talking about “in depth, complex rules”, I think a very large part of it is an interest in exploring the possibilities the rules provide. A big part of that is as simple as trying out possible combinations. It is a question of exploring the possible space.
A game like Dungeon World offers relatively few mechanical/rules-based interactions (depending on the particular part of the game we’re considering, anyway). Play it unimaginatively (and I am not being dismissive here; I think that we all struggle with this), and the possible combinations and outcomes are relatively few. A group which is adept at using DW’s mechanics to reflect and interact with a vivid fiction will find much more richness in the game, but this requires certain skills and a certain discipline. Nevertheless, the contrast in experience between the former and the latter goes a long way to explain disagreements like the one in this thread: because of the “soft” tools and techniques required to play a PbtA game well, our experience will vary dramatically depending on the skills the players bring to the table: it can feel like a game with very little mechanical depth or a game rich with possibilities.
There is sort of continuum of mechanical complexity. At the far end of this continuum would be a game like Tic Tac Toe: it has so few permutations that you can try them all out and pretty quickly get bored with the game.
I think that when people are excited about “in depth, complex rules”, a big part of that is referring to the various permutations of different rules, mechanics, and outcomes. “Has this particular combination of rules applications and rolls ever come up before?” This becomes an important question to some people. “What if I try this ability against this type of enemy?” There is a certain excitement when it comes to “trying out” the various permutations, and the player interested in this aspect of gameplay will continue to be interested in this process of exploration so long as new permutations can be found and experienced.
For a simple example, consider a game where, when you use a combat spell, you roll under your “Magic” rating. If you manage this roll, you’ve defeated your enemy. It will not take many “applications” of this rule for it to cease being mechanically interesting to players. (Of course, they may love that, if it allows them to explore other forms of complexity, like the moral questions involved in deciding whether to use magic or not, if it has ethical consequences. But that’s not what this thread is asking about, I think.)
Compared to that simple rule, something like D&D might have different mechanical rules for each spell. In this case, you’ve got material to explore for a longer period of time: the lightning bolt forces a saving throw on the target, whereas the fireball means rolling a whole bunch of dice… that kind of thing. Trying different spells now has additional mechanical “interest”.
Make a new version of D&D where that fireball interacts differently with each kind of enemy you encounter, and you’ve got even more exploration room. (For a simple example, imagine a computer game where hitting an enemy with a fireball always produces a unique animation sequence, based on the type of enemy. You will experience a sort of basic excitement/joy simply from hitting enemies with the fireball, with the reward being seeing a new type of animation. You might be tempted to play the game just to see what other fireball animations are available.)
It can often be as simple as “how many different combinations or permutations of these rules/interactions are there, and have we tried them all a few times yet?”
Mechanical complexity and differentiation is not at all necessary to the enjoyment of RPGs, but it is one sort of fun that people can enjoy and find themselves interested in. For some players, this complexity isn’t interesting and worthwhile. For others, it can be replicated in other ways, and that’s where the beauty of RPGs comes in. A computer game can have animation sequences coded for a certain number of enemies, sure. But a clever and inventive GM might be able to create a new “animation sequence” every time you fire a fireball at an enemy, which would by far surpass the limited interest of the computer game version (and could, in theory, be infinite!).
Of course, all these concerns are in tension with our physical, mental, and human limitations. What about learning rules? Referencing text? Speed of play? Etc. The ideal game would have unlimited mechanical complexity/interest but be effortless to learn and apply, without requiring memorization, referencing texts, tools/physical markers, or other similar factors. This is, of course, not possible (at least not with current game design and technology).
If you think of any game that you love, chances are that you are very happy with the particular balance in strikes between complexity and playability - that is one of its best features. We all feel that way about our favourite games, even while a deeper desire for even more complexity and even more simplicity simmers continuously underneath. “Couldn’t this be even better?” You can’t help but wonder and wish and hope.
Every game is a different sort of compromise between these variables, and I, for one, encourage everyone to enjoy each game for what it has to offer, and to remain open to other forms of fun.
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I think “exploration of the system” pretty much describes a source of delight in a game. And people wanting “more depth” or “complexity” are interested in integrating that source into their game.
For me that pretty much nails it what the TO is looking for.
But the plain number of combinations is no indicator of “having more fun”. I think your example of uniqueness of animations for every new enemy breaks at the point when it becomes unpredictable for the players how the game works. Transferred back to roleplaying:
A big point about “complex roleplaying games” is that they are learnable and that there is the possibility of mastery. There are two kinds of organization of information: systematically or unsystematically. We as humans are pattern finders so that as soon as we find/understand a pattern we are able to
- reproduce the pattern
- make predictions about similar looking patterns
The more systematically organized a system seems and the more obvious these patterns are the easier it is to get grips with it.
That said, I believe “rules mastery” comes down to “make informed decisions” or simply “predictions”.
From my POV “system exploration” comes down to discovering the patterns (rules and their combinations) and make predictions about the outcome of applications of various patterns and developing a strategy. Everytime your strategy plays out, you experience satisfaction. And the better you become at discovering patterns to maximize satisfaction, the better you become in the game and the better you like the game (if you are that kind of player).
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Indeed!
If we go to the next level, which is “how does a player find joy in the game”, then other higher-level concerns come up.
One is competition, mastery, and a feeling of improvement or success. If you are invested in this aspect of the game, then having more depth to explore for strategic advantage is going to something satisfying a player is looking for.
This can be undercut by complexity if it is impossible to figure out or can’t be used to create reliable patterns for success. A highly random system, for example, may be overly frustrating to such a player.
I see “exploration” as a fairly basic concern, but in a more specific combination of game + players, concerns like competition and mastery can certainly come into play as well. It is quite natural for a player to consider all available options and to start to gauge how much of an advantage he or she can create by making the right choices during play (or, say, character creation).
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So, here is an example of a game that I feel that does “complex systems” well (Note: These systems are not, in my mind, very complex on the scale of RPG systems, but they produce interesting game-think results.)
Shinobigami (Which is, if you’re not familiar with it, thematically, World of Darkness, only with Ninjas instead of Vampires/Werewolves/etc. Mechanically it is nothing like WoD). has two major “clever” design elements. Actually, it has more than that, but the “complex” ones are:
- The skill ‘matrix’
- Combat
The skill matrix is a 6x11 grid of skills. Each column is a category, so you can loosely find skills under that heading that relate to it, though categories are quite broad so you can’t always deduce what category a skill might be in. (Invisibility is under ‘stealth’ and not ‘Sorcery’.). It’s unclear to me if skills were ordered within their columns in any particular way.
Skills are used with a roll of 2d6 vs a target number, where the target number is “Five, plus the number of spaces from the skill you are trying to use to the nearest skill you actually have.” So five, if you are using a skill you have, six if it’s adjacent, seven if it’s two steps away, etc. So far so good. Then you add some complications:
- You only get six skills. And three of them are in your Clan’s specialty category. More advanced characters may have more, but never more than 8.
- Whenever someone attacks you, your roll to defend against that attack needs to use the same skill they are attacking with. They’re attacking with Poison? Better hope you’ve got a skill somewhere near there on the chart, or your odds of a dodge are going to be pretty bad.
- Each skill category is also a Life Point – if you take damage in that Life Point, you lose access to any skills in that category. This can range from “Awful” (if it’s your Clan category and has several skills in it) to “Mostly harmless” (if it’s a category in which you don’t have any skills.)
Enter, the strategy, as you need to make sure you have the skills you need while being able to defend against your enemies. And be able to launch effective attacks on them. But they still needed to go to exception based design with a list of special moves to increase complexity here.
Combat builds upon the skill stuff mentioned above, but brings an extra quirk into play. At the start of each round of combat, each player secretly chooses their “initiative” number from 1-6 (Called their “plot”). As most of you expect, this determines who acts first. But that’s not all. Your Plot value is also:
- Your “position” on the battle map. If you’re on 6 and want to attack someone on 1, you need an attack with a range of 5 (I’m not sure there even are any.)
- The relative value of powers (“Ninpo”) you can use during that round. Each Ninpo has a cost and the total can’t exceed your Plot. This is where your exception-based design crops up, because you have all sorts of rules-modifying effects here.
- Your Fumble Value. Picked a 6 for your plot and then rolled a 6 (or lower) on your attack roll? You’ve fumbled. That attack fails and so do all other rolls you make that round. So choose high values at your peril.
So on top of the strategy inherent in skills, there’s a lot of information loaded into that simple “initiative” number.
To me, this offers an awful, awful lot of inherent “puzzle solving” with the game, but probably not enough to satisfy people who get satisfaction from combining multiple exceptions to create edge cases until you get into the Ninpo.
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Looks cool but Is this game in print? I am confused on the status of this game.
It’s available in not-quite-final form to backers and pre-orderers, with the final PDF coming “soon”.
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Just wanted to jump in and say this thread has been real helpful for me coming at these questions from a perspective of “What can players be looking for out of complex rules” or “What can the benefits of complex rules be”. Following along with the discussion has been real helpful for some of the stuff I’m working on! So thanks for having the discussion folks. 
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I think a very large part of it is an interest in exploring the possibilities the rules provide. A big part of that is as simple as trying out possible combinations . It is a question of exploring the possible space.
I would love to talk more about this, but I wonder if an in depth conversation about exploration of mechanics suits in a thread wanting purely suggestions about (roleplaying) games with depth, especially when it was drown in a “PbtA is not giving me the same thing as D&D” conversation.
Anyway, for just suggestions of games, most CCGs I played is based around this with all the card combinations available (I’m using the term CCG loosely because Dominion is an excellent example of depth/emergent complexity). But what’s important is not only the combinations the player can achieve but how the combinations and how the strategy shifts depending on the opposition/environment (the “situation”), and how the games are designed to create variations of all encounters.
From experience, I would suggest that D&D4 was sadly bad at this. After you had played a couple of different encounters, it was pretty much same same when it came to adopting to strategies. I wonder actually if any RPG out there is good at this, while card games (“CCGs”) have seamingless endless possibilities. Perhaps I’m abstracting too much when it comes to RPG but not when I’m talking about CCGs.
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Ars Magica has a ton of depth and (fun, generally!) emergent complexity. There is a core magic system that drives everything, with guidelines about how to make new spells which defines what level they are. This in and of itself is really fun, but then the game has rules for all sorts of other things…you can push the bounds of magic, you can make enchanted items, you can learn skills that this particular form of magic can’t deal with properly, and so on. On the whole it provides a very satisfying (though at times overwhelming!) sandbox.
I agree that CCGs are great at this sort of thing though. M:TG, my “cigarette” style addiction (I don’t play now, but once you’ve been addicted it’s always in you…) definitely has an incredibly interesting amount of emergent complexity (and is very hard to manage, leading to bans etc etc)
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