When will autistic, highly detailed and complex games come back in style?

When will autistic, highly detailed and complex games come back in style?

  1. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    When SJG finally gets around to caring about GURPS as more than a side project and millstone fo the company.
    Rolemaster's problem was that it as trying to do what a videogame does but by hand. Now a videogame can store and calculate all the numbers, there is no need for the tabletop game. Though Rolemaster would make for a good videogame engine.

    • 4 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >When SJG finally gets around to caring about GURPS
      ... so never?
      Munchikn makes them literally thirty times more money than ALL GURPS books combined

    • 4 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >When SJG finally gets around to caring about GURPS
      ... so never?
      Munchikn makes them literally thirty times more money than ALL GURPS books combined

      I honestly prefer gurps being a passion project just maintained for the sake of being, trying to compete in the current market climate only leads to casualisation which defeats the initial premise of having a detailed rich and granular rulesystem.
      >Inb4 but that isn't sustainable
      Who cares, it's a fucking game with already limitless content, enough for decades of games, gurps may die tomorrow and we wouldn't even notice.

    • 4 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      back in the AOL days there was a MUD (evidently, still running!) with mechanics closely based on Rolemaster; it was pretty okay. But I would be very curious to see how the system could be adapted to an Infinity-Engine-style pseudo-realtime game.

      • 4 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        Which MUD?

        • 4 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          Gemstone III/IV

    • 4 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >Rolemaster's problem was that it as trying to do what a videogame does but by hand. Now a videogame can store and calculate all the numbers, there is no need for the tabletop game.
      But games don't do that. No game tries to simulate such a large number of things with a consistent set of mechanics. Games having their rules "hidden" from the player results in them always having inconsistent non-simulationnist approach. There are a few exceptions (all those games like dwarf fortress) but it's very marginal.
      Anyway, the presence of the DM changes everything. In such a simulationnist approach, he sets up the situations in which the rules are followed with an eye to reality. Games can't do that. Games can never be as committed to realism as TTRPGs, unironically.
      Games certainly aren't the reason this playstyle went out of favour. IMO it went out of favour because people just plain dislike heavy rules nowadays, even in tabletop games with no focus on realism or anything. It required something like the committed crowd of wargames of old.

      • 4 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        >inb4 Rolemaster isn't consistent
        It is. It's got a lot of tables, but it's more consistent in its rules than any video game will ever be. Video games *actually* are nothing but subsystems on top of subsystems, even most video game RPGs.

      • 4 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        Simulationism isn't real in the context of D&D.

        • 4 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          I'm not talking about D&D. I'm not saying every game can be simulationist just thanks to the DM having that approach. I'm saying such a DM is necessary for the word to even make sense.

          • 4 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            >I'm not talking about D&D
            >DM

            Because they see a random result from a defined system as fair, and GM fiat as arbitrary.

            Why have a GM if you don't trust them to be fair?

            • 4 weeks ago
              Anonymous

              >trolling lamely
              >guaranteed response
              Fuck off, moron.

              • 4 weeks ago
                Anonymous

                I don't understand what you're upset about.

  2. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    >he cares about style over substance
    Hopefully never, just to spite you specifically.

  3. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    People are still making them, but they don't gain traction out of small, niche communities that don't generally faff about on twitter and usually aren't too fond of rpgnet's particular brand of homosexualry.

  4. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Fuck style - style is set by mindless consumers and the greedy manipulative twats trying to sell them things. If you want to play a highly detailed and complex game, just fucking do it.

  5. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Hold on Anon, let me consult the Oracles of Delphi for you.

  6. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Back in style? Probably never.
    It's too late for "Rules as written" niggas to argue about the action economy every round of combat for 15 to 30 minutes straight every time it's their turn.
    Most GMs nowadays don't want to run rules autism games.

  7. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    >complex
    >back in style
    As long as the masses have access to internet and social media at the palm of their hands; never. Everyone's brains have been fried by dopamine.

    • 4 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      Not you though! You're different and better and so above it all! This post on Ganker proves it!

      • 4 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        Oh yeah you show him sis! That anon sure got knocked down a peg thanks to your off topic post! Thanks for defending the masses brother rock on free wheeler - posted from my DnD Beyond Premium account

        • 4 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          Posting slop isn't looking good for the purity spiral you're so proud of being on anon! Globohomo tranny slopper, opinion disregarded!

          • 4 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            Okay dude Im sure the homosexual you late replied to 3 days later is really going to be spurned by your awesome post, glad your dopamine receptors are already too burnt out to engage in meanigful discussion.

  8. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    never because they take up alot of time (unless you have an extremely experienced GM, even then it takes a while) to do inane stuff that doesn't even relate to your characters doing anything, just resolving what happens/looking up rules. On top of that, getting anyone into it is a nightmare, and even if you yourself are familiar with the system you will slip up eventually. people dont want to wrestle with rules just to run a fun game.
    t. several years of shadowrun exp.

    • 4 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >Rolemaster
      >complex

      >Shadowrun
      >complex
      Uhhhh, I think the problem might be the people playing the games.

  9. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Has anyone checked the new edition?

    • 4 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      Didn't know it existed but I have been playing Lightmaster of late. Pretty nifty since it's far more compatible with OSR than the later

  10. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    I bought a used copy of Runequest 3rd box set and while complete it came with a random copy of Spell Law inside. Is this shit even compatible with Runequest?

  11. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    I feel like there is a niche for a quasi-videogame system which still relies on a player and GM but is a program which calculates all the tedious crunch in a few seconds instead of rolling a bunch for it. You all sit down on your computers and enter voice chat and GM something like this but all the pain in the ass rolling is done really quickly making the game bearable.

    >then why not make it a full videogame

    videogames don't yet have the capacity to replicate the narrative dynamicism of a good GM.

  12. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Thank you for posting this thread.
    I never knew about Rolemaster.
    It's delightfully crunchy. Each page is another complicated subsystem.

    • 4 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      But it ain't, it's just checking tables. Annoying, but not a crunchy system

      • 4 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        Whats a crunchy Fantasy rpg then?

        • 4 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          Hero System 6e

          Doesn't get any crunchier than this for anything

          • 4 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            Copy that Anon,
            thank you will go have a look.

        • 4 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          Crunchy as in "crunching numbers", doing a lot of calculations. Big examples would be Adventures in Fantasy, Powers & Perils, Dragonquest, GURPS

  13. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Probably never. They're bears to prep as a GM.

  14. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    I genuinely cannot think of anything more autistic and overly detailed than WotC D&D.
    I went back and started reading the pre-3.5 RPG books I played and they all felt like rules-light systems.
    I'm convinced that 90% of the reason people won't try systems other than 5e is because it's fucking horrendous to learn and people don't want to go through that experience again.

    • 4 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      Nailed it in one.

  15. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    They were never in style to begin with. There was never a massive appeal even among the TTRPG community for super autistic bullshit. There were some fans of the complex systems, but they were a minority of a minority. EVEN THEN those games were liked because of the settings more than the mechanics.

    • 4 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      This

      I genuinely cannot think of anything more autistic and overly detailed than WotC D&D.
      I went back and started reading the pre-3.5 RPG books I played and they all felt like rules-light systems.
      I'm convinced that 90% of the reason people won't try systems other than 5e is because it's fucking horrendous to learn and people don't want to go through that experience again.

      And this

      3e was both crunchy and unintuitive. A simulationist approach can be alright if it offloads the complexity into a bunch of tables.

      Rules that are both complex and abstracted from any kind of realistic simulation are unbearable.
      >tfw you need a chain of feats that's only attainable by 8th level to reliably knock an enemy prone
      >it's still worse than just standing there and rolling full attack

      Honestly astonishing that it was as popular as it was. From what I could see, most groups simply ignored half the rules and rolled skill checks for everything.

      • 4 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        >Honestly astonishing that it was as popular as it was.
        Because
        >most groups simply ignored half the rules
        is the way most systems before it were actually played.

      • 4 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        >Rules that are both complex and abstracted from any kind of realistic simulation are unbearable.
        Yeah that's the biggest sin of 3.PF: awful return on your investment of time and effort. Complexity is a price I am happy to pay if what I get in return is a decent system with a lot of interesting details I can work with. GURPS is only about as complex as 3.PF, but it does so much more with that complexity, giving you a lot of freedom in how you make characters, a boatload of tactical options, a ton of optional subsystems to fine-tune your campaign, and other things that make the game fun and engaging. People are terrified of complexity when what they should be avoiding is *wasted* complexity.

        Putting in the legwork to learn a complicated system just to play D&D is like blowing $25 on a fast food combo. $25 isn't an unreasonable price for a nice dinner at a good restaurant, but people will blow that much on a reheated burger and a flat soda and think "what a ripoff, I'll never pay that much for anything ever again!"

      • 4 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        3e poisoned a generation of tabletop gamers who now suffer from a terrible form of baby duck syndrome

        • 4 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          Could you expand on what baby duck syndrome is?
          Sorry if this is easy to Google.

          • 4 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprinting_(psychology)#Baby_duck_syndrome

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        The most amusing thing about your post is that sending enemies Prone is the most popular from-level-one strategy for the Fighter not focusing on DPR.

        Though the combination of arbitrary (we demean "realistic" as "The Guy At The Gym" for a reason) complexity IS quite a bother to play.

        >Rules that are both complex and abstracted from any kind of realistic simulation are unbearable.
        Yeah that's the biggest sin of 3.PF: awful return on your investment of time and effort. Complexity is a price I am happy to pay if what I get in return is a decent system with a lot of interesting details I can work with. GURPS is only about as complex as 3.PF, but it does so much more with that complexity, giving you a lot of freedom in how you make characters, a boatload of tactical options, a ton of optional subsystems to fine-tune your campaign, and other things that make the game fun and engaging. People are terrified of complexity when what they should be avoiding is *wasted* complexity.

        Putting in the legwork to learn a complicated system just to play D&D is like blowing $25 on a fast food combo. $25 isn't an unreasonable price for a nice dinner at a good restaurant, but people will blow that much on a reheated burger and a flat soda and think "what a ripoff, I'll never pay that much for anything ever again!"

        You can get quite a lot of breadth out of 3.5 with a lot less DM building work, but it's got a lot more jagged and hard edges to that breadth than similarly curated GURPS, and expanding quickly turns into "personal shitbrew/heartbreakrt system" with how dependencies spiral.

        One bit I've thought of to clean up 3.5 style complexity is basically inverting the Normal section, where the oddly-specific rule is printed as a general option with the feat investment to do it WELL under it.

        Never. The reign of the slow burn has ended. Now is the time of 10 secound tic tocs and aderal. The world had barely the attention span of a goldfish, how would it support the delayed gratification of a complex system?

        It could be managed with a very tight step-by-step resolution, I suppose, keeping things moving by staging the resolution. Would lend itself to high reactivity by nature, but kinda require high lethality.

  16. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    I always been a huge fan of Rolemaster critical table though Inever felt much inclined to play it. The closest thing I can think of was Critonomicon for 3.x

    • 3 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      >Critonomicon
      Anyone has the original for 3.x?

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        I have but it's a low quality scan (52MB from a photocopy) and AFAIK that reborn pdf is the exact same thing just with the AC values slightly changed.

        • 3 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          in the 5e version i see staff like advantage/disadvantage. Reactions and lots of ability checks.
          did some searching, found it with the link listed here, if anyone else wants
          https://pdfcoffee.com/da-archive-2020-08-04a-pdf-free.html

  17. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Probably never. The trend has been towards ease of use for at least a decade and I don't see that changing. Crunchy games just become video games nowadays.

  18. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    I’m in love with that art, it really evokes the feeling of adventure and intrigue, as well as scale

  19. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    None of you plebs here on this thread are even ready for the convoluted, crunchy as corn flakes game system I got brewing up......heh.heh...

    • 4 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      surely though if I'm swinging right handed I don't have an equal chance to hit the left and right eye

      • 4 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        rekt chekt & kekd

        None of you plebs here on this thread are even ready for the convoluted, crunchy as corn flakes game system I got brewing up......heh.heh...

        Back to the drawing board, Mr Casual

  20. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    >When will autistic, highly detailed and complex games come back in style?
    Call of Cthulhu is the second most popular TTRPG in the world. They never left.

    • 4 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      In what world is Call of Cthulhu a complex game?

  21. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    I will dump all of the alternative Rolemaster combat systems since I like it but not the extensive list for each weapon.

  22. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous
  23. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous
  24. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous
  25. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous
  26. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous
  27. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous
  28. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous
  29. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    When you look around do you see the population of complex, intelligent autists increasing? Or do you see an endless horizon of double digit IQ mongrel smoothbrains? There's your answer.

  30. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous
  31. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous
  32. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    When the zoomies develop attention spans beyond 30 seconds.

    So never.

    • 4 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      If I taught myself GURPS, anything is possible. Now keep quiet, old man.

      I'm happy RPGs are reaching a wider audience. It's especially crucial, in an era when video games are eating up most people's time. Unfortunately, while there'll always be niches for new, crunchy games - just look at Lancer and Burning Wheel - I don't see the trend reversing any time soon.

      As far as my (admittedly small) circle is concerned, if people want detailed mechanics, these days they'd rather get it from a video game. To them, RPGs are less about the simulation of tactical combat, and more about the freedom to weave a story the table will enjoy. The addition of crunch ought to create a loose superstructure that flavors the resulting narrative.

      Plus like, games such as GURPS are a fucking hassle to prep, if you don't like building stuff.

      • 4 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        Understandable I guess the thing is with a very detailed game with tables for most anything there are great solo opportunities too.

  33. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Any systems that have a Injury / healing style similar to the Bone, blood, etc of Rolemaster?

    Healing refilling a HP number is too boring at this point in my life.

    • 4 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      Rolemaster chads please, I want to injure my player's characters. Arm me.
      I'm reading and integrating Rolemaster stuff but any more good stuff like it?

      • 4 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        Not that I have ever found, no.

  34. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    One of the nicest dudes I know is a Hackmaster player. He really leads with that game and bought copies for a lot of his players.

    That being said I am first and foremost a rank and flank wargamer and it's all Greek to me.

  35. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    [...]

    They're still around, but they're niche by design. Popular things invariably get normified.

  36. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    What are the benefits of an autistic and complex system?

    • 4 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      Generating precise results (eg: simulating a specific narrative/genre) in an emergent way.

      • 4 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        What benefit does that provide over the GM simply making a ruling?

        • 4 weeks ago
          Anonymous

          That is emergent. Sometimes is fun to see the world spontaneously manifest generating then a narrative through the referee interpretation, it makes the gm sort of a explorer of the world just as much as the players.

          • 4 weeks ago
            Anonymous

            Can you give an example of what you mean?

            • 4 weeks ago
              Anonymous

              Sure, lets take rolemaster to remain on topic with this thread: the game is designed in order to reproduce a set of expected results in combat (various detailed degrees of wounding, effects like losing balance, being pushed, disarmed, armor breaking, etc...) that, while generated through rng procedure, are ment to emulate a specific narrative (the verisimilitude of combat). So having your character being ripped off his shield by a violent blow and being pushed back and stunned for a round as consequence of a roll puts both the GM and the player in an unforeseen scenario that in, for example, d&d you may get only through an intentional effort (eg: the enemy use a sunder attack to get rid of the character shield) and only partially having the rest being only colorful but meaningless descriptions the gm may or may not pull.

              • 4 weeks ago
                Anonymous

                Why should the players care whether an event is the result of RNG or whether it's the result of GM fiat?

              • 4 weeks ago
                Anonymous

                They don't by themselves, the emergent aspect is fun because takes BOTH the GM and Players by surprise, as in it pushes them to "explore" the world together, because neither of them, while expeting things revolving around what the rulesystem is designed to portray, know for sure what configuration any scenario may take or twist into.

              • 4 weeks ago
                Anonymous

                Is the extra book-keeping for the GM outweighed by the thrill of uncertainty?

              • 4 weeks ago
                Anonymous

                In the rolemaster case there isn't that difference in book keeping with other games like d&d, sure you have to consult tables, but you can solve this by sharing part of them with the players (for example you may give the players a copy of the weapon table their character uses), so it's just an issue of understanding the rulesystem enough to handle it smartly so, ultimately, the initial effort is met with the appropriate reward (assuming, of course, the gm is invested enough to thought the whole process to begin with).

              • 4 weeks ago
                Anonymous

                Fair enough. I make heavy use of random tables outside of combat for the same reason. In-combat the unpredictability comes from my players, but this assumes they're imaginative/invested enough to keep me entertained.

              • 4 weeks ago
                Anonymous

                Because they see a random result from a defined system as fair, and GM fiat as arbitrary.

  37. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    TDE is still one of the most played systems here in Germany.
    Any nerd older than 25 here will play TDE wih you and you can easily convince zoomers to switch over from thr Yankee inport D&D.

    t. been there done that

    • 4 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      TDE is getting a Dragonbane/DoD version at some point.

      • 3 weeks ago
        Anonymous

        WHAT?

  38. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    I accept your concession about high complexity games being too high brow for anon to speak further on. Have a great day

  39. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Never. The reign of the slow burn has ended. Now is the time of 10 secound tic tocs and aderal. The world had barely the attention span of a goldfish, how would it support the delayed gratification of a complex system?

  40. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Reposting more Rolemaster content, this time from NavigatorRPG, a spacemaster retro-clone.

    • 4 weeks ago
      Anonymous

      Skipped one page, sorry 🙁

  41. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    That Game You Like is Going to Come Back in Style

  42. 4 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    From Blood, Guts & Glory, formerly known as Darker Dungeons

  43. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    Imagine getting fucking Angus McBride to draw art for your RPG. I didn't know Rolemaster was that based.

  44. 3 weeks ago
    Anonymous

    They are still as popular as ever, anon.

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