Thursday Discussions (Complexity can be the Enemy of Fun)

Hey Game Fans, It’s ostensibly Thursday and that means it’s probably an opportunity to talk about Game Theory and systems design and how that works for Players, Game Masters, and Designers. One of the continual discussions (some would say arguments, but i like to think we’re a mostly civil bunch in the game hobby) is how complex is the right level of complexity for a game. This should come as no surprise to any of you who follow my blog on a regular basis, but my answer is “It depends on a couple of key factors.” What are those factors? Well, let’s hop into the Discussion Machine 40,000 and see if we can’t understand each other a little bit better.

Key Factor #1 Player Comfort Level

I have played a lot of role-playing games over the years and i have seen the continuum of complexity ranging from Lasers and Feelings to something like a Palladium system game and a lot of the range in between. My rule of thumb for something like this is “If creating a character for the game takes longer than two hours on just the number crunching, or parsing through the options, the game has a high complexity.” Now i’m not talking about you sitting down with your ideas book and figuring out your character’s backstory. That’s a different process than the mechanics of character creation, and spend as much time on that as you feel comfortable. However, if it takes around two hours to sort through all of the math, roll your stats, and/or pick from the options, then you have stumbled into a complex system.


Exemplars of a high complexity system


Palladium system (Rifts, Fantasy)

Pathfinder

Anima: Beyond Fantasy

A Time of War

Shadowrun (5th edition especially)


These aren’t games that you are going to typically find as a pick up game because of the complexity of the character creation system, especially if you are using the supplemental books. These games aren’t something to pick up lightly because you’re going to invest a lot of time in character creation and the process for creating characters can be mind boggling, especially to a new player. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t fun games where you can create cool characters, but they are dense systems that you are going to have to learn to fully enjoy the game experience.


If your players (or you as a player) aren’t comfortable with the complexity of the game, that’s going to be something that can impact the level of fun you’re having with the game. I don’t mind being the guy that sits at the table and goes “Now, how does this work again?” when figuring out complex things like creating your own spells, or figuring out the geopolitical situation of the planet we’re about to conquer, but i don’t want to do that with the game’s basic mechanics more than once.



How do you coimbat this? Well, there are a couple of ways to make everyone more at ease with a complex system. First, cheat sheets with EASY TO UNDERSTAND explanations of basic rules are a godsend for players of all skill levels. Another one that i find counterintuitive, is that if we are all starting at the same level of understanding, we are all more likely to work together to suss out how things work. If nobody knows what we’re doing, we tend to work harder to figure that out. Third, i think easing into a complex system is probably a better call than jumping all the way in with every potential source. Rifts is a lot easier to manage if you are only playing with the core book and take the time to learn those systems before adding in any of the nearly 100 supplements for the larger game world.

Key Factor #2 Is this really the right system for what i want to do?

Now this is a much larger topic to discuss in detail (and we’re going to try in later articles) but basically, “Are we picking the right game to do the thing that we want to play?” Some game systems are designed to support a multitude of different genres and styles (namely, Open Legend, GURPS, Savage Worlds, Tri-Stat dX). Some systems are built specifically for their settings, Shadowrun, A Time of War, and there are a lot of other games that have their rules built into their setting and lore details.


One of the secrets to this hobby is that with enough tinkering, you can probably make a system’s mechanics fit the game you’re trying to run. Some systems this is a lot easier than others (the Generic systems are built for this), but with enough work, you could redesign Dungeons and Dragons to fit your Space Opera campaign and run the adventures of your crew of heroes through Starship battles, and desperate attempts to oppose the interstellar evils that are coming to destroy the world. The question i always tend to look at when i am putting together a game like this is “Is there a better system for this kind of thing?”


Sometimes the answer comes quick. There aren’t many systems i would rather play deadlands with than the original classic rules or reloaded. If i want to play Angels vs. Demons, In Nomine is a shoe in. Other things are a little trickier though. There are a lot of games that fit the Fantasy adventurers niche, and that requires a lot more thought on the best game in mind for the players, and the story i want to share with them.


For an example, let’s say i want to do a science fiction mecha game set on a distant world with several geo-political factions struggling for dominance. There are a lot of choices for that (Tri-Stat dX, GURPS, Savage Worlds, A Time of War all come to mind). Some of these have ready built Mecha designs that i can work with, but for some of these, i have to craft a lot of the Mecha Designs and the systems that players use to interact with those. I would probably pick either A Time of War, Or Heavy Gear (the game that is literally the scenario described) for this.

Conclusions

Ultimately, it’s a judgment call for what works with your gaming group and the situation you are working with. There are a ton of options out there in the RPG marketplace and some gems from yesteryear that can inspire a lot of fun gaming opportunities.


Game on, Game Fans