The Problem with Crunch (Ep. 320) 

It can be. No doubt.

That’s a very interesting point. I’ve read a lot of game material when not playing, and it’s not necessarily the stuff I use during play.

So you've been there.

Those people are called "ask-holes" its a whole thing.

@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I thought it sounded like an impression of one's mother-in-law but I wouldn't advise 'fessing up to that!

@@aaronsomerville2124 MIL or an aunt, yeah that was my take as well. Although I've had the same reaction bringing anyone to a new place with a long-ish menu 😅

Okay, but _is_ it good?

I would imagine helmets interfere with hearing more than vision (depending on the helmet shape/coverage)

@@ballisticus1 yeah, that can actually be quite a problem, it's hard to hear through them, making hearing and speaking take a lot more effort.

Helmet terror gives me an idea for an encounter. The PCs find a beautiful helmet in a treasure hoard next to a headless corpse. The "helmet" is actually a mimic that offers a nice armor class bonus when worn. Just make sure it's well-fed before putting it on your head.

Ive never worn medieval helmets or gear but Ive worn modern helmets and plates. A mechanic Ive never seen camptures is how much more quickly you overheat in this stuff, especially in desert/hot climes but even in artci or near artic. I imagine it would be far worse in historical armor. There is a reason people wouldnt be just walking around in armor most of the time. Even a leather plate would be hit as hell.

Agreed, I think it's the difference between what a medieval infantry would wear vs. a knight in tournament? The picture shared at that point is jousting armor.

YES!

Indeed

IMExp it's more that experienced players/GMs (esp with each other/same table) have mutual trust that they can adapt to any corner-cases or needs/wants that fall outside the core. Older players also are more time-crunched (family, work, life, etc) so they prioritize having as much fun & smooth a time together as possible, with the needs of the game itself being subordinate to that. That could still mean they're sticklers for crunch and minutiae though - think wargamers, model train enthusiasts, GURPS players LOL. But Rule of Fun over-all.

For me is the contrary, started when was young with rules light rpgs and in t now I'm moving to more tactical games and also war games

As you get older you have a much clearer understanding of what is reasonable and realistic. The negative dungeoncraft comments don’t realise that older adults are not under illusions about how NPC interactions are likely to work - but kids who don’t understand the world yet can make unreasonable rulings. I don’t think you can avoid that with rules. This might be something actually. Age is everything.

@@andreguimaraes4355 Totally cool. And war-games ARE tactics and need specific rules to work. Love Mordheim!

Fantastic point.

Very good point. I'm one for "out of game crunch" - more in depth character creation and options for advancement in between games, but during play let resolution for actions be as quick as possible.

Definitely thought of this during the video as well. That said, I think it's also worth noting that out-of-game crunch can quickly become in-game crunch if your game has a high level of lethality.

@@theastralwanderer I don't think I quite see how lethality can do that. Would you mind elaborating or give an example?

@@sitnamkrad Maybe, character dies mid-game, and has to create a new character during the game or sit out? So out-of-game crunch becomes in-game crunch?

I enjoy playing crunchy RPGs solo because it doesn’t matter how long combat takes in them if no one’s waiting for me to do the maths.

@@nodtothestrange1008 it doesn't matter how long combat takes in any game as long as it's not taking that long because people are doing things unrelated to the game. the only people who think combat needs to be some ultra quick thing are morons who don't know what they're talking about. it should be involved. it should be detailed. it should be crunchy. rules lite people should go play shoots and ladders.

@@justinheads5751 Nope, different strokes for different folks. Some people care more for the roleplay and want a rules lite system that encourages that. Other times people want nothing but combat, so it needs to be crunchy. Other times people want a mix. Some want mostly RP but a crunchy system for the rare fights that do occur so each fight matters. It's entirely dependent on the group, and all approaches in that are valid.

@@LordVader1094 ah yes, the fallacy of "all opinions are equally valid" I'm so impressed lol

@@justinheads5751 long combat only works if combat actually requires thinking and strategy. Else it devolves into yahtzee. Alot of people are under the false assumption that combat complexity is based on number of turns needed.

Thanks for your continued support.

He is a wizard, not just a professor.

I don't agree with everything the Professor has to say, but I always feel like I at least learned something or stopped to think about something I hadn't before. For that reason, I find his channel to be a few notches above most other YT D&D channels.

@@RonPower i feel the same way :)

The Borg part is accurate. But mörk is best pronounced like the word murk (as in murky). I'm an English and Swedish teacher living in Sweden since 1987 btw.

If you like it, you like it. No one is arguing that. Just realize that 99.99% of the population cant even fathom a game where it takes 9000 pages of rules and optional rules and a simple 3-4 turn battle takes 4 hours. I know you probably don't even know where you are now, so far down the road after buying a new book every six months over 10 years, but it's huge pill to swallow for newer players. It is nearly impossible for a prospective new DM. How do you even remember a fraction of all that stuff in 12 books? Hell I can't even name of all the books. Wizards of the Crooks know that they can you a new book if they also give you +2 this and +2 that in a new skin. I will tell you, we had GREAT fun back in the day with only 100-200 pages.

@@nemooh So #1, I don't believe you speak for 99.99% of the population. And two, you didn't read my actual post. Nowhere did i mention anything that you are mentioning. I mentioned a "balancing" is needed. So take your strawman elsewhere.

@@zombiehampster1397 why are you arguing with him? He is right. He’s not arguing with you. Most people think Monopoly has a lot of rules. D&D is absurd. But it’s what we do so we relax and are fine with it.

@@nemooh To be fair, all of those books do not really have more rules, just more options, and you do not need to remember them if nobody picks them. That said, D&D has a problem linked with the fact that each supplements adds options for a class even if you did not build for them. Spellcasters get new spells just by existing. And the fact that once you choose a class, every level you automatically get stuff. If instead you had to pick and choose what you got, I believe that the system would be both lighter and more interesting. TBF though, I also remember playing a Mork Borg session and getting bogged down into finding creative ways to fight a powerful enemy. In the end we just set it on fire with oil lamps (yes, I know, very original on my part) and fought it straight up afterwards. We still had fun, mind you, but I'm starting to believe at some point the game will always grind to a halt no matter the rules or lack thereoff.

Yeah, shadowrun 3.5 with tons of dice, wounds monitor and armor absorption where my favorite game for party of 3-4 ppl.

Rules light games have never done it for my group either. The GM always feels the need to create a new rule for every odd situation, so we end up with a mess of homebrew in very short order. It ends up being more complicated than a game with crunch included.

Rules/crunch should really suit the game you're going for, incl the players' preferences. That's why multiple systems exist - sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't

My only problem with heavier rule systems is that they serve a desire for accuracy or realism, but there no real support for the idea that they’re more realistic. One hopes they are, but how can they be sure? The idea that a game designer can accurately know the real world chance of jumping X feet while carrying Y lbs of gear with an abstract Strength score of Z is laughable.

@@maxducoudray to me it is not about realism, it's more about options and tactics available to the player. Our group prefers rules that has a lot of details, lot of possible combinations of things and so on. And we normally avoid games with strict level progression since we tend to feel that "all characters who play X class know the same things". A system with tons of options DOES however require the players to also know the system well, making it kind more daunting for new players who enter the group.

Thank you! I try hard to pronounce things correctly.

​@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Thank you for that additional effort!

I noticed that he did do a pretty good job of pronouncing it. (Swedish speaker here.)

@Sir Guy Great point! Let's make the game more realistic = More complex and record keeping.

Yup

It can be a rough transition from crunch. You need players who are willing to accept that sometimes their grand plan to distract and blind the ogre, still only results in 1d6 damage and no mechanical consequences.

@@Stonegolem6 Exactly, Unless the GM is feeling good and awards you a bonus to reflect the brilliance of your plan. And the next time he forgets. With crunchy rules, there's no forgetting and there's no 'is the GM firing on all cylinders tonight?', you just follow the rules the same way every time. Consistency.

@@kerravon4159 yeah, though that can get problematic too. I've seen a few players who aren't really capable of letting a dm make a ruling and have to stop everything to look up the rule.

@@Stonegolem6 Oh absolutely, rules lawyers are the bane of tabletop RPG's everywhere, but at least in a crunchy system the GM has a rule written somewhere in black and white to 100% back up their decisions and eventually even the dimmest of players will learn the rules. It can definitely eat up valuable time though. But rules-light games can also be problematic too, when a player disagrees with the GM's decision and the GM has no concrete rule to fall back on, it can result in long arguments and accusations of victimization or favoritism that can really erode trust in the GM, I've seen it happen. I honestly think that's even worse.

Hero is about as crunchy a system as I've played. I enjoy it, but we simplified a lot about combat when we played a 4e champions game last year.

The Hero System is one of the best designed game systems I've ever played. Whenever I have a problem with my homebrew system, the very first question I always ask myself is "how does the Hero System solve this problem?".

@@Stonegolem6 No doubt. Certainly not something I'd ever run with a large group. But in high school, when itvwas just me and my three friends, it was a blast.

Same, and it has the surprising side effect of making the game less deadly. People are more prone to surrendering than trying to fight to the end when they know that they can't win.

​@@tuomasronnberg5244 why is surrendering and retreating a bad thing?

@@flavorgod They are good things.

I’m running into this in my own design now. In the middle of a fight, adrenaline can carry you through a new injury until a pause in the action. Fighting through an injury can be very cinematic.

That goes back to the idea that sometime before the game even starts, everyone should agree on a system that matches their expectations & desired-gameplay style. D&D - any edition - isn't always the best tool for *every* job.

It's a very good idea to prep as much as you can with the group. Session 0 is great for that. But no plan survives contact with the players. Every GM knows this. By contrast, rulebooks tend to carry a sense of authority that funnel player expectations into pre-determined plans. For some reason.

@@Ishpeck Different "levels" of planning - Session 0 and PHB/splatbooks are good for campaign-level, character-prep, stuff that will broadly affect everyone long-term. DM session prep - the sort of plans that don't survive contact - those can be much looser, and have as much, or as little, reference to the rulebook as you like. The matter of whether players or GM put their faith & authority into the books over the GM's own judgement is more social/psychological, doesn't have anything to do with the crunchiness of the system.

I feel like this concept marries well with Into the Odd's definition of HP as "Hit Protection" and automatic damage from attacks.

Critical hits and misses are awesome! They add dimension to the game.

The reason I think RoleMaster tables are viable for other games are less crunch & more randomness. Much of the crunch from games like 5e/3e are PC manipulation options that are not as reliant on the dice. If I hit, this ability does this, this feat does that, and I have a kobold that can kill anything. RoleMaster tables, on the other hand, are really determinate on the dice. The actual rules of weapon type (at least what I can remember from MERP... was a while ago) adjusted it but really it was all about the % roll. That I think is the exciting part, like watching 7s roll on a craps table. 5e & 3e options are ways PCs can control more of the outcome of combats.

Yeah, deciding where/when/how you want to apply the crunch is a judgement-call. 4e uses the same "roll over/under target" Core Mechanic as the rest of the D20 family, and it simplified character-creation compared to 3/3.5e. But most of your mental energy goes into power/ability choices during character-leveling, and then finding the synergies between the party's abilities (and versus the enemies' & environment's) during combat. But other systems may focus more of your cognitive load elsewhere, all depends what the design goals & player/DM preferences are.

GURPS is really not a good example. It's slower and clunkier than D&D. Just the fact that it's 1 second rounds with an attack, defense and damage rolls, then an armor damage reduction makes it very slow.

@@taragnor Yeah, I just meant in regard to other checks, not combat, and wasn't saying that GURPS is quick. I just was pointing out that you can put the crunch in character creation, rather than when you're actually playing.

Of course, that out-of-game crunch can easily become in-game crunch with a deadly enough game 😁

I'd argue that more narrative rules don't necessarily take out tactical consideration, but rather change its shape. Rather than dealing with modifiers and measurements, you're instead dealing with environmental factors and natural-language descriptions. That said, a more minimalist ruleset does place a greater onus on the GM to supply details (or for players to ask about them), so I guess it depends on what your table tends to do during gameplay.

The question is where is the focus of the play session. Physical altercation need not be a focal point of conflict, but I have for example rarely seen in depth mechanical simulation for social encounters. The issue with crunch is probably that it is overly focused in an area of play and near absent from most others.

I've found that PF2e maintains a similar level of time spent per combat across all levels. So earlier levels are a bit longer, but later levels are much faster. Took something like 2 hours to take down a single boss encounter at level 10. Back in 5e it took 4+ hours for a single boss encounter at a similar level.

I disagree. Deathbringer is no bard.

well said. yeah, that TI crunch serves the purpose of the game and the expectation of what players want from the game. if TI was sold as like a social RP romance game then yeah combat stages would be quite tedious. but the conquest tactics is the intended point of the game and the audience. and likewise for talisman: the rules for progressing around the map, getting loot, etc. is arguably crunchy, but the combat itself is sort of a stepping stone on that wider experience, so as long as it can be resolved quick and fairly, that's fine.

Yes please! More of your classic, useful content. We all know WotC is out of touch. I really appreciate this type of content.

You can always use the extra bits for something else or even in a future edition! Good luck on your journey!

Yeah, there was a point in designing my own game where I realized I was adding too much resolution to parts that I didn't actually want to emphasize so much. The upside is you have an opportunity to come up with more elegant solutions to stuff you still want to focus on.

Right!

C&S, at least in its earlier versions, was almost ridiculously crunchy. Wasn't it published by the same people who made Aftermath, which had 30 hit locations for the human body?

@@bjornh4664 Aftermath unknown to me, I'm afraid, b.. That kind of striving for realism deserves applause, but I'd have reservations about the playability of a system like that. Once you start straining after that level of life-mimicking you can't get off the accuracy bus and every damn thing has to be simulated properly (I think). The whole thing duly stalls (I bet).

I use this exact method and it cuts significant seconds out of a round.

Runequest does it likes that. Makes sense to me.

Thanks for watching the entire thing!

For similar reasons - a smaller menu requires fewer resources/less inventory for the kitchen, and it's lower cognitive load for the waitstaff and the customers.

Ideally you want to maximize the number of impactful actions per turn per player, and minimize the number of turns. In a sucessful encounter, unless it is a bossfight, the enemies probably shouldnt even get to act before they are killed. This is a difficult thing to accompilsh with a single character per player, and adjacency to enemies needed for most actions, and ridiculously short movement ranges seen in most systems. The chance for individual actions to fail to accomplish anything oushld probably also be minimized. Individually tracking hit accuracy, aemour absorbtion and secondary effect resistance directly goes against this. In any event more than two rolls per action is superflous. Is the action accomplished/how succesfully is it accomplished, how potent is the effect. Everything else can be added on as constant modifiers to these rolls. And even if the actions fail to have the intended effect, they should have some effect. Possibly detrimental. Also, turn advantage should be equally availible to all players, and only the players. Unless it is meant to be punishment towards the whole of the party for poor decisions/greedy play, but individually denying turns to players is the epitome of horrible design.

@@egoalter1276 good points. My issue with some of the rules light stuff is if you go too simplistic then you lose some of the granularity that some players find fun. For instance you can have a system where weapons basically don't have stats and you just roll to see how much damage your attack does or some such, and that stuff is just flavor, but as someone who enjoys optimization I find some complexity in the mechanics, so there are things like builds and such, a fun part of these kinds of games. So then it becomes a question of how granular you want to get and how many weapons you have that are actually significantly distinctive from one another. You can do things like weapon unique special abilities that proc on high rolls or with points of some kind so you have fewer stats and rolls and such, but as stated, an extra roll really isn't a huge problem if players are paying attention. They may also take forever deciding whether to spend that stamina point or whatever on an ability vs saving it for later. So ultimately you need to find a balance with these choices and rolls, and as you said, try to focus on things that are impactful amd and try to accomplish more with fewer rolls ideally. But some mechanics that require rolls can be a lot of fun, and it depends a lot on player preferences and tendencies.

@@DavidSmith-mt7tb I agree. I too like granular systems. But they certainly have some unavoidable faults, chief among them, that most people wont bother to optimize themselves, and will just stick to some meta, essentialy nullifying all the complexity.

@@egoalter1276 yeah, I think this is how we got to 5e. It has decent granularity but isn't overly complicated like 3.5e. I like the complexity level of 5e, my issue is more that d20 in general is just a bad platform compared to other more modern systems, especially DnD, which is really married to some outdated concepts. Newer games are changing a lot of those things and ending up more intricate without adding any extra complexity. But as a designer, this is really the goal, to get as much intricacy and flexibility as possible out of the level of complexity you are designing for.

@@DavidSmith-mt7tb I'm partial to D100 roll under target, and D6 pool, and 2d6 bell curve systems. 100 makes all the modyfiers a lot more intuitive because of the percentage chance, dice pool is deliciously simple, and bell curves actually make use of the dice with an intended outcome, much better for sensical storytelling.

There are times it is nice to have and other times where it seems to get in the way

I like opposed rolls, playtesting somethi g right now built on that for combat. But a raw opposed dice roll is literally 'math'. May as well flip a coin if nothing modifies either side.

@@Stonegolem6 Understandable-I think modifying the die type is potentially a way to add in complexity, like the way Savage Worlds does it-D4 through d12, gained by leveling up stats. Modiphius does 2d20 with die pools, momentum being extra d20s added to your roll that also generates d20s for the game master as “threat” to add to rolls in high stakes moments. There’s a happy medium for all these mechanics somewhere.

There's a balance to be found, to be sure. I particularly found with players who were less-confident in their grasp of the rules (even with mostly-new players) they tended to lean too heavily on the idea that what you see on your sheet is all there is - this in 4e, where the powers/abilities were quite detailed. What worked for me was asking players to describe what they wanted to do in "worldspace" terms, then getting them to trust me to translate it into game-terms. With some consistency & earned mutual-trust, they got to a place where they could open their minds up to possibilities more, and the detailed, crunchy specs were a boon, not a liability.

Some of us, many of us perhaps, lack the creativity to imagine what might happen in their game. Even more important… the idea of swords and chivalry is that it is indeed based in reality and we don’t know how to joust or ride a horse or swing a sword etc. Some like to be taken somewhere else entirely as the space and aliens genre notes. There is a lot of creativity lost but there is a lot of creativity gained as well. Once you have realised you can chop off the guys head, things are more interesting for some.

I disagree. Creativity dosn't exsist in a vacume. The rules can serve as inspiration.

My young players love it--and they're the 5e crowd!

I've heard of Kobolds ate my Baby, think I was almost in a con game of it, but nobody showed up :( And agreed that getting older = less time to play, or deal with nonsense.

If you want to go really granular, you'd have a roll to see if the attack hit an armoured area or a gap, and if the former check armour type against attack and determine if it protected completely, or partially, or not at all from the damage.

That was a valuable experience. You really learn games by taking them apart and doing your own.

Oh, so you took the Re-Bran lineage, too?

Yeah...the eliminating the "to hit" roll is innovative, but that's a critical step for me.

More to come. Of course-there are more of those industry videos coming too. Sorry.

@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I get it, those seem to be successful for you. Gotta go where the clicks are.

@@pez5767 Yeah. I am editing a video about Matt Mercer's Dagger heart and I'll be covering WoTC earning quarter this Thursday. But lots of game content is in the can.

Indeed it was.

It also megatively impacts the accuracy of the simulation.The more granular a system, the the more accurate each element needs to be to avoid compoiunding faliour, and the broken nonsense you see in 3.5e,

Yup. I am currently writing an episode about a concept called "flex dice." You'll love it. Stay tuned. Airs in June.

Thank YOU!

Pretzels. Always.

@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Plain? or a flavored variety?