Crunch or No Crunch
First Oni:
I was having a discussion with a friend of mine about how the trend of RPGs is going away from games with a lot of crunch (i.e. diceless games). I find myself in the middle, at a happy medium. While i love getting into a character, delving into their personal stories, and creating a great game, i also love rolling dice and using abilities based on the different systems out there. I've always been fascinated with systems and love a well crafted one.
So, i'd love to hear all of your opinions on the matter. Some try to use as little of a system as they can and others might as well be playing the "Game of Calculus RPG". lol. Where do you fall in this spectrum?
-Oni
Ron Edwards:
Hi Eloy,
Let me re-direct this thread topic a little bit. Others' opinions are not really very important at the Forge, at least, not in the sense of reactions to a loaded term. You'll get kind of a superficial "pundit salad" that way, with no real ideas being expressed or discussed.
What we all need, from you, is a clear example of play that illustrates exactly what you mean by "crunch." No, it's not obvious, actually. There are some folks who think The Mountain Witch is very crunchy, for instance, even though conflicts are always resolved with a single d6 vs. d6 roll, and a critical hit table is nowhere to be found in its rules. What matters in this thread is exactly what you mean by it so we can all stick with that and not get wrapped up in wrangling about the term.
Again, please do that by describing an example of play, not by trying to define and describe the abstraction. Trust me on this. If you use a play-example, including what game it was, who was playing, what happened, and how the system (the crunchy part as you see it) was involved - then you're going to get a kick-ass discussion.
Best, Ron
First Oni:
Oh, i'm sure you're right on that one Ron. However, my inquiries were more into what developers consider "crunchy" in their own words and perhaps some info on how this influences their own game development. It is obvious that one person's opinion of what is crunchy could be different from another quite easily. At the same time, this was more a general conversation and less about any one particular incident of play.
It started with a discussion about what game my personal group likes to play. The Dynamic Gaming System (DGS) created for Apocalypse Prevention, Inc. has a fairly crunchy combat system. Meaning, it is not "i roll to hit", roll, done. Instead, the system gives you many combat choices (from attacking to sweeps to grapples), along with varying bonuses or penalties based on your actions. To me, this is not too crunchy... it's actually just the right amount of crunch (hence why i created it. :-) ), as it allows players to think strategically in battle instead of it being "just another fight". At the same time, i know that this is a little too crunchy for some in my group who wish they'd never have to roll a die during any game if they could help it.
We're currently playing Mage the Awakening, using the nWoD rules... and these (while fun) are way crunch-less. Everything is boiled down into a single roll with no real depth. There's no tactical strategies with the die and the building of your character, IMO. I preferred the oWoD rule set where there was real thought put into your actions.
Ron Edwards:
It seems to me as if you're mixing up two things:
1. rolling dice vs. not rolling dice - the jargon we usually use is "Fortune," meaning any sort of dice or cards or similar
2. having lots of options in a series vs. making one decision and working out the details later
So my first point is that these are not the same things. A game might have major dice-rolling based on very little decisions or options, as with standard combat in Tunnels & Trolls, or HeroQuest for that matter. You already referenced this option with the New World of Darkness, although not really with an example. Or, a game might have little or no dice-rolling but be packed with options moment by moment, as with some applications of the Amber rules, or most especially Polaris. Already, your term "crunch" is a dual-axis thing, and that's just looking at it briefly.
I'd really like to read a deeper version of your two play references. Pick any scene that you actually played in, GM or player, with Apocalypse Prevention, in which something pretty consequential and eventful happened. Do the same with the Mage game. I'm interested in exactly when the latter wasn't as satisfying for you because of the lack of options - what did or didn't your character accomplish, or what did or didn't you get to choose, about what happened?
If you'd prefer to stick with your original thread topic, then I recommend RPG.net where it fits better into that site's purposes, which are primarily social. That's not a bad thing and you can enjoy hundreds of amusing responses. Here, though, I think that you can contribute to many people's improved understanding, including my own, if you dig a little deeper and really explain what you mean.
Best, Ron
First Oni:
I'll get some examples together and see if i can explain the idea better. I guess for me, crunch does have many different meanings. Thanks for the feedback and i'll be back soon with more on the topic. :-)
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