Are you going to buy D&D 6th edition? (Update is being called 5e 2024 Revision)

The Game Room
81

Or in more succinct terms, “crunch” is the collective amount of bookkeeping, math, tactics and option-weighing, and rules consulting that players and gamemasters need to do. Very ‘crunchy’ games can be quite tedious when it comes to combat or other rules-heavy conflicts, and have a steep learning curve for new players, and may also require a lot of interpretation where rules are unclear. Runequest (especially the third edition, as well as the Design Mechanism editions which then spun out as Mythras) was very crunchy when it comes to combat because it has hit points and armor values per hit location, fatigue, encumbrance, special effects and battle tactics, et cetera (almost none of which actually matters very much because it is rare for a combat to go beyond three rounds where one party either surrenders or is killed.)

Dungeons & Dragons isn’t so much ‘crunchy’ as it is just full of ad hoc and arbitrary rules, largely intended to create an artificial ‘balance’ of character classes and the threats that characters face. Stripped down to “Old School Renaissance” (OSR)-style basic elements (essentially, the pre-“Advanced” game mechanics), it’s actually very simple.

Stranger

82

Yep. There are a few WotC hater channels out there. Just like there are channels dedicated to Disney hate. And so forth.

The Crunchiest was Chivalry & Sorcery.

83

Minor disagreement, there are games that are SUPER crunchy for one element, but substantially less so for others.

A classic example would be Champions (Super hero TT RPG). Character creation is the epitome of crunchiness, and is practically built for rules lawyers, power gamers, and the like. Then, lots of secondary math for derived characteristics. Once done though, future changes are (in most campaigns) pretty minimal, and combat is comparatively direct in terms of comparing numbers.

Another example of the same sort of thing can be GURPS. Lots of min/maxing on stats v skills v unskilled checks, more with working how perks and disadvantages work, and LOTS of potential complexity in terms of possible combat styles (called shots with damage resistance negation or multiplication based on weapon type v armor v ammo type in a modern setting) BUT all mechanics are resolved by rolling 3d6.

The other side of things is more narrative driven events, like the old White Wolf World of Darkness from the 90s, where everything was pretty general, lots of rules for auto success if the thresholds were met, and very general skill categories. Very easy to pick up especially if you used template characters.

And of course, there’s the classic Amber Diceless, where you just flat out compare skills, the most skilled character just succeeds. :slight_smile:

As you can probably guess, I was infamous as a gamer, because I’d buy all the damn rules and supplements I could afford and study it like I was cramming for SATS. And then I’d eschew prebuilds for the coldest, most stacked, most carefully engineered character I could imagine. Resulting in characters a full order of magnitude more powerful than those that just played default options.

Which means that crunchy games tend to appeal most to those that want to take advantage of said complexity, and are the hardest on casuals who will likely never be able to compete even with all the RNG thrown in. And it takes a very good DM/GM to balance out the wants and needs of such a wide variety of players and characters.

84

Except she’s not running a hater channel. She runs D&D gaming sessions. Safe to say she loves the game and cares about it which is why she criticizes some decisions they make.

85

There’s a game called Enforcers released back in 1987 that was a super heroes game set in the near future. As part of character generation, you had to calculate square roots to get some of your derived statistics. The game came with a Lotus 123 spreadsheet formula so you could make characters. I bought this game and never played it because who the hell wants to calculate square roots? I think you actually needed a calculator just to play the game as math formulas were used during game play.

I’d classify D&D as a medium crunch game. There are a lot of moving parts with spells and class abilities, but overall it’s not too complicated.

86

Space Opera required square roots for calculate travel distance (in Light Years). None of us really found it a problem and most of us had calculators that could do it.

How would everyone rate the old Rolemaster game? We used to called it Rulemaster or Chartmaster as it was so clunky with fine detail.

They brilliantly made a reduces instruction game MERP that was far superior for play and had a great setting of course of Middle-Earth.

87

I own a hardback copy of Space 1889. I am not afraid of math. It can even be fun in the right circumstances. The rules for air combat were very crunchy and math intensive.

88

We tried GURPs fantasy. It was fun. But combat- with parry, hitlocation, etc- did make things more complicated. In general, we could only get in one good combat per night. Yeah, 36d sounds simple, but not so much. We can usually get in 3-4 combats a night with D&D. However, you could make the character you really wanted- one disadvantage is that a newbie in D&D could pick the easiest class/subclass- Champion fighter- and still be a significant part of the party. Unless you use GURPs pre-gens, a newbie can easily make a useless PC. Mind you, we had newbies explain what they wanted to the GM, who made their characters for them, with 5 unspent points or so, and that worked fine.

89

Calculating square roots is doddle; you can even approximate it by hand. On the other hand, building a ship in Traveller 2300/2300 AD required cube roots, and generating planetary systems required the use of logarithms.

It is entirely possible to love D&D and still be highly critical of Wizards of the Coast (and especially their parent company, Hasbro) for being opprobrious and avaricious in how they treat their customers. And frankly, it’s possible to be a fan of D&D (or “DnD”) and not buy into changes that don’t suit your interests or style of play, which is why their is a diversity of OSR-type games derived from or similar in style to pre-WotC Dungeons & Dragons.

Stranger

90

I played a lot of Traveller but not 2300. We also played Trillion Credit Squadron, a wargame based off Book 5s ship building rules.

But Traveller really dumbed down Interstellar travels, but combat had some calculations at least with acceleration and etc.

91

It was the most popular system in Cape Town throughout the late 80s-early 90s (possibly because the related Cyberspace game was also popular). It was OK, but we never played with the dumb spell list acquiring and progression rules as written.

Combat could be fun, in a juvenile, silly way. Many of the 66 crit rolls, for instance.

But I liked the skill-based nature of it at the time, and my subsequent homebrew systems have leaned even more into that, cutting or dropping stats in favour of a skill-for-points buy system instead.

Why would you do that? Rollmaster is sitting right there…

92

Probably as it was verbal, so rollmaster doesn’t work as well as Rulemaster. But I don’t recall analyzing the reference, so who knows for sure.

93

Oh, no, you had to make the hand gesture as well. “Roll…”<mimes throwing dice - or masturbation> “…master”

94

That makes more sense now. We dropped Rolemaster pretty quickly but I had several groups that liked the subset of rules that were the basis of MERP.

That was fun and the source books were pretty great, better than the average D&D module.

95

We played MERP too, although as an at-the-time Tolkien purist, there was far too much actual magic being slung around in those modules/settings. But yeah, in fact, I still have some gazeteers around - The Court of Ardor and Isengard and Northern Gondor

96

It is hard to balance an RPG game with the relatively low magic of Middle-Earth. I thought they caught the feel of Tolkien’s work far better than the feeble try by D&D a few years back. That was neither good D&D or Middle-Earth.

97

I dont think LotR is as low magic as people think- Look at the Fellowship- The single most powerful artifact in the world, one of the three most powerful artifacts, two relic level swords- a bunch of powerful hobbit swords- a chain shirt which makes you invulnerable, a magic bow or bowstring, magic cloaks all around- with magic clasps, a gem of Brightness, etc etc.

And then Gandalf delivers toys on Bilbos birthday- made in Dale- many obviously magical. Magic toys- for hobbit kids, most of whom Gandalf has never even met.

There are human magic users- the White Council was convinced for a long time that the Necromancer was one such.

Most of the powerful elves could do magic. Rangers could do a little healing magic it seems.

Gandalf thought for a long time that Bilbos magic ring was just “one of many minor rings”- in other words, there is a fair number of rings of invisibility out there.

Yeah there werent powerful mages in every town, like in D&D. But still- and in the MERP game, Gimli’s armor and axe were low level magic, etc.

You linked to the new version, which isnt made by WotC (nor was the older edition), which by all accounts is a very good simulation. However, the older version was not so good.

98

MERP is one of those games I remember seeing at local hobby shops and even Waldenbooks and B. Dalton Book Sellers at the local mall. I never met someone who played it though.

99

Solid game and incredibly good source books for details of parts of Middle Earth and adventures to run in each area. As small as Bree and as big as all of Arnor or Mirkwood.

Still useful for using Middle Earth as the campaign setting in 5e.

Slightly related, the Paramount live action D&D show has been scrapped.

100

To the OP: Sure, I’ll buy it. I’ve bought every other edition so far when it came out, why wouldn’t I buy a new one? I’ll buy it, I’ll try it, and if I like it I’ll play it. If I don’t like it, I’ll go back to 5E.

I played it. Once.