System Complexity
Jan. 17th, 2007 08:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
subplotkudzuThe GURPS Supers playtest is winding down, and I have mixed feelings on it. I think whswhsdid some quality work on the book, and there are some neat mechanical ideas, but I think tooo much time in the playtest was spent trying to make the system do things it's for which it is not fundamentally suited. Every time I read through parts of GURPS or check out its source material I come away with how hard the system is trying to emulate the real world and to have a very sharp degree of focus on character aspects. This means the system has to be bent or stretched to ignore or modify parts of it to make it even vaguely suitable for Silver Age play (either Marvel or DC), and it meant adding even more options on top of an option heavy system.
whswhsdid some quality work on the book, and there are some neat mechanical ideas, but I think tooo much time in the playtest was spent trying to make the system do things it's for which it is not fundamentally suited. Every time I read through parts of GURPS or check out its source material I come away with how hard the system is trying to emulate the real world and to have a very sharp degree of focus on character aspects. This means the system has to be bent or stretched to ignore or modify parts of it to make it even vaguely suitable for Silver Age play (either Marvel or DC), and it meant adding even more options on top of an option heavy system. My players just don't have the time to absorb that many options, and to be honest neither do I. My ability to process and fully internalize game engines is fading with age (or perhaps its not caring anymore), so I don't want to have to remember that the Pitiable advantage (discussed in a different part of the book from the rest of the advantages) is a cheaper form of Charisma for some circumstances, or that you can jump over someone if you have the Acrobatics skill and they *attack* you, so you can describe it as an acrobatic dodge1, but if they aren't attacking you you have to go by the flat jumping rules, which would mean needing a different set of advantages that you have to know to buy.
At this stage, I either want systems that don't call for heavy lifting at all (such as PDQ, BRP or V&V) or do most of the heavy lifting for you (As with D&D's class/level system - and keeping that clean is why I don't add any of the later books - or Feng Shui). Either the character is quickly defined through a simple set of mechanics (spend Int*5 points on these 40 skills, and it's d% so your relative skill is perfectly clear) or the character's skill progression is tightly defined based on a set of readily understood genre tropes (your 7th level barbarian needs to pick 3 feats and gets all the rest of these abilities). The players don't have to flip through a million rules and options to build their character, I can make NPCs quickly when I need them, and in most cases actions in combat are taking a reliable attack or picking one of 5 options that if you're going to do regularly you probably already have a note on your character sheet about.
GURPS doesn't do that - it's lots of heavy lifting and no framework. The templates help, but not enough to matter, especially when you get into combat options and how one can shave points from this by spending ferwer points on better effect to get that. People who love the system internalize that; we don't have time to internalize that, so we're not going to love the system.
Still, GURPS (and it's estranged cousin, HERO) isn't the worst for that of the systems on my shelf. That honor falls to games like Earthdawn and the Decipher version of Star Trek, where they have a class/level framework for for character creation with heavy lifting built inside each option. They produce wonderfully detailed characters once you spend 4 hours per PC, but take 4 hours per NPC as well, and I haven't the time. In both cases the systems have innovative dice mechanics that I admire and great advice on how to use the setting, but character creation just needs to be gutted and rebuilt into something with tighter classes or no classes at all. You can bet if Trek gets voted in on the prospectus I'll be doing just that, same way I did when I ran Earthdawn forladegardand 40yearsagotoday.
It's like computer programming, really - I'd rather spend 40 hours fixing it so I can do a standard task in 30 minutes than spend 4 hours every time I try to do that task. Taking the system apart and rebuilding it can be fun. Having to spend 4 hours making yet another Windling Archer is not.
1 (unless your not in cinematic play, in which case the acrobatic dodge over someone would be a changing of facing and position and therefore not allowed.... unless it counts as a retreat, which would give you a bonus. Unless reading the rules over 5 or 6 times means I still haven't captured what they say to people who already know what they're supposed to mean.)
At this stage, I either want systems that don't call for heavy lifting at all (such as PDQ, BRP or V&V) or do most of the heavy lifting for you (As with D&D's class/level system - and keeping that clean is why I don't add any of the later books - or Feng Shui). Either the character is quickly defined through a simple set of mechanics (spend Int*5 points on these 40 skills, and it's d% so your relative skill is perfectly clear) or the character's skill progression is tightly defined based on a set of readily understood genre tropes (your 7th level barbarian needs to pick 3 feats and gets all the rest of these abilities). The players don't have to flip through a million rules and options to build their character, I can make NPCs quickly when I need them, and in most cases actions in combat are taking a reliable attack or picking one of 5 options that if you're going to do regularly you probably already have a note on your character sheet about.
GURPS doesn't do that - it's lots of heavy lifting and no framework. The templates help, but not enough to matter, especially when you get into combat options and how one can shave points from this by spending ferwer points on better effect to get that. People who love the system internalize that; we don't have time to internalize that, so we're not going to love the system.
Still, GURPS (and it's estranged cousin, HERO) isn't the worst for that of the systems on my shelf. That honor falls to games like Earthdawn and the Decipher version of Star Trek, where they have a class/level framework for for character creation with heavy lifting built inside each option. They produce wonderfully detailed characters once you spend 4 hours per PC, but take 4 hours per NPC as well, and I haven't the time. In both cases the systems have innovative dice mechanics that I admire and great advice on how to use the setting, but character creation just needs to be gutted and rebuilt into something with tighter classes or no classes at all. You can bet if Trek gets voted in on the prospectus I'll be doing just that, same way I did when I ran Earthdawn for
ladegardand 40yearsagotoday. It's like computer programming, really - I'd rather spend 40 hours fixing it so I can do a standard task in 30 minutes than spend 4 hours every time I try to do that task. Taking the system apart and rebuilding it can be fun. Having to spend 4 hours making yet another Windling Archer is not.
1 (unless your not in cinematic play, in which case the acrobatic dodge over someone would be a changing of facing and position and therefore not allowed.... unless it counts as a retreat, which would give you a bonus. Unless reading the rules over 5 or 6 times means I still haven't captured what they say to people who already know what they're supposed to mean.)
