> It's always going to be a fine balancing line. As a Ref, I love
> complexity
> when it can be used to spruce things up but don't use it always. PMCS
> rules, for example are a perfect example. Vitally important in real life
> but sort of tedious in real life and the TNE rules captured that
> perfectly.
> A good GM uses that to budget the time though and uses it in the abstract
> except when it's necessary.
Yeah. Personally I know I always leaned toward wanting to provide more
information to the players because
1. So many of them wanted it,
2. It was fun and interesting to try to work it all out, and
3. As I've said, Traveller had already established that personality for
itself, which probably is exactly why I wound up in that job, because it
made sense to me, and also to Frank who was already there and had helped
establish that personality to begin with.
Then there was also the desire to expand the Traveller design rules from
the Generic SFRPG perspective, to try to capture things from other games,
novels, or movies, so that you could play "any universe."
Yikes, that's a lot of work, and a lot of detail, and not much time for
development.
We did what made sense to us at the time, as a good faith effort, and I
can still sleep at night and look myself in the mirror. In the words of
Soul Asylum, "I did the best that I could do, with all the mess that I'd
been through, what did you expect me to do? I did my best for you."
And I'm still glad to have had the chance to try.
> I had some gnarly complicated lightsaber construction rules in my SWRPG.
> It makes sense there since a lightsaber is a very important subject for a
> Jedi and they're not very frequently used. Han Solo just wants it to
> work.
> Player Jedi Apprentices loved selecting different emitters for different
> bonuses (wider blades better at parrying vs spiked ones a Sith could jab
> into a Jedi's throat, etc). For my TNE house rules, I have similarly
> complex rules for Jump, especially coordination, and Refueling (based on
> Supp 5). Don't ALWAYS use them but always CAN.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 9:15 AM, Tim O'Reilly <> wrote:
>
>>
>> regarding game complexity I agree there has to be a limit at some
>> point...finding that well ...
>> I recall a PC game I bought some years back that went full tilt for the
>> complexity ... it was named B17 and each position had its own player and
>> to
>> get the B17 started was about as complex as it was in reality i.e. you
>> needed three hands to start an engine etc. basically it had reached the
>> point where, while I liked the genre it was too complex for me to play
>>
>> Regards
>> Tim
> complexity
> when it can be used to spruce things up but don't use it always. PMCS
> rules, for example are a perfect example. Vitally important in real life
> but sort of tedious in real life and the TNE rules captured that
> perfectly.
> A good GM uses that to budget the time though and uses it in the abstract
> except when it's necessary.
Yeah. Personally I know I always leaned toward wanting to provide more
information to the players because
1. So many of them wanted it,
2. It was fun and interesting to try to work it all out, and
3. As I've said, Traveller had already established that personality for
itself, which probably is exactly why I wound up in that job, because it
made sense to me, and also to Frank who was already there and had helped
establish that personality to begin with.
Then there was also the desire to expand the Traveller design rules from
the Generic SFRPG perspective, to try to capture things from other games,
novels, or movies, so that you could play "any universe."
Yikes, that's a lot of work, and a lot of detail, and not much time for
development.
We did what made sense to us at the time, as a good faith effort, and I
can still sleep at night and look myself in the mirror. In the words of
Soul Asylum, "I did the best that I could do, with all the mess that I'd
been through, what did you expect me to do? I did my best for you."
And I'm still glad to have had the chance to try.
> I had some gnarly complicated lightsaber construction rules in my SWRPG.
> It makes sense there since a lightsaber is a very important subject for a
> Jedi and they're not very frequently used. Han Solo just wants it to
> work.
> Player Jedi Apprentices loved selecting different emitters for different
> bonuses (wider blades better at parrying vs spiked ones a Sith could jab
> into a Jedi's throat, etc). For my TNE house rules, I have similarly
> complex rules for Jump, especially coordination, and Refueling (based on
> Supp 5). Don't ALWAYS use them but always CAN.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 12, 2012 at 9:15 AM, Tim O'Reilly <> wrote:
>
>>
>> regarding game complexity I agree there has to be a limit at some
>> point...finding that well ...
>> I recall a PC game I bought some years back that went full tilt for the
>> complexity ... it was named B17 and each position had its own player and
>> to
>> get the B17 started was about as complex as it was in reality i.e. you
>> needed three hands to start an engine etc. basically it had reached the
>> point where, while I liked the genre it was too complex for me to play
>>
>> Regards
>> Tim