Reply To: Crunched some numbers

[phaidknott 7023xp 0]

Complexity is a rather personal concept I suppose but there’s different types…..

Rules Creep : GW are a good example of this, take a single book then add the cards, various codexes, campaigns books introducing new rules. It all gets to an amount where you’ve now chance of keeping it in your head and are spending hundreds of dollars/pounds/euros on the rules.

Mathematical Rules : Back in the 80s we LOVED tables, and rules were more a “mathematical” model of trying to emulate what would happen in real life/in history. Rules “elegance” was out the window in favour of accuracy (I must admit this is where I’m happiest).

Abstract Rules : Probably in the last 20 years rules have dumped the accuracy aspect in favour of simpler rules with the focus on giving a “game” more than a simulation. They are a lot more brief, and usually feature a “hook mechanic” (eg custom dice or cards) to resolve things with very little use of charts/modifiers. This is where we probably stand with rules today on the most part, with a lot of rules created in VERY short time due to time constraints with Kick Starters etc (I’m not a fan of the current ethos, which make me a big Grognard I suppose).

The amount of Armies/Units doesn’t really affect the complexity (if you go back to most Ancient rulesets there’s book after book of army lists (some featuring over 100 army lists over 4000 years of warfare). Probably the best way to gage the rules complexity is a simple wordcount of the rules themselves (leaving out all the fluff text that’s usually in them these days), or at worst a simple page count?