What crunch are you playing for?

[KaussH]

So this is an honest question, but I can see how it might sound snarky.
I read posts here and other places all the time where people like dnd for its crunchy rules. Yet I also see a lot of posts where people dont want to follow encumbrance, track ammunition, deal with rest restrictions, think traps just slow the game down, think random encounters slow the game down, want the races to be optimized to any class, ditch alignment even in its truncated 5th ed version, and ditch multi class stat requirements (just to name a few) Now there are a lot of rules, and crunch, related to the above. So I am curious, what crunchy stuff for (primarily) 5th ed are you wanting? (You as in any given player, not just someone who has a complaint)

[msfnc]

I don’t find 5e to be particularly crunchy. Like, at all. It’s almost all simple value comparisons. Tiny bit of actual arithmetic. I play 5e because it is popular and in ubiquitous use. It’s 487 times easier to find a 5e game than basically ANY other system. Want crunch? Check out 3.5. Or shadowrun. Or just take a statistics class under an assumed name...

[Alcore]

It isn't crunchy. Which is kinda the problem...


I want more downtime crunch. so much of the system rests on the DM to manage to have a downtime system that can run DMless would be nice. You can tweek it or something or modify for the setting but the system is not build to be modified; you have to build.

It is new player friendly but it also means that system master comes easy resulting in crunch heavy players losing interest without something else to keep them in the game.

[KorvinStarmast]

It isn't crunchy. Which is kinda the problem.

I'd say that's a feature, not a bug.
(You did mention the 'new player friendly' element to that)

[Kvess]

One of the things I like about 5e is that, in a lot of ways, it's explicitly modular. I don't think every DM ignores encumbrance, ammunition, rest restrictions, traps, random encounters, alignment, and what have you, but many DMs handwave a couple rules... and these kinds of house rules by negation have always been around. IIRC, everything in Tasha's is explicitly in that modular spirit.

I think it comes down to preference, and how the rules you are using serve the game you want to play. I really like the optional rules for flanking, because I feel like it rewards positioning characters in a way that exposes them to some amount of risk. A friend of mine never includes it in the games he runs, because he feels it trivializes certain class features and makes fights more deadly against players.

It's also going to be different campaign to campaign. I normally don't care too much about tracking mundane resources, but if I am playing Tomb of Annihilation I am having my players account for each gallon of rainwater and each dose of insect-repelling salve because that tension is part of the game I want to play.

[Darth Credence]

Honestly, I don't even really grok the whole discussion about crunch. I guess I haven't played enough other RPGs that I have seen a substantial difference. If crunch is defined as complex mechanics needed to play the game, I wouldn't have called it a "crunchy" game in the first place. I've certainly played board games with more complex mechanics, and some with much less.

But to answer your question, I like rules that simulate a world to the degree that the table has fun, do not interfere with the ability to role play, and ensure that when things happen that do not have sure outcomes there is a way to resolve them without just accepting what someone says as being true.

So, encumbrance, yes, because I don't find it very restricting in most cases but would prevent someone from having every possible item in their bag. I love creative solutions, and trying to figure out what to do with what you have is great for that. I put ammunition in the same category.

I would (and have) ditch alignment in favor of Truths in my game. Each Deity has three different aspects, and the combination of them is their Truth - like, say, Justice, Mercy, and Goodness make up the Truth for the God that produces the most paladins. Everyone is allowed to play how they wish, although if they have declared that they follow a Deity, I will track how closely they hew to that Truth and it could possibly have an impact.

Couldn't care less if traps or random encounters slow down the game. I use them if they are appropriate to the place. Although in the past 9 months of this campaign, there have only been two random encounters. The vast majority of stuff they are running into stuff that is there for a reason.

[MaxWilson]

I don’t find 5e to be particularly crunchy. Like, at all. It’s almost all simple value comparisons. Tiny bit of actual arithmetic.

The arithmetic is the easy part.

The amount of mental arithmetic pales in comparison to the amount of mental special casing required. It's relatively difficult even for an experienced DM to remember all of the exceptions which apply to every situation that happens, every time. This leads to necessary retcons sometimes such as "oh, that arrow shouldn't have hit you because the Dolgrim between him and you gives you half cover, so that 6 HP of damage never should have happened and you wouldn't have lost concentration on Wall of Force..."

You may have heard of a famous computer science paper "GOTO Considered Harmful" about how GOTO statements make code very difficult to read. There's a less-famous joke paper, "COME FROM Considered Harmful," about an even more obscure and hard-to-follow construction called COME FROM. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COMEFROM) 5E is built mostly from COME FROMS (a.k.a. exception-based reasoning a.k.a. specific beats general) and is quite difficult for human beings to execute correctly in their heads.

[Evaar]

So this is an honest question, but I can see how it might sound snarky.
I read posts here and other places all the time where people like dnd for its crunchy rules.

Well, speaking for myself and recognizing this obviously doesn't encompass all other roleplaying systems, it's the crunchy combat.

I don't particularly care to keep a tally of how many arrows my character is carrying, and mathing out how much each one weighs and whether that means I can't actually carry any of that gold I just found.

But I want to have options for firing those arrows in ways that are more interesting and impactful than "Roll archery skill against the enemy's defense skill" and that's where a lot of rules-light systems leave it. And that's great if combat isn't the point of the game, and the rules are meant only to facilitate quick resolution of conflict so you can get back to improv storytelling. But usually I want some tactical challenges in my gaming, not just an improvised story. So that's what I like about D&D - it offers that, while also avoiding too much crunch surrounding that tactical gameplay that would mostly just impede it.

[Alcore]

I'd say that's a feature, not a bug.
(You did mention the 'new player friendly' element to that)

I will even go on record saying the system wasn't built for me!


I find myself using pathfinder downtime system for businesses, estates and homes. Another feature is that it is compatible with non combat related material (might need to lower the DC increase rate but 3.P material does work with the system).


It's nice. Makes good strides forward and is all around a better system. More balanced (even if the underlying problems of D&D still exist)

[Pex]

Mechanics that enhance the fun. What's fun is subjective. It needs to give me that "Wow! Cool!" factor to enjoy pushing the button that activates something. If it's a passive mechanic it buffs a button or otherwise interacts the game in an interesting way. It could be an organization method that has a logical pattern. I can get along with encumbrance rules that gives me interesting choices, but more often it becomes either busywork that adds nothing to the game or a punishment of denial of a treat.

I don't mind the attunemment system even when I have more than three attunement items. It's an interesting choice which magic items to use for what I want or need to do, but I'm not punished making the choice. I still have the unattuned item(s) I can choose to use at a later time when I want or need them. They may even become obsolete, and I get to choose what I want to do with them instead of the game/rules forcing me to. For example, my barbarian had a cloak of displacement for the longest time. It worked great to counteract the disadvantage of Reckless Attack. As I got to the higher levels I didn't need it anymore. I'm almost always hit anyway, and I have so many hit points I don't drop. I had the fun of gifting it to my NPC fiance. With encumbrance I'm continuously forced to choose what to carry and what to leave behind of even mundane things almost every game day. The rules are making me leave something behind I don't want to. I get to choose what the something is, but I'm still forced to make that choice. Always leaving behind what I can most afford to lose, I'll eventually only have stuff I cannot afford to lose so losing something is devastating, if over dramatic speaking. That doesn't mean I want to literally carry everything I ever get forever. I'm talking about things of value: game mechanical assistance, monetary, sentimental, or any combination thereof.