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Grinner
2013-05-26, 08:52 PM
In tabletop gaming, there is a relatively long history of games so complex as to turn away all but the most diehard mathematicians.

I'm feeling a bit masochistic right now. What are some of the more...creative examples of these games?

Edit: For reference, on a scale of freeform play to GURPS, I'm looking for anything D&D 3.5 or greater.

Morcleon
2013-05-26, 09:05 PM
Take D&D 3.5, then add in Gramarie (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=252794). :smallamused:

The Dark Fiddler
2013-05-26, 09:07 PM
In tabletop gaming, there is a relatively long history of games so complex as to turn away all but the most diehard mathematicians.

I'm feeling a bit masochistic right now. What are some of the more...creative examples of these games?

I once heard of a game that defined your HP as the integral of a curve from a set lower boundary to an upper boundary that varied based on how much damage you had taken, but it was a homebrew game that the person had long-since lost the files for.

That said, I've never really seen a system that requires more than basic arithmetic, maybe some simple algebra. At times it can be a bit lengthy, but I've never encountered a system that required, say, vector addition or differential calculus.

Grinner
2013-05-26, 09:21 PM
That said, I've never really seen a system that requires more than basic arithmetic, maybe some simple algebra. At times it can be a bit lengthy, but I've never encountered a system that required, say, vector addition or differential calculus.

Perhaps that was a little too much of an embellishment... :smallconfused:

Basically, I'm just looking for extremely complex RPGs that implement interesting ideas, but without an eye for sensible game design.

Something like:

I find I get all my favorite extremely weird RPGs from my local used book store. So far the clear champion of all things odd is something called GateWar, which is the most delightfully bizarre, fantastically over-complicated mess. For instance you can bleed to death, but your total amount of blood is determined by cross referencing a truly intimidating table that accounts for your character's total size, among other things. You can also die from getting your limbs or head chopped off, but that uses an entirely different system of per-appendage durability.
He later goes on to say:

And the monsters...we need to talk about the monsters. Like weird ass alien that just just follows you everywhere, watching and listening. Or the draconic species that comes from another planet and has the reproductive and social order of an ant colony. Or the giant robotic battlesuit that wanders about, the bones of the pilot still inside. Or the randomly contracted and randomly lethal parasites. Or the giant assault frog with a humanoid shaped growth on the end of its nose it uses to lure prey into bogs. Or the parasite that bends back tree branches into catapults to throw itself at you.
And in summary:

GateWar isn't the sort of game that separates the men from the boys. It's the kind of game that separates the sane from unhinged people on mind-altering illicit narcotics. If you should ever happen across a copy, you owe it to yourself to read it.

Water_Bear
2013-05-26, 09:28 PM
What about FATAL (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14567.phtml)? Any game which makes you roll for anal circumference and uses binomial expressions (Gasp! Middle School level algebra!) to determine the radius of Druid circles is certainly overcomplicated.

Madcrafter
2013-05-26, 09:36 PM
That said, I've never really seen a system that requires more than basic arithmetic, maybe some simple algebra. At times it can be a bit lengthy, but I've never encountered a system that required, say, vector addition or differential calculus.There was a D&D TO build that I once saw that required some nonlinear differential equations for calculating damage. Mind you it was an extreme case, but still, it is possible to have such things in games that don't have much extreme math in the system itself.

WyvernLord
2013-05-26, 09:40 PM
What about FATAL (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14567.phtml)? Any game which makes you roll for anal circumference and uses binomial expressions (Gasp! Middle School level algebra!) to determine the radius of Druid circles is certainly overcomplicated.

Shame on you for linking that. No one should ever even look at that. :smallfurious: That thing isn't a game it's our worlds version of the necronomicon.
Rage directed at the game not you.

Nothing to actually contribute. :smallredface:

Rhynn
2013-05-26, 10:20 PM
In tabletop gaming, there is a relatively long history of games so complex as to turn away all but the most diehard mathematicians.

I'm feeling a bit masochistic right now. What are some of the more...creative examples of these games?

I have a hard time thinking of any actual ones, but some of the more math-intensive (and/or table intensive) I know are Chivalry & Sorcery, HârnMaster, HackMaster 4E, Rolemaster (and Spacemaster), Aces & Eights... although most of these are only complicated in character creation (but, really, that can be enough to ruin a game).

I never finished creating a single character for HackMaster 4E because I got fed up with the complexity - it's especially bad for a game imitating a game as lethal as AD&D 1E (although HM4 is less lethal itself).

As a kid, I never got Rolemaster/MERP right - when I picked it up years later, I was amazed at all the stuff I remembered doing wrong. Basically it's mostly the skill development.

Aces & Eights character creation involves some completely unnecessarily complex skill buying. The rest of the game is a bit convoluted but IMO very, very playable. (And it's up to you how complicated you want to play it.) The Shot Clock is about the most beautiful idea.

HârnMaster isn't that bad, it's just that you have to calculate skill bases (average of three ability scores) for a couple of dozen skills. Easy for me, but not everyone is as comfortable dividing by three. A spreadsheet is a big help, of course, but then you're creating a spreadsheet to create a character.

Chivalry & Sorcery just has a lot of tables and rolls and fiddly bits and somewhat unclear rules, and the older editions have completely archaic design and layout.

GURPS is simple in theory, but in practice requires the GM to read, understand, and absorb 580 pages of material to run the game (you pick and choose what rule to use, but first you need to read them), and hundreds more for a campaign. The subsystem books (like Martial Arts) are huge and just add too much material for me to deal with, generally.

I know I've read specific games where some specific mechanic is an unnecessarily complex or detailed calculation, but none of them coem to mind off-hand - mostly because the game wasn't that notably bad itself. They're usually old games, though (early 80s).

None of them are actually that bad, IMO, and in playability several come out ahead of games like D&D 3.X, which is "sneakily complex" (what with trap options and the possibility to build or choose something useless without realizing it until a long while down the road).

Water_Bear
2013-05-27, 09:56 AM
Shame on you for linking that. No one should ever even look at that. :smallfurious: That thing isn't a game it's our worlds version of the necronomicon.

Don't worry, link is to the RPGNet review. I'm not half as evil as it would take to give a link to the actual rules. :smallcool:

Nepenthe
2013-05-27, 11:56 AM
Hero system nearly requires special software for character creation when dealing with things like Variable Power Pools. Especially if it's your first character ever ever. :smalleek:

Ozfer
2013-05-27, 11:58 AM
I'm going to recommend the same system I do on every thread:

Burning Wheel


Great story/role-play oriented system with surprising complexity. At least IMO.

Wolf_Haley
2013-05-27, 12:06 PM
Mekton Zeta is very very complex, it's pretty cool though and one of the more indepth mech tabletop games. Eclipse Phase is also pretty complex.

Rhynn
2013-05-27, 01:21 PM
Oh, though of another one: Synapse. Holy heck that game...

Jay R
2013-05-27, 08:43 PM
Hero system nearly requires special software for character creation when dealing with things like Variable Power Pools. Especially if it's your first character ever ever. :smalleek:

If your first character ever has a Variable Power Pool, then your GM has failed you.

That's as wrong as expecting players to recognize specific types of demon by verbal description the first time they play D&D.

Devils_Advocate
2013-05-28, 01:52 AM
I dare you to play WTF (http://imago.hitherby.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/wtf.pdf).

If you're up to the challenge, I just might join you. Someday I'm going to play this game, even if it kills me. Which, for all I know, it just might.

Khedrac
2013-05-28, 06:36 AM
4th Ed (Marc Miller's) Traveller.
The game was OK though fairly maths heavy until the spaceship and vehicle design rules came out followed by a book of formulae.
Just trying to work out how to apply most of them is more maths than most can cope with (I have a maths degree, it really needs a physics degree) but for one little problem...
There was a type conversion error so about 1/3 the formulae were wrong as some symbols got repalced (though there was an errata on the web).

Trying to use those rules should keep any mths-mad person happy for ages.

GeriSch
2013-05-28, 07:57 AM
Try The Dark Eye (original Das Schwarze Auge), it fits the description for what you're looking for.

gr,
Geri

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-05-28, 08:59 AM
I'm going to recommend the same system I do on every thread:

Burning Wheel


Great story/role-play oriented system with surprising complexity. At least IMO.
Honestly...I don't feel BW really meets the OP's requirements. Certainly not terribly mathematically complex. The worst is a bit of bookkeeping.

I'd second HERO here. My best experience with that system was Freedom Force, which is a computer game that does all the math for me.

Nepenthe
2013-05-28, 09:24 AM
If your first character ever has a Variable Power Pool, then your GM has failed you.

That's as wrong as expecting players to recognize specific types of demon by verbal description the first time they play D&D.

To be fair, I had a rather complex character concept and there was really no other way to do what I wanted him to do. It was fine as long as I had the software at hand during the session. It's my own fault not really "getting" superheroes as a genre (Champions game).

obryn
2013-05-28, 09:39 AM
Dangerous Journeys: Mythus...

We played this in high school, and wow... Just .... it's insane. I don't know how we managed, back then, and although I still have the books, I don't see how I ever would in the future.

-O

Ozfer
2013-05-28, 09:48 AM
Honestly...I don't feel BW really meets the OP's requirements. Certainly not terribly mathematically complex. The worst is a bit of bookkeeping.

I suppose that's true, if he looking complexity mathematically.

Deepbluediver
2013-05-28, 09:57 AM
What about FATAL (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14567.phtml)? Any game which makes you roll for anal circumference and uses binomial expressions (Gasp! Middle School level algebra!) to determine the radius of Druid circles is certainly overcomplicated.

I've never actually tried to read the FATAL game manual, but the (in)famous review seemed to indicate that in addition to the complexity, there was also a ridiculous and unnecessary amount of very specific minutia. For example, I think the game had something like over 100 seperate skills, all of which needed to be rolled for seperately. And the 5 or 6 major ability scores all had 4 of their own sub-ability scores (again, that all needed to be rolled for, and where poorly defined, AND rolled different dice depending on gender).

This doesn't even touch on the quote/unquote "realism" aspects of the game, which where mostly based on a mixture of ancient Greek and medieval European philosophy that has long since been scientifically disproven. For example, FATAL's writer defended his exclusion of any mention of STD's or VDs by saying he hadn't found any reference to them in his research. So that fact that we know they existed today, and the the descriptions of various symptoms even allow us to theorize what some famous people died from doesn't matter; because medieval doctor's hadn't developed modern germ theory yet, they don't exist in FATAL.

Rhynn
2013-05-28, 01:09 PM
Dangerous Journeys: Mythus...

We played this in high school, and wow... Just .... it's insane. I don't know how we managed, back then, and although I still have the books, I don't see how I ever would in the future.

-O

"Let's Read Mythus" is a regular feature over at the Vaults of Nagoh (http://vaultsofnagoh.blogspot.fi/search/label/Lets%20Read...) blog, up to 25 parts so far...


I've never actually tried to read the FATAL game manual, but the (in)famous review seemed to indicate that in addition to the complexity, there was also a ridiculous and unnecessary amount of very specific minutia. For example, I think the game had something like over 100 seperate skills, all of which needed to be rolled for seperately. And the 5 or 6 major ability scores all had 4 of their own sub-ability scores (again, that all needed to be rolled for, and where poorly defined, AND rolled different dice depending on gender)

The amount of math fail in F.A.T.A.L. is ridiculous. The averaging of rolls (and the ability to produce results outside of the allowed range!), etc. It's thoroughly stupid. Basically, the game is terrible on two completely different and unrelated levels.

Scow2
2013-05-28, 01:42 PM
The amount of math fail in F.A.T.A.L. is ridiculous. The averaging of rolls (and the ability to produce results outside of the allowed range!), etc. It's thoroughly stupid. Basically, the game is terrible on two completely different and unrelated levels.
Terrible on more than just two of those completely different and related levels.

obryn
2013-05-28, 01:54 PM
"Let's Read Mythus" is a regular feature over at the Vaults of Nagoh (http://vaultsofnagoh.blogspot.fi/search/label/Lets%20Read...) blog, up to 25 parts so far...
Checking that out now!

I had a wild thought to look back into it a few months back. It went almost immediately back onto my shelf. It's just ... dense. And the acronyms are non-standard and really, really dumb. STEEP, for example. Or how HP is used in lieu of PC for "Heroic Persona." And so on...

I was looking for ways to maybe use the Epic of AErth book, but it's too crazy, too.

-O

Ashtagon
2013-05-28, 01:56 PM
What about FATAL (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14567.phtml)? Any game which makes you roll for anal circumference and uses binomial expressions (Gasp! Middle School level algebra!) to determine the radius of Druid circles is certainly overcomplicated.

Is "Druid circles" a euphemism for something?

Grinner
2013-05-28, 02:24 PM
I've never actually tried to read the FATAL game manual, but the (in)famous review seemed to indicate that in addition to the complexity, there was also a ridiculous and unnecessary amount of very specific minutia. For example, I think the game had something like over 100 seperate skills, all of which needed to be rolled for seperately. And the 5 or 6 major ability scores all had 4 of their own sub-ability scores (again, that all needed to be rolled for, and where poorly defined, AND rolled different dice depending on gender).

This doesn't even touch on the quote/unquote "realism" aspects of the game, which where mostly based on a mixture of ancient Greek and medieval European philosophy that has long since been scientifically disproven. For example, FATAL's writer defended his exclusion of any mention of STD's or VDs by saying he hadn't found any reference to them in his research. So that fact that we know they existed today, and the the descriptions of various symptoms even allow us to theorize what some famous people died from doesn't matter; because medieval doctor's hadn't developed modern germ theory yet, they don't exist in FATAL.

See, I'm under the impression that FATAL is the biggest trolling the tabletop gaming culture has known yet.

Friv
2013-05-28, 02:28 PM
It might not stack up against some of the truly stupid games, but I feel that an honorable mention needs to go to James Bond 007: Role-Playing In Her Majesty's Secret Service (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond_007_(role-playing_game)), which was apparently staggeringly popular in the mid-eighties despite being, well, a hot mess.

Allow me to give a quick quote from the Wikipedia page on the game's task resolution mechanics: "The Success Chance is determined by multiplying the Primary Chance of an action by the Ease Factor. Ease Factors are set by the gamemaster, starting at 5 for most situations and modified down for more difficult, or up for easier tasks, always ranging between 1/2 and 10. The Primary Chance of most actions is a combination of a characteristic plus skill levels in a specific skill."

It's the only game I've ever owned that included a multiplication table on the character sheet.

Also, during character creation you had to spend points on your height, because tall or short spies were more memorable and thus worth fewer points.

(Bonus hilarity for the fact that attractiveness was also much less expensive than looking average, so that all spies who wanted to be supermodels had more points to spend on their actual skills.)

And, just for the kicker, if you were creating a 00-agent for a game, you started with 9000 points to build the character with.

Rhynn
2013-05-28, 03:03 PM
Allow me to give a quick quote from the Wikipedia page on the game's task resolution mechanics: "The Success Chance is determined by multiplying the Primary Chance of an action by the Ease Factor. Ease Factors are set by the gamemaster, starting at 5 for most situations and modified down for more difficult, or up for easier tasks, always ranging between 1/2 and 10. The Primary Chance of most actions is a combination of a characteristic plus skill levels in a specific skill."

It's the only game I've ever owned that included a multiplication table on the character sheet.

Wow, that's, like... nothing. Multiplication isn't exactly convoluted math. Twilight 2000 used that as standard, as did many other games.


And, just for the kicker, if you were creating a 00-agent for a game, you started with 9000 points to build the character with.

Now that sounds like it might lose me.

Jay R
2013-05-28, 03:25 PM
As someone who loves playing Champions, and has no trouble using the Hero System at all, I would like to nominate the original Chivalry and Sorcery.

C&S is the most complete, accurate, lush, descriptive, beautifully developed unplayable mess ever produced.

Kadzar
2013-05-28, 04:28 PM
deadEarth (http://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/downloads-games/deadearth-resources/), a game where you randomly roll a variable amount of mutations from a list of 1000 and hope to survive through character creation. Most character do not, and a lot of those that do end up stupidly overpowered.

Ashtagon
2013-05-28, 05:07 PM
Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth is another hot mess of a rules system. It looks like there is meant to be a playable game in there, but durned if i can't find it.

Geostationary
2013-05-30, 01:17 AM
I dare you to play WTF (http://imago.hitherby.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/wtf.pdf).

If you're up to the challenge, I just might join you. Someday I'm going to play this game, even if it kills me. Which, for all I know, it just might.

I have similar goals, though I'm pretty sure your death would either be a failure of the Wisher or the work of an evil Thurgist. But yes, a convoluted game in which you construct the game. To be fair though, this is more conceptual convolution rather than outright mathematical complication.

Grinner
2013-05-30, 01:29 AM
I have similar goals, though I'm pretty sure your death would either be a failure of the Wisher or the work of an evil Thurgist. But yes, a convoluted game in which you construct the game. To be fair though, this is more conceptual convolution rather than outright mathematical complication.

Very well put, but I think it deserves special mention nonetheless for going above and beyond what lesser games would settle for. :smallwink:

JusticeZero
2013-05-30, 01:54 AM
You could look for the Space Opera system. We never could get that up and running.

LokiRagnarok
2013-05-30, 03:04 AM
Allow me to give a quick quote from the Wikipedia page on the game's task resolution mechanics: "The Success Chance is determined by multiplying the Primary Chance of an action by the Ease Factor. Ease Factors are set by the gamemaster, starting at 5 for most situations and modified down for more difficult, or up for easier tasks, always ranging between 1/2 and 10. The Primary Chance of most actions is a combination of a characteristic plus skill levels in a specific skill."



Is it bad that I don't see anything wrong with that?

I mean, translated in D&D3.5, it sounds like someone did

success chance=(base ability modifier+ranks in skill)*(some factor)*(DC)
which isn't that bad.

Of course, if you use a multiplicative system, investing one more point in the skill gives you a comparatively large advantage.

Grinner
2013-05-30, 03:12 AM
I mean, translated in D&D3.5, it sounds like someone did

success chance=(base ability modifier+ranks in skill)*(some factor)*(DC)
which isn't that bad.

More like: success chance = (base ability modifier+ranks in skill)*(DC)

I think the point is that it adds an additional and unnecessary step. I imagine there's also more to it.

banjo1985
2013-05-30, 03:47 AM
Hackmaster is pretty brutal. Complicated but by no means impossible to set up, followed by a system that makes surviving any kind of encounter something of a miracle.

I've never tried Burning Wheel, but I've heard that it takes a GM who knows exactly what they're doing with the system for it to be playable.

RandomLunatic
2013-05-30, 05:39 AM
I understand Leading Edge Games produced unplayable dense systems back in the day.