Quote from: Ghost Whistler;624523You get a new game. It's a big book (not too big, a few hundred pages - the usual)

What a fucked up hobby! Hey kids, let's join a hobby that requires you to read a giant textbook before you can play the game.

I am not making fun of you Ghost Whistler, your thread totally makes sense. It's just the absurdity of how "a few hundred pages" is the usual for our hobby and we don't blink. And we also don't get why the rest of the world has moved on.

I was playing this online game last week and it had a 5 minute tutorial and I thought I was going to lose my brain from boredom. I can only imagine how non-gamers look at our hobby with hours of reading and computations before ever playing.

That you have a huge book doesn't mean you need to read it all to start playing. Or even half of it. I think only the bad games have that.

was that an online video game, or a tabletop game played online?

I'm of the "simplicity is better" school of thought. When I was younger I had the time and energy to learn complex games, but now I just want to get friends together and play in a hurry. The OD&D booklets are so short as to be well under 100 pages when you factor in the page size. Amber Diceless looks thick but is mostly examples and background; the actual rules could fit on a couple of sheets of paper. I tend to default to those kinds of games nowadays.

great ruels systems are short and simple.

d20 - roll a d20 add modifier vs target number
Storyteller - add the number of pips from your stat to your power and roll that many d10s and count the number of 7+ you get
BRP - skill + modifers - roll under it on a %d
SW - roll a dX appropriate to your stat or skill target 4
Amber - highest stat wins

the base core rule of any game should be able to be sumarised in a single line like that.
Then the book can give you lists of skills and vary the attributes and the types of armour and the number of different 9mm pistols you can choose from.

The key is a good core because it frees the GM to make consistent rulings.
Now one d20 book might be 400 pages and that might include feat trees and spells and myriad classes, another might be 50 pages and have 3 classes and a system for doing feat like moves and one for creating magic effects. The later one is likely to be more complex that the first as the first is just a list of minor variations.  One is not necesarily better than the other but the core in each caase is simple to understand.

If you get a new player and you can say 'in this game if you want to do something you get a d20 and you add a new modifiers to it depending on skill, class level etc and you try to roll over a number that I as the GM will set, usually a 14. ' then if you have a pregen character they can usually start playing straight away if the setting 'classic' (classic being anything from wild West to Musketeers, to Iron age Vikings, to Lord of the Rings-esque to bog standard D&D fantasy so any thing that people as opposed to roleplayers know about). That to me is a good rule set.

And yet a simple game (at least it seems that way!) like MHR seems to be a step too far for many.

Quote from: jibbajibba;625052great ruels systems are short and simple.

d20 - roll a d20 add modifier vs target number
Storyteller - add the number of pips from your stat to your power and roll that many d10s and count the number of 7+ you get
BRP - skill + modifers - roll under it on a %d
SW - roll a dX appropriate to your stat or skill target 4
Amber - highest stat wins

the base core rule of any game should be able to be sumarised in a single line like that.

I agree, but those systems invariably have to accomodate a ton of wrinkles. Storyteller for instance also has a rquirement to meet a number of successes as dependent on the difficulty. It's not complex, but it's not as elegant as I would like: roll, compare to stats, then compare to difficulty. They've always tinkered as well.
Then you have all the usual probably quite tedious wrinkles (combat notwithstanding):
group efforts
contested rolls
extended actions
criticals
And so forth...

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;624523You get a new game. It's a big book (not too big, a few hundred pages - the usual), has a detailed setting.

That's actually likely to turn me off right there. I prefer systems with simple rules (and not many of them) that allow me to create my own campaign setting. I'm less likely to be interested in games with lots of rules or very detailed settings and I'm seldom interested in games with lots of both.

People here are confusing resolution mechanics and systems. They are not the same thing! I have a system where you can choose which resolution mechanic you want to use. A closer approximation of system would be:

System = Chargen + Character Advancement + Modifier Use + Skills/Abilities/Powers + Specialized Sub-systems + resolution mechanics

You can express most any resolution mechanic in one sentence. That doesn't mean the system is simple.

-clash

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;625057And yet a simple game (at least it seems that way!) like MHR seems to be a step too far for many.

Regardless of its level of complexity, MHR is by all accounts a rather non-traditional rule set.

If I was ever minded to play supers gaming again (which is not very likely, as I think that outside of certain non-traditional settings supers is actually not very well suited to RPGs) I'd happily play FASERIP in a heartbeat, and that clocks in at about 20 pages of rules (even with copious illustration).

Being overly simple doesn't bother me.

Being over complex does.

That said, it has to be REALLY complex with lots and lots of tables and modifiers for EVERYTHING.

Basically, if a rule has 2 parts to resolution (D20+modifiers vs. DC) it's not complex.  If it has too many more than that, well...we'd have to see it in practice.  Sometimes things that appear complex while studying aren't that hard  in practice.

Quote from: JeremyR;624531The minimum amount of simplicity I like is in D&D or Classic Traveller. 6 or so stats and some skills (or a class).

The Fantasy Trip (and later GURPs) always bugged me by only having 4 stats. Str, Dex, Stamina, and IQ

I prefer about 8 stats. Three or four always feels to me like I can't represent the character I want.

Yeah, I don't think the problem with MHR is that its rules-lite.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Grymbok;625086Regardless of its level of complexity, MHR is by all accounts a rather non-traditional rule set.

If I was ever minded to play supers gaming again (which is not very likely, as I think that outside of certain non-traditional settings supers is actually not very well suited to RPGs) I'd happily play FASERIP in a heartbeat, and that clocks in at about 20 pages of rules (even with copious illustration).

Does that include all powers?

Quote from: RPGPundit;625207Yeah, I don't think the problem with MHR is that its rules-lite.

RPGPundit

Being a comic book and superhero fan I was quite excited when I got a copy of MHRP; I was very enthusiastic.

Then, I discovered the pure screaming horror of 'battle of the dice pools' and my dreams were crushed.

I like the core mechanic of MHRP but then it jumps off a cliff for no reason with metagame stuff.

I know at least one gamer that likes it, but it does not work for me.

So sad.