Quote from: Eric Diaz on April 14, 2023, 08:52:52 AM
You might be right about the trend.

I'm not exactly a "young" player, but I used to play GURPS and all kinda of games and now I only play simpler stuff (well, my own B/X neoclone, which is slightly fiddlier than B/X itself).

All my players have jobs and families and we are not into fiddly rules anymore, nobody got time for that..

Totally agree.  Used to play and run complicated systems (including the Hero System, the mother of complicated math driven systems) but like you with the little time I have to game, I want to get the most out of that time.

Give me Advanced Squad Leader!

Quote from: Cathode Ray on April 14, 2023, 10:47:02 AM
Give me Advanced Squad Leader!

When I was in high school, ASL and SFB were my go-to games. Chivalry & Sorcery was my ideal RPG, but I usually settled on AD&D with all the combat options. Making characters with Champions and robots/spaceships with GURPS was a fun lunchtime activity. MERP was too simple, so I replaced most of it with Rolemaster. Literally the more complex the system, the more interested in it I was. Maybe it was the calculus classes or something.

Now, IDGAF, I just want to play something simple. I don't have time for all that complexity...devoting my brain power to figuring out 6502 and Z80 assembler right now.

Regarding "games have grown simpler now, and new players don't need mathematic complexity, or rules memorization." To play Devil's Advocate, what we may be seeing is an actual different 'breed' of gamers.

I'd argue that the rules-lite roleplaying style of modern games actually attracts a different kind of player to the older systems. I know that, for me, complexity, and mastery of that complexity, were lures rather than put-offs.

I love to fine tune a character to a fine edge (no that's not min-maxing, I purposefully avoid the system breaking) so that my Face is a charming MF, and no-one tosses around Goblins like my barbarian. I love systems like Ars Magica or Mutant Year Zero, where there are downtime management aspects.

For an analogy, there are people that enjoy the theater AND the movies, symphonies AND rock concerts. But there are also people who only enjoy one or the other. So if your local venue goes from mostly Beethoven to mostly Bon Jovi, don't be surprised if the people alongside you in the crowd change.

We're seeing this a lot with I.P.s being terraformed to appeal to women. Often they change core elements to the point that they no longer appeal to the previous male fanbase (and the women who also like it the old way.) I'd call D&D 5e a prime example.

Quote from: Grognard GM on April 14, 2023, 12:17:54 PM
We're seeing this a lot with I.P.s being terraformed to appeal to women. Often they change core elements to the point that they no longer appeal to the previous male fanbase (and the women who also like it the old way.) I'd call D&D 5e a prime example.

I'm not sure I totally agree regarding 5e. I think it's a lot more cosmetic than people seem to think (combined with the fact that Wotc didn't have the guts to clearly state their intentions or go all the way). If you actually use all of the exploration rules, etc. that they scattered everywhere throughout the DMG, enforce ammo and encumbrance tracking like you're supposed to, and lean into the "rulings over rules"/natural language ethos that they claim was in back of 5e (as a response to 4e), it actually plays like a more high-powered B/X to me. Granted, they utterly bungled the presentation, so everyone plays it way different, and they seem to have noticed which way the wind is blowing with later supplements and amplified the sucky parts even further. But if you embrace its design philosophy and use the right optional rules (and not others), it still feels like D&D at its core. At least to me (and I'm not a massive 5e fan by any stretch).

56 years old grognard here, it's not that THAC0 is too complicated or that subtraction is hard, like others have said it's the inconsistency. I can play/run older D&D editions just fine but in MY own homebrew it's ALWAYS roll above target, so AAC.

Because it's easier to teach new players how to play.

I have free time, but I don't want to spend it building a character (hi Hero!) worst if it can die in chargen (traveller/cepheus). Not because "Math is hard derp!", because it takes too fucking long!

I think that's why I don't wander outside of class/level based systems anymore, and why I'm WORKING on hammering a class/level thing into a system I like but that's point buy.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 14, 2023, 01:09:34 PMI think that's why I don't wander outside of class/level based systems anymore, and why I'm WORKING on hammering a class/level thing into a system I like but that's point buy.

We humans are so amazing in our diversity of likes. I hate rolled characters, and love point spend, and am not terribly crazy about classes (unless they have plenty of variants.) Putting rolls and classes INTO a point spend open system would be anathema to me.

Vive la différence!

Quote from: Grognard GM on April 14, 2023, 01:28:51 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on April 14, 2023, 01:09:34 PMI think that's why I don't wander outside of class/level based systems anymore, and why I'm WORKING on hammering a class/level thing into a system I like but that's point buy.

We humans are so amazing in our diversity of likes. I hate rolled characters, and love point spend, and am not terribly crazy about classes (unless they have plenty of variants.) Putting rolls and classes INTO a point spend open system would be anathema to me.

Vive la différence!

To me it's about speeding up chargen and getting to play faster. I see no difference between that and handing pregens to your HERO table players.

A class is nothing but a collection of skills, bonus and penalties, take the system you like and build a lot of pregens to fill different niches, there's still room to personalize them if you leave some skills for the player to choose from, think AD&D2e you choose your race, class and then your proficiencies and buy your equipment. The real difference is the time spent in chargen.

Quote from: GamerforHire on April 14, 2023, 09:18:05 AM

Young people aren't dumb, just less tolerant. And with so many games and so many other gaming options, why should they be willing to be otherwise? And my players and I, all of whom are busy professionals with careers and families, don't want to spend the time in-game looking up rules and charts and relearning some of this stuff. Neither do young people.

Here I disagree.

When I show someone under thirty the simple algebra in Classic Traveller and they recoil in horror, that tells me that their Math education was inadequate. When I show a teenager the simple algebra in Classic Traveller and they become interested, that tells me that I am sharing something that they are not being taught in school. It is as if Math, Science, and Critical Thinking are subversive forbidden subjects not taught in school and it fascinates them to get this glimpse behind the Wizard's curtain.

The games are getting dumbed down because the target audience for those games are not being taught the necessary skills in school to play them if they are not dumbed down.

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 14, 2023, 01:46:08 PM
Here I disagree.

When I show someone under thirty the simple algebra in Classic Traveller and they recoil in horror, that tells me that their Math education was inadequate. When I show a teenager the simple algebra in Classic Traveller and they become interested, that tells me that I am sharing something that they are not being taught in school. It is as if Math, Science, and Critical Thinking are subversive forbidden subjects not taught in school and it fascinates them to get this glimpse behind the Wizard's curtain.

The games are getting dumbed down because the target audience for those games are not being taught the necessary skills in school to play them if they are not dumbed down.

There's no time to teach math and science, need to spend that time at critically important drag shows.

Quote from: jeff37923 on April 14, 2023, 01:46:08 PM

Quote from: GamerforHire on April 14, 2023, 09:18:05 AM

Young people aren't dumb, just less tolerant. And with so many games and so many other gaming options, why should they be willing to be otherwise? And my players and I, all of whom are busy professionals with careers and families, don't want to spend the time in-game looking up rules and charts and relearning some of this stuff. Neither do young people.

Here I disagree.

When I show someone under thirty the simple algebra in Classic Traveller and they recoil in horror, that tells me that their Math education was inadequate. When I show a teenager the simple algebra in Classic Traveller and they become interested, that tells me that I am sharing something that they are not being taught in school. It is as if Math, Science, and Critical Thinking are subversive forbidden subjects not taught in school and it fascinates them to get this glimpse behind the Wizard's curtain.

The games are getting dumbed down because the target audience for those games are not being taught the necessary skills in school to play them if they are not dumbed down.

Greetings!

Hey Jeff! Yeah, I forgot what study I read about, but the research showed that Americans have lost *2 Standard Deviations* from our average IQ score compared to just 20 years ago. TWO STANDARD DEVIATIONS. That's like, what, 10 or 15 points lower than just 20 years ago? We really *are* getting dumber as a people.

I've also seen research that shows Americans, currently, have actually *lost* significant capability in vocabulary. Our current vocabulary--even among adults--is lower, cruder, or more simplified than 20, 40 years ago. There is also numerous studies that have shown that are attention span has been drastically shortened, our long term memory has decreased, and our functional ability to read has also suffered significantly.

I think all of that erosion and degradation of our educational system really *is* showing up on a mass scale now. In previous years it could be dismissed or hidden away, by saying "Well, that's just an isolated school." Now, the corruption, the rot, the absolute failures of our educational system is so widespread now, it cannot be hidden or denied any longer. EVERYONE around, in normal life, not just particular academics--all know that people everywhere are just dumber and less educated than in previous generations.

What makes that fact especially difficult to swallow, is the knowledge that more people now are spending more years in school, and spending more money on school than ever before--and yet, we are overall less educated than previous generations. This of course is a huge political struggle, with Teacher's Unions crying--but they of course don't want to take any responsibility, nor do the school administrations. It seems like the failure of our schools and education system is in the paper everyday now, as it should. But this corruption has been going on for a long time, with school administrations and teachers and professors all involved with absolute lying about all of this, and gaslighting parents and citizens alike. So sad, and infuriating.

This corruption of our education system and schools actually doing less, teaching less, and students learning less, and actually becoming dumber, less read, less articulate, with every passing year. I'd also say that when these factors are combined, even people's *capacity* to learn is also damaged, and lowered. If you can't think properly, can't read properly, can't write properly, and don't have the attention span to actually do more than the minimum--then your capacity for learning, for actually increasing in functional ability, is therefore short-circuited. That's the deeper tragedy here, is that our dysfunctional education system--and the administrations and teachers that have been a part of running it all--have permanently damaged our population. Entire generations of our people are no doubt intellectually stunted and crippled, permanently, because far too many school administrators and school teachers were mental midgets and absolute cowards.

These enormous effects in our education system have also surely had an impact on the gamers involved in our RPG hobby, as well as the game designers and writers themselves.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Math is not hard in that if an rpg system either crunchy or complex or both so expect a certain part off and reward for either or. More often than not it's neither. When one has existing rpgs thst can do both with less time and Easter to run well I can under the reluctance of both older and newer gamers to embrace both.

I recently tried making a character with Palladium Rifts and Fantasy and each time all it gave me was a pounding migraine. The flipping all over the place for rules. Is the bonus 5% or 4%. I started looking at Savage Rifts and never looked back.

In the end gamers have shown they are not interested in overly crunch systems such as Gurps or Hero in large numbers as the second is in life support and the first survived on the good graces of Munchkin profitability. Even Battlelords has a Savage Worlds conversion at this point.

As for math is hard it's an excuse used by those who rather than actually acknowledge the flaws of their favored rpg to blame players for not wanting that kind of complexity.

Quote from: cavalier973 on April 14, 2023, 07:47:14 AM
Also, people who complain about THAC0 because subtraction is *hard*.

AMEN

I see a lot of folks online complaining about complexity.  Not so much, even the kids, in real life.  The kids I've seen deal with complexity in RPGs just shrugged, did it, and seemed to like it.

My experience may not be typical though.  I live in a upscale exurb of a university town, with a lot of professors, professionals, etc around, and the high school is almost as challenging as the one I attended, which is saying a lot. 

Quote from: Mishihari on April 14, 2023, 02:43:25 PM
I see a lot of folks online complaining about complexity.  Not so much, even the kids, in real life.  The kids I've seen deal with complexity in RPGs just shrugged, did it, and seemed to like it.

My experience may not be typical though.  I live in a upscale exurb of a university town, with a lot of professors, professionals, etc around, and the high school is almost as challenging as the one I attended, which is saying a lot.

This.   This makes me wonder if the people complaining are A) Actually part of the hobby and B) whether they have actually tried something other than D&D,   What happens online doesn't seem to translate to real life.

Hell, people whined about J.K Rollings online and said to boycott the Hogwarts game.  It ended up making $850 million in the first two weeks and now she is part of the new Harry Potter series that is being worked on.

Most SJW warriors online are really just trolls with no lives.