I honestly don't get that.  Fourth grade math is very basic skills for daily living math.  How people can even live in the modern world without using it is mystifying to me.

I think it's far more likely that the case numbered format and trying to figure out what the rules meant is the source of people's Dragon Quest problems.  I'm absolutely sure it's the source of their Dangerous Journeys issues.

Universe on the other hand was really a mess and hard to interpret.  It was one of those games where every skill had its own little batch of mechanics that didn't interelate directly with the other mechanics.  I think it could have been a heck of a game.  A early exploration, relatively hard sf game where aliens exist to be discovered and contacted and humanity is the protagonist and antagonist.

Quote from: David Johansen;662993I honestly don't get that.  Fourth grade math is very basic skills for daily living math.  How people can even live in the modern world without using it is mystifying to me.

It's not about difficulty, it's about tediousness of it all. I can get behind it, as the most complicated RPG I ever played was Polish Kryształy Czasu (Crystals of Time), where you had 12 types of Defences which were often calculated on these lines: Take 1/6 of your Dexternity, 1/2 of your Strength, 1/5 of Intelligence and 1/3 of Defence 3. It's not complicated per se, but it is pretty tedious.

That game, and D&D 3e. I had fun with both, though I leave D&D for NWN and Crystals of Time for, well, not as tedious games.

Dangerous Journeys because it was hard to understand. I just recently picked up the set again (Thanks Benoist... ) and tried reading it. Some fun stuff in there. We enjoyed the game, despite the complicated mechanics (and new terms, and prose, and small font). I still love the bestiary, what a brilliant way to present monsters...

I think Hero 5er and GURPS 3/4e are the most complicated games I've ran and played. They are consistent, well written and explained, and plenty of examples. Once you learn them, they do well in play. And we LOVED the options!! But there is a LOT to learn. It takes some prep to play. I really enjoyed the many characters I played in our ongoing Fantasy Hero games. Thok the Druid Ogre will hold a special place in my heart. :-)

d20 - 3.5 and Pathfinder are ENORMOUS catalogs of options. I can't even fathom how to balance the stuff out. CR does not work as advertised (although most games can't nail this very well) which makes building encounters a crap shoot, and trying to remember all this stuff is painful. There is some serious fun to be had, and the Pathfinder folks are some seriously creative geniuses (love the flavor in these books). I absolutely LOVE me some D&D sometimes. I like the magic, the cosmos, and the menagerie of strange creatures. I just need to find a better way of playing/running it. :-)

OH, and honorable mention to AD&D if you use all the rules.  I grew up on, as was trained with, AD&D, so I don't know what it's like to pick up the books as a new player from scratch.  But my looking at the books, they really are quite complex.

Quote from: RPGPundit;662968Which was the most mechanically complex game you ever participated in (playing, or GMing)?

And, importantly, did you like it?

RPGPundit

Probably FantasyCraft. We stopped playing it after the 2nd session.

Quote from: David Johansen;662993I honestly don't get that.  Fourth grade math is very basic skills for daily living math.  How people can even live in the modern world without using it is mystifying to me.

I'm with you.  But not many others are.  I used to tutor algebra for college undergrads; they could barely do multiplication without begging for their calculators.  That was about 10 years ago...don't want to think what the situation is like now.

Hell 10 years ago people whined to high heaven about subtraction on RPGnet and the like.

Quote from: KenHR;663008I'm with you.  But not many others are.  I used to tutor algebra for college undergrads; they could barely do multiplication without begging for their calculators.  That was about 10 years ago...don't want to think what the situation is like now.

Hell 10 years ago people whined to high heaven about subtraction on RPGnet and the like.

Same as always really - some people do, some people don't. I'm baffled myself during CoC games when I see people reaching for mobiles to multiply by 20 or 5. C'est la vie.

Aftermath!
I've run it, of course I might consider Bureau 13 with all the options for combat it would be a close twin.

Mind you I've owned worse, but run/played?

Quote from: David Johansen;662993I honestly don't get that.  Fourth grade math is very basic skills for daily living math.  How people can even live in the modern world without using it is mystifying to me.

West End Games had to come up with a simpler version of the D6 system because people (at cons) apparently struggled with adding up d6s.

Not to mention, the whole THAC0 is too complicated stuff.

Quote from: Silverlion;663012Aftermath!
I've run it, of course I might consider Bureau 13 with all the options for combat it would be a close twin.

Mind you I've owned worse, but run/played?

Aftermath also won for me, at least the combat system.  I've run other games that were worse for chargen, or for otherstuff, but Aftermath took the cake for Combat being ridiculously more difficult than it needed to be.

3.5 / Pathfinder. We played that for 2-3 years and I recall each level-up spending hours paging through books trying to pick half decent feat paths and skills. I also recall trying to keep track of 6 or 7 modifiers per dice roll. At a certain point, the simplified house rules required binders of rule changes. I realized that the result of houseruling was essentially D&D B/X, so I tossed the PF books aside and have been happily playing B/X/LL ever since.

Quote from: trechriron;663000Dangerous Journeys because it was hard to understand. I just recently picked up the set again (Thanks Benoist... ) and tried reading it. Some fun stuff in there. We enjoyed the game, despite the complicated mechanics (and new terms, and prose, and small font). I still love the bestiary, what a brilliant way to present monsters...

Quote from: Sacrosanct;662989I recently got a copy of Dangerous Journeys, and that seems really complicated for an RPG.

Heh. You're welcome, guys. I guess.

Dangerous Journeys didn't make it as my most complicated RPG because the Mythus Prime rules provide a rather smooth introduction to the system, then we graduate progressively to the Advanced Mythus rules. You introduce Joss Factors, then K/S Sub-areas, then split the stats in categories and sub-categories, and so on. I really like the game. Advanced Advanced D&D, in a way.

Quote from: KenHR;663008I'm with you.  But not many others are.  I used to tutor algebra for college undergrads; they could barely do multiplication without begging for their calculators.  That was about 10 years ago...don't want to think what the situation is like now.

Hell 10 years ago people whined to high heaven about subtraction on RPGnet and the like.

I'm with you.

It pains me to see Players cringe at the simple algebra in Classic Traveller. People seem to have this irrational fear of Math and Science.

Aftermath combat was the hardest thing for me to play, but we enjoyed ourselves while playing it.

Air War was the hardest game I have ever played, but I was in 7th grade when I played it.

Quote from: David Johansen;662988Well, I did run Powers and Perils for a few sessions but it doesn't really deserve its reputation for complexity.

Anyhow, I think the most scary, out there game I ever ran was Lee Gold's Lands of Adventure published by FGU.  I wish I'd kept it now as it actually was very inspirational.

At the time the calculation for Skills seemed very complex but I think it was actually just averaging two stats for each skill.  There was a different formula for each skill anyhow.

Weapon damage was based on its weight and leverage.  I'd have to check the book but I think it was the taper pole lever equation my ninth grade science teacher was so fond of.

There was a formula for computing the energy cost of spells and a formula for divine intervention and a formula for armor and so on.

It's been so long I can't recall the details.  But where GURPS and Rolemaster NEVER get past fifth grade math, Lands of Adventure was pushing tenth grade pretty hard.

FGU standard system for Skill score is -  ((Stat + Stat + Trait)/y + optional number) + accrued skill points)/x
So climb might be ((Strength + Agility + athletics)/2 + 20 + skill points)/20

Aftermath is the winner for me. All that FGU complex goodness so you have stats and traits (traits being combativeness, Esthetics, athletics etc) hundreds of skills with arcane formulae. 30 Hit locations with piecemeal armour rules that vary for different weapon types. Complex rules for survival, foraging, radiation, disease, laser trauma cuased by water evaporation from laser wounds, weather, and of course the effect of wind direction on bow fire.

Aftermath, absolutely loved it.