Groups and Complexity

Last time I spoke about how players in general will move towards a game whose complexity is high enough that the game isn't trivial, but low enough that they can be successful with it (however they define success). For the general market, that means complexity in game design will follow the common bell curve, with the most players running with the game that bests fits the top of that complexity bell curve and very easy/very complex systems found at the ends.

But that's for the general market or an individual player. Groups have a somewhat different relationship with their rules.

While I'm sure there are groups where all the players are masters of their choice of system, IME these are quite rare. Very often only a few of the players have any significant mastery of the rules being used. The others have basic knowledge and it's not uncommon for groups to have one or more players whose gaming sessions consists of making choices- and leaving enacting those choices through the game mechanics up to other players ("ok, you want to attack that goblin- roll the 20 sided die...").

Under such conditions, the choice of game system (and its complexity) isn't an average of all the group members. Rather it's a choice of the most rule focused players in the group. Sometimes it may be selected solely by the GM.

The players making the choice may well be selecting a level of complexity too great for the rest of the group. In that case, expect them to often be seen aiding others in 'proper' tactical choices and mechanics usage up to and including character design. To me, this is the most common type of rpg group (the experience of others may differ).

Or they may select something too simple for their group, resulting in them moving much of their play to the meta-game levels (as per Layers of Design). Another option they have is pressing the group to move to another game system as they grow bored with the simple systems placed before them. If another too simple system is selected, the cycle will repeat.

A somewhat different version of the this last group, is the one where the rules aren't complex enough for *anybody* to last any length of time. Here, expect lots of movement from game system to game system- but it comes from the rule focused players instead of from the group as a whole.

Groups where everyone is on the same page are quite rare from what I can tell.

I don't consider any of these types of groups horrible*, but rather the natural result of a group of people with different abilities working together.


*Well, I do consider the group where the rules aren't complex enough for anyone to be horrible. The common reason for this is someone overthinking their rpg play, using 'Theory' over their real world gaming experiences to make their choices.

Or maybe they're just have a bad case of A.D.D.