Depth

You can have simplicity, while still maintaining depth, or even increasing depth. These two concepts in the design of a RPG are not at odds. We were up at a friend's house the other day, talking about why they didn't play certain MMOs anymore. MMO is close enough to a pen-and-paper game, so we thought it might be interesting to ask. The one thing (besides play housing haha) they kept coming back to was a lack of depth. Interesting thing to think about when you are going through a major simplification revision, hmm?

Was the simplification of SBRPG hurting depth and re-playability? Well, no major systems are being pulled out, besides maybe the plethora of power lists people don't use anyways, and the rest of the rules were being cleaned up for ease-of-use. I wanted to add depth in itemization, such as special and magic items, an area of the game that received little attention last time. There needs to be a "standard simple way" many things, including magic items, are handled with; and this should be extended to an "item design system" to increase depth. You need to put work into areas people will be creative in, and reduce complexity in areas people are not creative in, or rely on judgment to handle (like long-term interactions).

Focusing complexity on "creative tools" is like rearranging the palette of tools in Photoshop or other creative applications in order to make them more friendly to artists. There are tools that need to exists, some that need to be enhanced, and many more that need to be made easier to use. The goal is making the game more expressive and easier to create anything you can dream of, not a removal of options and depth. Some revisions confuse the two, and remove depth in order to achieve simplification. What I hope for is the opposite, remove complexity and clutter so much more depth can be utilized by players and world creators.