Complexity is not necessarily good.

I really dislike complexity in my RPGs. The reason I like RPGs is to explore the world and get absorbed in the story. I find that stats, perks, skills, etc take away from that.

I'm a bit of a 'traditionalist', I guess. I've been playing since the original D&D came out, and I was obsessed with it as a kid. The one thing I don't get (Okay, I get it.. I just dislike it) is the way RPGs turn into a game of numbers.

Dungeons and Dragon, for me, was a great way to tell a story you could take part in. The problem, as I saw it, is we don't have holo-decks, so we need to compromise. One of the compromises in pen and paper RPGs is that we needed to use numbers to represent statistics, and we had to use levels to represent progression. Those were the crutches we had to use to help create the fantasy. Ideally, tho, we'd hide all that.

When Advanced D&D came out, I was disappointing. I always saw it as going the wrong way. It added more numbers, more stats, and took more away from the story telling aspect in favor of number crunching. Roll-playing instead of Role-Playing. I never did get into AD&D and instead played a game called HarnMaster, which had a single rule book but dozens of books about specific regions, cities, history, and culture. The world was more important than the rules.

I honestly though that once computers got good enough to hide the numbers, RPGs would get so much better. We could spent less time fussing about with the stupid mechanics of making the fantasy work, and instead spend more time doing what I wanted to do: To pretend to be a hero.

So, when I see people lamenting the fact that there aren't enough stats, not enough skills, that the crutches we're forced to use are not enough 'complex' enough... I dunno. I think people just miss what RPGs are (were?) supposed to be.