Often when I read complicated RPG rules I think to myself, "There is no way that this is actually playable at the gaming table. This is aspirational rules design. People will just forget to use most of this, because there's nothing that triggers an RPG rule beyond what people remember."
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Apropos of nothing, RPGNet currently has a thread on "Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth".
"Verbose, obtuse, badly explained, badly organised, repetitive, over-complex, pretentious, but containing one phenomenally good idea. Aria should have been a milestone in the history of roleplaying games. Unfortunately, it has turned out to be a large and expensive doorstop instead. Aria is quite literally unplayable."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aria%3A_Canticle_of_the_Monomyth
"Verbose, obtuse, badly explained, badly organised, repetitive, over-complex, pretentious, but containing one phenomenally good idea.“
Thought they were talking about me for a second.
I still have it on my bookshelf, because I am a sucker for worldbuilding tools. But I have neither run nor played it.
@juergen_hubert
IMHO, worldbuilding tools belong on computers. But I am very interested in scenario generating tools. This is of course in line with my general unwillingness to invest in a game world beyond the needs of a given scenario.
I dunno, I think there is something magic about a good set of random tables. For me, they really get those creative juices flowing.
I buy pretty much anything from Sine Nomine Publishing, for instance, even though I am not keen on OSR rule systems as such.
@juergen_hubert
Yeah, I like random tables, I just don't want them to generate a world for me.
I have had fun gamemastering the randomly populated wilderness hex crawl "Dark of Hot Springs Island" (2017). And I've signed up to run four sessions with it at cons this spring semester. Maybe this this is what you mean by a world generator?
I have read it once. It was excellent for generating interesting dreams.