During a recent discussion about GMing at events, I was explaining that I don't run D&D, but will do Pathfinder 2. Which lead the other party to believe that what I like is a really solid crunchy ruleset as opposed to something lighter or more narrative. Which isn't the case, of course. Most of the games I run are rules-light and/or narrative focussed games. And that got me thinking about peanut butter.
I'm aware that there are two main types of peanut butter - crunchy and smooth - but I don't actually like peanut butter. As such, it was somewhat baffling for me to discover that there are people who are absolutely dedicated to one type of peanut butter. I've read stories of children all but disowned by their parents for liking the wrong peanut butter, and vile aspersions thrown at the romantic partners who tempted them into incorrect peanut butter loving ways.
Pathfinder 2
Legumes aside, Pathfinder 2 is a crunchy game. For pretty much anything you want to do, there's a rule that covers it. If you want to treat someone's wounds in PF2, the game will tell you what skill to roll, what level of training you need, what DC you need to hit to succeed, what equipment you need to do it, how many hit points it restores, what happens in the event of a critical or a fumble, how long it takes, and how much time has to pass before your subject can have wounds treated via this method again. Plus there are a variety of skills feats and magic items that can modify these details.
Whatever character class you're playing has a set of rules all of their own, which makes them mechanically unique, and makes for interesting combats where you can put your character's kit to use in a solid tactical game. Which means to get the most out of the game you're going to have to put some effort into learning what your character can do and how to effectively use their abilities.
But for the GM, that crunch actually makes it easy to run because there's almost no ambiguity in the rules. The base rules are clear and pretty simple and any complexity is normally coming from the player characters who should know what their abilities do. Online tools mean when I do need to look up a rule it's at my fingertips in seconds. Meaning I don't have to spend much brainpower on it beyond reading a monster's statblock, leaving me free to flex my creative muscles instead.
Dragonbane
Dragonbane is not a crunchy game. If you want to treat wounds, it tells you what skill to roll and how many hitpoints you get back and that's pretty much it because that's all you need, and that's one of the more detailed rules. There are no DCs or modifiers or feats or magic items involved.
Which means it's pretty smooth on the players' side. Pretty much everything comes down to rolling against a skill. All you have to deal with is your character's heroic abilities, which can largely be summed up in one sentence, and you don't have a lot of them.
But it's also smooth on the GM's side. There's not a lot of rules to worry about, and it's rare that something can't be dealt with just by picking a relevant skill to roll. When the monsters appear, all I really have to do is read their statblock and then roll to see what they do. Meaning that again I don't have to spend too much brainpower on mechanics and can focus on creativity.
While these two games are radically different in pretty much everything except genre and dice, my experience of running them has been fairly similar.
D&D
In peanut butter terms, D&D is neither crunchy nor smooth.
To my narrative-loving brain, it looks like it's claiming to be rules-light, focussed on the story, roleplay heavy kind of game, but as someone who actually plays and runs rules-light games, I can see that that's not true. It's full of lumps like DCs and spell slots and levels.
But then there's that other side of me who loves a bit of tactical combat, deciding how to move around the battle board and what abilities to deploy to help bring my team to victory. And from that point of view, D&D feels very bland and textureless, with nowhere near enough to get your teeth into. None of the characters I've played felt particularly interesting to play.
So D&D is neither smooth nor crunchy peanut butter, but lumpy. It's trying to do both things at once, and not doing either of them well, meaning that there's a tendency for house rules to either filter out the lumps or add back in the missing crunch. And typically, all of that ends up falling on the GM, which can lead to burnout.
Conclusion
I'm confident that there are plenty of people for whom D&D is exactly the right amount of lumpy. But I also know that there are people out there struggling with the complexity of the rules, and people frustrated with the combat, who could be having a much better time with a different kind of peanut butter, whatever type that might be. If you give it a try, you might find there's a whole new nutty experience waiting for you that's going to transform your gaming sandwiches. And if, like me, you don't actually like peanut butter, there might be a revelation waiting for you amongst the jam and chocolate spread.
Then again, perhaps it'll cause your in-laws to blame you for the destruction of the family and accuse you of using witchcraft to corrupt their child into incorrect fantasy gaming preferences?
I really don't understand why peanut butter is such a big deal.