Shittiest RPG gimmicks

Also make up examples if you can't think of any off hand. I'm planning to make a parody RPG using all bad ideas

>>49900946
maybe you should start with listing some gimmicks of your own first, OP.

Rolling dice to determine the outcome of actions.
Man, fuck that.

Parody rpgs.

>>49900946

Using calculus to determine firing arcs.

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>>49900946

>3.5 spellcasting

Classes.

Characters.

6- is a "failure"
7~9 is a partial success
10~11 is another partial success
12+ is a grumpy "yes" from the GM

>>49902277
> Character-less game
> Each players control a group of people, a mass of people rather than a specific individual.
> You don't level up, you increase your masses
I going to call this Eisenstein RPG.

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>>49901446
>Play 3.5 because that's the edition my DM uses
>Ask him how he feels about Pathfinder
>"It's too powergamey for me to really enjoy it." he says a day after he got done explaining all the insane shit wizards can do

>>49900946
>Yes, your Sense Motive/Perception/whatever skill or ability is meaningless
>See, that NPC didn't really lie to you to railroad you along the way, he just honestly repeated bogus information someone gave him!

>>49900946
Narrative dice pools

>>49902930
this

I'm going to say the shittiest gimmick of all time is Rule Zero. I literally can't think of a worse gimmick.

>>49901422
Then I'm off to a good start

>>49901441
I really had a hard time avoiding this. My main game I'm designing has so many appropriate stats that SHOULD affect aim, plus my map system handles obstacles and shit well... Felt so wrong to ignore factors

>>49902930
Why is "failure" in quotation marks?

>>49903214
A lot of GM related powers belong in this thread I see. I think the lack of structure for GM is the shittiest part of all ttrpgs, but it's also what the community has evolved around

>>49903233
What kind of cancer is this?

>>49900946
Everything using a d20 roll to determine success

>>49900946
fun

>>49903269
This is going to end up in that game that has some strict rules for both GM and players alike, isn't it? The one with the extremely specific rules about how to throw the dice IIRC.

Roleplaying

A need for other players.

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>>49903195
>he thinks fucking PATHFINDER is better

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>>49900946
>Metacurrencies that can be used to buy plot elements.
>Priority system character generation
>You have to roll lifepaths and shit, but there is only 1d6 different outcomes per step and all of them are stupid.
>Stat/Skill names that are sentences.
>Basic signature abilities of classes are only available to high level characters.

>>49900946
Critical Fumbles. I'm not talking "You miss" or "The enemy gets a free attack on you" or any other more reasonable stuff like that, I'm talking dumb shit like "You attack a teammate" and "You hit yourself" type of nonsense. Absolutely the worst. That and spell cards. Fuck spell cards.

>>49902930
I fucking hate this shit, both as a player and as a DM. I hate it when games force several steps of failure and success.

If it's important, the DM has a good idea or the player gives a good reason and idea, you can still do degrees of success and failure within a binary system. As a DM, I don't want to have to come up with several possible outcomes for completely miniscule bullshit I don't really care about. Yes or No is fine.
As a player, I don't want to have to deal with the DM fucking me over, even though I made a good check but not absolutely stellar check.

>>49903863
>>Metacurrencies that can be used to buy plot elements.

What exactly do you mean by this? Because I love it when players have a way to directly change a scene in order to act on some bullshit idea they have without having to play "Mother may I" with the DM every time.

>>49904128
>As a DM, I don't want to have to come up with several possible outcomes for completely miniscule bullshit I don't really care about. Yes or No is fine.

You know in PbtA games you both only roll when it is necessary (there's already some threat for failure), and you also have a list of GM moves to use, right? You don't really "need to come up" with anything, if you don't want to.

>>49903636
I learnt the hard way that there're worse things than 3.5...and that was PF, srly, even more caster supremacy

>>49903942
>Fuck spell cards.

...

But why?

That shitty poker dice system that cthulhu-tech uses

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That a variety of weapons vastly different in size, easy of use, rarity, viability in actual combat, and flair all do the same base damage.

>>49904163
I spend my bennies so now:
>we have a teleport to mount doom
>the king agrees to let me marry the princess
>I devine the secret hideout
>the cultist carried a note with their plans
>the troll nocks over a pillar and the archway collapses above him

Basically the ability to instantly circumvent a challenge by summoning deus ex machina.

>>49904282
Hillfolk(drama system) uses bennies but it's more complex than that.

You can use one to "force" an outcome for you and for others you can use one to get the sword or keep the other player from getting it and it's more about goals that aren't circumvented by combat most of the times characters have relationships with eachothers and conflincting goals.

i really like Drama system.

>>49900946
>class systems
I've started to dislike the strict character classes of typical RPGs, partly because I'm tired of them, but also because it's led to a rigid way of thinking where people can't conceive of a character without relying on classes. I've been wanting to homebrew something up that has themed talent trees that you can dip into and out of at a whim, provided you meet certain prerequisites.

>Vancian casting
I've never liked how this has worked. 4e got around it nicely by dividing powers into encounters and dailies, and 5e got around it by changing how spell memorization and spell slot consumption works, but I always hated how it worked in 3.5/PF and earlier versions. I would say it was too easy to memorize the wrong spells and end up unable to contribute to an encounter, but that's completely wrong because caster supremacy meant you could memorize a shitton of powerful and useful spells without worrying about any of them being the wrong one.

Also, I remember reading somewhere that originally in Jack Vance's books the most powerful mages didn't have a hundred spells memorized, they had like four extraordinarily strong spells memorized because of the effort it took. Seems like D&D's take on his work missed the point.

>>49904249
This too. It's really bad in D&D 5e, and I'm thinking of introducing more weapon traits to make melee combat more interesting and varied.

>>49904282
Yeah, that stuff is pretty dumb and any game encouraging it is dumb.
But I love it for stuff like

>I once heard about a teleport to Mount Doom, we could try to travel there and see if it exists
>The king has a daughter I could try to woo
>The room has a huge chandelier that I want to try and swing from
>One of the pillars is cracked, I want to lure the troll into hitting it

Basically, using that shit as a way to expand the story and bring in your own ideas with the meta-currency being a way to "bribe" the GM so he feels better about nodding your idea off. Everything within reason and with veto rights for the GM of course.

>>49904448

In the Jack's dying earth series one of the most powerful mages was able to have 4 to 8 spells depending on how strong they were and how taxing it was to memorize and they were rather meh in power compared to dnd but it makes it's so much better and flavorful and you saw the mages as being smart guys who relied on brains and not wish spells

I think Dnd falls apart when spells have multi functions.

>>49903059
So basically once you hit epic levels the game just turns into Risk?

Would play.

>>49904546
Then you guys might like http://www.lamemage.com/kingdom/

>>49904533
That's D&D's biggest failing, I agree. Magic is too useful and too powerful and too versatile and doesn't have enough drawbacks. There's a spell for every situation, and a well-prepared spellcaster can replace multiple party members with just spells, and he has enough resources to cast them multiple times a day.

It's bad game design.

>>49904636
The main problem here is that they slowly, but surely removed all the drawbacks from casters over the editions.
Ironically, Urban Arcana of all things actually fixes a lot of problems.

>>49904654
I actually thought that urban arcana just made magic kinda uninspired and alot of spells just useless or way too specific.

there has to be a balance between cost and usefulness.

>>49904654
They're just so unwilling to slaughter all those sacred cows, but I firmly believe sacred cows make the most delicious burgers.

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>System gives fate points to the GM

>>49904688
I'm in a D&D 5e group where the DM gave everyone one free fate point / inspiration / whatever per session. I say free, because you have effectively unlimited, but if you use a fate point past the first one, the DM gets a Villainy point, and unlike fate points, those accumulate across sessions.

I actually kinda like it.

>>49903269
>Why is "failure" in quotation marks?

Because he's a cancerous faggot who thinks the games he's talking about don't let players fail. Which is internet meme horseshit.

Also seconding this guy's response to the other dude: >>49904171
You're not supposed to be rolling for "miniscule bullshit" that you don't really care about in the first place. Really, in any RPG, for that matter.

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>>49903863
>mfw my system has almost all of these things
Can't please everyone

>>49904793
Can't he already do whatever he likes? Has your DM put some kind of geas on himself?

>>49900946
Using Luck as an expendable resource to make good things happen to you

>>49904916
He likes to roll out in the open, I guess.

>>49904922

I prefer systems like Monster of the Week, where luck is a burnable resource you use to prevent terrible things from happening to you. God help you when you almost inevitably run out, too.

>>49904183
I think a lot of people hate the idea of spell cards for two reasons:

>they're one more thing you gotta pay for
>the most popular systems use Vancian magic, which requires more cards than a Yu-Gi Oh deck

I've seen a lot more systems offer the cards as free printouts and require fewer cards in the first place lately, so I consider them redeemed.

But this is a thread about hating anything other than 3.PF that was made in the last ten years, so it's no surprise someone is bitching about spell cards.

>>49904448
>themed talent trees that you can dip into and out of at a whim, provided you meet certain prerequisites
You should look into Open Legend. The gist of it is that instead of selecting a class, your stat distribution determines an array of powers (boons and banes) you can use, fluffed however you like. Then you take feats to flesh out special abilities.

I have my problems with the system otherwise, but I think that's a pretty cool idea.

>>49904979
Except people hate classes and vancian casting too.

>>49904979
>not just making your own spell cards
And I just use them so we don't have to go to the book every time there's a question.

>>49902257
>>49904448
>>49905132


Where did all this hate for class systems arise from? Seems like it only emerged in the last couple years as one more excuse for everyone to crucify DnD/PF. There's nothing inherently wrong with class systems, even in a classless system you still build your character to a certain archetype. Seems like people think it's a bad system because the classes offered by DnD/PF are so absurdly rigid.

>Classes that only work with a pretty narrow archetype like Monk or Druid or Barbarian
>Class is one of the only differences between characters

>>49904282
There's normally a caveat that the GM can shoot down unreasonable suggestions like this. It's usually intended for stuff like 'I had a gas mask/radio/other cheap piece of useful gear all along'.

>>49905247
>49905247
People think it's bad because only DnD/PF does it nowadays.

>>49905247

In my opinion i just don't like being tied down to one set of characteristic not saying that i want to excel at everything but i much more enjoy a system who makes all the choices i can think off valid.

>Class is one of the only differences between characters

that's crap and then every character blends in to each-other
i can appreciate having wizard that are as much as unique individuals as they are wizards and that's fine but i don't like having these archetypes in my systems.

I like to take my own ingredients and make something by myself than having to follow a cookbook.

>>49905328
I think class systems make more sense in fantasy and less sense in sci-fi. In most fantasy settings the techniques if a class represent a lot of time investment: you gotta study a lot to be a wizgorg, for example. In a sci-fi setting, on the other hand, it's pretty easy to learn the basics of pretty much anything thanks to the internet and anyone can pick up a gun or a drone or hotwire a spacecar.

>>49901398
You don't need physical dice, just randomization.

A randomizer connected to your character stats with all your modifiers baked in is the best possible option.

Come at me, bro.

>>49905457
In a sci-fi, there's more to know, even if knowledge is more accessible.

Besides, classes are always useful as an optional tool, if for nothing else then to cover the common archetypes of your setting.

>>49904179
Pathfinder CMBs are worse, because they nerfed the major martial feat lines.

Include 3.5e martial feats and it's slightly less caster supremacy than 3.5.

But it's best to just include all the pf and 3.5e stuff, and dsp, and green ronins template bestiary, and tome of horrors, and go nuts, simply restrict party tier spread to 2, or at most 3 adjacent tiers.

Dndtools(or various "bible" pdfs) + d20pfsrd + archives of Nethys makes finding did much easier than trying to remember all the books and what's in them.

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>>49905570
If you want 3.5 with balanced martials, Fantasycraft is pretty decent. Not perfect by any means, but a lot better than 3.PF.

>>49900946
Not having a well calibrated table of DC examples for each category of stuff you roll for.

It's worth a couple pages out of the book. It's boring to write, but makes for consistent gming, and calibrating player expectations so they understand how good their character is, in concrete terms.

>>49905584
Fc had potential, but instead ended up a half-finished, unsupported game line without proper rules for mages, prebuilt monsters, or adventures.

dms that make everything a roll, bonus points for when a failure means nothing happens except that you have to roll until you get it

>>49905636
Not having prebuilt monsters or adventures isn't really a huge downside for a lot of people, and Spellbound is coming pretty soon. To each his own though, some people like having big monster manuals and adventures.

>>49905641
There should be a good way to change that into a "how long does it take you to succeed" roll, which is useful if you have a limited amount of time.

>>49905662
sorry, a yes/no is the only way we can pretend to be elfs

here are forty pages of feats and another forty in case you accidentally throw all those feats in the trash

>>49905656
I can do without adventures, but still want/require prebuilt adversaries.

Ideally , rather than adventures, I'd have settings. Well fleshed out regions of major players and factions and an interesting time to be in that place.

Like owod "by night" city books, or like the 3e waterdeep give, or the 2e pansies setting books, or what have you.

A couple of all designed playgrounds for me to play with as gm go a long way, even if I just crib elements I like.

As for spellbound? I've been hearing that for years. I'll believe it when I see it.

Have stat checks determined by rolling under on some and rolling over on others, with absolutely no consistency between them.

>>49905708
Well there is a book, Adventure Companion, that has three settings with factions and bestiaries and whatnot.

>>49905674
If success is guaranteed and there are no consequences of failure beyond time wasted, all I need to know is "how long". There has to be a better way to do that than rolling a dozen times or more until I succeed.

>>49905730
That's a start, for sure. Not quite a fully detailed city I can just pick up and run after reading it, but something.

>>49900946
Everything boxed, expected encounters based on your level rather than the setting, every low level nigga is a boss because whatevs, "dungeons" filled with rats that only consist of three rooms, everyone is special and is worth the same ammount of awesome gameplay, no risk, easy revivals without consequence for short money, no growth or too fast growth that becomes meaningless, monsters are just things to kill for fast exp, there are just magic swords and they're too many, elite players or NPCs without personality, trying to simulate yurop to the last detail of autism, then add a buttload of PC crap, the list is endless.

Basically make it all a tasteless meaningless grind, and be sure to ask the player smugly how they should be having fun with your superior media every 5 minutes. Also, look in cringe threads beyond the cringe, cringe at the cringer.

>>49904871
>Because he's a cancerous faggot who thinks the games he's talking about don't let players fail. Which is internet meme horseshit.
Projecting much, anon?

>>49906681

Okay, why do YOU think he put "failure" in quotation marks, wise guy?

Because that's a meme I've seen plenty of.

>>49906721
Maybe, just maybe, he's referencing the 6- failure as just another failure, based on the system we are both thinking here; as in, all rolls have a clear degree of failure.

Or maybe I am projecting my bias against this sadistic game?

>>49904964
I ran a campaign of this and across four players, only one of them spent one point. They saved up their luck and dumped it out on the final boss of the game and passed every single roll and wrecked him.

>>49906760

Nah, that guy's way off. The rolls amount to:
6- : No. You fail to get what you want, GM makes a move
7-9: Yes, but. You can get what you want, but there's a catch, or a cost, or you can only get some of what you want.
10+: Yes. You get what you want.
12+ (under special situations): Yes, and. You get what you want, and some other benefit besides.

Only the first two have failure in them, and unless the GM is softballing his moves, it's a failure, not a "failure."
(The idea that you can never fail in a "fail forward" system is a commonly posted idea spread by shitposting idiots, often armed with big stupid image macros, who don't understand that "fail forward" doesn't actually mean "win anyway")

>>49906854

They only spent one point? Are you sure you were making moves appropriately? Mathematically, they should should be getting into serious trouble in their early levels, encouraging them to spend a few to avoid serious complications or death.
That said, if they were REALLY clever about managing their risks and were able to hang onto a lot of points without anybody dying, using them at the end of the campaign is a fun way to go out.

Levels

Rules lite and over-simplified systems.

Along with the twats who champion them.

>>49908983
Hey buddy, I'm making one, mainly because making characters in a d20 system feels like doing taxes

>>49908983

Counterpoint: Stupid jerks who are literally "Stop liking what I don't like."

>>49905656
>Spellbound is coming pretty soon
I've heard that for years now. What's different this time?

>>49904183
I dunno, I'm actually considering turning a lot of my DnD abilities and spells into cards for quick reference.

Easier than writing down some weird table of abilities, or looking it up in the book. Again.

Special dice (basically any without numbers on it)

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>>49900946
organizing spells alphabetically

>>49909430
Even worse, special dice with an uncommon number of sides. (d24, d30 and such)

Just so you can't easily replace it with other dice.

>>49909446

Systems that require special dice, or "just use our handy phone app!"

I'm looking at you, Dungeon Crawl Classics. Phones at the table, my ass.

>>49909461
Overcomplicated combat mechanics so you pretty much need that handy phone app...

...Which comes in multiple editions that are only functional for one class per app, all of which are separate purchases.

>>49909461
>"just use our handy phone app!"
or "the system works fine, just have a calculator at the table."

If you need a calculator to resolve an attack roll at a decent pace, and no one at the table has dyscalculia, you fucked up the design somewhere.

>>49903863
You can save us all some time and just say you hate everything about Numenera.

>>49907162
>"fail forward" doesn't actually mean "win anyway"
As someone who was originally ambivalent about both "total failures" and "you win anyway" I've found through playing these games with various different people that there's not really any way to play it as "you win anyway" even if you try.

It's patently absurd and people find it very unnatural. I can't imagine anyone actually does play that way.

However, that to me points to a crisis within the very concept of "failing forward."
Because, when you fail, then the "fail forward" ideology seemingly creates the necessity for the DM to come up with the way for them to succeed or otherwise move forward somehow.
But first of all, that can sometimes be very difficult, especially from a position of not having planned events out ahead of time (which is how the pbta games insist you GM: you can prep places and enemies if you like, but you don't get to plan out assumptions as to what will happen.)
And secondly, that indirectly results in the players having the metanarrative knowledge that it's eventually gonna be your job to remove or circumvent every obstacle that blocks progress.

So why they can eventually die due to stuff like hit points or the doom clock thingy, everything else is kind of meant to happen on a "paved road" where the GM makes sure that every failure is an opportunity for SOMETHING.

And I'm not sure that's actually a good idea when you get down to it. Because weird stuff happens to what it feels like to be a player when lots of special opportunities spring up in response to your getting stuck, but the world is hard-wired to invariably be a dangerous shithole that gives you no interesting opportunities otherwise.

I don't think the oppressive enforcement of particular genre tropes and bits of "game ideology" inherent to ptba are its best features. I'm not sure, but I've come to feel that they're probably not worth the headaches.

I love moves though. I think all manner of games should use them.

>>49910570
>Because, when you fail, then the "fail forward" ideology seemingly creates the necessity for the DM to come up with the way for them to succeed or otherwise move forward somehow.

No, fail forward means the -narrative- moves forward in some fashion. not necessarily the players. Something happens, and in a failure state, it's something that's actually BAD for the players. Their enemy beats them to the macguffin or something of that sort. That's a failure, one that doesn't "remove or circumvent every obstacle," it adds a new one, and changes the landscape in interesting ways.
The purpose of the fail forward philosophy is to keep the game moving and prevent it stagnating into a dull "nothing happens, what now?" stage. The Apocalypse Engine seeks to create a rush of tension and drama, and it needs that forward momentum to do so, like a shark it dies if you stop swimming.
The players' goal is to turn that shark around and point it in the direction of the things they want, but when they fail a roll, it goes the wrong way and their goals get further away from them.

>>49910813
But that's exactly what I was saying: the GM then has this pressure on him to ensure that the game never ends up at "nothing happens, what now?", which makes the game world behave according to weird rules such as opportunities becoming abundant when you would otherwise have been "stuck."

>>49911014
>opportunities becoming abundant when you would otherwise have been "stuck."

That doesn't follow on from that at all.

>>49911014

>roll to pick the lock
>fail: can´t pick it

>roll to pick the lock
>fail forward: you hear the footsteps of a guard approaching / alarm system rings / lock breaks

With the first case, we stagnate. Nothing happens.
Now, generally you don´t have to roll to pick a lock if you have all the time in the world. It´s stuff like urgency what makes you need a roll. You gotta get in before you get caught.

So when you fail the roll, you don´t fail at the basic task you´re attempting, you fail at the reason that actually made picking the roll a challenge that needs rolling. You get caught, or simply a guard is coming and you need to reevaluate what you do: keep going and risk getting caught, or retreat for now?
Or you can break the lock or something similar. Now you have to find a new way to get in.

If the players would get "stuck", don´t throw them an opportunity so they can move forward. Throw them instead something to move away from, and they´ll move forward in some other direction all by themselves.

>>49911099
>>49911101
The DM has to do something about the fact that you would've been "stuck" after picking the lock.

>>49911101
This is the sort of thing I see people resort to, and I think that's good GMing, but it doesn't strike me as very fitting in terms of "failing forward". There's no directionality to it (which way is forward? It's not past the door; you just broke the lock and triggered an alarm) and perhaps more importantly, there's no incremental success gained from the failure.

What it is, is a failure and then a change of direction (to focus on something else that is required to be actively happening at the same time.)

>>49911232
>There's no directionality to it (which way is forward?

I'm afraid you may have the autism, anon. Failing forward has nothing to do with "directionality," it's entirely about keeping narrative momentum. Nothing more. You keep trying to read in things you've inferred and tack on dubious corollaries, but all that failing forward is about is making sure stuff keeps happening, and that's it.

>>49911232
Thing is, there´s two basic options: the players get their way (pick the lock) or they don´t (fail to pick).

If they pick the lock, they´re in and things move on.
If they fail, they´re stuck and will simply keep trying until they successfully pick it, or until they get bored and decide to try something else.

If, when they fail, you throw something else at them to force them to change direction, then we end up at the same point (do something else), only we skip the "keep trying until bored" part.

If the GM is good at improvisation or has enough stuff prepared, you can also use this change of direction to actually help them, but without making it easy. I like to offer high risk/reward situations after a failure.

For example, you fail your picking roll and hear a guard is coming. Among his footsteps, they can also hear the unmistakable sound of keys dangling against each other. If they can see him, they´ll see them hanging from his belt.

Now things are different and we´re handling a different thing, but it can be helpful. Much more risky than the previous approach, but that´s what you get when you fuck up the easy way.

Now we´re in a worse situation than before, but we aren´t completely stuck because there´s still a way to get in, and at the same time we´re pressuring the players into acting: are they going to assault the guard? Attempt to snatch the keys somehow? They have to do it soon or he´ll be gone.

They try and fail? Now they´ve got to escape. And what was hidden in the room is moved somewhere else (from the basement, into the highest tower), or whatever, so while their goal is the same and things are nastier, now there´s some new way to approach the problem, which is probably more dangerous than what was possible before (climbing from the outside rather than picking the lock).

>>49911357
...I think anon wasn´t being literal at all about it, but simply calling "falling forward" out as the rather stupid expression it actually is.

>>49900946
>fumbles
Because nothing is more idiotic than a professionally-trained warrior having a 1 in 20 (or 1 in 400, for those who demand two rolls) chance of cutting his own dick off every time he swings his sword.

>spellcasting as a unique skill to a few classes
That's not to say that there shouldn't be classes that are better than others at magic. I hate settings where most people are totally incapable of using it, especially when it's a setting where magic is everywhere. It'd be like making a modern setting where there's a science class, a hacker class, and everyone else is Amish.

>hidden GM rolls
The whole point of a roll is that it's done in front of everyone to create the sense of fairness. Or you use it to pick off of random tables because you're unimaginative. If you're doing hidden success rolls in front of your group, it's as pointless as jacking off under the table.

>having many different die roll types
Success checks, random tables and consequence rolls are all you need. That means you should really only have three different ways to roll the dice and resolve shit. Anything more than that is stupid.

>>49911357
Even if that's all it is, that banks on the idea that it's not worth anyone's time to roll dice, giving spotlight and representation to players' build choices (stats, etc.) unless a situation is complicated enough to somehow snowball. Do we really have to agree with that?

If it's been established that you're in a safe location, (let's say you cleared out the dungeon and your Ranger's got a good view of the hallway leading into the room, and you're just picking the lock of a treasure chest), then due to the way the rules are set up, you don't get to roll anything. There's no move for that.

Instead, you keep narrating until you're forced to decide whether they get to do it or not. So either "oh you're a rogue so you pick the lock no problem" or "no you're not a rogue and your 14 dex is not enough IMO so that lock is beyond you".

But that's weird, because regardless of whether you just tell a player their character can't do something, or whether you actually roll dice, the same rule governs it: If you end up at the "oh shit I guess there's nothing interesting happening right now" moment, then the players are "looking to you" or whatever, and then the GM has to make a move to get things going again.
Which, again, is the game enforcing that something should happen under certain circumstances thus warping fictional reality in predictable ways to create opportunities or drama (suddenly ogres!).

It's a bit like the world bluescreens and the way it starts back up is by spawning something dangerous or interesting for you.

... But why is it that the game is so allergic to failures that come specifically from rolling dice, but not as a result of "mother may i"?
When you roll dice, that's when the game showcases and gives consequence to the choices the players made for their characters. Whenever the decision is just left to the GM, he's under a lot of pressure to say "yes" because when he says "no" the same shitty thing happens as when a roll fails.

>>49911498
There's definitely something at the bottom of it that's intended to avoid the whole "We'll just try again then?" scenario that in other games tends to get "solved" by usually-not-very-satisfying rules like Take 20.

Even stuff like Take 20 will produce an ultimate failure occasionally, and then the game halts and the PCs will have to think of something else to do.

But is that really so much worse than the "make a move" approach that pbta games ultimately employ? I'm unconvinced.

>>49911696
>But why is it that the game is so allergic to failures that come specifically from rolling dice, but not as a result of "mother may i"?
When you roll dice, that's when the game showcases and gives consequence to the choices the players made for their characters. Whenever the decision is just left to the GM, he's under a lot of pressure to say "yes" because when he says "no" the same shitty thing happens as when a roll fails.
And this is why I liked Nobilis' Monarda Law.

Never answer "can I do this?" with no. Instead, use one of these for answers:

"Yes", if their course of actions seems interesting and harmless;
"How?", if you can't figure out a plausible way to pull it off;
"You can try!", if it's seems believable yet statistically impossible;
"Maybe, but there's a catch", if you can think of a good catch.

"How" is the best way to shut down truly absurd suggestions. Players tend to come up with a better option when forced to justify the ridiculous.

>>49909365
I copy paste the rules text into my character sheet, or use hyperlinks to link to them on d20pfsrd.

But then, my character sheets are google docs pages filled in with whatever I need.

>>49909461
Systems that require physical dice, and don't have a handy phone app.

>>49911539
>fumbles.
it's why I prefer systems which do include fumbles to have some form of fumble table.

At least then there's some granularity to the result rather than just slicing your own nads off.

for example, low fumbles resulting in missing or a minus on the next roll.
maybe even lowering the difficulty to hit the fumbler as he tries to regain the advantage.
working it's way up to dropping or damaging their weapon and then, at the very worst level, actually hurting themselves.

they can be tailored to different weapon types too.
a fumble table for missle weapons may include friendly fire results, for example.

>>49909106
Hahaha listen to this faggot that doesnt old school.
Go play mythus, or dnd 2.0, or palladium or shit anything pre 2001.
Go makeva shadowrun decker from 3.0 and tell me about doing your taxes

FATE
It's gimmicks: the game
It also sucks massive dicks

>>49912196
No

>>49912125
>for example, low fumbles resulting in missing or a minus on the next roll.
Even then, it's inane.

The problem I have with fumbles isn't that I think bad things can happen in combat. It's that with a game like D&D, and it's flat probability for rolling a 1, there's effectively an equal chance for catastrophe to hit a matter swordsman as their is a novice. No matter what your stats are, the odds to roll 1 remain the same.

Furthermore, with the characters rolling every attack, the chances for a fumble go up quickly. If you attack once every turn for an entire minute, you have a 40.1% chance of fucking up severely at least once. Even if you roll confirmations on a natural 1, every hero will have a 77.7% chance to fumble for every hour of combat in their career.

That's just bananas.

Any game that pretends what its doing is hardcore in comparison to other games, and encourages its players to think themselves superior for playing it.

>>49900946
Tables

>>49903425
That fucking Russian one with the dice roller boxy thing, VTNL?

>>49903269
>My game has so many attributes that should affect aim.
Your game should probably not have that many attributes then.

>>49900946
"Rules-Lite" that isn't actually light on the rules.

>>49900946
The entirety of the FATAL sourcebook. Anything that is bad, is in there. It's a go-to list for fucked up mechanics.

>>49910133
Numenera doesn't have priority character gen, thay's shadow run.

>>49907162
>Nah, that guy's way off. The rolls amount to:
>6- : No. You fail to get what you want, GM makes a move
>7-9: Yes, but. You can get what you want, but there's a catch, or a cost, or you can only get some of what you want.
>10+: Yes. You get what you want.
>12+ (under special situations): Yes, and. You get what you want, and some other benefit besides.
Where is the problem with this then?

>>49905247
The problem with class based systems is that there's too much overlap between some classes while other classes are built around being one-trick ponies.

It also creates an imbalance issue when the classes themselves aren't built around the same power level but if all the classes are around the same power level then it kinda raises the question of what distinguishes class A from Class B.

Finally, it doesn't make all that much sense from an in-game standpoint either. I mean, in a world where magic beats anything non-magical, yet is common enough for any random sod to become a cleric, druid, or wizard, it makes you wonder why the Fighter doesn't take on some magic himself to keep up, especially when there are spells that boost effectiveness in combat and magic items are plentiful.

It's just easier to have classless systems since it produces more variety while avoiding the balance issues, assuming of course that the currency used to buy shit is actually balanced.

>>49916725
Sometimes a roll doesn't really warrant more then a pass/fail, the detractors feel like the system is forcing them to come up with four significantly different note that results for every roll.

The complaint is a bit much, but it is true that sometimes as a gm you can get tired of thinking about different small but not inconsequential boons and intrusions to attach to the rolls.

>>49917063
You're not a very good GM if you can't think of a logical progression beyond pass or fail.

It's not even that difficult, just take like five seconds and think up the best case scenario and the worst case scenario for whatever action someone's planning to do.

>>49916958
Everything you write implies you are only familiar with modern d20.

>>49917063
>Sometimes a roll doesn't really warrant more then a pass/fail, the detractors feel like the system is forcing them to come up with four significantly different note that results for every roll.
Dude, you're overhauling it WAY too much.

You only have too think of one result. The one that comes up. There's no need to brain out the what-ifs. Just wait to see the die roll, and start using your mind.

The main system that those rolls come from is Apocalypse World. And that one is designed largely as an improv RPG. The GM doesn't do homework, doesn't set up adventures beforehand, and doesn't need to pre-plan actions. You wait to see what happens and react.

Further, the descriptions given about the mechanic imply a 7-9 or 12+ result require you to come up with consequences all by yourself. But in the actual game, the rules tell you mostly what can happen as a result of a given roll.

Here's the Go Aggro move from AW:

When you go aggro on someone, make it clear what you want them to do and what you’ll do to them. Roll+hard. On a 10+, they have to choose:
• Force your hand and suck it up.
• Cave and do what you want.
On a 7–9, they can choose 1 of the above, or 1 of the following:
• Get the hell out of your way.
• Barricade themselves securely in.
• Give you something they think you want, or tell you what you want to hear.
• Back off calmly, hands where you can see.
On a miss, be prepared for the worst.
On a 12+, they have to cave and do what you want. You’ve overwhelmed them; they can’t possibly bring themselves to force your hand.

See how easy it makes it to come up with an outcome? All you have to do is figure out how that result fits the current situation.

>>49917271
>Dude, you're overthinking it WAY too much.
Fixed.

>>49917139
It's similar to the same fatigue that sets in when describing attacks for the umpteenth time. At some point you just end up saying 'you hit, you deal x damage.' Similarly, the 'yeah, but ' becomes 'you deal x damage, and he hits you back for y damage'. If you've never felt this way then you must not roll many dice.

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>>49904636
I'm not saying it doesn't eventually get out of hand, but magic in Moldvay Basic is actually pretty constrained. If you play by the book, you know only as many spells as you can cast per day, and there's a lot of stuff spells don't do, in part because of the limited size of the spell lists.

It's not perfect, and I still have an issue with the resource management aspect of it, because your power can vary greatly according to the length of the adventure, and in cases where the length isn't obvious, a miscalculation can leave you depleted, which can be a real problem for the party's ability to continue the adventure (often leading the GM to find an opportunity for you to rest when you really shouldn't be able to, thus doing away with one of the biggest restrictions on the power of casters). But then old school D&D was always very much focused on resource management.

>>49917284
You shouldn't feel fatigue if you're actually having fun with the system mate.

It sounds like a personal problem if anything else.

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>>49911696
>So either "oh you're a rogue so you pick the lock no problem" or "no you're not a rogue and your 14 dex is not enough IMO so that lock is beyond you".
If you're running the dungeon as a quick game rather than part of a campaign, the chest has no reason to exist - it's a minor failure that doesn't impact the ability of the party to finish. In a premade dungeon, just exclude the chest entirely when describing the room, or, if you really want them to have the loot inside, make it easier.
If it's part of a larger narrative, impose some time pressure on a low-success roll (and make sure they know it's low-success, e.g. "the lock is far and beyond anything you've picked before"):
>rescue-style mission: they can keep trying, but there's no telling how long until the dragon gets bored and eats the mayor's daughter
>stop the plan mission: they can keep trying, but the bad guy's evil ritual gets even closer to completion, and it will be harder to stop them
>any type, but kinda dickish: they can keep trying, but their lockpicking tools seem to be weakening under strain of repeated attempts, and they may lose their ability to pick even basic locks if they push their tools too hard

>>49916375
Except 4th edition, which is point based.

Incidentally that's a big part of why i like sr4e the most. 5e had slightly better combat.

>>49904533
Pretty meh? Ai think they were equal at the short end. While being overpowered at the firsts steps. One of the fisrt spells is "fuck you you are dead " and one of the fisrts protections spells is "im invulnerable"

>>49917293
>(often leading the GM to find an opportunity for you to rest when you really shouldn't be able to, thus doing away with one of the biggest restrictions on the power of casters)

GM's handling the dungeon crawl the modern way, then, which is going to cause problems. When running an old-school game like that the GM ought to be totally impartial; it's up to the players to figure out if, when, and where to try to rest. And the length of the adventure should be up to them, not something the GM planned out.

It sounds like a GM and group accustomed to modern playstyles having a conflict with the play style built into systems like Moldvay.

>>49900946
I don't like diplomacy rules. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with players solving a problem diplomatically. I have a problem with the dice rolls and skill points required to do so. I have a problem with players who will say the bare minimum of trite garbage before rolling a dice and suddenly making a new friend. I have a problem with the way some players seem to think this means they can solve any problem through diplomacy, whether it's a pack of feral dogs or a genocidal halfling gestapo.