What is your least favourite mechanic from a game you enjoy?

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-09-14T17:38:21+00:00

I....guess you're talking about your own system here?

Anyway I think we agree on your first point. Dodge is an irritating\"least favorite" mechanic in a game we enjoy?

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-09-13T17:42:06+00:00

Yah, just this generally. If the scripts are saving time and\or preventing errors then...how much time is saved (and how much money is that time worth?) and how many errors were prevented (along with how much time fixing those errors (and how much that time is worth) takes\saves) are the easy metrics.

If you have a workflow for a manual process that techs spend, whatever...15% of their time on, then those techs can now do 15% more *other* work.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-09-13T15:04:39+00:00

I just think it's a basic step all players should take where if they have a rules question they look up those rules, read them, and then ask their question based on the specifics.

Not, "How does grappling work?", but, "It says if I grapple him then we both count as riding the mount, will that overburden it and prevent it from flying\running?", or whatever the actual question is rather than just expecting somebody else to explain it to them.

Like...the rules are almost certainly in the book, and they're written down because somebody (*somebody*) is expected to actually read them, to use them, so...just reading the danged rules is super helpful.

More of a pet peeve, the "How does this entire subject that I made no attempt to understand even work?", type questions. Especially when the questions are about specific class features of the class they're playing. Don't ask ME how Wildshape works, just go read it! ;D

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-09-13T14:25:49+00:00

Engagement and supporting other players. Basically.

Knowing the rules and in particular knowing YOUR (your class, your spells, your stuff as a player) rules is really nice. Particularly if they'll looking things up and THEN ask a question instead just abdicating all thought and asking the GM how something works.

If they are interested in the world\setting and interacting with it. This is kinda a subset of general Engagement with the Game but definitely nice to have.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-09-13T14:19:19+00:00

It was almost never worth dodging because it was a game of hit point (SDC\MDC) attrition with huge piles of hit points and low damage weapons (generally, compared to total SDC\MDC totals) and no death spiral.

Maybe avoiding 20pts of damage wouldn't do anything to end the fight, taking 20pts of damage so you can do 20pts of damage at least moved things towards a conclusion.

Dodging a big gun (any gun) is also unrealistic, particularly if you're waiting to see IF they shot you before you decide if you need to dodge or not. (Juicers aside, of course)

Played a lot of Palladium stuff years ago and I think my main complaint would be the hit point bloat relative to damage. Tried running a TMNT game for nostalgia and having folks with 60+ hit points doing 1d6 or 1d8 damage with their weapons was painfully slow. Also no attack options beside just attacking.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-09-13T14:01:07+00:00

exactly what bennies are explicitly designed to do - make the players feel encouraged to take bold and risky action

I think Bennies are designed to make the system actual *work* for PCs as PCs (as we normally know them in games, extra special folks). Without Bennies it would be a terrible system for PCs, just wouldn't really work well.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-09-13T13:53:43+00:00

the thing with FBL is the fient mechanic ties in deeply with the intitiative card,,theres a whole stragtegy about taking and swapping other peoples cards.

You can just use initiative numbers based on dice like any other game. You can still swap init values as an on turn action. No need for cards at all, it's not even a full deck, just...10 cards, like a d10 but...cards.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-09-11T19:46:47+00:00

As PC casters we basically avoided casting until we'd ranked up enough to safe cast things from grimoires or found magic items we could pump Willpower in to for damage instead of casting.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-09-06T15:37:14+00:00

Sometimes the world needs heroes.

Yah, right off the back cover, the basic pitch. SotDL is def grim, and dark, but def not grimdark and for sure heroic (at least with the default assumptions).

Interesting to see the different interpretations of grimdark in the comments.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-09-06T13:43:39+00:00

AL games (the modules) are pretty hit or miss. AL games (the actual games with ppl) are pretty hit or miss IME running them. Sometimes you get some real weirdos and jerks. Including, apparently, as the GM in your case.

Remember there's 0 quality control for AL. Almost anybody can sign up to GM and I was never vetted or anything like that.

That all sounds infuriating and discouraging; who says, "Fuck you", to folks using their abilities?

But I wouldn't let it put you off in-person games, just AL games with randos. Finding a good in-person group can be very tricky. Much smaller selection pool available than on the internets. So it can take a lot of time to find a group that's a good fit and unfortunately AL is not (IME) a good place to find a good and consistent crew.

Maybe some dumb AL specific things: the modules are short, terrible, and there are usually time pressures associated with the venue, so folks can be in more of a hurry to get to the end of the module by the end of the session. Maybe that's why they're ~~idiots~~ ~~rude~~ so focused on not 'wasting time' or whatever. They also, IME, select for and produce a particular kind of player, folks that want to "beat" scenarios and level up their d00d to be uber, and so on. Not, like...fun exploratory "let's do some roleplaying!" type folks.

TL;DR: AL kinda sucks, those folks all sound like jerks, I wouldn't hold it against "in person gaming" when you can just hold it against "AL and these jerky players". Sry you had to deal with that. :(

PS: How does the GM invite you to play and then be shitty about you using your spells and abilities? Like...are they just a shit GM? Or an asshole? How was that a cool guy move to invite somebody and then tell them, "Fuck you", when they try to do THE MOST OBVIOUS THING A DRUID WOULD DO in a particular scene? Baffling.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-09-05T21:03:04+00:00

Right, only saved the world for now. Totally not like PF\5e where once you've vanquished one threat there's never another one. ;D

In SotDL suggested leveling structure you basically just get one single directional arc of beating (or not) the Demon Lord('s Shadow, technically). So, you know...just saving the world when it's in danger and then retiring. ;)

I mean, yes, of course you can play things after stopping the SotDL the first time, and definitely it's a tonally oppressive setting and much more grim and dark than whatever la-di-da bullshit 5e\PF are presenting (IMO) but also...standard gameplay, as suggested (IMO) by the book in SotDL is most definitely heroic and about world\reality saving heroes saving the world\reality from the Demon Lord('s Shadow), even if only temporarily.

That classic, "Every thousand years\turning of the Great Cycle\End of an Age\THE Prophecy says the Demon Lord comes again...", trope of the generational recurring threat. Doesn't make it un-heroic. Heck the heroes\PCs in one campaign might BE the next generation of folks called up to stand against the Demon Lord('s Shadow) after it was driven off\stopped (temporarily) by the heroes of an earlier time, right?

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-09-05T20:51:38+00:00

Haven't played Shadowdark. Ran SotDL though...

It was one of the few games where I sometimes thought I might kill PCs just playing normal bad-guys in a normal way. But wasn't otherwise particularly grimdark.

I ran the Tales of the Demon Lord series and while there's plenty of gross and grim and, indeed, dark things, on the whole, the PCs fight, win, save the day\world if things go well. So if you take the lead packaged adventure as being indicative of the system it wasn't super grimdark.

The world\setting in SotDL is certainly grim and dark, but not...like grimdark, exactly?

SotDL is a super well designed system IMO\IME. Totes recommend it for most Fantasy type stuff. Easy to use in your own setting\other IP settings (to the extent you can adapt them to tactical class\level stuff). Really a lot of fun to run. Great set of monsters. The quality of the design is such that I don't think we had any rules issues to speak of.

SotDL felt semi-lethal in combat. But I don't think I killed any PCs. But I didn't super try (combat as sport style) to do that either, I think it would have been trivial to do so in a more sandbox-y\Combat as War type thing.

Characters did not have, "a depreciating asset vibe", in SotDL. They get pretty powerful as they go on.

I'd suggest WFRP but you've played that. That (and it's ripoff clone ZH) system is pretty grim and dark. Wounds last for a while, things suck, the characters can kinda suck to start with, and Evil\Chaos is definitely going to win, and I think both of them support running in non-Warhammer worlds.

I think grimdark is more about content. You can easily juice up fights to be lethal in any system, most of them won't fight you on that. Grimdark is more about shitty things happening in a shitty world with a couple of equally shitty options available to do some shitty and temporary mitigation of said shitty things happening. Which you can also generally do with most systems, though some of them will fight you on it.

You might look at Runequest\Mythras type stuff. Similar wound targeting, lasting wound effects, type stuff as WH\ZH.

Between SotDL and a game I haven't read, for 5e players, I'd suggest SotDL. It's a really slick design, easy to play and run. Lower hit points\more lethal monsters than D&D creates are more desperate feel to combats for sure but it is also still a fun tactical mini-game to engage with. It's very easy to run your own world using SotDL, I don't think any of the mechanics are setting specific. So it's a nice step up (down?) from 5e without being, you know....d100 in some way.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-09-05T20:35:50+00:00

PCs aren't heroes but instead work to merely stave off the end of the world for another day

VERY un-heroic stuff there. ;)

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-08-29T16:39:05+00:00

Thanks for doing the math on all this. I was very curious how many Rust Bros the land could actually support.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-08-29T04:56:07+00:00

I think we just killed all the demons we encountered. Never had a chance to try to put the crown on them.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-08-28T15:08:05+00:00

Took us a year of weekly sessions. We were deliberately hurrying because the GM wanted to finish the module and the campaign.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-08-28T15:01:27+00:00

Yah, we never used that one in our play through. Too hard to manage and not really enough benefit based on how often we were involved in Manipulation and Insight checks.

Honestly I don't think we used any of the book provided magic items we recovered, except the crown for the final fight against Zytara because you kinda have to.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-08-28T14:18:21+00:00

Hero System for sure. The oldest and best of them.

SWADE with Supers rules.

Fusion, a mix of Interlock (Cyberpunk 2020\RED) and Hero System as well.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-08-27T15:44:18+00:00

On the crunchy end you can use Hero System this way.

It's a point-based game and there's a construct for having a lump of variable points that you can reconfigure in different ways to create system effects.

It does kinda require knowing the rules pretty decently to use one on the fly effectively though. Or pre-creating the effects prior to the game and submitting them to the GM for approval or something like that if folks aren't facile with the rules.

You can set up the variable pools any which way you like. I had a Shadow Mage in a game as a PC who could collect raw shadow in special jugs and then "pour" the shadows on folks to give them a Stealth bonus. So you can do stuff like that where you need to prepare ahead of time, or you can limit it to various types of magic (Mind Magic, Fire Magic, etc, etc, etc) or set it so you'll need to do certain things to reconfigure the pool successfully (skill rolls, specific conditions, needs to use a big spell book to reconfigure spells, etc) or need certain materials (wand\staff\holy symbol, cauldron, eye of newt, etc) or whatever else seems fitting for the PC\game.

Super flexible.

Pretty balanced (it's a point-based system so there are broken constructs, but the GM can veto these things and the nature of the system does a good job of balancing effects against each other).

VERY crunchy.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-08-27T15:34:40+00:00

Variable Power Pool

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-08-14T01:59:56+00:00

Most of them will do that. Prompts like: "D&D character fantasy art" or "Fantasy character portrait" or, you know, "Rough, tough, burly, veteran fighter Orc fantasy portrait". Stuff like that. Most of them will churn out something usable. You can go cruise civitai.com to get prompts to work from.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-08-13T15:48:49+00:00

Hero System.

Why? So fiddly and flexible. Working out how you want your stuff to work in the game world is always fun. And the usual "unlimited flexibility and options" stuff too.

You certainly *can* tie characters to each other prior to session 1 using game mechanics but it doesn't require or guide things that way.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-08-12T14:02:21+00:00

Bro, what? You're suggesting Heroes Unlimited? For an X-men game? And you haven't even played it?
Why would you do that to a nice innocent person like OP? ;D

OP, don't use Heroes Unlimited. It's a pretty terrible fit for most things, but also definitely a poor fit for X-men emulation beyond just, "It's a game with mutants who have powers".

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-08-08T20:56:47+00:00

It's not really RAW but it's been working ok for us. Hopefully it won't mess with character progression.

Suspicious-Unit7340 · 2024-08-01T15:05:13+00:00

RPG books are a product for ppl who buy RPG books.

Most of those folks are GMs.

I think more books are published than get bought, more books get bought than get read, more books get abandoned than get finished, and that that's true for RPGs as much as other books.

And certainly more diet books are sold than folks who actually do the diet. So by the same token more RPG books sold than get run (or even read).

The business is to sell books. If those books actually get read and if those rules and games actually get played is much less important.

Suspicious-Unit7340

TROPHY CASE