What are the cardinal sins of systems /tg/? I've been spending more and more time with my head buried in making my own project and I keep finding bloat to be one of the worst problems for making a system but where does bloat start? I can imagine if formatted properly item content/perk content in game could be wrote off as never being bloat if it all serves a purpose/sufficiently adds to the game but that requires much more time in balancing (something that grows exponentially as you have to balance the interplay between them).
What about the personal niggles of a system? Issues in general? How would you/do you correct these issues?TL;DR Bitch about system issues
Due to the low starting stats in the Warhammer Roleplay systems (Fantasy and 40k) that you'll be failing most skill checks and attack rolls unless the GM is very liberal in handing out bonuses. For a 1st level character a given skill check has to be Routine or Easy in difficulty just to have a 50% chance or better to succeed at anything.
>>48104855
>Magic can do anything and everything.
Honestly the biggest problem with DnD/Pathfinder, although 5e reigned it in to some extent. Still, when magic exists in a system, it shouldn't be so versatile as to possibly replace everything.
If magic itself IS that versatile, then write in something that restricts casters to picking one school or specialization. Say their magical energy adjusts to whatever they specialize in and makes other magic harder (or impossible) to perform.
>Only "divine" magic can do healing.
Yeah, fuck this. Fucking stupid, can't even articulate why, it just is.
>Multiple attack growth
Another thing 5e largely reigned in, but I always hated in 3.5 when your BaB got high enough you were doing 3 or 4 attacks per turn, because it make "full round attack" the only viable option for martials 99% of the time, and there was alot of math and unnecessary dice rolling involved.
>Mechanics where one player is playing "an entirely different game" within the game.
See Deckers in Shadowrun. Every time they attempt to hack something, they have to go into cyberspace to do these videogame-style hacking battles. Meanwhile the game grinds to a halt because the rest of the party is just standing there in the real world with their thumbs up their ass unable to help or be involved at all.
>Experience points
Self Explanitory, just give level ups after big plot arcs of story moments.
>Negative Levels
Also self explanitory, also a shit penalty for deaths as it creates uneven parties.
>Revival mechanics
Short of the intervention of a god or time-travel, death should mean dead. I'm not a fan of hyper-lethal campaigns, but I DO like tension, and revival mechanics just suck ALL the tension out of a game.
>Summoner mechanics
I like summing as a mechanic, but in every system I've ever played, it turns into a complicated glorified pokemon sim, with lots of booking and stat blocks involved. Also infinite mook parade, tedious.
Spell slots
If you're making a magic system, choose ANY other system for magic besides spell slots. Mana points, Magicka Meter, ANYTHING. Spell slots are a headache to keep track of a player, and an unholy nightmare to keep track of as a GM if you think your players are fudging. Just... fuck, don't do spell slots.
WOD. It is supposed to be about gothic horror and the depths of depravity one will go to once they become a monster/ fight monsters regularly but has a hard-coded morality system that turns you into an NPC if you sin enough.
>>48105110
Jesus this. Too many times I've lost count of spell casts, seen someone loss track of spell casts or had to try and do a post-battle play by play to recount if the cleric used a normal heal or a greater.
>>48105068
Agree with all of these except experience points and attacks but only because I've seen them done well in most systems I've played in where they serve fundamental purpose. (XP is basically used as currency for character advancement and perks, whilst multiple attacks are your suppressing fire, full-autos, knife fighting versus single sledgehammer swing)
>>48105068
>>48105110
Echoing the magic rants here (funny how Magic seems to be the root of half these problems), but I personally have an extreme dislike of "prepared spells" systems. If I know a spell, I should be able to cast it as long as I have the magical energy (spell slots, mana, ect) to fuel it.
I've heard the whole argument that preparing a spell is like loading a bullet into a gun, but I've always found it to be a super weak excuse. I also know in DnD, there are Sorcerers who can cast any spell they know at any time, however I like mages that actually LEARN their magic and don't just have it because their mom slept with a dragon or whatever.
>>48104855
Fucking Feat Taxes.
Fuck fucking feat taxes.
>>48105200
There are systems in which Feat Chains can work, they just don't in DnD/Pathfinder because they don't feel rewarding until you hit the final rank, and often times the feats before the final one are only tangentially thematically related to the final one (and not mechanically related at all, see Combat Expertise being needed for Improved Dirty Trick).
>>48105379
>bitch about system issues
>can't bitch about d&d
it's the point mate
>>48105379
>Implying those problems are exclusive to DnD
>Missing the one that was Shadowrun specific
>Being this much of autistic meme-spouting kid
Sure is summer in here. When does school start back up again?
>>48105407
>muh summer
you're worse
>>48105417
2/10
>>48105431
>>48105417
>>48105407
Please, both of you, save it for /b/
>>48105438
Well, since you asked nicely, sure.
>>48105493
C'mon, you don't wanna play Everyone Is John with me?
Non rules light games that don't have hit locations. Helmets adding to total armour just kills me (I'm looking at you, Shadowrun)
>>48105566
Games that don't let players select their hit locations.
>>48105566
I think there's a wide enough spectrum above "rules light" to accommodate games with and without hit locations.
However, not having hit locations BUT having armor pieces with individual bonuses is just retarded. You either have both or neither.
>>48105584
Are there any systems that have hit locations but no rules for called shots?
I know Twilight 2000 didn't have that, but that's a real easy fix. I can't imagine it would ever be a chore.
>>48105599
Yes, that is more akin to what I mean. Shadowrun has helmets, kneepads, arm bracers, whatever, that all add to one single armour value. Considering how rules intensive the system is, it's off the chains that they don't have hit locations.
>>48105611
Plenty of shoddy homebrew systems. The other extreme is too many bleeding hit locations.
>Wrist
>Upper Arm
>Shoulder
>Ankle
>Knee
>Solar Plexus
>North East Corner of Andromeda
>>48105679
I think pic related is a good chart to use, considering that there are actually only four different types of hit locations: Head, Torso, Arms, Legs. The rest of the stuff on the chart is just for fluff, which I think is nice (That and I think there's one piece of armour that actually uses fractional locations. It covers the upper arms, I think.)
>>48105718
I have a different chart fucking somewhere which I fell in love with. Basically that reduced to d100 which I'm modifying because targeting individual limbs is kinda important.
>>48105770
Very important. It may be a little complicated, but I've always had a soft spot for GURPS' hit location chart as well. I like the depth it goes in to, but I don't feel it overbearing at any time. Or maybe that's just because I have a cheat sheet.
>>48105814
It was something kinda like this yeah. I dunno, might amp up the locations the more I think about it.Fucking augments man, ruining my life.
>>48105877Called shot to the groin all day every day for that double shock
>>48105566
>>48105584
>>48105611
Riddle of Steel had a great way of handling hit locations. Player chooses the zone their attack is aimed, and if the attack hits then it nails a randomly determined location within that specific zone.
I think it was a good way to emulate the idea that your opponent isn't standing completely still while still having hit locations that actually make fucking sense depending on the direction and type of your attack.
>>48105930Still not as weird as one my players collecting left arms.
>>48105937
Shit that's actually really good, worth picking up to analyse would you say or just concept fodder?
>>48106052
I think it's worth picking up, I'm kind of a fanboy.
Though it's pretty old, out of print, and there's a number of successors trying to revive the system.
So far all but one that I've seen miss the fucking point or go way overboard with introducing changes and new mechanics. Band of Bastards (make sure to add "rpg" to the google search or else you're just going to get porn) is the said only one that doesn't suck (so far, it's unfinished last I saw).
>>48106096
>Or else you'll get porn
That is the words of a man who can be quoted for saying "Hey there's this new awesome game, lemme show you- OH NO!"
>>48106148
No, as in you'll JUST get porn, and good luck finding the actual game like 8-10+ pages into the search results.
>>48104908
That's a big one. Especially given how lethal WFRP is, unless the GM is very generous with bonuses then it's going to be pratfalls for two sessions, then everyone dies horribly. There's no advancement or progress.
>>48107867
Indeed.
I think you can work around it, if you can get your players into the mindset that they have to roleplay around their lack of skill rather than try to game through it. Most players do not do this, and just end up rage-quitting when they confidently charge a teenage pickpocket, convinced they can handle such a minor threat, and end up taking a critical hit that permanently disables their sword arm, thus crippling their character.
>>48104855
That book looks like SoS
>>48108036
>that moment when your Only War demo expert not only prematurely blows the bridge you were tasked to destroy but does it while everyone was on it
FFG RPG's are some drugs.
>>48105068
>Playing D&D exclusively
>Complaining about D&D being shit
Change the system, you fucking mong
>>48105407
>July just started
>HURRR SUMMER DURRR
And here we go, enduring this shit for next two months...
>>48105407
>Be part of eternal September
>Complain about summer
>>48105180
I'm sure you can understand the imbalance it would cause if the wizard could use any of his learned spells slots number of times each day.
You could also just play a sorcerer and fluff it as a wizard.
If you want, you can think about it like this. At the end of each long rest, or whatever, your wizard sorts out all the components and charts and ritual shit he needs for his chosen spells, rolled up into a form he can cast relatively quickly. If he wants a spell he didn't prepare, he can use it, but he's going to need to root around in his baggage for his reagents first.
>>48104908
In 40k rp if you full aim, and take a single shot at close range, your default 'uman has a 75% chance of hitting.
>>48108101
My biggest gripe with their 40k games is poor weapon balance. Multimeltas for example are basically straight worse than las cannons, even at close range. Vanquisher cannons are weaker than lascannons against tanks. The las gun struggles to wound even guardsman tier infantry. It seems like they just assigned pen and damage arbitrarily without thinking how it would effect the balance of the game as a whole.
Low level guns are the worst about this. Your standard trooper has 3 TB and 4AP, so 7 soak total. Your average autogun does 1d10+2 with no pen. So in effect the autogun and stock lasgun do 1d10-5 damage. So it's a 50/50 to do nothing at all, and even if you always rolled max damage it would take 2 shots to get him at zero, and even more to kill him if your gm does critical wounds for randos. In actuality your basic bitch with flak armor can take a dozen shots from a las gun and still be kicking. The variable power setting on the lasgun, and special ammo for bullet guns makes things a bit more deadly, but enemies are still sponges against basic weapons.
And for the players, enemies with lasguns and frag grenades are about as threatening as a stray cat.
I should not need a plasma gun just to wound a guardsman reliability.
>>48108094
>SoS
>Actual book
I want to live in your World
When the system actively lies to you, presenting two options as equally good, but one's dogshit.
I don't need the book to goddamn lie to me.
>>48108835
Bad time to mention we survived the explosion?
>>48108978
Hey Mr. Fighter.
>>48109035
Mr Anyone not a Druid, Cleric or Wizard, thank you very much.
Rules lite systems that have more rules than Rogue Trader.
A system becomes so rules heavy that the players feel they don't have any real options beyond what's written on their sheet.
>I want to try and trip the guy with my non-melee focused character.
>Okay. So you get a -4 for not having the talent (trip), a -6 for not having the appropriate tool, a -3 for not having the skill (combat maneuvers III), and a -5 from your character being 2 hexes away from the target.
>You know what, I'm gonna stick to shooting people.
This is more a minor complaint, but RPG systems with terrible GM sections or horrible advice.
Which is sadly the vast majority of them.
And then players of that system wonder why everyone wants to run DnD or Dungeon World.
>>48109162
Even better when weapon focus doesn't transfer to nearly identical weapons.
>Crap! My revolver which I have skill focus, weapon focus, weapon mastery, and combat mastery with is out of ammo.
>I'll just pick up the plasma revolver the guard dropped. I should be able to use it right?
>>You don't have any proficiencies with plasma revolvers. You have no idea how to shoot it.
>I should actually be better with plasma revolvers since there's no knock back right? Just point and shoot.
>>You don't know what part to point at the enemy. I'll roll and on a %80 or less you shoot yourself.
>>48109162
I hate this the most.
>>48109035
Yeah. In all my sessions of only war I can't think of a time a player has been killed by infantry fire. They've been stomped on by helbrutes, evaporated by a twin 30mm autocannon, pulled apart by a stalk tank, blown up by arty, devoured by spawn, blasted by blight drones, chain axed in two, shot by snipers with mutagenic rounds, drowned after their boat was sunk by mortar fire, but never killed by las gun fire.
Actually I take that back. One my players was killed by a las gun. It was after the party had a run in the the aforementioned helbrute and one of the two surviving PCs ran to what he thought was a friendly PDF chimera. Turns out it wasn't so friendly, and a whole rifle squad of renegades Swiss cheesed him at point blank range.
>>48109162
Fucking this
I also hate ultra detailed point buy skill systems, or at least those that don't provide a baseline competency...
>I'm a hardened mercenary
>but I don't know what to do with this revolver because I thought my 98% in the Handgun skill covered it
>and I forgot to take drive, so I guess I took the bus into all those war zones
It usually also results in tediously slow character creation, and players scrolling down their sheet to figure out what to do next, instead of thinking on their own.
>>48104855
Not a rule mistake but a formatting mistake: Dungeon World types all rules jargon in the same lower case font as other words. It makes reading quite a chore since you have to doublecheck whether they're using English or DWglish.
>>48108835
Never got much mileage offa heavy weapons, but infantry combat is fixed by removing the soak of toughness bonus outside of any Unnatural TB points.
Makes the game so much better. Makes all of the versions better.
>>48104855
post more pics of THICC books
>>48105068
50% of hte problem of casters is not enough restrictions that make their access to power come at a reasonable cost, the remaining 99% of the problem with casters is the total spell list available to casters in 3.x is full of bullshit like time stop that breaks chunks of the combat mechanic's core time management and similar.
>rules bloat
>tfw your homebrew 90 pages and combat is only 4 of them
I hate when high level play is the exact same as low level play but with bigger numbers.
>>48105068
I agree with you in almost everything, but specifically wondering, in the case of systems that use xp as currency for some stuff apart from levelups (like making scrolls and wands and stuff in general) how would you (or anyone who'd answer, for that matter) handle those situations?
>>48105068
I think of xp penalties for death only working if there's a way to powerlevel low level players or if xp gain can be uneven. Things like gold=xp works well with this since you can just declare that all gold goes to the low level guy. It makes the xp loss more of a party wide than an individual penalty.
>>48105068
>Mechanics where one player is playing "an entirely different game" within the game.
Huh. My group actively wants to all have completely different skill sets.
>>48116462
>I have zero reading comprehension: the post
Anon is specifically referring to mechanics which delay the game by placing a single player into their own scenario. When the Decker hacks something, he is essentially playing his own game with its own rules while the party gets to stand by and do nothing for however long 'combat' takes for the Decker.
This would be fine in a book or movie, but in a TTRPG it grinds the game to a dead stop for everyone but the Decker, which is pretty shitty.
Ideally I'd think the DM would try and limit hacking in this form to combat encounters and treat the Decker's turn as part of initiative, but I'm not well versed in Shadowrun's hacking rules.
>>48116718
I know thats what he meant, guess i just didnt phrase it right. That sort of set up where all the PC's do their own thing by themselves is what my players want.
>>48116462
>>48116718
>>48116782
>not co-gm master race
>not being able to split the party whenever you want with no interruptions
get gud
>>48105180
The entire spell system makes more sense when you've read Dying Earth, but it still doesn't make sense.
>>48116782
I hate your players.
>>48105068
>wants magic to be restricted
>complains when it is
>>48109251
I've made a system where focus/proficiency/etc is derived from the action, since that's the bit you have to really understand to get any use out of.
It also means I get to dig up all sorts of bizarre shit so that, for example, someone who's only ever taken weapon focus and other feats for a revolver won't be totally useless in a long range scenario.
On the downside, if you're a revolver user, a break action pistol might as well be a pump action shotgun to you.
>>48105679
I faintly remember an RPG with a bad hit location system that made being mostly in cover worse than being out in the open due to cover not making you harder to hit but removing the body parts in cover from the table, making it much more likely the body parts that weren't in cover (head and an arm) were going to get shot.
>>48104855
>Spell slots
To once again echo the sentiment: Vancian magic has its place, but TTRPGs probably wasn't it. If someone made a new system now with Vancian rules, I don't think it'd go over well--D&D's system is fine enough, but I'm glad that it's mostly restricted to D&D thanks to distaste over it.
>Selectable races
Yeah yeah I know, variety is what it is, but I can't help but feel like it paints worldbuilding into a corner. Races and players tend to get typecast (see: Dwarves), and working multiple races around cultures and vice-versa feeds the restrictions. Ultimately I feel like they make game world "feel" smaller, not bigger. Too often they come out to other end looking like humans with longer ears or tusks or a beard, and it's heartbreaking.I actually love them in Shadowrun, for whatever that's worth
>Rules-light systems
Say what you will about combat simulators or rules lawyers, but in my experience binary definitions keep things smoother than a "light" system would have you believe.
>>48105068
>Only Divine magic can heal
I do like the idea of separate disciplines being brought up in class concepts, but I agree that segregating the two kinds makes little sense. I enjoy Warlocks and Theurges because of this.
>Level ups after big plot arcs
I don't subscribe to this--I think the granular points feel more organic if used well--but to each their own.
>Systems that prioritize combat and get TOO detailed
I had tried using AD&D2e's Knockdown Rules once upon a time, and it was then that I learned abstraction has its benefits. What we gained in some realism we lost in fluidity. Sometimes it's better to let tension in combat be dictated by outside forces.
>>48109251
This.
And feat tax for basically identical weapons.
Great club: martial weapon
Tetsubo: exotic weapon
It's just a club damn it.
>>48105068
5e player here, I'd like to add onto the magic complaints
>spells that make you completely safe throughout the night
>spells that provide enough food to sustain the party
>spells that nullify the need for other skills (invisibility > stealth checks, flight > climb checks)
>casters are the only actual AOE option, so the entire rest of the team can kill maybe 3 mooks, even if they're super low AC/HP, then when it's the caster's turn he just burning hands or fireballs them all and kills them instantly
separately these would be fine, but a single caster can do all of these things at the same time unless you specifically try to drain every single spell slot they have.
The only good thing about this is that most homebrew caster classes I've seen aren't that overpowered, since they don't add new spells, whereas most homebrew martials, including unearthed arcana, are severely more powerful than default - but at least they feel adequate compared to the party's caster
>any permanent statistics that are determined randomly
I'm looking at you, DnD's ability scores and 3.PF's hit dice system. It was acceptable in the 70's when nobody new any better and it was okay in the 80's and 90's when playing a mathematically weak character and/or a mathematically unbalanced party was almost expected, but modern systems are designed with the assumption that the party will be roughly of a certain power at a certain level, and if say the party fighter rolled 2's on half of his hit dice there's going to be some serious fucking problems.
>spell lists
"Here's a list of the magic things you can do" has always felt so... videogamey. This is a game of imagination and it feels like we're playing with preset, pre-programmed effects. It doesn't feel all that magical. It happens outside of Vancian magic systems too, with lists whatever type of powers are in the system.
>rulebook that is filled halfway (or more) with fluff
>fluff and crunch interspersed throughout the whole thing instead of separate chapters
>the system has a two or three letter acronym for most stats and abilities and the rulebook refers to them by their acronym instead of the actual term while trying to explain how something works
>The character sheet is too long to fit onto a single sheet of paper
>The system doesn't call it a "Game Master" but instead uses some other term
>The book has a whole goddamn section explaining what the fuck Roleplaying even is
>The book is out of print, used copies are either ungodly expensive or impossible to find, digital versions were never released, and the only available PDF's are low-rez, grayscale, out of order, and missing pages
>The core rulebook was printed in paperback
>Game's a system and setting are designed to work together, they compliment one another
>The same system is applied to a half dozen other settings with minimal changes
>When making a new system for the setting, stupid shit that only made sense in the old system carries over
>>48104855
I hate it when systems require miniatures to play properly, especially if it's a genre that's difficult to find good minis for.
Wargames don't count for this nitpick, just to be clear.
>>48121132
>fluff and crunch interspersed throughout the whole thing instead of separate chapters
jesus christ, this. I have trouble getting my group to play anything other than D&D because of how poorly formatted a lot of TTRPG books are. The lore of your world fucking sucks anyway, just be clear on how to play the game.
also,
>games that are rules-heavy as fuck but obtuse and inconsistent in their wording
I didn't learn how to play 5e from the book, I learned it from numerous clarifications on here or the writers twitter accounts, because it's that common for people to not have a clue how key features of the game work.
>mfw reading this as I design my homebrew
>mfw I have no face
This is basically a 'does and don't's of design and I love it. Also
>Routine checks your character who is trained in doing can consistently fuck up because you only have 6/10 chance.
I hate it. It's fucking ROUTINE.
>>48121126
> invisibility > stealth checks
This is a misconception in 5e actually; invisibility only gives you full concealment so you can make a stealth check, but you still need to make stealth rolls. If you fail them the enemies know you are there, you merely get the benefits of being concealed (disadv on hitting you, and you get advantage on your first attack).
>>48121132
>"Here's a list of the magic things you can do" has always felt so... videogamey. This is a game of imagination and it feels like we're playing with preset, pre-programmed effects. It doesn't feel all that magical. It happens outside of Vancian magic systems too, with lists whatever type of powers are in the system.
Riddle of Steels attempt at magic is interesting in that it specifically tries to embrace creativity. It's also a broken mess and way too easy to make a broken "spell" in.
The issue is martial stuff, even when imagined, gets shackled to our known reality. Even action movies keep a thin but tangible relationship with "plausible". Magic on the other hand comes directly from imagination and dreaming. In dreams we can fly by floating about with no restrictions and physics gets to weep in a corner.
So if we let people just do whatever effect they want in their imagination via spellcasting then you quickly run into the kind of issues that plague chatroom roleplaying problems. AKA tons of asspulls.
The solution seems to be making some kind of system and explanation for how magic works and what it can and can't do before letting people have at it with creativity...but that's far easier said then done. Again I point to riddle of steel.
A further issue is that if you drift too far from spell lists and "this is what the spell does" it's possible you lose the "feel of magic". If I just had a system where you can spend mana to raise the damage of a spell that may not feel quite right.
Anyway, if you've come across any systems that manage to do it the way you want let me know. I'd love to check em out.
Natural language is a continual blight on the RPG industry. Fuck 'natural language'.
You don't need to go full DnD4e-style (but if you do, that's good) but you can, at least, at an absolute minimum, have strict rule language templates like *World games.
I've attached an image of what Exalted 3e literally looks like in the book, vs what someone cleaned up the exact same special move to be.
There is literally no point at which the example on the left is better than the example on the right - especially since you can actually sanely somewhat write the sane version on a character sheet.
>>48122051
I literally could not understand the left example without using the right. Jesus.
>>48122051
Enlighten me, what does "natural language" mean in this context?
>>48123176
The one on the left.
Trying to explain the ability with a mix of rules verbiage and non-rules verbiage, mixing the fluff and the crunch.
For the record, the right side should probably have a fluff line at least.
>>48122051
>>48122436
>>48123176
Natural language means giving fluff to abilities.
The one on the right is soulless and fluffless.
>>48104855
>What are the cardinal sins of systems /tg/?
TLOS
>How would you/do you correct these issues?
Use the LOS rules from 4th ed.
>>48123190
Natural language means you can't distinguish rules and non-rules, making the whole system a fucking mess
>>48123324
This. You can add a fluff description below the one on the right and you can have your cake and eat it. But for me trying to read the rule on the fly to make a judgement call that left example is in the fucking way. I should not need to make flash cards like it's always suggested either THE GAME SHOULD DO IT FOR ME.
>What are the cardinal sins of systems /tg/?
Being Strike! RPG.
>>48121132
>>The book is out of print, used copies are either ungodly expensive or impossible to find, digital versions were never released, and the only available PDF's are low-rez, grayscale, out of order, and missing pages
pic related
>>48123527
What's so special about this one anyway?
>>48123595
>The Realm of Yolmi
https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/24505042/
>I don't mind a good spoof, but I would like to know ahead of time that I am buying one. With this review, you out there will have a chance to make that choice.
Alas, it was not very well-received back in the day.
>>48123595
I don't know. I personally just like rare stuff I guess.
>>48122051
Completely agree, with the addition of a portion of flavor text attached to the sane rules at the end. Probably just an edited bit of the first paragraph on the natural language version. Which is impossible to parse.
>Hit points, or at least hit points that grow with lvls
>Classes
>Levels instead of buying your shit directly for xp or whatever character progression metacurrency you're using
>On the other hand, point-buy systems that allow too much minmaxing by allowing to make a totally cripled character that just excels in one thing on god-tier
>Non-abstract wealth
>Overdetailed equipment managing with every pointless item needed to be tracked together with its weight/encumberance instead just assuming that character generally posseses basic equipement for his class
>Alignments
>Wide gap in complexity between combat and non-combat mechanics
>Grid and minis needed/strongly suggested for combat
>Heavy meta in narrative aspect of the game (like Aspects in FATE)
All this shit is so obsolete
And fix? Don't play games that contain those.
>>48126300
Sounds like you just like rules light, friend.
>>48123360
Your resistance only makes my Strikeboner! harder.
Seriously though, it's a good example of a bunch of stuff taken to extremes, and the good and bad effects of it:
>1d6 universal resolution mechanic
+ Consistent, fast
- Swingy, might not be granular enough
>eliminating natural language where possible
+ Rules are crystal clear
- You need to make your own fluff
>Eliminate scaling numbers from attack/defense
+ Fast, no bloat, no need to math in progression
- Less obvious progression
etc.
What if we had 5E casters add all their spell slots together to form a mana pool and use a spell's level as its cost, then started banning spells using the logic of >>48121126 ?
>>48127645
5e already has a spellpoint variant in the DMG.
>>48126749
Stop shilling Strike!
Why does /tg/ keep shilling Strike!?
>>48127784
Cause it keeps being relevant!
Basically what 3.X did not only to D&D but it's seep into other systems:
RAW,
An entire gaming generation acting like the most conceited, pedantic, pissants you can comprehend?
Well fuck me.
I'm sorry you somehow expect your standards of rules interpretation to literally exceed those used by actual real word judicial bodies.
So basically most forums.
>>48127784
Because Strike! really is very good, you should try it. Get all your friends to try it too.
>>48128366
Not if /tg/ keeps shilling it.
I have come to hate social systems in RPGs. There's just no winning with them. Either it's too detailed and there's no role playing or common sense, just dice rolling, or it's free form and there's no arbitrator but DM arbitration. I'll take the second when a good DM is involved, but that's by no means a guarantee.
>>48128366
You've got my interest, it might be just what I'm looking for. Why is it so good? Is it more high flying fantasy or more gritty?
>>48128480
Touhoufag wrote it, therefore it's shit.
>>48104855
>level/class based systems
Just let us spend XP as we like, on what we like. So many problems are avoided that way.
>HP
Use a health level system like in WoD or a wound system like in GURPS. HP is just silly.
>Vancian magic/spell slots
Utterly retarded. Works in Dark Souls, kind of, but that's it. Just doesn't even begin to make sense with the idea of actually using magic either.
>D&D-style naming conventions
I will never take you seriously if your name is Bank Oakenstride or Sara Windweaver or whatever other kind of silly bullshit you're slinging at me. Use a name that matches the culture of your character's origin.
>D&D Paladins
Fun-killing team-killing murderhobo-police.
>alignment
Worst one by far. Just no excuse for this. Even if you strip it of mechanical importance, you're just giving players an excuse to turn off their brain in character creation.
>>48105068
4e shadowrun matrix was the same ruleset as magic or regular combat. Then they fucked it sideways to do stupid thematic shit in the next edition.
I like GURPS a lot. However it's issue is that there are a lot of extra rules that could overwhelm someone who doesn't know they are completely optional. To a GM without a clear perspective or a player who is reading the rulebook so they know what's up, the system seems bloated. However GURPS tries to tell everyone that not all the rules are supposed to be used, but it could make it more obvious. As long as you think GURPS as being the TTRPG equivalent of a video game engine, it makes sense.
Is it bad to advise the GM to fudge the numbers in your system? I'm working on my own and the target number is calculated like so:
TN = Difficulty - (Stat + Skill)
Where "difficulty" is basically just how hard the task is for a normal person. There would be a few examples but I wouldn't spell out every possible situation. The TN ranges from 1 to 6 and there's a table showing the normal probability of success for each (ie TN 5 means a 7% chance of success).
But because this involves a little math and because there's so much possibility, I was thinking of saying in the GM chapter, basically, "Use your best judgement to make an appropriate difficulty. Because the players can't see you doing mental math, just eyeball and say what you think it should be based on the character's chance of success."
>>48128480
It's a generic system, and has the capacity to be both, although it tends more towards high-fantasy with a lighter tone.
It's designed to be modular. The "basic" module which is more or less just for absolute new players or oneshots and similar kind of stuff is an extremely simple FAE/*World style narrative system. It uses a 1d6 (with Advantage/Disadvantage and very, very rarely bonuses between -3 and +3) to determine outcomes similar to *World games. (pic related).
The real meat is in the modularity. There are a lot of "hooks" for this base system to slot modules into, such as the Team conflict (also in pic, but not as exciting as...) and Tactical Combat.
Tactical combat is essentially a D&D 4e style classes repackaged to cover as much ground as possible, with a base class acting as your mechanical chassis, and a secondary "role" class acting as your combat role. It is fluff neutral, and can be used for just about anything, and has overall pretty solid rules.
>>48119803
I know Phoenix Command (with it's d1000 hit chart) does something similar. Cover does reduce your chance of being hit (quite significantly actually) but when a character does get hit, it's likely they'll get hit in a lethal area.
>>48126599
Shadowrun is not rules light.
>>48129053
It's soon going to be.
>>48128952
Sounds like ass tbqh. No wonder you guys suck Touhoufag's dick.
>>48128586
>Just let us spend XP as we like, on what we like. So many problems are avoided that way.
The problem with this, and the reason that I will defend level/class systems, is that when there is free reign on XP, it makes it very difficult to ensure any of intra-party balance. The more free-reign I give the party, the more I have to worry about cases where a +5 to hit by the enemies can hit most of the party with a 50% chance, but literally can't touch the tank. Or the reverse where one of my players is really good at optimizing characters, and can 1-shot every enemy they attack, unless I crank its defenses through the roof, in which case the rest of the party is just sitting there, essentially rolling for nothing. Levels and clasess, at least when done right, allow me as a GM to operate on the assumption that there is an approximate level of "shit the party is capable of" and build around that, with less worries about one particular character ruining the whole encounter.
>>48129124
But that's nonsense, because if players have equal XP to buy progression with, then they are equally progressed. If there's a problem stemming from that, it's a problem related to game design flaws with regards to the progression available, not the means by which it's achieved.
>>48127784
Because Strike! is 4e but nobody can talk about 4e because a thousand assholes will come out of the woodwork to tell them it is shit and you should fell bad for liking it
>>48129227
Then stop shilling Strike!
>>48129166
The problem is that designing a game where spending equal amounts of XP leads to characters who are balanced towards each other (be it spotlight balance or combat balance or whatever) is actually really hard. I can not think of a game that gets it right off hand at least.
In fact, I'll wager that you'll end up with something really similar to a class system if you want to get the balance down, at which point maybe you'd be better off with a less restrictive class system with flexible classes than a very restrictive pointbuy.
>>48129166
You're assuming that your players will not hyper-specialize with every point of XP you give them, even when logic would dictate otherwise. If one party member dumps all their XP into attack rolls, enemy defenses have to be either balanced around them or balanced around the party. If I scale them up to the point where it makes sense for Mr. Stabby, no one else in the party is having fun. If I scale them down to the rest of the party, Mr. Stabby gibs the entire combat with no survivors and no one still has fun.
The only "free xp" systems I've seen that got around this problem without heavy houserules limiting purchases are Legend of the Wulin and some super rules-lite systems like Nechronica or Fate.
>>48119342
Eh, I think if feats were to apply to specific firearm actions it should only apply to reloading feats. Because a guy who is a master at using automatic pistols should be just as accurate and as quick a shot when he uses a revolver, he just wouldn't be able to load it as quickly or do any fancy revolver ocelot tricks with it.
I'll start with dnds two biggest mistakes in 5e.
Binary rolls. Rolling only tells you whether someone succeeded or failed. It is 2016. There is no reason not to have an outcome rich dice system, that tells you how much something succeeded by, and if there were any side benefits/consequences.
Caster supremacy. 5e equalized single target damage, but failed to equalize aoe damage or out of combat utility. To fix this, spell progression needs to cost the same resource as skill progression.
>>48129323
Well, one would need to balance stuff of course. A hard task I imagine.
But making buying the same stuff multiple times progressively more expensive would be a good start I guess. So that the guy that focused on attack rolls does not have much else and can be taken out of combat by an archer or something.
I think xp buy stuff can work great. But balancing is probably much harder than in a class based system.
>>48129403
>There is no reason not to have an outcome rich dice system
The reason is a flat distribution (see: d20) is terrible for that
>>48129455
So abandon the d20.
>>48129455
Ignorant newbie here,
why? And why would it change using any other kind of dice?
>>48129285
>>48129323
You all seem to think that there is an optimal "build". Outside of D&D and its derivatives, most games don't actually focus on combat. They give characters the option to specialize in whatever they want or be as general as they like.
Pictured is my latest GURPS character, a military scientist. Yeah she's got a bit of marksmanship, but the vast majority of CP invested in her goes to functions unrelated to combat, because there's more to the game than combat. This is the norm in RPGs, not the messed up "several life and death brawls a day" nonsense D&D is based on.
>>48104855
Cardinal mistake number one: reinventing the wheel. I'm thinking in particularly of MtG, which has had 25 years to iron out How To Write Precise Rules, resulting in pic related. So many new systems seem to feel the need to start out on the left side again and have every special ability be a unique snowflake that needs its own explanation of what it does. Fuck that noise.
>>48121132
>fluff and crunch interspersed throughout the whole thing instead of separate chapters
>>48121250
>jesus christ, this. I have trouble getting my group to play anything other than D&D because of how poorly formatted a lot of TTRPG books are. The lore of your world fucking sucks anyway, just be clear on how to play the game.
Exalted: fluff and crunch interspersed repeatedly throughout *individual feats and spells*
Also, sometimes just half the relevant crunch is posted as pseudo-reminder-text, leaving it ambiguous whether the other half applies in this case
>>48129532
Now I'm curious, why is a scientist woman named "White Death" like, what sorta fucked up thing did she make to have a title like that.
>>48129510
Can't, it's a sacred cow.
>>48129523
A flat distribution with a binary pass/fail system works because it doesn't matter by how much you hit/miss the target number. This is good because you essentially have the same chance to fail by 1 as to fail by 10.
Meanwhile curved rolls allow you to have an "average" roll in the middle, making the extremes incrementally less likely.
A flat distribution CAN work, but you'd need to carefully calculate ranges, but in D&D gets messed up, because the target number keeps changing on top of your bonuses having a wider breath.
>>48129532
Are you seriously saying you COULDN'T "powergame" a GURPS character that gets disproportionately more screen time, or make one that is useless in most situations?
Those are the things class systems are meant to prevent.
>>48128586
>Just let us spend XP as we like, on what we like. So many problems are avoided that way.
If you've ever played Eclipse phase you'll see the real problem with this.
Generally in Eclipse Phase if one party member is good at something they're the one that does it, pretty normal party behavior really. The problem with this is that it utterly sidelines characters who spread their skill points out. Because most people will min max one attribute then spend the rest on self defense and as party roles are not all made equal, you end up in a situation where 2 or 3 characters can carry out the majority of common tasks. This means any party play automatically falls to them so you can easily have 2-3 extra players who barely get to engage with the mechanical part of the game.
Eclipse phase is the perfect setting to point this out as you can trivially clone your mind in that game and death is barely a hiccup in many campaigns. There's never an opportunity to take over because the min maxer got cocky and had to reroll. You will just always be in the shadow of the other player. I've been in games where players bodies have just become backups for synth characters to download themselves into on death and get a second life while the other player has to sit back and be puppetted.
Fixed Levels on the other hand tend to mean that the party remains on a roughly equal power level and thus are generally always useful. There's specific roles for the party so you can avoid overlap.
I'm not saying free XP is bad, my own homebrew uses it, but it's not suited for play heavily focused around a party because you really want each party member to be equally useful and still able to roleplay.
>>48129440
I'm not saying it can't work, I'm saying that it causes a lot of headaches on the GM side most of the time.
>>48129532
I'm using "encounter" as "challenge faced by the party." The same things could be said about a non-combat check, and if anything it's exaggerated. The socialite of the party with some massive set of speech skills throws off a social encounter to the point where you either let them talk the enemies into surrender all the time or your force the party to sit there jacking off while he or she monologues for twenty minutes, since, while most party faces will have at least a few combat skills, few combat bruisers will have even a single social skill. Unless your whole party is scientists, what are they going to do when a bio-engineering check comes up? Likewise, if such a check isn't a regular part of the game, wouldn't you feel like you wasted all those resources during character creation? It's a really fine line that I'm just annoyed at having to constantly play around as aforeverGM.
>>48129325
That's basically one of the few cases where it's relevant. Reloading (you need to be proficient in a weapon to reload it, since this system covers black powder, cap and ball, and flintlock weapons), and to a lesser extent accuracy, more for emulation/variation's sake than strict reality.
Remember in Unforgiven, Munny explaining he's terrible with lever action weapons and preferring his break action shotgun and his classic revolver (even though he's terrible with the revolver too, by that point).
>>48130072
I think minutia like that is better handled by drawbacks of some kind instead of having different skills with everything.
In general, I think introducing details through drawbacks and advantages into a system is superior to having an overly detailed stat/skill list.
>>48129662
Her background had her working with a black ops Martian Naval Intelligence unit and she led a team to create a superplague that wiped out insurgent Islamists (and their families). It was intentionally designed for death to be as horrible as possible for the infected, as it crippled their morale and effectively collapsed the movement. The plague was known as the White Death because of the extremely painful, pale tumors it created on its victims' skin. After the war she got stripped of her rank with the rest of the team, but being that she's a genuine Einstein-tier genius, she was spared the execution that most of them got and instead discreetly employed at a prominent megacorp.
>>48129701
>>48129734
Making a weak character is possible (and frankly much easier and more likely) in a level/class based system. The main difference is that you're pigeonholed into whatever role you've selected in the class/level based system, whereas you have the freedom to do whatever you want in the point buy system.
Balancing really just doesn't come into the equation, because balance is presupposing that certain types of activity are more valuable than others, which should be reflected in the purchasing price of the character progression you're unlocking if the system is actually meant to be played in the fashion you're presupposing it is. Of course, I don't think many games are going to actually work that way because very few actually tell you what it is you're supposed to do, and leave that up to the GM, and characters are thus created with an eye to being sensible and multifaceted as they should be.
>>48130440
I'm not sure what bothers me more, the fact that a scientist is for some reason being attached to a black ops group, or the shamelessly edgy backstory.
>>48130440
>Making a weak character is possible (and frankly much easier and more likely) in a level/class based system.
This is a gross (and pretty fucking baseless) generalization in the other direction.
Just for example, making a bad character in OSR games is exceedingly hard because once you picked your class, most/all of your choices had been made for you.
>Balancing really just doesn't come into the equation
Bingo! Point buy systems very rarely try to actually be "balanced", so insisting that they end up more balanced than class systems is sort of weird.
>>48130701
> the fact that a scientist is for some reason being attached to a black ops group
Because she's a genius and everyone gets drafted?
>or the shamelessly edgy backstory
Sorry for not making a generic, happy-go-lucky, Leave it to Beaver reject.
>>48130705
>Bingo! Point buy systems very rarely try to actually be "balanced", so insisting that they end up more balanced than class systems is sort of weird.
My position on balance has consistently been that it's not related to the method of progression.
>>48131026
Well, from a "realistic" stand point, if she's a scientist even if she was drafted there'd be no way in hell for her to be attached with a black ops group. Especially if she specializes in biological weaponry, she'd be cooped up in some laboratory out in the middle of nowhere and only speak to government or military officials. So her being directly attached to any black ops group tickles my autism.
>>48108835
>>48109794
Neither of you have seen someone use a heavy bolter if you think lascannons are the problem.
>>48129455
>>48129510
Why not use multiple d20 rolls per skill check, like two out of three succeeds, all three greatly succeeds? Wouldn't that also make skill ranks more valuable, reducing bonus bloat?
Obviously attacks and saves would be just one die because combat is time-consuming enough.
>>48131248
I mean it was literally a secret research team intended to create illegal WMDs. It wasn't a special tactical Delta Force hit squad.
>>48104855
Vancian magic is a horrible idea.
>>48128788
Really, the Basic Set should've only been rules light stuff (kinda like GURPS Lite but with more advantages/disadvantages made available) and then the more in depth bits like knockback, stun, modifiers, techniques, etc end up getting published in a supplement that people can choose to use or not to use.
Just one single Basic Set and then something like "Basic Set: Expanded" or something.
>>48131572
That would probably have been the case, if gurps had ever been a rules lite game and not a clusterfuck saved by its fans.
>>48131549
It really is cancerous.
>>48104908
ffs, this. I wonder how people in WH40K survive if people basically should fail their driving skills almost every single day.
How do they even tie their shoes, considering how relatively difficult it is. Do they have points in shoe tying?
>>48132012
You are assumed to have a +60 on shit that does not matter and the average human has a 30-35 in all but a few cases.
So, there is a 90-95 chance you succeed on normal every day crap. Even in this case, failing to drive(ground) vehicle to work can be something as mundane as wearing your tires down a little more than should happen or you are late to work.
The true question is how do people in Edge of the Empire do anything life threatening without passing out?
>>48129068
Explain
In the midst of all this point-buy arguing...
>>48104855
I absolutely cannot fucking stand systems that go "okay, now pick some things from this gigantic list." I don't want to read through pages and pages and knuckles of all these pregenerated options; if I wanted premade options, then I'll just play a class-based system. And I generally won't play a class-based system.
>>48104855
Lying to the player about how the game works nonstop without a reason to do so(like Paranoia). This is one of the worst possible things a designer can do.
>abstract wealth
Abstractions are supposed to make things simpler. Normal wealth is already the simplest thing possible, and perfectly intuitive, since the real world works the same way. That's not even to mention issues like how buying and selling things in different orders can leave you with different amounts of money in the end, or how buying 100 of something in one transaction is different than buying it in 100 different transactions.
>>48122051
>>48122436
100% agree. Here here.
>>48123190
Nobody is saying that you can't add a fluff paragraph either before or after the mechanics are established, just like>>48123182 suggested, but clearly separating them prevents confusion.
>>48128586
>wahhh I can't play an edgelord wahhhhhh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrhZPLpgWbg
>>48128586
>Paladins can't play with evil characters
Unless you're playing 3.5 which is widely known to be shit then that's false.
Is it better to base a game on xd6 or 1d100?
>>48136438
Do you want a bell curve or flat roll distribution?
>ITT: /tg/ bitches about D&D
>>48106096
Is Band of Bastards ever going to actually update? They haven't updated in a couple months, and now the vast engine of Song of Swords is being fed coal again with actual news and updates.
I like both games. I want to see both get success, and for everyone who likes Riddle of Steel to get the game that they consider the real successor. I don't want Band of Bastards to stumble.
>>48119803
This is bad? It seems to make sense to me, you stick your head out to look around, it's more likely to get shot than your ankles.
>>48109607
>You thought you got literacy for free because it's the 20th century? Think again, fuccboi!
>>48121132
When I played 3.5 my DM gave us a baseline of 10 or 12, and gave us a budget to buy points. Looking back, I got real lucky.
>>48137732
I believe it's more along the lines of "when you would take a hit in the area behind cover, you instead took a hit in the area outside of cover" which meant you could actually be put at a disadvantage for being in cover, by making you more likely to get hit in the face while aiming than if you were standing in the open.
>>48137794
Oh what
That's fucking terrible
That just punishes you for actually taking cover
>>48137849
Exactly.
>>48121132
>any permanent statistics that are determined randomly
Depends *heavily* on the system. You're clearly bitching about D&3.5Finder, and in that regard you're completely right. But that doesn't represent all modern games. Blanket statements are bad.
Counterpoint: Maid RPG.
![[Commie]_Vomit-Chan_-_03_[538BA86].mkv_snapshot_15.31_[2015.07.19_15.40.33].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/jJpDWZB.jpg "[Commie]_Vomit-Chan_-_03_[538BA86].mkv_snapshot_15.31_[2015.07.19_15.40.33].jpg")
>>48136106
>It's an "Any character without a strictly good set of morals is an edgelord and the player is an edgy baby" episode.
>It's a "The paladin cannot tolerate any act that isn't explicitly lawful good and will respond to them with violence" episode.
>>48132543
Shadowrun is getting a ruleslight/narrative edition called Anarchy.
>>48105068
>Mechanics where one player is playing "an entirely different game" within the game.
This is why Shadowrun is best played online, where the Decker can work in a different chat while the rest of the party does their own thing.
>>48126300
>Classes
>Overdetailed equipment managing with every pointless item needed to be tracked together with its weight/encumberance instead just assuming that character generally posseses basic equipement for his class
So you have all systems?
>>48142244
Are you implying D&D/PF is all systems?
Because systems with classes are in the minority these days, and there are more than plenty that forgo meticulous inventory management in favor of other methods.
>>48128824
Basically all systems do that to some extent, because it's pretty damn near impossible to account for every possible situation or use of skills. But the GM absolutely should not be basing the numbers on how hard they think it should be for that particular character. The numbers should be based upon the difficulty of the task, modified by the situation as appropriate. How difficult it is for a particular character should depend on the character itself not on the GM thinking "Yeah, I don't think you could succeed so I'll just set the difficulty so it's impossible for you, regardless of how good you are." Because that's just bad GMing.
>>48142274
If there are no classes, then characters can't have equipment appropriate for their classes.
>>48109607
I once saw a houserules on a gurps site that you needed 1500 points to exist.
Plus extra 1500 if you didnt wanted to be a inanimate thing like a rock or water
>>48109607
In GURPS everyone has skill defaults, generally to -2, so you could have Firearms (Rifle) 16 and roll against a 14 for pistols.
>>48105068
>>Magic can do anything and everything.
Honestly, this is what I'm most tired of. Playable classes whose entire focus is magic use should have a clear purpose and a defined role, and that purpose and role shouldn't be "render the entire rest of the party obsolete because of their obscene amount of versatility."
There shouldn't be a wizard or mage class. There should be a war mage class who specializes in blowing shit up, an enchanter class that focuses on messing with peoples' minds, or an illusionist class, and so on. The typical "schools of magic" from D&D don't all have to be represented, because they don't exist in all types of fantasy. The point is that there shouldn't be a "do everything magical" class.
That's if there are classes at all. As time has gone on, I've come to appreciate classless systems more and more. Ideally in a classless fantasy game, you'd spend your talent points or whatever on the Blow Shit Up talent tree to get some fireballs or what-have-you.
>Only "divine" magic can do healing.
I'm pretty tired of this myself. Does it even exist outside of D&D? It seems like most of your (our) problems could be solved by just not playing D&D, as cliche as that is.
>>48105611
>Are there any systems that have hit locations but no rules for called shots?
Burning Wheel comes to mind from memory, in that it has hit locations, but they work differently than most locations. The defender says where the attack hit, and then the attacker can shift its location by spending margin of success on the attack roll.
>>48108835
Lasguns and autoguns do 1d10+3 E/I damage and can score -multiple- hits per attack, with the autogun being able to score 10 hits maximum. Even the "semi-auto" firing mode on the lasgun could easily waste a Guardsman or starting OW PC in one turn of shooting or at an average roll, put them a hairs breadth away from criticals. And that's from one fucking lasgun, an Autogun could in the same conditions outright murder its target because it could score twice the amount of hits with the same DoS.
Do you even fucking understand how automatic weapons work in this system?
>frag grenades are about as threatening as a stray cat.
That on the other hand I agree with you. Frag grenades either do nothing or turn into nuclear devices.
>>48137930
It represents the vast majority of them. Being stuck with shitty stats sucks.
MAID is an extreme outlier, because it's made for comedy.
>>48111534
I think people don't realize that the idea of checks usually implies that a character is trying to do it quickly. That's why in 3.pathfinder you can take 10
>>48104855
Checked.
>>Hit points, or at least hit points that grow with lvls.
Also, being at 1/50 hp and being able to move around and fight just fine
>>Levels instead of buying your shit directly for xp or whatever character progression metacurrency you're using
Agree, but it's a lot more complex for players this way
>>On the other hand, point-buy systems that allow too much minmaxing by allowing to make a totally cripled character that just excels in one thing on god-tier
You're the dm, just say no to their rules abuse
>>Non-abstract wealth
Wat
>>Overdetailed equipment managing with every pointless item needed to be tracked together with its weight/encumberance instead just assuming that character generally posseses basic equipement for his class
This
>>Alignments
Definitely, I've actually just started using the colors of magic to define characters' personalities
>>Wide gap in complexity between combat and non-combat mechanics
See: grapple
>>Grid and minis needed/strongly suggested for combat
Implying that you don't need a table to play a ttrpg
>
>All this shit is so obsolete
>
>And fix? Don't play games that contain those.
Yeah, and there are perfect games out there
>>48128423
Also if you're expected to roleplay conversations but you're garbage at real time roleplaying.
>>48121132
>rulebook that is filled halfway (or more) with fluff
>fluff and crunch interspersed throughout the whole thing instead of separate chapters
>The system doesn't call it a "Game Master" but instead uses some other term
these all seem completely trivial
>>48122051
Im tempted to say this is a personal issue because i understood left after one read
>>48144318
Who are you quoting? Are you replying to everyone in thread wihout linking their posts?
>>48144452
Mb, meant to quote this bitch
>>48126300
>>48144368
You've obviously never tried to find an obscure rule in the middle of a session.
>the third one is pretty trivial though
>>48144533
I thought he meant like there still being fluff talk in the systems section. What game has it all just all over the place no separation?
>>48128952
I'd really prefer a finer scale than d6 and -1 through +3. I think I heard it had other resolution options.
>>48145569
There's a 2d6 variant in the book, and one of the benefits of the small scale is that it's easy to convert it up, gaining granularity while keeping the probability roughly the same.
>>48129403
>5e equalized single target damage, but failed to equalize aoe damage or out of combat utility.
5E thinks it is okay for different classes to be good at different things.
>There is no reason not to have an outcome rich dice system, that tells you how much something succeeded by, and if there were any side benefits/consequences.
Quite true, though 5E doesn't explicitly suffer this. Its DM advice for the role of dice in the DMG includes advice on including these partial and greater successes and failures, and 4E had things like the wild magic sorcerer that had different effects depend on the die rolled for an attack. If your DM doesn't do this for you, they need to experience the benefits, possibly through a system that forces these things.
>>48145700
>5E thinks it is okay for different classes to be good at different things.
Yeah, the usual problem people have with it is that some classes are good at like, 2 things, and the other class can be good at like 5-6 things that he decides on each morning.
>>48129701
>A flat distribution with a binary pass/fail system works because it doesn't matter by how much you hit/miss the target number. This is good because you essentially have the same chance to fail by 1 as to fail by 10.
D&D's flat roll already has three results for combat (Miss, HIt, Crit). It could easily have four, like Pillars of Eternity uses. It could have even more based on the roll of the die itself like some of the 4E sorcerer powers (Even or Odd had different side effects unrelated to hit or miss.). It gets even further with some examples from the recent UA content with extra combat effects based on the result of the extra die from advantage/disadvantage. There's also examples of saving throws and ability checks that care whether you failed by 1 or failed by 5 or more. A flat probability is only binary if you want it to be.
>>48145822
>D&D's flat roll already has three results for combat (Miss, HIt, Crit).
Crit doesn't depend on by how much you beat the roll only that you roll a 20. Crit success and crit fail are considered kinda bad mechanically exactly because they have the same chance to happen as any other roll anyway.
When you add multiple die (like the UA advantage thing) this stops being an issue, since it's not flat anymore.
>>48104855
More of a personal gripe than a mistake, but i dislike rules systems that use different dice in different places. I would prefer if everything were handled with one dice type.
>>48145884
A crit can be any criteria you want on the dice. It could mean beating the target number by 5 or more. D&D chooses to be mostly binary. It's not forced by using a d20.
>>48143564
>The typical "schools of magic" from D&D don't all have to be represented, because they don't exist in all types of fantasy.
That's one of the things I like most about GURPS to be honest. Instead of having schools of magic be nebulously defined, they're narrowly defined to things like Fire, Life, Movement, Air, etc.
>>48106052
>Still not as weird as one my players collecting left arms.
But that's where all the combat data's stored.
>>48145693
I remember thinking that finding anything in the Deathwatch rulebook was a complete fucking nightmare because the fluff kept breaking everything up.
Really? A bolter fires mass-reactive explosive rockets? That's fucking amazing! NOW HOW MUCH DAMAGE DOES IT DO?
>>48122051
There's a reason why Exalted 3rd is a fucking tome with probably more words than a bible. Absolutely ridiculous.
I can't even believe that this is the game I GM most at the moment.
>pic related is the hardcover book
And they added even more charms, for fuck's sake!
>>48104855
No index.
The writers of any RPG book that doesn't include a comprehensive and clear index should be publicly executed.
>>48150747
Okay, I did the word count. Not as much words as the bible. But still, a little bit over 400 000 words is quite the fucking much. That's twice as much as the new testament though. Old testament doesn't even break a sweat.
>>48104908
Although it depends on exactly which edition/game you're talking about, generally speaking the strong majority of tasks you expect PCs to accomplish are in fact +10 or even +20 tasks, and you can usually stack a lot of combat bonuses fairly easily (disclaimer: I've only read or played the 40k games, no idea about Fantasy). What bugs me about the 40k RPGs is that you can clearly see that FFG either didn't want to or very much regret nailing themselves to making a d100 mechanic system where 10 points in RPG stat = 1 point in wargame stat, and they're bolting on lots of (sometimes obscure) rules to try and get away from the corner they've painted themselves in.
>>48105200
The way feats in general work is better suited to a video game where building up a million and six tiny bonuses is fun and feels rewarding in the long run because, and this is important, you do not personally have to remember the exact circumstances under which each of those million and six bonuses applies.
>>48127645
I haven't actually run the numbers on this for 5e specifically, but it hasn't worked in any other edition. A level 3 spell tends to have similar effects to three level 1 spells cast simultaneously. The level 3 spell costs only one action instead of three, so spending three mana on a single 3rd-level spell is *always* better than spending them on three 1st-level spells. If you fudge the numbers around a bit, you can get it so that higher level spells deal more damage in one round, but lower level spells are more mana efficient, which is much better.
>>48129455
The d20 system has had benefits for exceeding the DC by increments of 5 since its inception.
>>48150747
This makes me so sad. That book looks awesome. I see it and my instinctive reaction is "oh, wow, this must be filled to bursting with awesome fluff or awesome rules or both!" I know from experience that big books are just books with shitty editing, but deep down inside I still want to believe.
