How Quickly Do You Bounce Off a System?

[dragoner]

It may not have been as quickly, but I bounced off Traveller: New Era after reading the main rulebook and a couple of supplements. Traveller always had a semi-militarist bent with the potential for mercenary campaigns and most characters generating their way through the creation mini game with a military or paramilitary organization as their backstory. But after adopting the Twilight: 2000 game system as the house system, it's like TNE went ALL IN on militarism. It was like the rules were marinated in it and, frankly, it was a major turn off.

I see people try to use Traveller as a combat sim, and it is well prepare to see your character die. Combat is lethal, and not incentivized by xp. Most of the time social encounters, and social skills are important, as those happen like five to one vs combat. I felt the same way as you reading TNE because it all seemed about fighting Malignant AI, or TED's Technologically Elevated Dictators for high tech gear, which frankly would have broken down in the space of 200 years, yet was being used in game like magic items.

 

[thullgrim]

I’m usually willing to give something at least a one-shot to see if there’s something I’m missing.

I conceptually love Blades in the Dark but realized about 20 minutes into the book I’d never run it. Not a great fit for me as a GM or my regular play group.

The ‘recent’ other game I bounce off hard, really hard, is PF2 and I ran five games levels 1-6 before I finally gave up. Sometimes I can be stubborn.

 

[grimmgoose]

I may be an odd duckling in that I'm generally not interested in super specific, this-TTRPG-is-for-this-specific-setting, so if I discover a TTRPG is intrinsically tied to a setting - I'm out.

I generally seek out setting-agnostic or universal systems (or at least, systems that can easily be lifted out of the setting). When it comes to mechanics, as a forever-GM, I look for:

• is it GM-friendly? Are there easy-to-access knobs and levers to adjust things?
• is the core mechanic easy to teach? does most of the system revolve around the core mechanic?
• how much support does it have? both official and from the community?

With that in mind, it doesn't take long for me to realize a system isn't for me. So much so, that I try and do as much research as I can prior to buying a system so it doesn't waste space on my shelf.

 

[payn]

In my specific case with The One Ring, my "research" was based on 1) the track record of the publisher; 2) appreciation of the lore; and 3) reviews.
The reviews were mostly people going ga-ga over the art and layout and didn't really get into the system.

I like some Free League products, but not all. I do find they are the new darling that everyone wants to become a household name. That usually means extra hype about everything thats coming out. On one hand, that means treading very careful about purchases, on the other, it means FL will continue to be able to put out more stuff that you will like.

 

[overgeeked]

Number of splat books, number of core books, size of books, and word count dedicated to core mechanics are generally my big initial reasons to bounce off a game. Massive line of splat books, nope I'm out. Several core books, nope I'm out. Books with massive page counts, I'm generally* out. Huge word count just on core rules, nope I'm out. Digging into the actual rules, if the designers have replaced the player's imagination with long lists of mechanics, options, and menus to pick from, I'm out. Enabling the player's creativity and imagination are where RPGs shine. Undermining that by creating exhausting lists of options instead of allowing the player to exercise their imagination and I'm out.

*Dungeon Crawl Classics is the exception. The whole game is in one massive book. And it's spectacular. Mostly because it doesn't fall into any of the other traps.

 

[Arilyn]

I haven't bounced off a system in many years. There's some games I'm not interested in because of the topic. Dune and Alien sound like amazing games but not my jam. I can't seem to click with Savage Worlds and Mutants and Masterminds but that was quite a while back.

Okay, this isn't true. Played a lot of PF1 but can't seem to get into PF2. So, yes, I bounced off PF2 quickly. I don't like character creation in PF2. Doesn't give me room to breathe.

 

[The Soloist]

2023 was the year I tried to get out of my comfort zone and bought several RPGs that I just couldn't see myself GMing while reading the rules. My greatest failure was Sword of the Serpentine. I tried reading and understanding how the game worked three times. Gave up and sold the book.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I see people try to use Traveller as a combat sim, and it is well prepare to see your character die. Combat is lethal, and not incentivized by xp. Most of the time social encounters, and social skills are important, as those happen like five to one vs combat. I felt the same way as you reading TNE because it all seemed about fighting Malignant AI, or TED's Technologically Elevated Dictators for high tech gear, which frankly would have broken down in the space of 200 years, yet was being used in game like magic items.

The problem is that this can be, in practice, perverse, given one of the common campaign group basis is as mercenaries. Further, its not hard to end up with a character who comes out of some of the services who really isn't good for much except for combat.

Essentially, its like a game that has character come in as fighting specialists, and ones that probably have very limited ability in other areas; expecting them to not lean toward fighting or putting counterincentives to that is also pretty perverse and does not understand how people respond to their available options.

 

[billd91]

Further, its not hard to end up with a character who comes out of some of the services who really isn't good for much except for combat.

It's not always bad to have a Jayne Cobb kind of character in a group. The GM just needs to find ways to incorporate that into scenarios.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's not always bad to have a Jayne Cobb kind of character in a group. The GM just needs to find ways to incorporate that into scenarios.

Point is, people are going to lean into doing the things their characters are good at. If that's combat, expecting them to avoid that is probably a loser. If you want a game with very low combat, you should have a character generation system that isn't going to produce specialists in combat as a reasonably likely result.