Why Do You Hate An RPG System?

[prabe]

@Ratskinner Yeah. I ran a campaign in a homebrew world using Spirit of the Century (because Fate Core wasn't out yet) for maybe a year. I know how compels/invokes are supposed to work. I just felt better being more hands-off-the-characters, and only giving them Fate Points if I was fiating something in the story and using their aspects to do so. The players spammed their aspects pretty hard, but Spirit of the Century gives them more aspects and more Fate Points

I have to admit that the examples in the Fate Core book of compels feel to me like the GM is bossing the players and PCs around, in ways I'd resent the hell out of as a player (which is almost certainly why I didn't do that when I was GMing in the system) and which would lead to exceedingly carefully-worded aspects if I were playing. It also really comes across, in every example I've seen in the books and in this thread, as a more antagonistic GMing style than just about anything I've encountered in D&D (and I go back to 1E AD&D). Probably says something about the tables I've played at.

 

[Anoth]

I can't think of a system that I hate. I'm not a big fan of Tunnels & Trolls - too silly, too mechanically bland and too deadly all at the same time. (Admittedly my experience is limited.)

I love Runequest in principle, but in practice find that it is too brutal when used in the sort of way that it implies it should be used (ie to run heroic bronze-age or S&S-type fantasy). Rolemaster is superficially similar in ethos but has a lot of differences of mechanical minutiae that significantly reduce the brutality, especially once the PCs reach mid-levels.

Probably my most-disliked RPG is AD&D 2nd ed, because mechanically it is just AD&D reheated and lacks the capacity to actually deliver the play experience - heroic fantasy - that is promised on the tin. This is an instance of the point about system honesty that other posters have mentioned.

Dear god ad&d 2E is my favorite.

 

[macd21]

Also know as if you wanted your Trouble to never be Trouble, why'd you pick it? It's like playing a rogue in D&D and investing in picking locks, and then deciding you'd rather not when presented the option.

Because the game forces you to pick a Trouble.

Again, this is missing the point. It’s not that the PC never wants to get in trouble. It’s that he doesn’t want to be rewarded for it, or punished for not doing it. He doesn’t want the system getting involved at all.

 

[macd21]

So people don't want rules that touch role-playing at all? To just ignore it and let people freeform?

But didn't lots of people hate 4E because it was "just a mini skirmish game" that also had rules that ignored role-playing?

People hated 4ed because it was a “just a mini skirmish game,” not because it had rules that ignored roleplaying.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Fixed that for you. And sorry, that's the less realistic one. No amount of practice in D&D can increase your level. You only get it via XP, which with the default system is killing.

We don't actually know that. The rules in the book are only concerned with how adventurers progress. And within that context, learning through experience - with combat challenges as a guiding metric for how much you experience - is a perfectly reasonable abstraction.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You absolutely MUST use out of character knowledge in any roleplaying game or situation, because you cannot, by definition, be another person. You cannot know things your character should know and you cannot un-know things your character doesn't.

Role-playing is one of humanity's oldest skills, and a super-majority of people are capable of successfully segregating their own knowledge from what they imagine someone else knows, in order to make a reasonable prediction of how that other person would act. Civilization could not exist otherwise.

 

[Ulfgeir]

One mechanic that I really disliked was in Exalted 2e (I have seen it in other games as well, just can't remember which). Namely Stunts... As in describe in a cool way how you do your thing to get a bonus, and the rest of the table had to agree that it was worth a bonus. We tend to call that a "Poodle-show"... It will take a lot of time, and is at the end rather pointless, and actively penalizes players who are not comfortable with doing new descriptions all the time.

--
To continue about the FATE-discussion: in FATE (at least you did in Dresden Files if I recall correctly), you got a fate-point for losing a fight. Either being taken out or conceding. So you could get fate-points for other things than accepting compels. And I really like this part. Personally I think Dresden Files and Atomic Robo had much better implementations of fate than FATE Core or FATE Accelerated did.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

I prefer to think that the time and energy I could waste actively disliking and trying to disavow a system I didn't really like or understand is better invested improving the experiences I have with games I do like, or discovering something new and different from others who have a better understanding of a system I haven't tried yet.

Also good to remember that not every system is supposed to give you the exact same type of experience as every other game you've played. If it does, then it may be that either it's not very different or you're doing it wrong.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

For me, I dislike FATE because I don't care for how it's supposed to be play. The way it was played when I played it and the way it's played in Actual Play Podcasts is something I dislike. (Aspects, The Compels - Fate Points Relationship). I feel Aspects are too wishy-washy. I feel that Compels are Punishments to Power Up so I can do something Cool.

However, I've seen others play it and have a blast. So, even though I've played it "right," I still don't like it. Not because I don't understand it, but the feeling I got from playing it.

Oh, gosh. Plus every time I see FATE brought up in one of these threads it goes something like this:

A: Let's do a thread about games you hate! Yay!
B: I hate FATE because of XYZ.
C: You're doing it wrong. You're just so wrong to hate this game!
B: Nope, still hate it. You're wrong for liking it and here's why.
C: Ugh. No, you just don't understand the game! You should love it and here's why!
B: Nuh-uh, and here's why.
--- Rinse, Lather, Repeat.

B & C are never going to see eye-to-eye, but both will never stop trying to sway the other.

But both have a great time derailing and monopolizing these sorts of threads until someone gets banned and the thread gets locked.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So, echoing a lot of others...

I don’t hate any system, as such, but the closest I can think of is FFG Star Wars. I was very active in the playtest for Edge Of The Empire, and I enjoy Star Wars RPGs possibly even more than DnD, but it’s just a garbage system, IMO.

“narrative dice” with stupid symbols are garbage.

complex talent trees where you have to consult the actual shape and order of the talent tree on the page in order to level up are garbage.

Not designing the whole system, and instead designing one type of campaign, and prescribing how Star Wars games in the Unknown Regions should be played is...utter and complete garbage.