Why Do You Hate An RPG System?

[Undrave]

Undrave, I am unclear by what you wrote. Are you saying that players get tired of it? If so, my own experience was different . My regular players didn't get tired of it after several years of playing. Furthermore, the other half-dozen visiting gamer friends that sat in for sessions really enjoyed the damage save system for M&M (which has been the system for all editions. However I have not run it since just prior to the 3e so I don't recall if there were tweaks to the base save numbers over the editions).

I think it was mostly because my party had me with my super strong natural armour power and then normal people in leather jacket so the DM would constantly send guys that would be able to go over my resistance, but anytime they hit one of my ally it was ALWAYS "Bruised, injured, stun", never just 'Bruised' or 'Bruised, Injured'. Basically we didn't really get to experience the full effect of the damage system, just the extreme. Felt like the DM didn't want to let me just be TOUGH. Like, ever.

We had fun with the rest of the system. Like that time I broke through the concrete floor of a building thanks to my digging speed, grabbed a Mastermind and used her to bash her own computer with

 

[Tony Vargas]

So if you HATE a system, why? Explain it to me.

Sorry, this just made me think, "it'd be cute if there were a system called 'HATE' maybe a FUDGE/FATE parody?"

 

[Retreater]

Sorry, this just made me think, "it'd be cute if there were a system called 'HATE' maybe a FUDGE/FATE parody?"

As I actually hate FATE, maybe I should be the writer? Haha

 

[slipshot762]

The question is, what other systems may work better?

For me, the damage/wound mechanic of D6 system is the best I've come across.

 

[Zhaleskra]

I like how in HARP the Endurance skill is actually endurance. You aren't wounded unless a critical result specifically mentions it. "Hits" just means your endurance went down X amount. While HARP is a death spiral system, like most such systems, it has mitigating factors.

 

[Ratskinner]

I'm growing increasingly weary of hit points. I do think they are an easy and functional way to track character damage for game purposes, and they mesh nicely with the other elements of the game as needed (spells, class abilities, and the like)...but I feel like they don't carry any kind of meaning to them other than the binary "you're still on your feet/you're down" state. You can add some other mechanic to them, such as wounds or vitality or what have you, and that may help, but that's not always easy to blend into the related mechanics.

I also find that ultimately, what HP do is simply allow combat to continue.....so most fights last longer than what might actually be dramatically and/or mechanically exciting. Hit points add to the slog aspect of combat.

The question is, what other systems may work better? I can think of two game systems for tracking PC harm that are superior (in my opinion, of course) to HP, and that's Blades in the Dark and Apocalypse World. Both work well in their systems. The Blades system is particularly good, in my opinion.

Are there any other systems for this that folks would recommend?

I second the Blades system as pretty well awesome.

The Fate system is somewhere in-between, at least to my eyes. Its especially flexible if you consider the various implementations of Conditions that are in the Fate toolkit. That is, flexible from a systematic standpoint. The core Consequences system is obviously narratively more flexible. I like it because it gives narrative meaning to injuries and the like. The HP system generates what I call "Disney Combat" and I think I'm done with that as the default.

 

[Stormonu]

Only one system I can apply the word HATE to, and that would be Palladium - moreso for what the company has done than their terrible game system.

Other systems I DISLIKE are the SAGA Dragonlance rules and D20 Modern. The former was simply unnessary and the latter was a poor fit for modern game design - I can't fanthom anything short of superheroes as characters above 10th level in that system and trying to make the game fit for Star Wars was just ...bad. I'll take SAGA Star Wars over D20 Star Wars, and I feel SAGA Star Wars murdered a good RPG pretty much as well.

 

[Crusadius]

I can dislike systems for various reasons.

I like systems to be able to produce reasonably balanced characters so systems/games that don't do this I dislike e.g. RIFTs.

Some systems can be overly complicated. I'm sure some games released in the nineties would fit into this category. Also having charts for everything would certainly discourage me (now) e.g Rolemaster.

I like clear guidelines so any system that leaves me to guess something isn't my favorite system. Systems like this would not be on my list of games to run, but might be OK for me to play.

 

[steenan]

I rarely "hate" games, because if I strongly dislike one, I just don't play it, so I don't let the feeling bloom into hatred.
But there are things that make me say a hard "NO" to a game:

• Games that lie to me. This typically takes a form of the game being advertised or presenting itself in the book with "You can do X in this game" while the rules do not help do X or, in some cases, even get in the way of doing X. I "can" do anything, running a freeform. A game needs to offer significantly more to be worth my money and time.
• Games that want me to lie (me as a GM, not my NPCs). If a game advises me to bait and switch or to railroad players while giving them an illusion of choice, I won't even try running it.
• Games that offer a lot of options and expect me to balance them somehow. I don't want to review each character and make sure it's not too strong or too weak. If it is rules legal and fits the themes of the game, I expect it to work in play. Balancing things is the designer's job, not mine. And if someone does not want to put the effort into balancing their game, they should make is simple enough that balance is not a problem.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm not familiar with how Champions does its Disadvantages, but in GURPS, it's covered by a random roll to see whether you succumb (with the value of the Disadvantage scaling with the difficulty of the roll). So if you're playing a typical fantasy thief, you might have a compulsion to steal valuable objects, and overcoming that compulsion requires rolling 6 or under on 3d6. Both the player and the character are entirely in the same headspace, that stealing this valuable object right now would be a bad thing, because of the inevitable trouble which it will bring. But they may not be able to help themself, which is what the roll represents.

On the contrary. "May not be able to help themself" here just means that the orbital mind control lasers hit, and the character actions were taken entirely out of the player's hands. This I find inimical to roleplaying except under the rare circumstance where there is actually compulsion magic at play that actively overrides player and character agency alike.

FATE literally says that you should steal that thing, and invite the accompanying trouble, because you want the fate point.

This means that the player and the character have their motivation aligned. They might want it for a different purpose (the character wants to steal because that's how their character was set up, while the player wants the fate point). In both cases they know it's a bad idea that will lead to messy complications - but they are also tempted to do it anyway because it gives them something they want. On the other hand they and I alike can, at cost, choose to resist the temptation.

Fate points put me in my character's headspace even if I personally don't give a damn about a magical faberge egg (or whatever) and am only stealing because I think that's what my character might do. Whether they do it or not is contextual depending on how tempting that thing is.

Further, having a mechanic like Fate points enables me to play certain self-sabotaging characters without being a dick. If I'm playing D&D and play a character that risks bringing trouble down on the party because they can't keep their hands to themselves I'm dicking over the rest of the party when I risk the party's success. If I get a fate point for it I am in a meaningful way helping the entire group be more prepared (to the tune of one fate point) for what we actually care about. I also know in a game of Fate that everyone else is going to be having their own drama of this sort and it's not me personally showboating and taking up entire scenes to make them all about my character.


As for games I actively hate there's FATAL and RaHoWa of course. But in general life's too short for hatred. There are plenty of systems I dislike, but I'd rather scavenge the good parts and leave things like the Vampire: The Masquerade or GURPS system on one side while keeping the setting or sourcebooks.