Last night I was having a cozy read of some RPG books and got overwhelmed with the complexity. I'll leave these games anonymous to protect their identities, because the point of this griping isn't too complain about a particular system or to start an edition/system war with its fans. I'm curious - what traits usually get you to "nope" out of a system?
Here are a few from my list, in no particular order:
Erratic number goals. Do you want to roll high on this check, low on another? Are some skills percentile while others on a d20 or a d6?
Charts. I'm not talking about a handy list of what you get each time you level or what spells you can select. I'm talking about each and every combat or skill challenge to get out random charts, roll percentage dice or whatever to see what happens. You can never be rid of the book and have to use it every moment of every session since you don't have all relevant information on your character sheet.
Multiple maths used in each roll. Did you hit? Compare the target number to your die roll. Then divide by another number to see how many ranks of success. Then add to a feature of your weapon. Then subtract the opponent's armor rating compared to the AP rating of the weapon.
Hidden descriptions. "The monster is undead and has all the undead traits." Then you look up undead traits to see immune to cold, negative energy, poison, charm, sleep, etc. Just put all of that in the monster description so I don't have to look it up for every undead creature every fight. Or every plant, or demon, or whatever. How am I supposed to remember this stuff?
Here are a few from my list, in no particular order:
Erratic number goals. Do you want to roll high on this check, low on another? Are some skills percentile while others on a d20 or a d6?
Charts. I'm not talking about a handy list of what you get each time you level or what spells you can select. I'm talking about each and every combat or skill challenge to get out random charts, roll percentage dice or whatever to see what happens. You can never be rid of the book and have to use it every moment of every session since you don't have all relevant information on your character sheet.
Multiple maths used in each roll. Did you hit? Compare the target number to your die roll. Then divide by another number to see how many ranks of success. Then add to a feature of your weapon. Then subtract the opponent's armor rating compared to the AP rating of the weapon.
Hidden descriptions. "The monster is undead and has all the undead traits." Then you look up undead traits to see immune to cold, negative energy, poison, charm, sleep, etc. Just put all of that in the monster description so I don't have to look it up for every undead creature every fight. Or every plant, or demon, or whatever. How am I supposed to remember this stuff?