TTRPGs: broken mechanics vs. abusive players

[ThorinTeague]

I get fairly annoyed when I see someone call xyz game or aspect of that game “broken,” especially when talking about major releases that have been tested to the nth degree. It does however pique my curiosity about what is a genuinely broken mechanic vs. absurd and unlikely circumstances fomented by bad faith/abusive game play.

Just an example for the purpose of this discussion: What I’ve seen D&D shorts post to his YouTube channel comes to mind (yep, he actually talks about the game). I haven’t seen all of his videos but the ones I have watched all hash out some astronomically improbable combinations of variables, cherry picked one out of context feature at a time throughout multiple disparate supplements, coupled with some extraordinarily bad faith interpretations of the D&D 5th Edition rules. He’s not the only player who does this by any stretch of the imagination, but his abuses are definitely some of the most outrageous I’ve ever seen.

However, for another example on the other side of that coin, there were a couple books in late pf1e that, when used as intended, pretty much broke the game. So I am just ruminating on where the actual line is. Of course, it’s probably not easily defined, if it can be defined at all. But it deserves some thought I believe. Then there’s the glorious, beautiful mess that is the Palladium megaverse. I don’t know that I want to call anything in that system “broken” per se, but it definitely is cookoo.

Please share your thoughts on where genuinely broken game mechanics end and player abuse begins.

 

[James Gasik]

This reminds me of how many people insist 3.5 was "broken" because of Pun-Pun.

What is a Pun-Pun, you might ask? Well, basically, it's an exercise in what could happen if all the books were available, and the DM was asleep at the wheel, by allowing players to acquire NPC powers and abuse them. Once the trick was revealed, it became a race to see how early it could happen (but not really, since the most famous example is making a Paladin just so you could fall from grace in exchange for a wish from Pazuzu).

It was a joke, but a lot of people got bent out of shape about it. And worse, it became such a meme that people began using it as an attack against the game itself. I mean, it's not like 3.5 didn't commit sins against game balance, but using this as the ur-example was extremely unfair (I'd rather point to Incantatrix shenanigans, the Jumplomancer, or the Hulking Hurler as more credible examples of crazy builds).

Anyways, to answer your question, a lot of this is really going to be up to the individual. Different people have different ideas about how games "should" be played. Someone who takes the game very seriously is going to be bent out of shape when you demonstrate something they find questionable. Most of the time you get a "haha, no DM would ever allow that" or "I'd ban that instantly" reaction, whether it's warranted or not.

The power level you are comfortable with is another factor; I've played with groups who encourage cracked-out builds, and if you show up with "Torek the Dwarf Fighter" (a stand-in for a perfectly reasonable character), you might find yourself struggling to stay relevant.

On the other hand, some groups might give you the stink eye if you even mention multiclassing, as that's only something a "roll player" would consider!

My personal test is if character A is better than character B at doing something character B should be good at. Then I try to isolate what's going on here. I do try to take things into perspective, however. For example, if a particular class is known for having weak subclasses, and someone shows up playing a strong subclass, I might let that slide (unless I have someone else playing a different subclass).

But for example, I think the Bladesinger is too good. While it's true that they can only replicate what a melee character does for a limited time, and by level 11, a Fighter should always outperform them, the fact is, even without Bladesong, they're still a full caster with some of the best spells in the game!

I find this especially egregious if you compare the Bladesinger to an Eldritch Knight, who gets a much more limited to "pretend to be a Wizard", and their fallback option, just being a Fighter, is only truly superior once they get their third attack!

On the other hand, there are sometimes core options that outshine everything else. The Totem Barbarian is still the gold standard for Barbarian power, 8 years later. Everyone sort of ignores this, but it would really make an outsider to the game wondering why we aren't banning this subclass if it's really that much better.

On the gripping hand, however, even "is X better than Y" is truly subjective. You can make a power point presentation of why the Monk is an inferior class, but if a DM had his campaign wrecked by judicious use of Stunning Strike, they will never accept your data.

Play a Cleric and eschew the use of Healing Word because it seems like a weak spell, because what you want to do is heal your allies, and you'll come away with the impression that the Cleric is a terrible class.

Play a Cleric and build yourself to wade into combat with Spirit Guardians, turning you into a walking AoE effect, and you probably have a DM that hates your guts.

 

[bloodtide]

Well, I think this topic needs to be bigger in scope. It's not just the abusive players: you need to account for the style of the DM. I talk about this often, though mostly to a wall because no one, player or DM ever wants to talk about HOW they play the game. They will just toss out the "there is no wrong way to play" and "every way to play is right".

But HOW you play the game does matter.

I see it all the time: They change many things about the game and play by these house rules of ours.......AND THEN they say "The game is broken". My classic example is like a person gets on a bicycle, then ride right into a huge patch of thick mud, and then they say "this bicycle is broken". And I'm the one that points off that if they would just move over here to the dirt path, the bicycle would work just fine. But they just sink deeper into the mud and scream "the bike is broken!"

A classic game example I point out is how some games give magic a free pass, but smack down anything mundane.

The DM sets up a ranged encounter where some foes attack. The mundane melee characters can't do anything. The players complain because they can't play the game. The DMs response is just "sucks to be a mundane character".

But try the other side: The DM sets up a no magic area encounter where some foes attack. The magical characters can't do anything.

But, of course, that would NEVER happen with most DMs. They would be shaking just even thinking about the idea of denying the magical characters being denied the use of magic even for a couple minutes. They would be gasping for air, saying they could NEVER do something like that to those players.

The above is a perfect example why many games are "broken". The DM changes the way the game is played then they say the game is "made" broken.

 

[James Gasik]

Now granted, denying melee isn't quite the same as denying magic; you do have ranged weapons of your own, though I fully realize, a character built to be melee is probably not the greatest archer in the world.

And there are enemies where it sucks to be a spellcaster, especially when BS legendary resistance comes into play.

But I do agree, building an encounter to "shut off" a character is a bad move. And yes, it is easier to "shut off" a mundane character than it is a magical one. I know I would never "shut off" a magical character, even beyond my dislike of negating characters, for the following reasons:

1) I want them using their spell slots. If they can't use them in Fight C, then they will have less reason to be frugal in Fights D, E, and F.

2) They aren't designed to do much of anything if they can't use cantrips. Now it's true most arcane casters are going to have Dexterity. And Clerics often have good reasons to have Strength. But these aren't required by their classes. So if I shut down the magic of, say, a physically feeble but Wise Druid, no spells, no wild shape- I basically have to design the encounter as if they weren't present that day.

Beyond all that, however, yes, there are people who change the game and then gripe that it doesn't adjust for that change. The most obvious way this occurs is optimization.

As you play the game, you learn that some choices are better than other ones. So over time, almost everyone can make a better character unless they actively sabotage their efforts to do so.

Unfortunately, the game doesn't take any of this into account for encounter design. If Feats are optional, it's hard to imagine monster Challenge Ratings take things like "bless + advantage + great weapon master" into consideration. Or PAM/Sentinel builds.

You can definitely rest assured that the game doesn't take magic items into account beyond "well at level X, surely they have magical weapons".

Multiclassing being optional as well; not only is the game not balanced around mixing class abilities, given how slowly you gain subclass abilities, it's obviously not balanced around a character reaching level 7, looking at what they have to look forward to for the next 7 levels, and deciding to switch classes after they pick up their next ASI.

And that's not even getting into how some subclasses are better than others. If your first character is a sword and board Champion Fighter, and your next is an Elven Samurai with Great Weapon Master and Elven Accuracy, you're going to see different results- though of course, your DM's style matters here as well. (Like, if he's an "always target the Fighter" DM, the shield is probably the better choice, lol).

But the flipside is that WotC gave us these "options" that just make the game more exciting and fun, then refused to do even the basic work of telling DM's how to employ them without altering game balance. In my less charitable moments, I've equated this to them basically saying "oh here's this option, but if you use it and it breaks your game, it's not our fault, lol!".

There is no wrong way to play game, but there's a caveat to this: unless you are playing in a way that makes the game less fun for others.

 

[ThorinTeague]

Oh and there's also such a thing as DM's bitching about players who are just doing a good job of applying their characters' abilities effectively. This illuminates an adversarial mindset among those DM's, and is problematic in a cooperative game. This is another facet to the discussion, is the game broken, or is a bad actor DM breaking the game in these instances? Owen Stephens says it's a feature, not a bug:

 

[ThorinTeague]

Oh and there's also such a thing as DM's bitching about players who are just doing a good job of applying their characters' abilities effectively. This illuminates an adversarial mindset among those DM's, and is problematic in a cooperative game. This is another facet to the discussion, is the game broken, or is the DM breaking the game in these instances? Owen Stephens says it's a feature, not a bug:

(I agree with Owen btw)

 

[GMMichael]

I get fairly annoyed when I see someone call xyz game or aspect of that game “broken,” especially when talking about major releases that have been tested to the nth degree. It does however pique my curiosity about what is a genuinely broken mechanic vs. absurd and unlikely circumstances fomented by bad faith/abusive game play.

The only genuinely broken mechanism/rule is the one that conflicts with other rules in that system. Yes, you probably won't see these in nth-degree-tested games, but it's fun to note that D&D 3.5 seemed to have errata updates until the day they shut it down. (Sorry: put it in hibernation until after 4th edition.)

Just an example for the purpose of this discussion: What I’ve seen D&D shorts post to his YouTube channel comes to mind (yep, he actually talks about the game). I haven’t seen all of his videos but the ones I have watched all hash out some astronomically improbable combinations of variables, cherry picked one out of context feature at a time throughout multiple disparate supplements, coupled with some extraordinarily bad faith interpretations of the D&D 5th Edition rules. He’s not the only player who does this by any stretch of the imagination, but his abuses are definitely some of the most outrageous I’ve ever seen.

I'm gonna conclude that eking out benefits is human nature, and like other traits/desires, it comes in degrees. "Abusive" is subjective, and it's quite possible that D&D Shorts (?) has a group of friends who think his ideas are awesomeness.

Is the rule or the player broken? The line is: which do you like better? The rule or the player?

 

[TwoSix]

Here's an example. In 3.5, Control Winds was a 5th level druid spell that let you raise the level of "wind" by one factor for every 3 caster levels, and had a massive range (in the miles). Combine that with a pearl of power that boosts your divine caster level by 4, and you could make a calm breeze into a hurricane by 11th level.

So I did that! And I flattened a town that an enemy of the party was hiding in to flush him out. After the session, the DM asked me if I could not do that trick anymore because he just didn't have a logical way to counter it, and it would make the game less fun to try. So I said "Of course, no problem", and didn't do that anymore.

Was I being a problem player? I don't think so. It was a bog standard PHB spell, a pretty common magic item, and once you saw how the spell worked, an obvious tactic to use. Using something built into the core books with a minimum of outside synergies and yet was able to cause campaign shaking problems, to me, points to a problem with the books. If I had continued to use that combination because it's "legal", despite being aware of the problems it caused in the campaign, then I would become a problem player.

 

[Lanefan]

Here's an example. In 3.5, Control Winds was a 5th level druid spell that let you raise the level of "wind" by one factor for every 3 caster levels, and had a massive range (in the miles). Combine that with a pearl of power that boosts your divine caster level by 4, and you could make a calm breeze into a hurricane by 11th level.

So I did that! And I flattened a town that an enemy of the party was hiding in to flush him out. After the session, the DM asked me if I could not do that trick anymore because he just didn't have a logical way to counter it, and it would make the game less fun to try. So I said "Of course, no problem", and didn't do that anymore.

Was I being a problem player? I don't think so. It was a bog standard PHB spell, a pretty common magic item, and once you saw how the spell worked, an obvious tactic to use. Using something built into the core books with a minimum of outside synergies and yet was able to cause campaign shaking problems, to me, points to a problem with the books. If I had continued to use that combination because it's "legal", despite being aware of the problems it caused in the campaign, then I would become a problem player.

If the DM didn't houserule-fix the spell such that your exploit couldn't work again (or better yet, identified and shut said exploit down before it first arose), IMO you'd be well within your rights to keep using that trick forever; and it wouldn't make you a problem player in the least.

Yes, it's a problem with the books, but it's not your-as-player's job to fix said problem. It's the DM's; and because the DM didn't fix it s/he and the campaign are now stuck with it as a known thing.

In this case, capping the increase in "wind factors" at 2, regardless of caster level, would instantly solve a lot of headaches and yet still allow the spell to work as intended (to power becalmed ships at sea, usually).

 

[TwoSix]

Yes, it's a problem with the books, but it's not your-as-player's job to fix said problem. It's the DM's; and because the DM didn't fix it s/he and the campaign are now stuck with it as a known thing.

For my play ethos, a campaign is a collaboration between the players and the DM. Forcing rule changes just because I could goes against my beliefs of what's expected of me as a player.