Unpopular opinions go here

[Thomas Shey]

I've had people angrily tell me that Traveller and RuneQuest are not OSR games, which is just a baffling position to hold.

Well, the lines drawn sometimes seem to be about defending old versions of D&D at all cost, and sometimes are about the existence or not of retroclones.

 

[Gradine]

There is no RPG that has vehicle combat that is fun to play out.

Only applies to the ones that have decided to create rules specifically for vehicle combat

 

[Dyson Logos]

You'll see this battle on some Old School locations when someone wants to talk about, say, Traveller.

Yeah, I game with James M of Grognardia, and it is weird how a lot of people have morphed the concept of the OSR to no longer include ANY old-school games (many even claim that classic D&D isn't OSR, it is old school, but playing it is not part of any "revival" or "renaissance")... There's this weird "D&D-compatible" purity test that is the key to the OSR now, and a lot of the original OSR people who were playing classic games have been pushed out the door (James runs our weekly Empire of the Petal Throne campaign).

 

[Reynard]

Yeah, I game with James M of Grognardia, and it is weird how a lot of people have morphed the concept of the OSR to no longer include ANY old-school games (many even claim that classic D&D isn't OSR, it is old school, but playing it is not part of any "revival" or "renaissance")... There's this weird "D&D-compatible" purity test that is the key to the OSR now, and a lot of the original OSR people who were playing classic games have been pushed out the door (James runs our weekly Empire of the Petal Throne campaign).

I think it is fairly cmmon for people that discover a thing to eventually assume ownership of it without much concern over the originators. See: all of human history.

 

[Celebrim]

There is no RPG that has vehicle combat that is fun to play out.

This has always bothered me a lot. The most challenging design in tabletop gaming is probably making joint operation of a vehicle interesting. I've never seen it done and it makes me wonder if it can be done.

Everyone in their own vehicle should be fairly straightforward, but that rarely comes up and you'd probably have to force it. There the problem is likely ensuring that the skills for controlling a vehicle are also relevant outside of a vehicle.

 

[MGibster]

Car Wars?

Not a role playing game but a table top miniatures game. Well, I hesitate to say miniatures because I never played in a game that used miniatures. We used little card board cutouts, but that's just me being pedantic. There was GURPS Autoduel, but I don't remember whether you just ended up using the Car Wars rules when racing.

This has always bothered me a lot. The most challenging design in tabletop gaming is probably making joint operation of a vehicle interesting. I've never seen it done and it makes me wonder if it can be done.

That's one of the biggest problems. The pilot obviously has a lot they can do with choosing where the vehicle goes, how fast it's going, maybe even being able to fire a weapon, etc., etc., but when you're a crewmember or a passenger there's typically not much for you to do. Rogue Trader from Fantasy Flight Games (based on Warhammer 40k) allowed multiple players to participate in ship-to-ship combat, but often there was only one thing for them to do every round. The priest in our group pretty much just rolled the same skill check every single round and was both tedious and repetitive.

 

[Reynard]

Not a role playing game but a table top miniatures game. Well, I hesitate to say miniatures because I never played in a game that used miniatures. We used little card board cutouts, but that's just me being pedantic. There was GURPS Autoduel, but I don't remember whether you just ended up using the Car Wars rules when racing.


That's one of the biggest problems. The pilot obviously has a lot they can do with choosing where the vehicle goes, how fast it's going, maybe even being able to fire a weapon, etc., etc., but when you're a crewmember or a passenger there's typically not much for you to do. Rogue Trader from Fantasy Flight Games (based on Warhammer 40k) allowed multiple players to participate in ship-to-ship combat, but often there was only one thing for them to do every round. The priest in our group pretty much just rolled the same skill check every single round and was both tedious and repetitive.

Starfinder did a decent job of giving different roles multiple options, but the actual mechanics of ship to ship just weren't robust enough to be interesting or fun over more than a few battles.

 

[CleverNickName]

Starfinder did a decent job of giving different roles multiple options, but the actual mechanics of ship to ship just weren't robust enough to be interesting or fun over more than a few battles.

Esper Genesis is a pretty good attempt at the different roles on a starship. Not perfect, but still lots of fun. Their mechanics were obviously inspired by Star Trek.

 

[MGibster]

Starfinder did a decent job of giving different roles multiple options, but the actual mechanics of ship to ship just weren't robust enough to be interesting or fun over more than a few battles.

That's another problem. I find vehicle combat in most RPGs to be far too abstract to be any fun. FFG's Star Wars ship-to-ship combat is terribly dull and it shouldn't be! Of course another problem is that most characters can either be good at doing stuff outside the ship, inside the ship, or kind of mediocre in both places. We're often encouraged to hyperspecialize in RPGs.

 

[Lanefan]

You think caster players are slow now -- imagine if D&D used a spell point system...

We used a spell point system for ages, still do in the game I play in, and if anything it's faster as players of casters don't have to agonize over what to pre-memorize at the start of the day.

Spell points are broken in other ways, however, which is why I went back to slots...but still no pre-mem.; instead they all work like 3e Sorcerers.