Pet Peeves....

[Rasyr]

The other day, I was talking with a friend over on psionics.net (where the D&D IRC channel is), and we got into a discussion over pet peeves with various systems.

Then this morning, I found BelenUmeria's thread about his issues with d20 and it got me to thinking about pet peeves again. So I figured that I would start my own thread and ask what sort of pet peeves folks might have with d20, and only with the core rules (the tons of supplements are too much to go into, I would think).

Now, I am not trying to bash d20, I think it is a perfectly good game (although I will admit that it wouldn't be my first choice). There is lots of good things about d20 I like, but the point of this thread is pet peeves. These need not be something that you think is broken or not, just bits that you dislike cause of preference (I think Piratecat mentioned Turning Undead over in the other thread). This thread is for folks to list their "preferences" in regards to aspects of the system. No system is perfect, at least not to everybody. I will even go ahead and go first...

For myself, I would have to say that my biggest pet peeve is character generation. My personal preference is for lots of flexibility. Using just the core d20 rules, it seems to me that many characters end up looking too much like they were made with a cookie cutter. Now, there are some exceptions (minor ones) to this, but to me, those exceptions do more to make my problems with chargen stand out even more to me.

As an extension to this, I also haev a pet peeve with Prestige Classes. Not with the classes, or the concept of the classes, but with the idea of having to fulfill prerequisites in order to obtain them. This is a bit too much meta-gaming for my tastes. I think such prerequisites should b story based rather than rules based.

What happens if your campaign takes an unexpected turn, and that PrC you haev spent xx number of levels working towards is no longer appropriate for the story? You have the option of continuing on and acquiring it, or of switching to a new PrC, which may have requirements so totally different that everything acquired for the first PrC is now worthless in regards to the second one.

To me, the prerequisites are too much of a hassle, and are not flexible enough to withstand changes to the direction of the game. Of course, a GM could always house rule things, but that is the point of my little pet peeve about it, to me it seems that it should be flexible enough to not need a house rule.

I enjoy making characters, and like to give them interesting and unusual skills and backgrounds, things that kinda break the mould, as it were. I find this more difficult to do in d20 than some other systems. Now, d20 isn't the worst system in this area, but I wouldn't say it is the best either.

As you can see, my pet peeves revolve around making and advancing the character. As for the rules during play, I don't really have much of an issue with many of them, at least not not ones strong enough to be called a pet peeve.

So... What are your pet peeves?

 

[Desdichado]

Good idea. Currently, I only play d20, and I don't see that changing any time soon. I'm a fairly fierce proponent of d20 in places like rpg.net, but certainly there are things about it, particularly the standard D&D variety, that I don't like. Every once in a while, it's nice to rant about the problems I have with the system.

• Too much difference between levels 1-20 to sustain credibility/sustainability of disbelief. As far as I'm concerned 10th level is high level. 20th level is so legendary that nobody has ever been that high in my campaign settings, typically. I'd also really like a more granular advancement system than levels; a way to gradually dole out the benefits of a new level, for instance. I've thought about breaking levels up into components; BAB increase, Save increase, new skill points, new feats, ability increase, new class ability, extra HD, etc. and have component levelling more often, but I haven't actually implemented anything like that yet.
• Too much reliance on D&Disms; it's tough if you don't have a cleric with his heal spells, certain magic items, and such. Granted, a lot of non-D&D d20 games have shown how this can alleviated, but it's still a pet peeve for D&D.
• Lack of good chase rules. I love chase scenes from the movies, and you can't really do them normally. Luckily, I've got a beta version of some new rules from a friend who's working on a system to address this.
• The archetypes covered by the basic core classes are too narrow. There's no good diplomat/social class, really; there's no swashbuckler, there's no non-spellcasting woodsman, etc. This is an easy fix, though, considering all the other classes in print out there.

Really, most of the problems I have personally with D&D are already addressed by some other d20 imprint, so I'm in pretty good shape. The only thing I'm a bit on my own with is levels, and for the most part, I just live with that without too much complaint.

 

[just__al]

The other day, I was talking with a friend over on psionics.net (where the D&D IRC channel is), and we got into a discussion over pet peeves with various systems.

Then this morning, I found BelenUmeria's thread about his issues with d20 and it got me to thinking about pet peeves again. So I figured that I would start my own thread and ask what sort of pet peeves folks might have with d20, and only with the core rules (the tons of supplements are too much to go into, I would think).

Now, I am not trying to bash d20, I think it is a perfectly good game (although I will admit that it wouldn't be my first choice). There is lots of good things about d20 I like, but the point of this thread is pet peeves. These need not be something that you think is broken or not, just bits that you dislike cause of preference (I think Piratecat mentioned Turning Undead over in the other thread). This thread is for folks to list their "preferences" in regards to aspects of the system. No system is perfect, at least not to everybody. I will even go ahead and go first...

For myself, I would have to say that my biggest pet peeve is character generation. My personal preference is for lots of flexibility. Using just the core d20 rules, it seems to me that many characters end up looking too much like they were made with a cookie cutter. Now, there are some exceptions (minor ones) to this, but to me, those exceptions do more to make my problems with chargen stand out even more to me.

As an extension to this, I also haev a pet peeve with Prestige Classes. Not with the classes, or the concept of the classes, but with the idea of having to fulfill prerequisites in order to obtain them. This is a bit too much meta-gaming for my tastes. I think such prerequisites should b story based rather than rules based.

What happens if your campaign takes an unexpected turn, and that PrC you haev spent xx number of levels working towards is no longer appropriate for the story? You have the option of continuing on and acquiring it, or of switching to a new PrC, which may have requirements so totally different that everything acquired for the first PrC is now worthless in regards to the second one.

To me, the prerequisites are too much of a hassle, and are not flexible enough to withstand changes to the direction of the game. Of course, a GM could always house rule things, but that is the point of my little pet peeve about it, to me it seems that it should be flexible enough to not need a house rule.

I enjoy making characters, and like to give them interesting and unusual skills and backgrounds, things that kinda break the mould, as it were. I find this more difficult to do in d20 than some other systems. Now, d20 isn't the worst system in this area, but I wouldn't say it is the best either.

As you can see, my pet peeves revolve around making and advancing the character. As for the rules during play, I don't really have much of an issue with many of them, at least not not ones strong enough to be called a pet peeve.

So... What are your pet peeves?

While I don't especially like the fact that most presteige classes aren't very prestegious, I've learned to live with it because it gets the players invested in keeping their characters alive to get there.

However, my big pet peeves are mostly game play related.

As a DM:
Spot light hogs
Players who aren't paying enough attention to be ready to go on their turn unless something really unexpected and field altering just happened
Players who work against the party and usally I don't care for players that won't work with the party
Party's that won't bite on at least one of the usually 5 plot hooks dangling in front of them. Almost forces me to railroad.

As a player:
Spot light hogs
Pet NPCs
Throwing something way over the players head at the party and having 9 NPC's show up to help, or worse, mysteriously hand the party something to level the playing field without our having to find out about it's existence, retrieve it at great personal risk, and then figure out how it works.
Going out of the way to reduce a players effectiveness more than say 15-25% of the time (undead vs. rogues, creatures with evasion vs mr fireball sorceror etc.)
Having my Dwarven Locksmith/security expert called a THIEF.

 

[Desdichado]

I think he was asking about pet peeves about system, not about player/GM behavior...

 

[Arnwyn]

- Brutal NPC generation. Way too long to create just a core class NPC... with me having a career and a life, forget about adding prestige classes to those NPCs.

I'm pretty good with (read: can easily modify to suit my tastes) most everything else on the fantasy side of things.

 

[Aaron2]

OK, here goes ....

"Roll Low": I can't stand any game where rolling low is better than rolling high. Possible exception for James Bond.

"Something at every level": This trend just bugs me. You do not need a special class ability at every freakin' level. It become a nightmare to keep track of.

"Feat-itis": Any new rule has to be implemented via a feat. You end up with tons of feats that are ignored or that only help the one character that has it.

"Built in assumed power levels": This is my main problem with prestige classes. Why 6th level? It should be up to the DM to decide when they should kick in. d20 Modern is way worse in this regard. There should no be a magic barrier across all campaign that picks on certain spot where the game become "Epic" and the rules suddenly change.

"XP for Roleplaying": Does more XP make a deeper more interesting character? If so, why not just give everyone 10,000xp so they will roleplay more. Players that roleplay well will do so regardless of their character's level, why punish those who don't enjoy it.


Aaron

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

- Brutal NPC generation. Way too long to create just a core class NPC... with me having a career and a life, forget about adding prestige classes to those NPCs.

I'm pretty good with (read: can easily modify to suit my tastes) most everything else on the fantasy side of things.

5 minutes with PCGen or Etools. May not be perfect, but I don't care if an NPC is 100% by the rules so long as it's appropriate for the encounter. An extra skill point here or there, a minor difference in BAB or saves, it really doesn't matter. It's worth the time savings by far.

 

[Wystan]

Good chase rules can be found in 2 places that I know of...

Soldier/Wheelman Class guide from AEG
and
Unexplored Worlds for StarGate from AEG (little more updated, and good feats to go with it, tweaked a bit it should be fine for fantasy rules as well....)


D20 AEG Fanboy

 

[diaglo]

So... What are your pet peeves?

my biggest pet peeve... although i hat petting peeves... i'd rather bash them

d02 trying to pass itself off as a D&D system... it ain't D&D.

 

[Ashrum the Black]

My Pet peeves:

1) The reduction in flavor in favor of a clearer ruleset. Don't get me wrong,
as a DM I love the rules to cover situations. But I hate it when my
players focus on the numbers more than they focus on the plot and
characters developments.

2) The treatment of magic items in third edition. In first and second any
and all magic items where treasured and found a home. It wasn't until
the characters had been around for close to a year of play time that
magic items would start to be passed down to followers and some even
sold off. But it was a big deal to find a place that would buy and sell.

3) The quickness of leveling up at low levels. I liked in second edition that I
could cover a plot point, and the characters would only gain a level or
two through out. But now if I run one plot arc or module, the characters
may start at third and end at eighth.

4) The complexity of generating a villian at higher levels. There were times I
spent a week working on the villians for a 13~14th level party. All for
only one or two fights. It got even more brutal when they started to run
into folks that had prestige classes of their own. I started trying to
shoehorn critters at their challenge rating into the game just so my wife
would stop rolling her eyes when I pulled out the books and paper again.

Each of these peeves can be handled with house rules or a "large blunt DM stick" (patent pending). I just preferred the feel of how these were handled under the old rules better. Things feel rushed, and computer gamey to me, rather that heroic and legendary. :\

But I still love the system, I just long for yesterday sometimes.

-Ashrum