RPGs that you feel trip over their own cool ideas

[RenleyRenfield]

I'd like to hear more about how you feel they are sloppy - they're the basic force driving the GM's action economy, and while it takes a new GM some time to learn to work with the pacing they provide, other systems have similar learning issues and don't get called sloppy for it.

You answered a decent part of "why" already
|
v

Hope and Fear in Daggerheart are not generally clear results of mechanical and physical in-game events.

This is why its sloppy, and as the OP questioned, "trips over its self". In our games, and in 100% of other DH games we have watched - every single time - the economy (how much hope or fear is in current play) = is never well done.

lite example = 4 players... 1 person rolls with Fear twice in a row, cannot activate many of their abilities, have no Hope to spend on anything... each round is about 20~30 min or so, so for nearly an hour 1 player isn't able to interact with the rules or activate many parts of their own character. Not because they made bad choice, not because they overspent - simply because the system is sloppy with how it handles Hope and Fear. It limited player action arbitrarily, randomly.

In defense of DH.... Why DH is bad design but likely why it 'works' for people = because its no-effort economy. You don't have to try roleplay to earn Hope, you can't roleplay to scrub Fear, there are no dice tricks or special combos that alter the pools of either, and so on. They have made a metacurrency that flows outside of roleplay, which takes the mental strain off managing currency.

For us, Draw Steel and L5R 5e do right all the things DH does wrong. (as examples of non-sloppy mechanics that don't trip over themselves or limit player action arbitrarily.)

 

[mamba]

To get further sidetrecked: How do people feel about diegetic/extradiegetic metacurrency? Personally, I'm fine with metacurrency (though I prefer if there is only one, in player's hands), but I really don't like it if it's turned into something diegetic.

Might be a matter of how it is justified, I certainly do not like a 'the chosen ones' reason either. I am also not really a fan of a constant stream of metacurrency with every roll either, I prefer some luck or dread being generated every once in a while that the player or DM can cash in during important moments

 

[Laurefindel]

That is definitely a subjective call. I am very familiar with TOR and never encountered any issue with it's travel rules. Encountering travel scenery is evocative and fun for me.

Same for me

That said, any example given in this thread will be subjective to a certain extent.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I feel like everyone complains about the same thing with C&C but the designers dont seem to care. Ive specifically avoided the game based on everyone voicing it is overly complicated.

If I wanted and old school game with convoluted legacy mechanics I would just grab 2e AD&D

I played C&C for about 10 years. I think it's a better, cleaner system than TSR D&D. The frustration is that it stops one yard short of being where it ought to be (with a standard unified D20 resolution system). It does so much else right -- the multiclassing class-and-a-half system is, no contest, my favorite fantasy RPG multiclassing system -- but it has the clunky SIEGE engine that never fails to generate friction throughout play, to no real benefit.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm no fan of the Siege Engine, but evidently the authors like it a lot. There also seem to be enough players who like it, since C&C is still pumping out revisions and new books.

Yeah, there is definitely a happy C&C community, although I would bet most of them have house-ruled it to bits, since it's incredibly good for that. Heck, you can accommodate most D&D content through 3E without any changes. (You can probably even get away with incorporating 3E classes, although you'd need to dial back their power some, probably by not giving them feats.)

The Troll Lords don't have the desire to grow much bigger, it seems, and are happy to just do what they love and drink their Dr. Pepper. Same sort of business model Goodman Games has: Not trying to be #1, just turn your hobby into a career, putting games you'd like to play out into the world. That's a pretty good life, in my mind.

 

[Gradine]

Funny enough I also thought of Monte Cooke's Cypher System when I opened this thread but for the exact opposite reasons of the OP. I think the Cyphers are the cool idea here; the best mechanical expression of anti-hoarding I've ever seen. The character building system, meanwhile, is really cool in concept but needlessly restrictive in execution.

 

[JohnSnow]

I played C&C for about 10 years. I think it's a better, cleaner system than TSR D&D. The frustration is that it stops one yard short of being where it ought to be (with a standard unified D20 resolution system). It does so much else right -- the multiclassing class-and-a-half system is, no contest, my favorite fantasy RPG multiclassing system -- but it has the clunky SIEGE engine that never fails to generate friction throughout play, to no real benefit.

If I ever get around to writing my own game system, it is liable to look a lot like an evolved version of C&C.

My gaming group, which actually got together on the WotC forums, switched to Castles & Crusades back in the 3.5e days because our DM got so frustrated with the process of adventure crafting for 3e that he wanted something simpler. So we chose C&C, and we had a grand old time with that campaign, until our DM had to move out of the area for work.

I played a wizard, and we implemented 2 houserules to the class so I could always "feel like a wizard," even when I was "out of spells" - a Dex-based "Magic Bolt" attack and "Prestidigitation." Basically, the latter was flavor (but creative uses were encouraged), and the former was just a reflavored version of a mundane dart or thrown dagger. I think it did force damage. Those two tiny changes made it so that playing even a lowly 1st-level mage always got to feel like being a Wizard.

If I ever go back to playing anything D&D/AD&D/OSR-adjacent that doesn't have 5e's unlimited cantrips, I'll be giving wizards that boost. It makes a huge difference to keep a player who is a low-level mage consistently engaged, without really overpowering them.

 

[Umbran]

This is why its sloppy, and as the OP questioned, "trips over its self". In our games, and in 100% of other DH games we have watched - every single time - the economy (how much hope or fear is in current play) = is never well done.

Yeah, but "well done" is not well-defined...

lite example = 4 players... 1 person rolls with Fear twice in a row, cannot activate many of their abilities, have no Hope to spend on anything... each round is about 20~30 min or so

(emphasis mine)
Setting aside how Daggerheart doesn't have cleanly defined rounds, you mean?

It should not take you that long to go through four player's worth of actions. I don't know what you're doing, but it doesn't match my experience with the system.

...so for nearly an hour 1 player isn't able to interact with the rules or activate many parts of their own character.

The first part is inaccurate - a character can always take basic actions (interacting with the rules) without having Hope to spend. My very first session trying the game I was having horrible dice luck, and almost every roll was with Fear, but I was taking actions regularly.

Not because they made bad choice, not because they overspent - simply because the system is sloppy with how it handles Hope and Fear. It limited player action arbitrarily, randomly.

You realize that characters start the session with Hope, and can get Hope back by resting? So, if you're walking around with none, that's a choice to not take a rest.

A character will, on average, generate Hope on about 65% of rolls, iirc (whenever the Hope die is equal to or greater than the Fear die). Therefore, if you are trying/expecting to spend on every roll, you are overspending.

For us, Draw Steel and L5R 5e do right all the things DH does wrong. (as examples of non-sloppy mechanics that don't trip over themselves or limit player action arbitrarily.)

Yeah, well, if you are comparing Daggerheart to Draw Steel, you are also comparing a more narratively-focused game to a crunch-focused one, which is kind of apples and oranges.

 

[Umbran]

If Hope and Fear happen in the game for diagetic reasons, I'm prepared to think of them as diagetic mechanics. That's my (personal) line.

Well, technically, all rolls with Fear have some negative aspect/consequence to them. If you succeed with fear, you succeed with a cost or complication. If you fail with fear, it is a major cost or complication.

So, if you are narrating those complications, there is always a diegetic reason for there to be Fear. Same with Hope, but in the other direction.

 

[zakael19]

A character will, on average, generate Hope on about 65% of rolls, iirc (whenever the Hope die is equal to or greater than the Fear die). Therefore, if you are trying/expecting to spend on every roll, you are overspending.

*54%, factoring in crits.

DH's crit chance being almost 2x that of D&Ds (8.4%ish?) on top of the general difficulty standards makes it a fairly PC biased system. Generally, with a 4 player group, simply prompting for enough rolls where there's stakes has made the hope & fear generation pretty consistent. Plus the game generally does a good job balancing a selection of costs Hope / Costs Stress / costs nothing (but maybe with a Rest limit) abilities on each Tier of domains, so you can have alternatives for resource costs.

Edit: on average an entire "encounter" where the players decide to fight it out runs about 30 minutes in that system, with plenty of color and drama being expounded.