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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MulhorandSage" data-source="post: 118487" data-attributes="member: 751">Okay, let's approach this from another angle; rather than describing those systems whose learning curves were steep or which provided some bad game experiences, here are some qualities I've noticed detract from game systems.* Imprecise terminology. Basic game terms should accurately describe the effect, and *never* work against what a player would reasonably expect that game term should represent.* Poor organization. It should take about thirty seconds searching though the index or the table of content to find any important rule, and an additional thirty seconds for the gamemaster to make a consistent ruling.* Ambiguous rules. Rules arguments are not a good thing.* Author ego. This is particularly evident in rules that seem to act as a vehicle for the author's literary ambitions (particularly embarassing when the author's fiction-writing abilities fall well short of their ambitions) or a soapbox for their religious and/or political views and turn the game into a screed. * Inconsistent tone. The game with the grand epic tone should not have examples pulled from _Knights of the Dinner Table_ or _Bored of the Rings_.* Inconsistent level of modelling. Detailed simulation systems shouldn't have gaps. Likewise, loose storytelling systems shouldn't have detailed rules for areas that reflect the author's fetish, but deride simulationist games as anal.* Pre-built for supplements. Does the ruleset have significant gaps that *require* the player to purchase additional supplements to play the basic game system? If so, does it bother to tell the player they're not buying a complete game system?* Rules in character samples. Is the only way to figure out a rule by deconstructing a character example? Do they *contradict* the rules? There are couple of other things that bug me, but are matters of personal taste that shouldn't be considered general rules.* Rip off setting: Did someone copy a popular setting without acknowledging they filed off the serial numbers? (There's a difference between BESM and TFOS, which acknowledge their love of the source material and those that don't.)* Swamp water settings. Let's take a genre and add magic (or psionics) to it. I can hear all the Shadowrun fans screaming right now, but I like settings not to give thought to how they mesh their elements. ("Let's do the post-holocaust setting where radiation mutated people into wizards, elves, and trolls! Yeah, that's the ticket!")* Is the creator a flaming jerk? Does he show no respect for the people who founded this hobby, on whose shoulders he's standing to make his living? Does he corner you at Gencon, engage you in boring,  rambling, and insulting drunken  conversations, then leave you to pay for his drinks when your back's turned? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile    :-)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" />Okay, flame away. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":-)" title="Smile    :-)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":-)" />Scott Bennie</blockquote>

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