Biggest tabletop system pet peeves

[Tanarii]

Or the flip side "You're being irrational" or "your reasoning is asinine"... certain people in "my circle" are notorious for using that as a dismissive way of saying "I disagree with your conclusions" or "I think your subjective priorities are wrong compared to my subjective priorities".

Or "Intellectually Dishonest". Like the term "Bad DM", It also says more about the person using it than the person they're directing it at.

[Pex]

Or the flip side "You're being irrational" or "your reasoning is asinine"... certain people in "my circle" are notorious for using that as a dismissive way of saying "I disagree with your conclusions" or "I think your subjective priorities are wrong compared to my subjective priorities".

These people have that lovely habit of using "logic" to argue positions that are plainly false based on observable facts, and doing their damnedest to demand and then distort/misrepresent other people's "premises"... to the point that it probably explains why I cringe away every time someone says "what are your premises?"

I don't like when people say someone is "closed minded". That's a meaningless term. Someone who is closed minded is only guilty of disagreeing with the person who said he was closed minded. If the person was open minded then obviously he would agree with the person who accused him of being closed minded.

[ImNotTrevor]

You know I don't know a lot about Apocalypse World 2e (I know one move it added (I think) from 1e) to actually comment on this, but it reminds me of one of my... tabletop criticism pet peeves.

Over use of the word objective.

The worst cases are when people just stick it in front of a statement that... really it has nothing to do with objectivity. Or if it does, according so some standard that was never clarified. "This is objectively a bad mechanic." OK according to balance, ease of use, accuracy, scaling... your taste?

And even if it is used properly it actually kind of weakens the argument because the final goal of most role-playing games is to have fun. Which is very defiantly a subjective thing, you need the subject to have any hope of getting a result. Yes you can generalize across subjects, but none of these things will be universal (see Quertus being bigger on trans-campaign characters than anyone else it this thread) so none of them are entirely of the object. Objective things are like rules, dates and numbers, none of which can really cover the actual quality of a system or rule.

Yes, forgive me. That's a way of exaggerating that I find amusing. Specifically, making an obviously subjective argument and using "objectively."

Such as today, when a player was deciding which song title to use as a pun for a FATE stunt where one of several gods living in her head can just pilot her body to success once per game.
Of the options, the song "Jesus take the wheel" was, in my words, "objectively the best choice."


Though the Threat Map is a lot less convenient for everything except physical, geographical location. It is harder to subdivide larger fronts into individual threats to be managed just because you have less space. (Fronts could be several pages. The threat map is one page, unless you want to juggle two near-identical pages and remember which threats are on which map.

Now, a fusion between those two could work really well! But the Fronts system is more robust. Since AW wants to have lots of threats running around, having more room for them is important, and their positions relative to the players are not actually all that important, mechanically.

Basically, it's discordant where Fronts are harmonious with stated intentions of the system.

But that's just, like, my opinion, man.

[Earthwalker]

A collection of my pet peeves come up in Shadowrun and how it handles character creation and skills.
The build points at character creation are valued different from in play (pet peeve number 1). I mean why do this it’s just stupid.
Second all people (we are told) are assumed to be proficient with skills they don’t have ranks in, they have skill0 at say computing or car driving. Yet the mechanics of this are if you don’t have the skill you roll attribute -2 (pet peeve number two)
So starting the game we have two character both wanting to be the same general concept.

One starts with
Pistols 4
Car 1
Computer 1


Guy two has
Pistols 6.

Now let’s spend Karma (shadowruns XP) to balance them out

We want them at
Pistols 6
Car 1
Computer 1

So that costs guy one 22 karma (increase pistols from 4 to 5, then from 5 to 6)
It costs guy two 2 Karma (two new skills at 1)

[EldritchWeaver]

IME, GMs who "care about their setting" don't like aliens from their setting. Better, IME, to be an alien from outside their setting. Much less hard feelings that way.

If it ever comes out that one of my characters that is actually a deity is a deity, then they have failed.

If the deity actually brought their divine power to bear, then they'd have to contend with other deities, and it'd get messy.

I'm playing a stat block that is appropriate for the game, but the driving personality is actually one of my deities.

Because it is so much easier (for me, at least) to come up with a stat block than with an interesting personality for me to explore.

If you would play at my table, you could actually get someone who is foreign to the setting's world. He could have the same personality as your Quertus. But what you can't have is playing a god pretending to be a mortal. That would result in getting the character killed. Not because I am mean, evil GM. But because there is a power play at stake, with the PCs direct involvement and gods are forbidden to interfere directly. Alone the presence of your character would influence the outcome and cause the automatic loss of one side. So you die as punishment.

But those qualifiers make the statement's meaning profoundly different. Being told "you can't do that, the DM said no" is railroading or at least something vaguely similar. Being told "you can't do that, we (a group that includes you) agreed that people can't do that" isn't.

Why can't a group railroad and one person be completely fair?

[Max_Killjoy]

That was one of the things I desperately wanted to fix about the oWoD system... the complete disconnect between character creation and the expenditure of experience once the game started.

[Knaight]

A collection of my pet peeves come up in Shadowrun and how it handles character creation and skills.
The build points at character creation are valued different from in play (pet peeve number 1). I mean why do this it’s just stupid.
Second all people (we are told) are assumed to be proficient with skills they don’t have ranks in, they have skill0 at say computing or car driving. Yet the mechanics of this are if you don’t have the skill you roll attribute -2 (pet peeve number two)

These also apply to Hollow Earth Expedition. Like I've said, I love that system, but the character generation rules involve first doing basic generation then spending a bit of XP on additional customization. This lets you have two nigh identical starting characters, one of whom just has all the skills, talents, attributes, etc. of the other and then a little more on top of that. It's trivially easy to minimize costs and avoid this issue, but it's also a bit annoying.

Pet peeve number two doesn't bug me at all, but it's there. On the other hand, really easy tasks are going to be at a low enough difficulty to make anyways, and when it comes to actually difficult tasks people can screw up the culturally expected skills just fine. I've seen enough hilariously bad driving* and computer use to find the Shadowrun approach reasonable.

*California and Texas plates show up a lot in Colorado. Come winter they're mostly found in ditches.

[Cosi]

Why can't a group railroad and one person be completely fair?

I'm not going to dispute that you could have a DM who had total authority and nonetheless made fair decisions. Obviously that's possible. But that doesn't make it "not railroading" then that DM makes a decision that is unfair.

Railroading is bad precisely because it privileges one persons vision for the game disproportionately over others. By having the group decide, you remove that failure case.

[Florian]

I'm not going to dispute that you could have a DM who had total authority and nonetheless made fair decisions. Obviously that's possible. But that doesn't make it "not railroading" then that DM makes a decision that is unfair.

Railroading is bad precisely because it privileges one persons vision for the game disproportionately over others. By having the group decide, you remove that failure case.

You don´t have a clue what railroading really is, so you misuse the word.

But ok, shift the disproportionate account of workload that the gm has to handle over to the group and we talk.

[Cosi]

But ok, shift the disproportionate account of workload that the gm has to handle over to the group and we talk.

This has always been a bad excuse.

If the DM gets more say because they did more work, the player who dumpster dived to get a min-maxed character deserves more say for the extra work they did.

Do people believe this?

[EldritchWeaver]

This has always been a bad excuse.

If the DM gets more say because they did more work, the player who dumpster dived to get a min-maxed character deserves more say for the extra work they did.

Do people believe this?

That isn't a good analogy. The GM does a lot of work just to keep the game running. This work is for the benefit for the entire group. The player invests his time solely for the benefit of his build.

[Cluedrew]

Personally I don't like that measure for a couple of reasons:

• It assumes that the work done outside of game by the GM approaches that done during the game (otherwise it would be equal). To me that is a very preparation heavy game, and so is not true of all systems or games.
• It assumes that players are not significantly contributing a game. An assumption I would rather discourage, that is I would rather encourage everyone to contribute. And if they do, how do you account for that?
• I can't speak for others, but I world build for fun, and see no reason why that deserves some extra reward.
• Even accounting for the above, games that have been shaped in notable ways by most people around the table have just been more fun than those shaped just by the GM. And I have found that to be true as the GM as well (smaller sample for that though).

[Luccan]

I'm not particularly fond of point-buying, specifically in D&D. It seems that's a problem in Shadowrun, though I've never played it. But even in 5e, a lot of stats require decent scores to be effective using them. The problem is that point-buy is not the equalizer it was meant to be. Instead, it either makes it impossible to have a warrior who can do something other than fight, or it means you'll have enough points that the wizard is nearly as strong, dexterous, and tough as the fighter, as well as being smarter. This was even worse in 3.5. When it comes to D&D, I'll always prefer rolling and then making a character based off that, because if I roll well, that's a perfect opportunity to play a character who depends on multiple stats and if I don't, well, I like playing casters too.

[Telok]

I've started to be significantly annoyed by several things in modern gaming over the last few years.

1. The Red Queen's Race. No matter how much your character advances they never seem to get better at doing their job. Normally found in level based games where attacks, defense, damage, etc., etc., scales with level for every meaningful action the characters take. Sure you can pretty up the descriptions and increase the numbers, but if you have a 80% chance to climb a cliff, lose 25% of your health if you fail, and fight a monster where you have a 75% chance to hit, it has a 50% chance to hit... your character has not really advanced. You can put all the flowery description and big numbers on stuff that you like, but if you're doing the same stuff at the same success rate it's not advancement... it's increased word count.

2. "You leveled up? That's a -1 to Will saves". As your character "advances" they get worse at stuff. Often found near #1 when your character isn't getting better at things but all the target numbers keep going up. It's epitomized in D&D 5e where the DCs of all the saves go up as the characters level up, but only 2 of a character's 6 saves get to increase. Often games that use stealth and perception as opposing skills, and don't allow every character to advance them at the same rate and opportunity cost, will end up with characters that can't make any "level appropriate" rolls.

3. Games where PC and NPCs/monsters are set up so differently that hiring an assistant, or getting a trained animal, or having someone switch sides in a combat, cannot be allowed to happen because it breaks something. D&D 4e did this one really well and Pazio's Starfinder pushes it pretty hard too. Typically it's a combat thing where PCs have high to-hit, or damage, or armor because players like that sort of thing. So monsters get designed to hit the PCs, get hit, and have lots of hit points. Then when someone bribes an ogre to fight along side the party or decides to throw in with the bad guys for love and money they end up being either hilariously underpowered or rocket-tag death beserkers.

[Florian]

It seems that's a problem in Shadowrun, though I've never played it.

They've actually found a very good solution to this, the priority tables (and the alternative "sum to 10").
You've got to assign each category (race, attributes and so on) a priority from A to E and that will generate the build points you have for that category (so priority A Wizard will get a Magic rating of 6, 5 spells and 3 points in the magic skill group, while priority B will get you a Magic rating of 4, 3 spells and 2 points). SR has a different problem, tho, that comes up in really long campaigns or when the gm hands out too much Karma: "Mundanes" will reach a hard cap due to Essence, while "Magicals" are potentially open ended in development.

1. The Red Queen's Race. No matter how much your character advances they never seem to get better at doing their job. Normally found in level based games where attacks, defense, damage, etc., etc., scales with level for every meaningful action the characters take. Sure you can pretty up the descriptions and increase the numbers, but if you have a 80% chance to climb a cliff, lose 25% of your health if you fail, and fight a monster where you have a 75% chance to hit, it has a 50% chance to hit... your character has not really advanced. You can put all the flowery description and big numbers on stuff that you like, but if you're doing the same stuff at the same success rate it's not advancement... it's increased word count.

That's more a matter of "challenge"-based games, most noticeable in D&D. You´re expected to move from goblins, to orcs, to giants and so on, while keeping up the overall challenge of the game.

[awa]

That's more a matter of "challenge"-based games, most noticeable in D&D. You´re expected to move from goblins, to orcs, to giants and so on, while keeping up the overall challenge of the game.

For me this is a matter of how well you do it, i recall an d&d computer game expansion that had you at epic level, and for most of the expansion you were fighting stuff like legendary badgers who are just palate swapped badgers with bigger numbers, elite gnoll guard who were just gnolls with a fancy title instead of gnoll and "apprentice" wizards with 9th level spell.

The monsters had bigger numbers but they forgot to do the rest of the stuff to make you feel epic.
Goblins, orcs and giants on the other hand would work because their a clear hierarchy of power here a fire giant is going to feel bigger and more powerful than an orc, and not just be an orc with bigger numbers on his sheet.

[CharonsHelper]

I've started to be significantly annoyed by several things in modern gaming over the last few years.

1. The Red Queen's Race. No matter how much your character advances they never seem to get better at doing their job. Normally found in level based games where attacks, defense, damage, etc., etc., scales with level for every meaningful action the characters take. Sure you can pretty up the descriptions and increase the numbers, but if you have a 80% chance to climb a cliff, lose 25% of your health if you fail, and fight a monster where you have a 75% chance to hit, it has a 50% chance to hit... your character has not really advanced. You can put all the flowery description and big numbers on stuff that you like, but if you're doing the same stuff at the same success rate it's not advancement... it's increased word count.

Can get annoying - though not really a problem for systems without zero to hero style advancement. Otherwise even if the mechanics work like that (a bit lazy outside of lite systems) so long as you're still expected to fight the earlier foes consistently while taking on tougher ones (the mini-bosses becoming mooks) you still feel like you've advanced.

That's more a matter of "challenge"-based games, most noticeable in D&D. You´re expected to move from goblins, to orcs, to giants and so on, while keeping up the overall challenge of the game.

Yeah - that's a problem if they don't feel different to fight against. Actually - D&D (besides 4e) does a pretty good job of making them feel different. I have a whole theory about how the MM is a secret to D&D's success.