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What's one thing that will make you stop looking at a RPG?

Started by Dark, January 03, 2025, 05:43:37 PM

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Dark

January 03, 2025, 05:43:37 PM
Every time I look at a game and I see ancestry instead of race or species, I just go "nope". Luckily I can see this on most PDF previews in the table of contents and avoid the product.

I'm sure it's some rules for some, what makes you just pass on a game? Can be as superficial as you want, like cover art.

Crusader X

#1
January 03, 2025, 05:55:37 PM
Art that obviously goes out of its way to exclude straight white male characters.  I don't mind diversity.  But diversity does not mean "no white guys", no matter what some leftist loons may think.

jeff37923

#2
January 03, 2025, 06:14:16 PM
A kitchen sink approach to character creation - you have to use polyhedral dice, playing cards, and tarot cards all at the same time and then never use them again makes me pass.

Gimmick dice - if you need to buy a special set of dice just to play the game, I'll pass (looking at you, FFG Star Wars).

Weird dice mechanics - Alternity is the best example of this. That chart where you had to compare two different dice combos always made my eyeballs ache.

"Meh."

RNGm

#3
January 03, 2025, 06:39:49 PM
Some good examples already posted.  I'll add increasingly obscure replacement names for the gamemaster (rabblerouser, referee, MC, etc).   I'm ok with some alternate names (like narrator, story teller, or director for those dirty hippies who play story games!) but not the more recent crop that are done for ideological reasons in recent years.

Dark

#4
January 03, 2025, 06:54:52 PM
Quote from: RNGm on January 03, 2025, 06:39:49 PMSome good examples already posted.  I'll add increasingly obscure replacement names for the gamemaster (rabblerouser, referee, MC, etc).   I'm ok with some alternate names (like narrator, story teller, or director for those dirty hippies who play story games!) but not the more recent crop that are done for ideological reasons in recent years.

I can deal with referee and storyteller only because they've been around for a long time but your point is a good one. Gamemaster works well and isn't copyrighted. I'd say referee is a good one. Storyteller should only be in games like Vampire. The rest should just go.

Plus you got people trying to remove the word master, so that's an issue all on it's own.

Fheredin

#6
January 03, 2025, 07:26:15 PM
Worldbuilding which doesn't get the fact this is a roleplaying game and not a novel.

RPGs have this weird paradox that they can be both massively overbuilt and completely bland at the same time. A good RPG setting should naturally leave space for player creativity while producing campaigns which don't make a ton of sense in other RPG settings. A lot of RPGs feel like they're deliberately trying to produce bland campaigns, or perhaps optimistically, to run a campaign in a particular IP which you don't have the license for, so your setting has the serial numbers filed off.

Omega

#7
January 03, 2025, 07:30:16 PM
Quote from: brettmb on January 03, 2025, 07:16:41 PMcomics

White Wolf! I think Vampire TM was the only core book I had from them that did not have a comic in there somewhere.

I will though give a pass to the comics that actually explain the rules as it goes. Those were VERY rare with WW books.

WW is I think the only publisher I can recall that had comics in the books.

TMNT gets a pass because it is based on a comic. And think there was only like one in the whole series of books. I'd have to dig out the set. Think was Road Hogs.

Dark

#8
January 03, 2025, 07:37:36 PM
Would a super hero game be exempt from this? lol

Ruprecht

#9
January 03, 2025, 07:38:18 PM
Quote from: brettmb on January 03, 2025, 07:16:41 PMcomics
AD&D had a few comics, if I'm understanding your meaning of comics correctly.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. ~Robert E. Howard

RNGm

#10
January 03, 2025, 08:04:08 PM
Quote from: Dark on January 03, 2025, 06:54:52 PM
Quote from: RNGm on January 03, 2025, 06:39:49 PMSome good examples already posted.  I'll add increasingly obscure replacement names for the gamemaster (rabblerouser, referee, MC, etc).   I'm ok with some alternate names (like narrator, story teller, or director for those dirty hippies who play story games!) but not the more recent crop that are done for ideological reasons in recent years.

I can deal with referee and storyteller only because they've been around for a long time but your point is a good one. Gamemaster works well and isn't copyrighted. I'd say referee is a good one. Storyteller should only be in games like Vampire. The rest should just go.

Plus you got people trying to remove the word master, so that's an issue all on it's own.

Yeah, like I said, some other options get grandfathered in but it's more the recent post-2016 crop of games (whether completely new or new editions) that I'm more on the lookout for that immediately.  If I see obscure replacements for terms player character race and gamemaster, I'm already primed to look for the final nails in the coffin like trigger warnings for common fantasy/scifi elements, ideological purity tests for customers, etc.

Slambo

#11
January 03, 2025, 09:13:42 PM
One thing i think is particular to me that ive seen a few times is if goblins are a player race and elves are not i tend to put it down. Im also wary if dwarves are there but not elves, but ill at least read further.

Cathode Ray

#12
January 03, 2025, 09:27:34 PM
Character sheet with a "Pronouns" field.  A litmus test.
Resident 1980s buff msg me to talk 80s

Dark

#13
January 03, 2025, 09:41:42 PM
Quote from: Slambo on January 03, 2025, 09:13:42 PMOne thing i think is particular to me that ive seen a few times is if goblins are a player race and elves are not i tend to put it down. Im also wary if dwarves are there but not elves, but ill at least read further.

What game would have dwarves without elves or goblins without the other two? That's odd.

Goblins becoming popular races is mostly Pathfinders fault in my opinion. Runelords and arguing over killing baby goblins started it. If you're going to have a slightly less threatening monster race, at least use kobolds.

Omega

#14
January 03, 2025, 10:22:00 PM
Quote from: Dark on January 03, 2025, 07:37:36 PMWould a super hero game be exempt from this? lol

I have a few superhero RPGs and nearly none have comics in them.

WW is pretty much the only company to feature them so extensively.
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