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

weirdguy564 · January 07, 2025, 10:04:59 AM

Quote from: ElifeLau on January 05, 2025, 04:34:50 PMmanga, AI-generated illustration, sex, violence is encouraged, superhero (but not the past I liked !)

I see all of that as selling points. Got a game to recommend?

weirdguy564 · January 07, 2025, 10:06:24 AM

Hell, I'll disqualify a game if there are too many grammar mistakes.

weirdguy564 · January 07, 2025, 10:13:10 AM

Quote from: Omega on January 06, 2025, 10:54:12 PM
Quote from: ForgottenF on January 04, 2025, 12:50:55 AMThis will probably seem like a weird one, but if defending yourself from an attack uses up your action for that turn, I write off the system. If it just uses a reaction I still don't love it, but it can work in some games. I also strongly dislike any system where to-hit difficulty is independent of what you're actually trying to hit, though that one's not always an automatic disqualifier for me.

I feel like I have played one such game. But was so long ago I no longer remember what it was.

Palladium sort of does this.

In melee combat you can Parry as much as you want, but dodging counts as your next action.

Star Wars D6 has a skill penalty for any action beyond one per turn. So, if you shoot your pistol twice, and dodge so you can try and avoid any incoming shots at you, your going to make all three skill checks at minus two dice from your dice pool (-2D6). If you want to retroactively dodge after the turn has started, you can, but it counts double, aka -2D6 instead of the normal -1D6.

S'mon · January 07, 2025, 04:23:16 PM

If I think they are actively hostile to me as a straight white guy who voted Reform. Passive hostility may be tolerable depending on genre, eg I ran Cyberpunk Red as it's very low key in the core book, it's the supplements that go all ACAB, BLM etc.

Brad · January 07, 2025, 04:34:22 PM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 07, 2025, 10:06:24 AMHell, I'll disqualify a game if there are too many grammar mistakes.

I can see you will never play Castles & Crusades, then.

ElifeLau · January 07, 2025, 05:05:28 PM

Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 07, 2025, 10:04:59 AM
Quote from: ElifeLau on January 05, 2025, 04:34:50 PMmanga, AI-generated illustration, sex, violence is encouraged, superhero (but not the past I liked !)

I see all of that as selling points. Got a game to recommend?

With all of them in one, i'm not sure. For the moment...

Socratic-DM · January 07, 2025, 05:57:57 PM

1. In-Universe fiction if it's terribly long or peppered throughout a book tends to bother me, because it's wasted page count in my opinion.

2. Moralizing of any sort, left or right, or any assertion of politics tend to bother me, this is because I take the tolkien view of sub-creation, allegory is a fraud, a world exists in it's own contexts and confines and thus anything which breaks this immersion should be scorned.

3. Degeneracy, or systems that tend to glorify playing evil characters or have some sort of grey morality scale I don't care for, this isn't to say I dislike spaghetti westerns or amoral characters, but they don't have any impact when placed in a setting where everyone is an amoral douchbag.

Omega · January 07, 2025, 09:22:49 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 06, 2025, 11:45:53 PM
Quote from: Omega on January 06, 2025, 10:54:12 PM
Quote from: ForgottenF on January 04, 2025, 12:50:55 AMThis will probably seem like a weird one, but if defending yourself from an attack uses up your action for that turn, I write off the system. If it just uses a reaction I still don't love it, but it can work in some games. I also strongly dislike any system where to-hit difficulty is independent of what you're actually trying to hit, though that one's not always an automatic disqualifier for me.

I feel like I have played one such game. But was so long ago I no longer remember what it was.

Several games have it that you can't defend yourself from more than one attack per round without a special talent or piece of equipment.

That I have seen a few times as well.

Omega · January 07, 2025, 09:31:53 PM

Quote from: capvideo on January 04, 2025, 12:22:16 PM1. Tiny text.
2. Dark text over dark fluff.
3. Seeing fiction before I see character generation.
4. Half the book is the author's novel, whether it's before character generation or after it.

1: RuinsWorld's rulebook was printed in really tiny font. Not the smallest ever seen. But its damn small.
2: White Wolf's "gamma world" book. Every other chapter was dark text on grey backing with BLACK speckling!!! argh!
3: Pretty much every core book White Wolf ever put out.
4: White Wolf again. Not quite half the books but usually upwards of a third of every core book was prose. Aberrant was the worst I recall for that. Great Superhero RPG. But I bought an RPG, not someones disjointed lite-novel/comic/anthology/whatever.

FASAfan · January 15, 2025, 06:23:47 PM

This is shallow, I know, but if I can't glean an idea of how the system works during a first or second flip-thru, I'm out.

If a rules set is too wordy before getting to the point, I'm out.

SeveredFane · January 15, 2025, 09:43:03 PM

I do not having a great example, but have seeing several books with very "cute" art (such as BreakRPG) which I finding very boring and uninteresting. Art is being very important to me and bad art will having me put a book down.

Brad · January 15, 2025, 09:44:31 PM

Quote from: Brad on January 07, 2025, 04:34:22 PMI can see you will never play Castles & Crusades, then.

So, apparently the new KS books have a misspelling on the back cover or something..?

tenbones · January 16, 2025, 12:49:14 PM

If I stopped reading an RPG based on grammar mistakes I'd never be in this hobby. My wife is *brutal* on any RPG book she picks up of mine (she is a professional editor and five-time recipient of Der Sturmkuli as Kommander of the Grammar Nazis).

I generally drop an RPG that lacks consistency in how it presents its setting - i.e. doesn't understand its own genre. Or it doesn't take itself seriously because it's pretending to be something else. But the thing that will kill it for me is if the system is dogshit and doesn't support the conceits of the setting in any novel or sufficient manner.

SmallMountaineer · January 16, 2025, 01:15:47 PM

Quote from: tenbones on January 16, 2025, 12:49:14 PMIf I stopped reading an RPG based on grammar mistakes I'd never be in this hobby. My wife is *brutal* on any RPG book she picks up of mine (she is a professional editor and five-time recipient of Der Sturmkuli as Kommander of the Grammar Nazis).

I generally drop an RPG that lacks consistency in how it presents its setting - i.e. doesn't understand its own genre. Or it doesn't take itself seriously because it's pretending to be something else. But the thing that will kill it for me is if the system is dogshit and doesn't support the conceits of the setting in any novel or sufficient manner.

Does she take commissions for work? I'd keep her in mind to support a fellow member of the community.

Also, in the vein of this, yes, "everything" settings like Golarion are highly-unappealing to me. They come across as a weird patchwork of every potential theme thrown next to one another, because that's exactly what they are.

Zenoguy3 · January 16, 2025, 01:19:34 PM

Dumb metacurrencies. Players shouldn't be able to warp the world by means outside the actions of their characters. Luck is permissible, fate points are not.

Story game resolution mechanics, like yes and, etc. Degrees of success are good, improv constructions are bad.

Fluffy power fantasies. I hate games where the rules are warped around the success of the PCs. Powerful characters able to destroy swaths of minions and only able to be challenged by enemies of similar stature are cool, games where the assumption is the characters succeed at everything they attempt are lame.