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So, name one thing in a setting (be it fantasy, sci-fi, or other) that you've seen so many times that you'd rather gouge your eyes out than have to see it once more.

RPGPundit

Sci-Fi settings which have magic in them, except they call the magic "psionics" or "nanotech" which they think cloaks the effects in a blanket of acceptability.

errr...does that include scifi settings with balls out bizarre magic with no apologies?

I'm sorry but leading questions are not allowed in this thread.

I dunno -- "signature" characters?  Maybe I just don't like them.

Dragons as the progenitors of civiliation, all wise, anything like that.

Honestly, basically dragons as anything but to be killed.

superhero games where the powers section is just a piss poor skin on top of the magic rules, or horror games with a level based xp system.

Any scientific explanation for magic is horrible to me.

Any creature, power, or person that's ability can be described by anyone as, "evolution." Evolution as an explanation is instantly stupid.

Quote from: Pierce Inverarity;281392I'm sorry but leading questions are not allowed in this thread.

Seriously though, Rifts has magic and it's just there and it's just magic.  Warhammer 40000 has magic being called psychic powers with very little attempt at justifying it, Mutant Chronicles has psychic powers being called magic but it also has magic.  So I think it's a fair question.  It' doesn't change my own attitude on mash ups at all.  I think they're good when they're good and they're bad when they're bad and it's got a lot more to do with style and flair than whether they try to explain magic scientifically or not.

Sf fan snobbery has been done to death.  I think science fiction can survive a few fictitious technologies in the name of the story.  Get over it, main stream culture will never believe sf is an adult genre no matter how boring you make it.

Quote from: David Johansen;281418Get over it, main stream culture will never believe sf is an adult genre no matter how boring you make it.

Seconded.

Elves.

Quote from: David Johansen;281387errr...does that include scifi settings with balls out bizarre magic with no apologies?

Depends on if the magic is called magic or if it is called a self-replicating nanite assembler cloud. I'm not talking about mash-ups (like Shadowrun) or stuff that is supposed to be gonzo (like Gamma World). I'm talking about people using Clarke's Law (Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.) to justify whatever bizarre tech they have that they cannot explain, but is essential to the background. It's a nitpick of mine that pops up in games and SciFi media often (usually transhumanist stuff). It bugs me because I like immersion and this hampers my suspension of disbelief because even though some technology may be really advanced, it still has to at least pay some lip service to the Laws of Physics to be believable.

The schtick where some advanced race has developed psionics and can use it to effectively do magic is so old it has grey hairs. Yet people seem to like that because psionics are usually handled as magic. I think the only setting that handles psionics in a way that doesn't break the game is Traveller and I'm not fond of it there.

It's not SF fan snobbery if the way the subject is handled does not make the media or game enjoyable to me. It is personal preference and knowing what I enjoy.

I think Zombies and Vampires are overused, and I think were only included in the original D&D so the cleric would be more than a traveling hospital for the rest of the party. SF games that pretend to not be Space Opera but include psionics.

Here's the thing, it's all down to perception.

If you talk to a heavy metal fan, he will point out to you the radical difference between the different strains of metal and tell you how he loves some and hates others. If you ask my grandmother, all rock'n'roll is essentially an infernal racket. At the same time, while the heavy metal fan might consider "classical music" as one homogenous category, my grandmother might tell you how she loves early baroque music by has no patience for Wagner and romantic movement.

Another example. Husband and wife enter a shoe shop. The wife oohs and ahhs at all the new styles. The husband just sees a series of black shoes, blues shoes and red shoes.

The thing is the closer to your heart a subject is, the more the nuances of difference matter. So even though from the outside there may seem to be a ridiculous number of Tolkien-inspired pastiche fantasy games to the fans of the genre the marginal differences between one game and another or just editions of the same game can be deal breakers.

So in a sense nothing can be said to be done to death as long as there is a really dedicated fan base who will make much out of minor differences.

I hate the distinction between 'divine' magic and 'arcane' magic in fantasy games.  Why can't magic just be magic?

  I also detest 'alignment', as I see it as being utterly useless.

Quote from: noisms;281424Elves.

At least you can (and (http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2008/06/doing-things-with-elves-double-entendre.html) you (http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2008/06/elf-variants-ii.html) have (http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2008/06/elf-variants-iii.html)) done interesting things with elves fairly easily, versus the Orlando Bloom type.

Beyond the metaphorical "Apophis" take on a single dragon, which is sort of a funny once joke, I scarcely see a take on dragons that does not boil down to another nauseating variant of a fat guy in a "Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup" t-shirt. Ah, the "Power and Majesty of Dragons" as WOTC likes to say. I think the best take on a dragon in D&D, at least, as been, was the smallish guy you could subdue in B5 "Horror on the Hill."

Quote from: RPGPundit;281379So, name one thing in a setting (be it fantasy, sci-fi, or other) that you've seen so many times that you'd rather gouge your eyes out than have to see it once more.

Ancient progenitors who have conveniently vanished but left ruins everywhere.

CHEERS bars are done to death. You know? The place where characters can have a respite and do their roleplaying without action? Wouldn't all the evil base investors just team up and nuke all these establishments?

;)

Skills - Too much detail and not enough putting it under a hood where it belongs.

Sex - Its either too much or too little and never something clever, subtle and well generally appealing. (Don't get me started on gender abuse! ;) )

Fictional brands - Games that have different models of robot and they're just cut and paste erased and altered in spots and you have to figure if any of this BS is worth thinking about at all.

Unscientific magic - It works and its measured. Why not? ITS SCIENCE! ;)

Misunderstood monsters - "We have families as well. We call ourselves the Orcatatatatiii...." NOW YOU CAN PLAY ONE AS WELL!!!! "I'm making an Orcatatatatiii Poembringer!" This seeming unlimited mentality is just so narrowminded and it just keeps perpetuating. Monsters were probably better off not having a reproductive cycle at all.

Good guys who are *really* bad guys.

Bad guys who are *really* good guys.

Quote from: Gene Weigel;281467Misunderstood monsters - "We have families as well. We call ourselves the Orcatatatatiii...." NOW YOU CAN PLAY ONE AS WELL!!!! "I'm making an Orcatatatatiii Poembringer!" This seeming unlimited mentality is just so narrowminded and it just keeps perpetuating. Monsters were probably better off not having a reproductive cycle at all.

Mind you, orcs in Warhammer are spore based fungal clusters that come up from the ground and they're still more sympathetic than the humans...

Quote from: David Johansen;281512Mind you, orcs in Warhammer are spore based fungal clusters that come up from the ground and they're still more sympathetic than the humans...

I meant created by magic so they could not have any culture of their own and therefore no cheesy race role classes.

Thats a lot of "culture"...LITERALLY! ;)

Quote from: hgjs;281458Ancient progenitors who have conveniently vanished but left ruins everywhere.

Done a lot, yes, but still possible to do well.

Quote from: The Shaman;281517Done a lot, yes, but still possible to do well.

Sure, but it's so done to death that I'm unlikely to appreciate it.  (Just like I'm unlikely to appreciate yet another Lord of the Rings knockoff, even if it is rather well constructed.)

A fantasy setting that turns out to be post apocalyptic.

Kidding aside, the only fantasy/scifi element that's been done to death IMO is the Vampire. Everything else I can get behind in some manner, shape or form.

Not sure if this counts, but fighters who basically go "I'm dumb. I drink. I smash!" In some cases it's because of their race being all stereotyped. In others it's just the way the GM or another player plays the character. There's one(as an NPC thankfully) in the campaign I'm in now, and the GM wonders why I didn't find him as memorable as the other players.

Quote from: Cole;281448At least you can (and (http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2008/06/doing-things-with-elves-double-entendre.html) you (http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2008/06/elf-variants-ii.html) have (http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2008/06/elf-variants-iii.html)) done interesting things with elves fairly easily, versus the Orlando Bloom type.

Beyond the metaphorical "Apophis" take on a single dragon, which is sort of a funny once joke, I scarcely see a take on dragons that does not boil down to another nauseating variant of a fat guy in a "Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup" t-shirt. Ah, the "Power and Majesty of Dragons" as WOTC likes to say. I think the best take on a dragon in D&D, at least, as been, was the smallish guy you could subdue in B5 "Horror on the Hill."

I'm an advocate of the dragon as a sort of embodiment of a particular sin. Thus you have the slothful dragon, the lustful dragon, the wrathful dragon, the gluttonous dragon...

I also like the traditional god-like dragons of Europe, like Jormungandr, who wraps himself around the world, or Sugaar the Basque dragon who lives in storms.

EDIT: Thanks for reading the blog, by the way.

Quote from: hgjs;281533Sure, but it's so done to death that I'm unlikely to appreciate it.

See, I like settings with history, and the remnants of ancient societies are part of that for me.

When I was running a (sadly short-lived) Traveller game a couple of years ago, this was a feature on which I really enjoyed building. It was not however the titular Ancients of the Traveller universe, however. I used the old Judges Guild sectors as my setting, so this is a part of the Imperium settled something like six thousand years before the game began - that's a lot of time for cultures to rise and fall, which they did, and inevitably the crash leaves behind lots of detritus, from lost space stations to failed colonies.

Quote from: hgjs(Just like I'm unlikely to appreciate yet another Lord of the Rings knockoff, even if it is rather well constructed.)

I never actually read the setting book itself, but Midnight sounded pretty cool when it was discussed.

* Vanilla fantasy worlds with the exact same mix of elves, dwarves, orcs, and dragons as every other damn generic fantasy world.

* The smuggler / merchant sci-fi game (like the de facto Traveller style or the way WEG kept trying to make Star Wars boring).

* Anything with Lovecraftian type horrors from beyond.

* Anything with vampires that tries to add a new or different mythology for them.

* Any super hero game/setting that tries to present a more "realistic" version of super heroes under the mistaken belief it comes off as more "mature".

* Generic rules systems "useful for playing any setting" (bonus hate for the ones with stupid-sounding acronym names).

Quote from: noisms;281541I'm an advocate of the dragon as a sort of embodiment of a particular sin. Thus you have the slothful dragon, the lustful dragon, the wrathful dragon, the gluttonous dragon...
EDIT: Thanks for reading the blog, by the way.

Something in the style of Fafnir, the human (technically a dwarf) transformed into a monstrous form by greed, that's not bad. Of course, he is basically sitting around on his money waiting to be killed, rather than the sort of omnicient mastermind that became popular...in the mid 1980s perhaps?

Boris the dragon of Dark Sun gets a pass on a similar line of thought.

A friend of mine played in a campaign where they slew a once-human dragon, of whom it was reputed "the fearful shall me made small before the greatness of Bui." This resulted in an actual reduction in d20 size category as a result of dragon fear. It came as some surprise, I am to understand.

I don't like settings where humans are weaker, dumber, and morally inferior to every other sentient race of any importance. This is especially galling when the races involved are elves, dragons, or animal-people.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;281552This is especially galling when the races involved are elves, dragons, or animal-people.

Oooh, oooh, that reminds me of a done-to-death:

Please, for the love of all that's sacred or profane, no more cat-people.

Characters whose family was wiped out by the Injun-stand-ins, and now seek revenge.

Quote from: Cranewings;281409Any scientific explanation for magic is horrible to me.

'Scientific' explanations of any fantasy thing. Explaining it makes it science-fiction. Usually not very good science fiction.

EDIT: Although I've read a couple of Ursula Le Guin stories where this was done well. And Mutant Future and Encounter Critical are setting out to be bad science fiction, so it works OK when they do it.

Medieval European fantasy settings that use D&D tropes but aren't for D&D. In D&D it's traditional and part of what lets people quickly join new games, but if you're going to create your own system, why do D&D with an accent? I'm not talking about the "fantasy heartbreaker" BS from the forge, but rather something with different rules and a setting full of dungeons, dragons, etc.  

I'm a hypocrite on this issue because I've considered doing a high octane take on the D&D genre with entirely unrelated rules.

Also, stealing setting elements from fiction an amalgamating them into something lame. It might be because RPG fans want familiarity over originality, but I wish there was more unique stuff.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;281552I don't like settings where humans are weaker, dumber, and morally inferior to every other sentient race of any importance. This is especially galling when the races involved are elves, dragons, or animal-people.

Yes.

Quote from: The Shaman;281553Oooh, oooh, that reminds me of a done-to-death:

Please, for the love of all that's sacred or profane, no more cat-people.

I hate races, be it in fantasy or science fiction, that are just people-with-an-animal-head, as in Traveller or Palladium Fantasy (wolfen, were they called?). It may seem hypocritical that lately I have been declaring my love for a furry game (see my signature), but it's not the same, at least to me.

Vargr and Wolfen just people with animal heads?

Pull the other one.  Both are well developed races on par with anything else I can think of.

Now, the races from Spacemaster Privateers are another matter entirely but not in a bad way.  The author chose to use them as easy races to identify with and play.  They're symbolic races in a sense.  Much as Aesop used animals symbolically.  When you see a Tulgar standing nobly standing to the last or a Falanar stalking it's prey, or an Xanotasian gazing into your soul uncomprehendingly you understand what is being discussed.  They aren't alien but reflective of ourselves and thus playable.

But then I like races with animal heads...

Quote from: The Shaman;281553Oooh, oooh, that reminds me of a done-to-death:

Please, for the love of all that's sacred or profane, no more cat-people.

(http://www.hinterwelt.com/Artist/neb/Gren1.gif)

Quote from: Claudius;281613I hate races, be it in fantasy or science fiction, that are just people-with-an-animal-head, as in Traveller or Palladium Fantasy (wolfen, were they called?). It may seem hypocritical that lately I have been declaring my love for a furry game (see my signature), but it's not the same, at least to me.

(http://neb.hinterwelt.com/images/jugglingmog.jpg)

I think you happened to pick a poor example. there are certainly fantasy races that are "humans with animal heads", but there are also some where they are clearly animals in humanoid form, and those are relatively more tolerable as long as they don't slink off too far into "furry" territory.

RPGPundit

People who think its "COOL!" to play E-e-vil characters and go overboard explaining why they think it is.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Pierce Inverarity;281537Kidding aside, the only fantasy/scifi element that's been done to death IMO is the Vampire. Everything else I can get behind in some manner, shape or form.

I think I'm agreeing with Pierce here, but with a further qualification. What's done to death to me is the sympathetic vampire. The vampire "good" guy (curse you Ann Rice). I don't mind vampires as stuff to be killed, especially if they're the evil, nasty, disgusting, terrifying monsters they're supposed to be. Angst my ass.

I also am immediately put off by any setting that present humans as somehow inferior and/or more corrupt than all the other races (curse you Tolkien), so much so that the last campaign (true20, my home-brew) I ran was humans only for the PCs.

Its the cheap acting that comes with "race chatter" that burns people and we all know its fortified by cheesy sci-fi.

"Try the Korr-Takh."

"It's delicious!"

"It's made from the testicles of humans..."

Alright, maybe thats too far but still in essence it sums it up: "culture clash" made obvious by the fact that this character has an insect head. So the fact that the player has cow horns or something is a constant reminder to inject "culture clash" as a response to ridicule. Somewhere along the line the ridicule slowed down enough to be non-existent and we've still got someone  playing with their cheeks sucked in. I'll tell ya what needs doing to undo the damage. Obviously "undoing" like "humans only" campaigns isn't going to help the problem somebody still has to GM the aliens, right? So how will that work if you're not addressing the problem? This obviously needs addressing and not total disintegration for as time goes on well... "the beast" will return again and again... How to address it? Challenge them. Make them go all the way with their repetitive "we are not you, we are lame" performances (I.E. "What are you a human in cat people drag? What are those teeth for? Shouldn't they have evolved away if you're so reticent about fighting?" etc.). Just prepare them for the big challenge instead of sweeping it under the carpet. And don't tolerate this "Lieutenant Worf shit". I swear to god if I have to live through one more cheese ball rpg performance adapted from Worf then I'm going to scream! ;)

I just thought of another example of this:  the "ENEMY MINE type alien" player...(((SHUDDER)))

Lessee...
-- Combat as a centerpiece. :) Yup. Combat's fun. But for me, leaving non-combat conflicts and resolution as an afterthought in game design just won't do for me anymore.
-- Player who try to nix/defame any race or type that they PERSONALLY wouldn't play. Animal-folk haters, I've looking at you.

Quote from: Sigmund;281989I also am immediately put off by any setting that present humans as somehow inferior and/or more corrupt than all the other races (curse you Tolkien), so much so that the last campaign (true20, my home-brew) I ran was humans only for the PCs.

Quick duck in... followed by a quick duck out.

Don't blame Tolkien. Mankind was the highest creation of the One, the only race able to act outside the Music and destined to go beyond the bounds of the world unlike the Elves or Dwarves.

People also tend to forget the Kin Slaying (elves) or the Petty Dwarves of Tolkien btw.


Edit: Oh, as to what's been done to death- unneeded and cheap profanity on rpg boards (referencing the title of this thread).

Quote from: gleichman;282006Quick duck in... followed by a quick duck out.

Don't blame Tolkien. Mankind was the highest creation of the One, the only race able to act outside the Music and destined to go beyond the bounds of the world unlike the Elves or Dwarves.

People also tend to forget the Kin Slaying (elves) or the Petty Dwarves of Tolkien btw.


Edit: Oh, as to what's been done to death- unneeded and cheap profanity on rpg boards (referencing the title of this thread).

Yeah, I know, what I'm referring to is the humans being the easiest race for Sauron to corrupt, not the pseudo-mythology junk that was shoved in there in Silmarillion. It's all straight from the imagination of Tolkien, so yeah, I'll blame the guy if I want. I still like the stories, but I don't want those ideas in my games anymore, thanks.

Quote from: Sigmund;282062Yeah, I know, what I'm referring to is the humans being the easiest race for Sauron to corrupt, not the pseudo-mythology junk that was shoved in there in Silmarillion.

Edit: Removed. Not worth it.

Quote from: gleichman;282006Edit: Oh, as to what's been done to death- unneeded and cheap profanity on rpg boards (referencing the title of this thread).

:confused:  Do people not casually use "profanity" where you are?  Because its awfully common for a lot of us - that's just the way a lot of people talk.

Quote from: jgants;282087:confused:  Do people not casually use "profanity" where you are?  Because its awfully common for a lot of us - that's just the way a lot of people talk.

Maybe that's why it's "been done to death".

Just a suggestion.

Quote from: gleichman;282091Maybe that's why it's "been done to death".

Just a suggestion.

He's right.

 Cussing just because you can is getting tired.

The words start to lose whatever impact they had in the first place.



- Ed C.

Steampunk "elements" in fantasy settings are getting very repetitive.

Quote from: gleichman;282069Edit: Removed. Not worth it.

Good choice.

Another new version of AD&D. I still use the First edition DMG I bought in 1982.

Quote from: Sigmund;281987I don't mind vampires as stuff to be killed, especially if they're the evil, nasty, disgusting, terrifying monsters they're supposed to be. Angst my ass.

The Rotwang! Dictionary defines vampire as "A great place to store sharp wooden things".

Quote from: jgants;282087:confused:  Do people not casually use "profanity" where you are?  Because its awfully common for a lot of us - that's just the way a lot of people talk.

I'm a cook.  I fucking swear.  If someone has a problem with it, tough shit.  I'll keep it under my tongue when I'm in church, and this ain't no church.


Back on the topic so as not to feed yet another of gleichman's vainglorious returns:

- Anti-humanism.  Any game where humans aren't as awesome as humans are.  I'm a cynical fucking bastard, but I've always gone more towards the Dr. Who attitude towards the value of humans.  I like that notion of us all being capable of both incredible will and heroism, but also the basest greed and evil.  It's neat, and a lot more interesting than "humans suck, species X is so much better".  I especially hate self-hating players who refuse to play a regular goddamn human in any bloody game even if it's modern Earth circa 1995.

-  "Epic fantasy", where "epic" actually means lots of dull ass unnecessary detail and exposition as the author desperately tries to live up to Tolkien's work, and fails utterly because he didn't spend decades studying medieval folklore.  Or overexplains everything with a lot of technobabble that makes me think I'm looking at a bad SF novel instead of a fantasy game.

-  Good Drow.  Fuck Drow, and fuck good ones doubly so.  I've only ever played a Drow once or twice in my D&D career, and every one of them was an evil, manipulative, self-serving bitch, the way a goddamn Drow is supposed to be.  If you don't have the fucking cajones to at least play Neutral Evil, don't play a goddamn evil race.

-  Exterminatus.  I'm sick of the cliche that the Imperium just goes around sandblasting every bloody world with the slightest hint of anything it doesn't like.  It's stupid, and it isn't even true in the setting.

Quote from: J Arcane;282226Back on the topic so as not to feed yet another of gleichman's vainglorious returns:

If you didn't want to feed it, you would have kept silent. So you're either a liar or your stupid- or you're both.

I'll bet on both.

Go ahead and respond now, and prove that you're at least the first.

Quote from: gleichman;282229Go ahead and respond now, and prove that you're at least the first.

Not here, dude.

Quote from: One Horse Town;282230Not here, dude.

Of course.

Then again I have no need to continue, J Arcane well either prove me correct on his own- or shut up and stop baiting. Either suits me.


As to the thread:

Besides profanity...

Shades of Gray, it's even more cliche and over-used now than the classic good/evil conflicts of tradition. And far more boring.

Quote from: gleichman;282231Besides profanity...

Shades of Gray, it's even more cliche and over-used now than the classic good/evil conflicts of tradition. And far more boring.

Yup, gotta agree with that one. Gone beyond fashionable to snooze...

I don't know what else, the last 25 plus years seems to have had a lot of filler in everything.

I recall going to the rpg shop in the 90's and seeing a lot of things that seemed like anti-matter whenever I popped them open. Lot's of various genred blandness. A subject followed by pages and pages of obvious reiteration of common ideas as if nobody knows what a robot or a werewolf is. Thats what really has been done to death. Too much moron for moron talk and not enough intelligently prepared self-contained game grabs. GURPS in general is a fine example of these "filled with dork talk" books that I can't stand.

A specific example of where I'm coming from is the original drow of the underdark book from the 90's, you could have gotten everything and more from the original adventure so why did I have to buy this to find out there is nothing really worth playing in here? Its like someone played the module and has had musings on it that you could never use unless you were constantly feeling very unimaginative.

Another classic type is the gazetteers that go on and on and never touch down to a simple adventure. Like RIFTS. I could punch Siembieda in the face for making it interesting enough to absorb but once you're on the tenth book you feel like an asshole for buying into it all.

Thats really been done to death.

Quote from: J Arcane;282226-  Exterminatus.  I'm sick of the cliche that the Imperium just goes around sandblasting every bloody world with the slightest hint of anything it doesn't like.  It's stupid, and it isn't even true in the setting.

Loudly agreeing with this one. I'm personally quite pleased that the various Dark Heresy groups I've played in haven't fallen into this trap, because it strikes me that the whole Exterminatus thing can all too easily become an excuse for the PCs not to actually follow through on an investigation.

The one time I've actually seen Exterminatus come onto the table in a Dark Heresy game was actually extremely tense and exciting: we'd stumbled across a world which had been corrupted from the top down, an Adeptus Mechanicus Forge World where the local Tech-Priests had become drawn into the worship of the dark gods of the Necrons, and had been grooming the planetary population to become delicious nibbles for said gods.

Even then, we'd have considered just purging the local Mechanicus, except the gods were enroute to begin a binge of eating and assimilating, and we realised we wouldn't get enough Imperial Navy forces to the system on time to effect a defence of the planet - so the Exterminatus was intended to deny the Necron gods their source of food and bodies, rather than simply punishing the planet.

And even then, we bent over backwards to find an alternative to Exterminatus, to the point where we effectively suicided the party in order to save the system and prevent the invasion.

In my view, if the threat isn't serious enough that the PCs are willing to go this far to stop it, it's not serious enough for Exterminatus to even be on the table. That shit is rare.

Quote from: noisms;281424Elves.

I second that shit... I also despise fat troll-like people that just have to play elves. Like playing a beautiful magical creature will change the fact that they are awkward ugly humans.

I hate Half Whatevers... Half Dragons Half demons Half bullfrogs... I say be all of one thing or be nothing. Very few things in our world can interbreed.

Hating on paladins.

Really, get over it.  Hard enough to play one right when everyone--often including the GM--is out to fuck you over and make you lose your status.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;282376Hating on paladins.

Really, get over it.  Hard enough to play one right when everyone--often including the GM--is out to fuck you over and make you lose your status.

I don't think I'd mind paladins as an advanced class, but I never came to terms with the idea of a "level 1 paladin".  So, you've done nothing with your life yet, you have exactly 0 Xp, and you are already a champion, a hero beyond compare? Nice gig!

In the end it comes down to one of those ugly D&D misuses of words, like the Medusa somehow becoming the name of a race rather than the name of an indivudual gorgon.  And let not even get started with gorgons.

You can explain it away and people who played AD&D for 20 years I am stop noticing it at some stage, but wrong is wrong!

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;282376Hating on paladins.

Really, get over it.  Hard enough to play one right when everyone--often including the GM--is out to fuck you over and make you lose your status.

There so geared perfect for solo play that it doesn't even make sense to have them in a group of individuals creating their own thing. The worst is when entire "weenie" campaigns have congealed towards that class.

"Well...we have to start in a good city..."

That kinda "crap think" just misses the point of playing in my opinion.

There should be a "diet paladin" default. Where the fighter character has to become the paladin (or anti-paladin/assassin or something else alignment based) through play.

I've had the same problem with clerics with their on demand miracles for every bonehead that sees them as a "heal pump". In the 90's I abandoned clerics totally. In recent years, I let them slip back in because the way i did it was off. I've decided to make them extinct the proper way by giving them no reason to be played for healing.

Quote from: Gene Weigel;282482I've had the same problem with clerics with their on demand miracles for every bonehead that sees them as a "heal pump". In the 90's I abandoned clerics totally. In recent years, I let them slip back in because the way i did it was off. I've decided to make them extinct the proper way by giving them no reason to be played for healing.

Would you care to develop about the status of clerics in your games (maybe in a new thread) ?

Quote from: boulet;282484Would you care to develop about the status of clerics in your games (maybe in a new thread) ?

The way I did was to make the magic available for magic-users as it is but it didn't make sense as some spells were stilted earlier for different classes, etc.

So I introduced a different class. I have to type it up for publication in some form.

Quote from: Gene Weigel;282252Another classic type is the gazetteers that go on and on and never touch down to a simple adventure. Like RIFTS. I could punch Siembieda in the face for making it interesting enough to absorb but once you're on the tenth book you feel like an asshole for buying into it all.

Thats really been done to death.

Well, RIFTS books underwent a kind of evolution, from good to bad to ok to good again; the last one to my surprise as I've just found this out now that I'm running a RIFTS campaign for the first time in 10 years.

When RIFTS first came out, the main book itself was awesome, groundbreaking, and incredibly fun and playable.
Sourcebook 1 was good, Vampire Kingdoms was OK, and basically the sourcebooks were great; Triax, Mindwerks, and Mercenaries (even Mechanoids) and Atlantis was the culmination of high-powered awesome.
Then after that you had a one-two punch of several really awful sourcebooks: England, Africa, Wormwood, and several others which seemed to fit the pattern you describe of "interesting but useless", sometimes without even the "interesting" part.

This was followed by a long period of relative crap, stuff that was at best repetitive in feeling (like Japan, China, South America, etc), or at worst just useless shit. Eventually, the Coalition Wars came along, and though I hate metaplot with a passion the books as SOURCEBOOKS for RIFTS were some of the first good stuff to have shown up in years.  And since then, in the last few years, you've had a number of sourcebooks which have gotten back to that early-book feel and usefulness; I guess its since now they've run out of "area" sourcebooks they've actually gotten back to detailing stuff for gaming rather than detail what's going on in "RIFTS Indonesia" or "RIFTS Southeastern New Zealand".

RPGPundit

Oddly your opinion of the RIFTS books seems to match mine very well, though I am rather fond of the various geographical expansions personally (I LIKE South America 1&2, though there was some obvious self-rip off shit going on there...and a bunch of wacky stuff on top, with too little focus on the cool and too much on the fringe whack... but still food for gaming).

I, however, have sort of gotten to the point where I can re-read a book (like... Russia...) and see all that is wrong with Mr. Siembieda as an author and even, I hate to say it, as a person.  Formulaic political layouts, bad guys always better/cooler than the good guys, someone secretly planning to betray the only good guy worth a shit in a fight, but feeling bad about it... whatever.

Never mind an utter lack of logistical support for any of these 'super-powers' (nations, I mean... NATIONS, Put.The.Cape.Down.), and a shocking lack of uncontrolled territory to squeeze in all the wild man stuff they put in there...

Miine them for ideas and toss the text... yeah

Are cool bad guys such a bad thing, though?
I mean, I don't know what Siembieda's motives are for that, and I agree it happens often in the RIFTS books, but there's nothing worse (and shit that has been more done to death) in a sourcebook than "totally awesome super-powerful GOOD guy who essentially makes the PCs pointless"!

Whereas, having a totally awesome super-powerful BAD guy means that the PCs have a challenge worthy of them in front of them.  The "awesome" good guys are supposed to be the PCs themselves.

RPGPundit

The problem I had with Rifts' "cool bad guys" was that they started glorifying what were basically Nazis, and that shit just creeps me the fuck out and makes me want to run far far away.

You may've been fond of the Coalition War Machine/Siege on Tolkeen stuff, but to me it was the final stroke that said "Fuck this shit, I'm getting out before the nutters start pouring in".

I misuse the term cool. I should say it more accurately that the loving detail given to the badguys is what grates.  The worse the badguy, the more love he gets almost.  Its vaguely masturbatory even when the bad guys aren't nazi's in nazi drag...

Quote from: J Arcane;282557The problem I had with Rifts' "cool bad guys" was that they started glorifying what were basically Nazis, and that shit just creeps me the fuck out and makes me want to run far far away.

You may've been fond of the Coalition War Machine/Siege on Tolkeen stuff to be great, but to me it was the final stroke that said "Fuck this shit, I'm getting out before the nutters start pouring in".

And pour in they did.

My solution is to just turn up and layer in the crazy.  Everyone knows that they are xenophobic and manaphobic (slightly less so for psi).  No one seems to take much notice at their quiet, but open, sexism.  (Few, if any, women in positions where getting maimed, crippled or killed is an occupational hazard; they're all kept behind tall, thick walls and guarded jealously by the men and their dogs- and they're not idle; they handle the staff work.)  Even fewer are at all noticing their quiet, covert racism. ("Pure" = "WASP"; this makes the bulk of Coalition subjects mutants, but acceptably so, which--combined with ruthless and pervasive propaganda and a truly illiterate population--makes it easy for their eugenics/genetics program to proceed unimpeded to recreate Humanity as an Aryan super-race.)  Only the Inner Elite knows that there is both an Inner and Outer Elite (following Strauss), and the Inner Elite holds all true power- they're the successors to the pre-Rifts imperialist elite in North America.

Why play it this way?  If you're going to have a synarchist power bloc as one of the big villains, don't go by half-measures.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;282564And pour in they did.

My solution is to just turn up and layer in the crazy.  Everyone knows that they are xenophobic and manaphobic (slightly less so for psi).  No one seems to take much notice at their quiet, but open, sexism.  (Few, if any, women in positions where getting maimed, crippled or killed is an occupational hazard; they're all kept behind tall, thick walls and guarded jealously by the men and their dogs- and they're not idle; they handle the staff work.)  Even fewer are at all noticing their quiet, covert racism. ("Pure" = "WASP"; this makes the bulk of Coalition subjects mutants, but acceptably so, which--combined with ruthless and pervasive propaganda and a truly illiterate population--makes it easy for their eugenics/genetics program to proceed unimpeded to recreate Humanity as an Aryan super-race.)  Only the Inner Elite knows that there is both an Inner and Outer Elite (following Strauss), and the Inner Elite holds all true power- they're the successors to the pre-Rifts imperialist elite in North America.

Why play it this way?  If you're going to have a synarchist power bloc as one of the big villains, don't go by half-measures.

The Coalition as a Straussian Utopia right out of Dick Cheney's wildest wet dreams. Very cool.

RPGPundit

Siembieda should have stuck with his Judges guild roots and offered the same fare in the form of an actual played adventures that work. NGR versus the gargoyles is a roleplaying game fantasy...literally. The cool bot weapons were useless to affect their prime enemy on equal footing (plus add in that robot vehicles can't lift their own weight if they're knocked down or dangling) and its a geometrically expanding game fix that has you doing a job that should have been done already. The NGR comic showed the game as it should be played (Wow! He actually shot and affected a gargoyle! What game is that? I want to play it!).

His heart was in the right place but in the end the whole experience was a low brow fantasy ranging from very good to very bad and actual game play nightmare. Especially when he relied so much on visuals with Long and then expected to do the same with a replacement who was drawing all this "crap-tech" and "animal head" dreck. It would have been nice if the game had books filled with "in world" support devices instead of endless "indifferent to player" cultures with tech that you have to smash the shit out of to acquire.

Quote from: RPGPundit;282540Well, RIFTS books underwent a kind of evolution, from good to bad to ok to good again; the last one to my surprise as I've just found this out now that I'm running a RIFTS campaign for the first time in 10 years.

RPGPundit

I for one would like to hear more about this campaign in detail.

If I see one more nameless demon from hell with a heart-of-gold turned to hooking on the mean streets of New York in order to pay for his girlfriend's boob job to impress her pervert father so he'll pony up to send her to veterinary school in order to give her the opportunity to redeem herself in the eyes of her childhood pet kitty which she left in a rain barrel because it had worms and now it's a soulless zombie monster bent on revenge against all six year old blonde girls who play with GI Joes instead of Barbies and chew Fruitsplosion Bubblyum… well I'd do something drastic, that's for sure!

Quote from: Gene Weigel;282626Siembieda should have stuck with his Judges guild roots and offered the same fare in the form of an actual played adventures that work. NGR versus the gargoyles is a roleplaying game fantasy...literally. The cool bot weapons were useless to affect their prime enemy on equal footing (plus add in that robot vehicles can't lift their own weight if they're knocked down or dangling) and its a geometrically expanding game fix that has you doing a job that should have been done already. The NGR comic showed the game as it should be played (Wow! He actually shot and affected a gargoyle! What game is that? I want to play it!).

Huh? Sorry, where did it say that Gargoyles are immune to MDC attacks? I don't see that anywhere... did you perhaps confuse them with vampires?

RPGPundit

Quote from: Roman;282661



I for one would like to hear more about this campaign in detail.

I'm sure you will, but mostly over time.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;282864Huh? Sorry, where did it say that Gargoyles are immune to MDC attacks? I don't see that anywhere... did you perhaps confuse them with vampires?

RPGPundit

Where did I say that?

I'm referring to the NGR book where there was a short comic where a robot armored guy dispatches a gargoyle with a shot. No weapon could do that before they had a field day on your priceless armor.

Quote from: Kevin;282696If I see one more nameless demon from hell with a heart-of-gold turned to hooking on the mean streets of New York in order to pay for his girlfriend's boob job to impress her pervert father so he'll pony up to send her to veterinary school in order to give her the opportunity to redeem herself in the eyes of her childhood pet kitty which she left in a rain barrel because it had worms and now it's a soulless zombie monster bent on revenge against all six year old blonde girls who play with GI Joes instead of Barbies and chew Fruitsplosion Bubblyum... well I'd do something drastic, that's for sure!

YES YES and most emphatically YES!!  ROFLMAO!!

Quote from: Sigmund;281987What's done to death to me is the sympathetic vampire. The vampire "good" guy (curse you Ann Rice). I don't mind vampires as stuff to be killed, especially if they're the evil, nasty, disgusting, terrifying monsters they're supposed to be. Angst my ass.

I definitely prefer vampires run more in the 30 Days of Night mode.

Vampires should not be something a player character aspires to become.

Alright, I just looked it up and its worse than I remember it was two "gurgoyles" wearing gurgoyle power armor that are taken out with one shot apiece. How is that possible? The whole "anti-supernatural for useless tech only" premise just fails unless you warp the whole game around and introduce new German/Coalition "WDC weapons" which not only do "whopper damage" but can only be fired by "dimensional purists". ;)

Stuff that has been done to death - that I'm sick of hearing about at the game store:

"Yeah, man we're in an all-evil campaign. Its really Cool!"

"We're playing a Star WARS game - and we're ALL Jedi Knights!"

...same as above , except with this:

"....ALL Jedi Knight  ..who just turned to the Datrk Side because we think the Sith are cooler."

"Yeah, we're in a game where my charcter has wings and a tail...but its kind of a tiefling, but not a tiefling. Her character has got feathered wings because she's a visiting Angel that like leather abnd soda pop but we're trying to corrupt her character to more chaotic evil like the rest of us."

"In my game I play a Drow ...but sort of a Good guy Drow - you know like that Drist guy?"

"Dungeons and Dragons is kind of boring for me - there isn't enough killing and no submchineguns or tanks involved."


All of the above, or variations of those quotes have been said in the store at one time or another.


- Ed C.

Settings that you could easily sub-in human cultural groups for the non-human/demi-human races and the setting would plod along with nary a hiccup.

Magic vs. Martial with Magic always winning.

I am also not a fan of Magic vs. Tech matches where one beats the other simply because one shorts out the other. Lame.

Quote from: Sigmund;281987I think I'm agreeing with Pierce here, but with a further qualification. What's done to death to me is the sympathetic vampire. The vampire "good" guy (curse you Ann Rice). I don't mind vampires as stuff to be killed, especially if they're the evil, nasty, disgusting, terrifying monsters they're supposed to be. Angst my ass.

Yay! :D

-clash

I like my vampires to be the Twilight 'Ziggy Stardust' sort.  Makes aiming that much easier when they sparkle light that, and their angst just means they don't fight back as hard.

Quote from: Spike;282997I like my vampires to be the Twilight 'Ziggy Stardust' sort.  Makes aiming that much easier when they sparkle light that, and their angst just means they don't fight back as hard.

A rockstar vampire ? What's the improvement compared to Lestat ?

Easier to kill... didn't you read?

Yeah, I could do with less sympathetic vampires.  The problem, however, is that the attempts to make them back into monsters leaves them a few steps short of Romero zombiedom and I would like some differentiation of a more obvious sort between the two types of monstrous undead.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;283006Yeah, I could do with less sympathetic vampires.  The problem, however, is that the attempts to make them back into monsters leaves them a few steps short of Romero zombiedom and I would like some differentiation of a more obvious sort between the two types of monstrous undead.

The 30DoN are smart and devious and unquestionably evil - they didn't strike me as zombie-like at all, nor do they come off as 28DL ghouls.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;283006Yeah, I could do with less sympathetic vampires.  The problem, however, is that the attempts to make them back into monsters leaves them a few steps short of Romero zombiedom and I would like some differentiation of a more obvious sort between the two types of monstrous undead.

I've often felt similar, so here's my take on vampires in my Dawnlands setting (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=275966&postcount=204). YMMV if you're looking for non-fantasy versions, of course.

When the shit has been done to death... it really just means we've all been playing for awhile. It's still as new to somebody else as it was the first time you heard it, and those guys have just as much right to get sick of this shit as we did.

Stupid good-guy vampires.

Quote from: Cranewings;281409Any scientific explanation for magic is horrible to me.

This.  Larry Niven's "Warlock" stories give me wind.

Quote from: Kevin;283067When the shit has been done to death... it really just means we've all been playing for awhile. It's still as new to somebody else as it was the first time you heard it, and those guys have just as much right to get sick of this shit as we did.

Stupid good-guy vampires.

My prob with the good-guy vamps is, while they were new back in the day I still hated them. Now I hate them and I'm sick of them too. Otherwise, I agree with you, new folks should have a chance to hate them too, just please keep them the hell away from me.

Quote from: Old Geezer;283316This.  Larry Niven's "Warlock" stories give me wind.

Well, and Christopher Schasheff's Warlock novels to a greater extent.  In fact, while Niven's magic certainly follows rules and has limitations that the Warlock enjoys exploiting it's still clearly magical.

Well, to be fair, the Warlock really enjoys exploiting the way the presence of magic makes people oblivious to the obvious non-magical solutions.

Quote from: David Johansen;283480Well, to be fair, the Warlock really enjoys exploiting the way the presence of magic makes people oblivious to the obvious non-magical solutions.

That's what I got out of Niven's stories as well.

Plus, I see this a lot in fantasy gaming too.