ITT: game mechanics that stand out like really strange and/or counterintuitive to you

All of those make more sense than just eternal failure. Kind of like when someone rolls to break down a door and fails, "You knock down the door but hurt your shoulder doing so, so you have disadvantage on attack rolls for a bit" is better than "Uh, guess that didn't work. Guess we're not going through there."

Dragonquest. You can find the rules here.

fantasist.net/dragonquest.shtml

At least it adds SOME balance back to unbalanced dice.

This. I've completely eliminated this concept from games I GM. If you have ranks in the skill and you're not under pressure you auto succeed.

Adding scrolls to a spellbook during downtime, using UMD to cast with a wand out of combat, disabling locks/traps when there's no time limit on your job, etc. Roleplay trumps rollplay at my table and I don't want to watch you roll a dozen times when there's literally nothing at stake.

"Take the easy win but eat some RP consequences for not rolling" happens if it's in a place with roaming enemies, though.

Being able to use diplomacy/intimidate/bluffing against anyone and always having a chance to succeed. Fuck diplomancers in RAW, they're retarded.

Except it doesn't, it's simply strange and nonsensical.
>Hey, all of our system is "big number=good"
>Except ONE roll, in which "roll low=good"

>Muh dice aren't balanced

Non-multidice systems will always have shit-luck crap.

Because it doesn't make sense that they can't try again? What if a failed roll is taken to mean that the door was sturdier than expected and you simply aren't strong enough to kick it down, no matter how many times you try?
Or do you just mean it's better if progress isn't halted completely, if it's completely dependent on the PCs being able to break down the door?

I don't know, it can be pretty intuitive.

>"I attack the goblin."
>"Make an attack roll, AC 11."

>"I jump across the chasm."
>"Okay, roll under Strength."

The bigger problem is when there are different dice. Even after D&D 3E established the d20 System, there are still d100 rolls where there don't need to be.

>I attack the goblin
>Roll high!
>I use the rope
>Roll high!
>I make a lamp!
>Roll high!
>I sneak
>Roll high!
>Oh nice I got a high number on my str check to hold up the por-
>Str check is roll under, you're dead

See how it's inconvenient?

Also
>Multiple non-related dices
This shit is the worst, SPECIALLY when it's totally random when they're needed, HP and damage I understand, but shit like "This class uses D6 in place of d12 because reason" is annoying as fuck.

It depends whether you take rolls to represent the character's ability or to represent how the world is. I watched a YouTube video about this a few weeks ago, the guy gave an example of rolling successfully to climb a wall, therefore it's a wall the character can climb (rather than he just happened to be at the top of his climbing game that day).

Failure makes a bit more sense in old school and OSR games because a failure (perhaps determined secretly by the GM) means yeah, the thief can't disable that trap, the elf doesn't find that secret door. There's no "try again" option. Or if the fighter tries to knock down a door but doesn't quite manage, then that's a Wandering Monsters check. There are consequences, not just constant d20 rolls until you hit 15 or above.

Literally what the rules for take 10 and take 20 exist for.

>Profession should be the same as your ethnicity

This is the kind of shit that made me not want to GM Shadowrun, and sadly I'm the only one in my friends' group who would have the will to.

Which system does that?

AD&D was roll low on almost everything.

Anima did it at the start for stat checks(later it got changed because it was stupid as fuck)
I could swear to god 3.5 did it too with some obscure checks that nearly nobody used.
AD&D does it on combat (High numbers=Good, except on AC where high=bad)
They keyword here is obscure, so I wouldn't count AD&D much (even if THAC0 is arguably inferior to normal AC in theory of ease).

True, but in the system I'm usually stuck running the rules for those are somewhat silly. The idea that someone with a tonne of skill can't disable a stupidly simple trap through careful study and deliberate action because taking 20 = failing 19 times before success, and thus springing the simple deadfall/tripwire/pressure plate trap. I prefer to let them RP that skill out if they're clever enough to spot the weaknesses of my trap diagram. If not, it's in the hands of the dice. There are plenty more examples of places where taking time/using RP could be of benefit where take 10/20 aren't normally allowed and failure means no retry.

To be fair, diplomancers are only as powerful as they are because people often misunderstand when they're allowed to use diplomacy.

>The idea that someone with a tonne of skill can't disable a stupidly simple trap through careful study and deliberate action because taking 20 = failing 19 times before success, and thus springing the simple deadfall/tripwire/pressure plate trap

If, like you say, it's stupidly simple trap and they have a ton of skill, take 10 should be more than sufficient.

Rolling to hit based on strength.

I can get that, what I don't get is

>defence based on armour regardless of what weapon you have

All they'd need to do is say holding a longsword gives you +1 to AC in melee or something. No need for the AD&D polearm attack matrix.

>using two weapons means getting more attacks

So which one is it?

Meant to add "to him" in there. The Idea is I'm not going to spring it in his face or deny the attempt if taking 10 would put him a point or two short of the DC. He's got all the time in the world and he's seen many traps in his life. I'd rather he have a chance to think and RP than tell him the specificity of the rules killed him.

>dices
dice is the plural already. 'dices' is like calling multiple books 'bookses'
So, um. Hi, Smeagol!

I've played it with a ruleslawyer before, he knew all about the major penalties and just ate them up.

Sheit I always fuck up dice/die.

I hope you dice in a fire.

I would think that something that he has less than 50% chance of successfully disarming isn't stupidly simple for him. But point taken.

>Race as class
>bad
enjoy your half fae catboy paladins and your half fiend kitsune barbarians

The deep dark secret is that I'm just trying to cram as much actual RP as I can into a system that was designed to avoid RP more often than not. I'm running a Pathfinder game I inherited when the previous GM quit before the players hit level 3. All they want to play is more Pathfinder but I can't tell them to piss off because they're my friends and family, and I'd be playing/running nothing at all otherwise. I'm giving major advantages to using RP as much as possible to show them how much fun it can be to make that the focus of table time rather than constantly calculating crunch. Terrible plan, I know, but it's actually working because they're not true crunchmeisters, they're just newish to TbT don't have any experience outside 3.pf. Coaxing them out of their shells is starting to pay off as I've now go them discussing alternate styles of game.

That's not very dice.

You just described my CoC characters.

>playing with faggots who actually do that crap

You brought that upon yourself.

Call of Cthulhu or Corruption of Champions?

Both.

Corruption of Champions. I keep my magical realm to myself.

>gender is a different stat than sex

Races describe what you are.
Classes describe what you do.

I'm one of said "classless is better" faggots, but my main problem with classes only is that it's way too rigid in my opinion. There's nothing wrong with having classes as an option, but I like being able to pick and choose which powers and skills and abilities I get once I have the points or levels or whatever and having a strict class progression limits that. Not only that, but being able to put stuff together alacarte makes nonstandard character concepts a lot easier to do justice (assuming a robust character creation system).

For me, the concept I don't understand is Armor Class. It makes a lot more sense that my chainmail would reduce the amount of damage I take and that my dex would reduce the amount of times I get hit, but for some reason if someone hits you with a sword, it just doesn't do anything.

I mean I know you're just trying to make a strawman argument here but if you're apparentaly okay with half fae catboys and half fiend kitsunes as a whole, since you apparently havn't banned them as a race, I'm not sure how one being a paladin or barbarian (race+class) is any worse than one who's entire identiy is being one (race=class).

It actually is. And this isn't just some SJW bullshit, look at Ancient India if you want examples.

But claiming that your chosen gender is your biological sex is even MORE drama.

Whatever you say tumblr.

fae and kitsune have such strong identities and iconic abilities that they really should be their own racial class desu.
Pairing them with a radically different flavor of class is just jarring.

That's cold, user. Cold as dice.

Not my fault you're ignorant in the history of the Indian caste system.

What is take ten?

Now I could see making them start with at least one level of a race class to get the default stuff any given member of said race is born with but they should be able to cross class into "normal" classes too.
See now what's jarring to me is the idea that if Pixie Pete for whatever weird pixie reason gets the thought in his head "know what? this magical trickery stuff is stupid, I wanna beat people with a stick" and spends decades of his neigh immortal fae life doing nothing but parcticing the fine are of beating things with sticks he still can't take that level of fighter.

Now on the other hand Adventurer Conqueror King strikes a nice middle ground by having elf and dwarf versions of the classes as seperate classes, so not every elf or dwarf is identical but are still somewhat different than their human peers

>The bigger problem is when there are different dice
>using only one die
>implicitly using only d20

Enlighten me then, with reliable sources if you can.

>having either or both of those as stats in the first place

>not exclusively using d6
get a load of this drek

>race as a class
It's for settings were non-humans are are enough that they warrant their own classification. It's part of a more streamlined way of viewing character abilities. Instead of having long lists of powers your character has you have a concise title that describes the neat stuff you can do.

It's actually pretty neat in practice but D&D, which is the only game I can think of that does it, tends not to use it to it's fullest potential.

Also fuck this guy.
The "snowflake police" are almost as bad as snowflakes themselves. Actual snowflake players are pretty rare in my experience, even when playing shit like PF or Shadowrun. Most players think of some concept they want to try or character they want to emulate and pick the stuff that fits that. A lot of the time this results in parties of mostly humans with maybe tiefling or dwarf in the mix. Even the non-standard classes end up playing as rounded adventuring types instead of some ungodly animu thing.
>most Magi/Duskblades I'v seen end up being poncy duellists, pirates or opportunist mercs instead of edgy narutos

And from time to time crazy worlds full of different races and professions can be a lot of fun. It's a totally different feel from OD&D but that's not inherently bad.

In actual cases of bullshit players, it's really not hard at all to talk to them. Tell them what they made doesn't fit the style of game, help them to simplify or tell them to get out. Hell, 90% of the game is communication, might as well start soon.
It's kind of fucked up that fear of easily treated fringe cases would turn people off entire systems and mechanics.

Gender is about how your words end. Sex is what I did with your mother on Saturday. That seems disparate enough to use different numbers.

You need at least sex because if you choose woman you have -4str.

I'm glad we're letting Ancient India decide everything about the world now. Fun fact: if you grab a MW dictionary that was printed before 2000, you'll see the the first definition of gender is just "1. SEX."
They changed the definition of a word, and are surprised when people still use the old definition.

You mean "third" genders that under transfag definition would just be female (or male in the case of reverse traps)?

>needing sex
uh it's 2016???

Well I guess that this thread was nice while it lasted

Not the other guy but just google "Hijras".

-4 strength seems a little harsh, even if its just a meme
maybe you should just give females disadvantage on strength checks against males

What's wrong with this?

that's even worse, because then it lets them act on the environment in the same way (say, throwing weights around) as an equal-strength-male, but then suddenly they're weak against males, even though they were both just doing the same thing.

>I have an opinion
>you're wrong
>This is coutner to my prior knowledge, but feel free to make your case
>not my job to educate you
Yeah, this is definitely tumblr.

It bears absolutely no resemblance to actual fighting and doesn't make any logical sense.

There's a good reason why you don't throw a punch with your left every two seconds when using a one-handed weapon in your right.

Warhams does it.
>stat checks are roll under
>leadership is roll under and are also 2d6 instead of 1d6 for reasons
>attack rolls/damage rolls/armor rolls are roll over

>weapon-users roll to hit
>magic-users make the target roll to live
The one taking the action should be the one rolling. If the action succeeds, then the target can roll to unfuck itself on its next turn.

The existence of some castrated faggots and ladyboys doesn't mean that ancient India thought sex and gender are separate concepts.

India sucked until colonization, so how they felt about anything is pretty irrelevant.

I have 2 strong attacks with right and 1 weaker with left. Why not?

>/pol/ The Roleplaying Game
Centuries ago Evil Feminist Witches and their SJW Minions inacted a great and terrible curse forcing the world's laws of physics to bow to the strength of womynkind out of fear of being seen as not politicaly correct, but when directly confronted by the REAL stength of manly MEN the hex is ever so briefly shattered and the truth of the inferior upper body stength of the female body shows itself.

Hey retard not that guy you are arguing with just letting you know India has a long tradition of a "third gender". I dont give a shit about your politics.

See you on the other side of the shitstorm, user.

Poo in the loo Pajeet.

>race as a class.
The thing I learned is that the race has an established class to them.
>dwarves are fighters
>elves are battle mages
>halfings are theives.
The difference is you have people who could do it better in the human characters. which is what Gary wanted.
>proficiencies in AD&D 2nd ed and 3.PF
I guess weapon proficiency bug me is you need to pick a specific weapon. But then again, when I dm in 2nd I usually do it in groups. And 3.pf has a 3rd party companion that allows martial weapon proficiency to apply to all (its called trail blazer I believe).
Pic unrelated.

OH FOR FUCKS SAKE
THERE IS 2 GENDERS=SEXES: XX (FEMALE) AND XY (MALE)
THERE IS A FUCKLOAD OF SEXUAL ORIENTATIONS AND SEXUAL SELF-IDENTITES (DRESSING UP AND WANTING TO FUCK SOMETHING ELSE DOESN'T CHANGE YOUR GENES)

GIMME COLD WATER FOR MY SORE ASS

>race as a class

Well, if it's a race that has a variety of special powers, but they need to practice to use them, it makes sense. Like, Tolkien elves become more intrinsically magical and angelic over time if they develop it, and the only way you can really describe it is that they start as elves and become elfier.

So in some cases it makes sense.

>halfings are theives
Depends on the set- ahem, system. They can be cool sling-rangers, or quick barbarians, or something.
Same with other races.

If you have an axe, mace or knife in each hand you can certainly do a downward swing/stab with both, especially if you're a tall musclebound barbarian type.
Of course it's a fairly limited attack pattern and you should have less power than when you're attacking with a single one, but systems generally suck at modeling attacks.

You want to know what's hilarious? That subreddit for women was intentionally called two x chromosomes to keep the trannies out.

Words are made up and generally agreed upon collectively, user.
This means they have no inherent objective meaning, and can unfortunately change, even if you do yell about it.

Defining as chromosomes is flawed because people exist that don't easily fit into such a definition. XX males (they have a penis and testicles), XXY males, and a ton of other non-standard shit.

I think this made some sense in Anima, where either making two attacks with the same weapon or using an off-hand means taking a penalty to your Attack stat that's added to the roll, so there isn't exactly much difference between using either method unless your offhand weapon has qualities that made attacking with it a better idea than just using your main arm twice.

Admittedly, you could get the Ambidextrous advantage, which greatly lessens the penalty for using offhand weapons, thus making dual-wielding actually more efficient than just striking twice, but you have to pay a Creation Point for it, so I'd say it has a pretty big price tag attached.

The amount of people who don't fit into it is so tiny that they can be safely considered irrelevant.

>XX males (they have a penis and testicles)
mutant female
>XXY
uhh-uh... Hermaphrdites?

>sex: yes
>gender: doesn't matter

Wow, how chromosome-normative of you. You homodiploid people really need to check your privilege.

You have no problem with "monster classes" why are racial classes such a stumbling block?

Anyway, Warhammer RPGs and DCC:
>incredibly high lethality levels so that ANYONE CAN DIE
>fate points so that you can get out of death free

People against race as class are invariably either:
Min maxer
Special snowflake

There is literally no reason not to pick the race with the highest bonus in the stats for you class, other than to be a special snowflake that -isn't- being as efficient as possible for the sake of muh special snowflakeness

You don't get it. In some games, races ARE classes.
Bob is a lvl 16 Fighter, Alice is a lvl 16 Elf.

Look, it's a principle thing. Are you saying a dwarf bard simply can't exist? An entire species in the entire world just simply can't do it? It's retarded.

Anyway, you're putting the cart before the horse. People tend to pick weird fucking races or just a non-human for mechanical benefits a lot of the time. Maybe race should not have mechanical (dis)advantages which will leave behind the people who are genuinely interested in being an orc or an elf. It could imply be 100% fluff.
Also this

>Are you saying a dwarf bard simply can't exist?
They aren't human. Dwarves might not even derive pleasure from music at all. This leads to my next point.
See, this is exactly why race separate from class is retarded. You're playing them as a different flavor of human instead of something entirely non human. In fact, when you have all these difference flavors of human, there's no reason for "true" humans to exist. Hell, usually humans are the weakest race mechanically precisely because of this bullshit.
> People tend to pick weird fucking races or just a non-human for mechanical benefits a lot of the time
That's minmaxing.
>Maybe race should not have mechanical (dis)advantages which will leave behind the people who are genuinely interested in being an orc or an elf. It could imply be 100% fluff.
If races don't have any mechanical bearing then there shouldn't be races written down in rule books at all.
>Also this
"Race as class" obviously refers to the old model of "humans can be various classses, but an Elf is an Elf class, Dwarf is a Dwarf class, etc"