Unpopular RPG opinions?

It's possible to have fun, sure (but you can have fun drawing in the dirt with a stick).

The problem with Pathfinder is baked into the system, and you either have to stop using WBL, ban the higher and lower tier classes, unfuck Diplomacy/Persuasion, or you just accept that things are going to get really screwy by the time 5th level rolls around.

And that's just the core book.

Not saying you shouldn't keep playing PF if that's your bag, but as someone who started with 3.0 and saw its evolution every step of the way, I don't think I ever want to go back.

On topic:

I don't find LotFP to be half as edgetastic as Veeky Forums does. I've read worse in Mage the Ascension supplements, and the Baali Clanbook from the Dark Ages line for Vampire takes the absolute cake.

I enjoy playing elves.
I don't do it because I think they're better than everyone else, and most of the elven PCs I play actually admire other races and lament the kind of conservative disillusioned culture that elves have in most settings.

I like to play casters.
I like to play casters as students, apprentices, and other roles where they're not reality-warping gods who can tear reality asunder.
I will specifically avoid more overpowered spells to do this (especially if I'm not trying to play keep-up with other casters in the party).

I have no problem with beast-races as long as they're not anime girls with cat/fox ears.
Though I rarely play them myself.

I find "low fantasy" and "politics-focused" games to be incredibly boring and would rather play high-fantasy any day.

Despite liking high fantasy, I'd rather characters in the game be pursuing some personal goal rather than saving the world.

Rolling for stats is backwards, especially if you get to choose the order anyway.
Basic stats are the easiest part of a character to choose, most of the exact numbers have little to no impact on how you roleplay the character, and nothing is stopping you from playing a mechanically gimped character on purpose if that's what you want.
What we need is a detailed random chart for backstory and personality.

Or similarly unpopular opinion: 3.5 is shit, and was build on failure of game design.

This.

Rolling for stats was fine up until they made the higher scores outrageously more effective (1e to some extent, but 2e for certain). Before that, ability scores didn't have that much of an effect, and Int was not required to know spells of a certain level. All high scores did was add small modifiers to a few things, and increased XP gain.

It's when the ability scores are more important than your bonuses for your class that it starts to become a problem.

That being said, you should roll them in order, if you're going to roll at all. Otherwise some form of point buy is perfectly fine.

Fate points are fine. Use 'em or don't.

The best game maybe not, but the best D&D for sure, and it still is.

I enjoy dungeon crawling for the sake of dungeon crawling.

>applying common sense fixes when the rules present problems.

Or you could run a system that doesn't require any fixes at all.

Depends on the game.
I'd say that you really need a bit of both.

3.X really screwed up scores by making modifiers bigger.

Narrative indie games are the best thing that's happened to this hobby.

Social combat should be reflected in game mechanics.

All the 40k and pretty much all FFG RPGs are dogshit mechanically.

Specialty dice are fine. Dumbshits are either too cheap or have been doing this too long and forget that all the polyhedrals are specialty dice too.

Gygax's writing is terrible.

LOTFP is overrated as fuck.

MERP was never good.

Veeky Forums occasionally got shit done and then shit the bed so hard by running off the only people who were creating content that was board relevant and has been rotting with /v/ garbage and e-celebs ever since.

>Or you could run a system that doesn't require any fixes at all.

Literally doesn't exist outside of extreme fanboy biases and blissful dreams.

There are things better than 3.5, don't get me wrong, but a "perfect" system doesn't exist.

People who only play 3.PF and its derivatives are almost entirely separate from the rest of the RPG hobby. They exist in a bizarre bubble of dumb design choices and outmoded design ideas which they've reinforced into holy dogma through marketing, market presence and mass circlejerking.

>Social combat
Wut?

10/10

Social conflict. When characters and NPCs argue over important stuff.

>All the 40k and pretty much all FFG RPGs are dogshit mechanically.
>Gygax's writing is terrible.

These are unpopular?

I've been playing Palladium's Ninja Turtles RPG for months, and honestly it's not that bad.

>"I'm bored, let's fight."

The 3.PF system is fine. It's by no means perfect, but its fine. Problems only arise due to lazy DMs who slave themselves to the rules and forget mechanics are merely guidelines.

Blue is my favorite color in MTG because it's the only color that makes me feel like a wizard rather than a middle manager.

Yeah.

I want this ironic contrarianism regarding 4e to go away.

Pretty much nailed it.

I love Numenera. I think Monte Cook is a good designer. Loved Planescape ant I think 3.0 is the best thing ever happened to D&D. I think Veeky Forums giving crap to his work is just shitposting.
You know it's true.

Ironclaw is baller.

Storyteller dickpunches you by baking setting into the rules too hard, and that wouldn't be a problem if there wasn't always some smegmatic overfiend complaining about nitty gritty shit.

The needs for a good game are
>1. Everyone is on the same page for what it's about plotwise and themewise
>2. Everyone can maintain interest in how shit goes regardless of what happens from the fall of the die
>3. Everyone can keep their douchebaggery under some kind of control
>4. ???
>9001. What system you're using and how you're fucking with the errata or homebrewing

>all FFG RPGs are dogshit mechanically.

Someone hasn't played any of the Star Wars RPGs.

There's a 2e?

>Narrative indie games are the best thing that's happened to this hobby.
>Social combat should be reflected in game mechanics.

I am pretty sure these things cancel each other out.

Veeky Forums is useful for acquiring the grognard opinion, which can be useful for eliminating biases. However, that doesn't change the fact that Veeky Forums suffers from a serious superiority complex and everything you get here should be taken with a grain of salt.

40k RPGs are unimaginative pieces of shit and are seldom any fun.

FFG has written better 40K lore than 95% of Black Library and GW itself.

>Narrative indie games are the best thing that's happened to this hobby.

This is true. It opened up the way for a lot of newcomers with its rule light nature and it does what most people came to RPG's for: to tell a story.

I remember my old teacher who loved the concept of Pen and Paper games but was turned off by everyones needless fascination with endless rules on how to do trivial things

I believe 4e is the best direction D&D ever went
I believe 5e is doomed to fail, from game designers both afraid of change, undoing everything that didn't match their own game of yesteryear and somehow thinking internet polls were a good choice for game design.
I think Cthulhutech has potential, if the mechanics weren't so forgettable and the writers didn't fetish fuel the setting.
I think Fantasy Flight makes average games, both restricted by the licenses they work with, whilst at the same time propped up by them.
I think Pathfinder is effectively 3.5, I look at the two as interchangeable no matter how loudly people tell me they're completely different games and one fixes all the problems of the other.
I think a player should feel powerful and important with their character, no matter what class they choose to play or role they choose to fill.
I think games are stronger for defined character roles in games.
I think the roleplaying has nothing to do with the mechanics of a system, unless a system wants to formalise social encounters like combat as a stepping stone from combat to roleplaying for new players.

I prefer weebs to furries, and a combination of both just makes me want to leave the table.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with how D&D and Pathfinder do hit points. Do you really want Players to have their Characters die to a lucky crossbow bolt?

I've been here for years. Been both a GM and a player, played online and in person, and have played most of the common RPGs at one time or another. I still don't know what rollplay vs roleplay means.

Rollplay - Rolling dice at every opportunity and relying on stats to solve problems

Roleplay - Rolling dice infrequently and relying more on players ability to act out their situations.

>Roleplay - Rolling dice infrequently and relying more on players ability to act out their situations.
This is why I bring a boffer sword to every game I'm in. Whenever the GM forces me to rely on my real-world conversational skills to succeed in-game, I start using my real-world GM-bopping skills to hit enemies in-game.

I still roleplay my actions, of course, but in the end it's definitely my character's skills that should determine success, not my own.

My favorite systems are FATE and GUMSHOE, though everything derived from Apocalypse World looks awesome as well.

Unknown Armies is better than either of the Mage games.

Every edition of D&D is absolute shit except 4e, which was an incredible tactical miniatures combat game but an awful roleplaying game. Steal settings from D&D and use them in better systems.

Crunch is anathema. Guve me narrativism or give me bust.

The only good World of Darkness game is Wraith. nWoD/CofD are a complete step up in every way.

I think the industry as a whole needs to work even harder on feminism, diversity, and queer representation in gaming.

>I think OpenSix and its rules-lite cousin MiniSix are literally the best RPGs for doing pretty much anything you want, because they're rules-lite enough and skill-based enough that anyone can learn them and pick it up super-easy, but also well-written, so I'm not tempted to fill in spots on minor stuff that bothers me like I sometimes want to with other rules-lite systems.

>The only "mechanics-heavy," system I like is M&M.

>I have effectively stopped having any kind of real fun with 40k, and can't remember what I saw in it with the exceptions of the ImpGuard's charm and Text-to-Speech.

>I think Numenera is a great idea, but Cook's desperate need to make unique mechanics ruined it because the Cypher System's reliance on basically being a 3.5 alternative makes it shit.

>3.5 and its Pathfinder derivative were doomed to fail because they were based on a style of roleplaying and a reliance on mechanics that really only exists because older grognards had no other options. They are always going to be doomed to fail, and I'm the only person in my circle of friends who feels this way so I can't really bring it up in conversation when games come up. It's almost destroyed my desire to play a game we've had going for a couple years now, and the only reason I stay is because I think our GM is a good storyteller.

>I think dungeon crawling is literally the worst thing to ever happen to gaming. It's a cancerous slaughterer of pacing. Your story grinds to a goddamned halt because you're too busy testing character stats instead of the characters themselves: a sign that you're a horrific GM who focuses more on the character sheets than the stories. It's boring, it relies too much on 3.5-styled grognard gameplay, and it's encouraged so many stereotypical gameplay habits that when our GM tried to do a plot-related dungeon (a mixed bag of successes and failures no matter how good a GM anyone is) a player honestly complained that there was no loot at the end.

Dwarves are boring.
Orcs deserve nothing but death
Elves are neat, and best the closer to Tolkien they get.
Drow are ok so long as they are not Drizzt clones.
Altmer are best mer

Artesia AKW. Many people called it clunky as hell, especially its exp system based on the major Arcana. I learned about Tarot cards before I found out about the comic and RPG. It didn't look so complex to me and I liked it a lot.

Seconding this

True that

Talisman is a fun game.

4e dnd is the most balanced edition of DND and fun to play. If it wasn't for a shitty monetization model and autistic players that hate any changes it would have been the best dnd system.

I like human-only settings. I think focusing on the "fantasy races," or bringing them in at all is basically cancerous to your world-building.

Tell me more pls

I actually agree. I really wish we could get more otherwise European fantasy settings without the mandatory inclusion of Elves and Dwarves.

Start D&D characters at 1st level. also: play D&D

>People mentioning Fate

I was never under the impression it was hated.

This. Probably not the best system for everything, but a fun one for classic fantasy games.
Also you can actually roleplay pretty good, if your DM is not completely brainless.

I approve of this. I think introducing orcs and halflings is usually just a poor substitute or shorthand for interesting plausible cultures.

The copy my friends and I played when I was younger was the one with the four side boards, and the 3D center board that leads to the Crown of Whatever... only it was missing the center board. We had no real end-game, so we ended up just playing it until we got bored and decided to stop. Still some of the most fun I've had with a board game.

Veeky Forums usually shits on rules-lite, but I don't think games don't need to be any more complicated than a small list of archetypes and a d6. These define your strengths, manage chance, and handle conflict resolution without relying entirely on GM-fiat. Everything beyond that is fluff.

I don't shit on rules-lite systems but their fans are often very obnoxious. They act like fanatics on the eternal crusade to destroy the crunch and punish infidels.

It's pretty simple, really. Some games just give you more concrete rules for running social conflicts. You have initiative and turns just like a normal fight, only you "attack" and "defend" with your social skills...

A good example of this is Mouse Guard (the only version of Burning Wheel I've read). The rules for social conflicts are literally the same as for any other conflict: your side and the opposing side(s) have a Disposition (HP), and you "attack", "defend", "feint", or "maneuver". In a social conflict, you might "attack" by presenting evidence of your claim or insulting an opponent, "defend" by having a counter-example ready or remaining unruffled by insults, "feint" by deliberately baiting your opponent into getting angry or slipping up, and "maneuver" by eliciting the support of onlookers or setting up a point that you'll revisit later. When you succeed at attacks, you reduce the target's Disposition... in a fight, this would be directly harming them or tiring them out, while in a social conflict, it instead represents shaming your opponent, reducing their social standing, or just changing their mind (or the mind of a third party) in a debate.

It's a really interesting take, actually.

Cool. Thank you

Oh fucking really, faggot? Tell us how to avoid it then. I got my card ready.

Its not ironic, and its not contrarian unless you assume asspained grognards are the norm (which, given we are on Veeky Forums is a fair misconception to hold but a misconception nonetheless).

4e was just good. Mechanically it was and still is the best DND, and the only one so far with something approaching real class balance and fun mechanics.

Just dont play with essentials. Fuck essentials.

Come on lets hear it, If I get responding to tone or team game I get a Bingo!

I don't see why Dragonborn catch such hate.
I have them as a core race in my fantasy heartbreaker, even though they're rare in most areas.
Warrior princesses are the shit, and -4 STR is pointless memery in fantasy settings. On the other hand, I don't like fetishy lady knights and 'the lady knight seduces the princess :^)'.
Martials need more nice things, period, and removing universal martial dice from 5e was a fucking travesty. Backgrounds were the best thing to happen to 5e, even though they didn't go far enough.

What setting doesn't require any fixes? I've played a ton and they ALL do.

PbtA is a legitimately interesting system that is infinitely fun to hack and allows for a great introduction to RPG games.

There are great RPGs in english. But european games are way better. French, spanish, german, swedish, finnish, italian... you name it. And you would never knew them but a dozen or so.
Learn some new languages and your options will increase.

>Veeky Forums occasionally got shit done and then shit the bed so hard by running off the only people who were creating content that was board relevant and has been rotting with /v/ garbage and e-celebs ever since.
Veeky Forums has e-celebs?

...Who?

Any system that only offers me choices from pre-determined options are just about always shit to me. I don't want to play one of your preconstructed 'archetypes' or read through pages and pages of lists, I'm creative enough to make my own concepts with their own flavor, and not be an overpowering cunt.

I understand the argument that being limited makes you more creative. But you could've had the exact same result without being limited. You're basically using training wheels.

I also understand the argument (which has been made in this thread a couple times actually) that the mechanics of any given system are wholly divorced from roleplay. But if you're using a system at all, then a large part of the expression of your character is in the mechanics, because you're going to spend a lot of the game working with them.

I guess that one's attached to another opinion: the way you interact with the system's mechanics is part of roleplaying. The two are not wholly separated. A luchador is going to express themself through mechanics differently than a wizard. Therefore, it is part of their identity and character.

Narrative and rules light systems are absolute garbage.

Me.

>Vancian casting is a perfectly fine magic system
>Lovecraft mythos is extremely overrated
>Fey are annoying and boring and adding their themes to elves only makes them worse
>I don't like the 3d6 bell curve
>40K is boring
>Warhammer fantasy is a good setting for wargaming but bad for P&P
>Tolkien's worldbuilding is to sterile
>only human settings are bland
>It's fine to call species orks, dwarves or elves even when they (by Veeky Forumss standards) aren't even that concept anymore
>It's fine to have 30 player races, or more.
>Beast races are ok

TwoDee, off the top of my head.

We are just fed up with shit like "eh, they're good only for a single game" m8

TwoDee, Shas'o R'myr and and a few others. I fail to see why popular name-fags are an issue, though, Shadowrun Storytime and Deffwotch were great.

Meant to reply to

Agreed. If you play with people who don't care too much about optimization it's actually a pretty solid system. On the flip playing with autists/optimizers like all of Veeky Forums seems to do is a quick way to hate the system.

I still like 5e more though.

You're right, that is unpopular. I'm some cases though, people try to role things that really should be rolled.

Agreed. If you're playing with people who are good at keeping a consistent character, it's not even a problem and makes it just more rewarding.

I like playing elves because (at least in my settings) they're a nice variant on humans. Many things in common, but still fantasy. Elf fighters>all

I also love beast races and hate that they've become so closely intertwined with the furry community. Catfolk and lizardfolk bestfolk. Special mention to rabbit/deerfolk and mothfolk.

Agreed. Rolling stats makes 0 sense from a game balance perspective (especially D&D which is designed around a relatively balanced party).

What IS fun, is to have the whole party roll a pool of stats, and have them take turns distributing them. You get to keep 1 of your rolls no matter what, so if you get an 18 you get to keep it. The fun of random, but balanced.

Agreed.

Agreed.

Fuck yes. Back in high school my band had a a huge megadungeon campaign running for three years. A little but if story here and there tying things together, it was like a whole world of underground adventuring fun.

>good, but not best
>depends on the type of game
>No
>Very much yes
>no
>meh
>meh
>No. Veeky Forums still gets shit done, just not shit you're interested in

Agreed. Nunenera is weird but it's an absolute blast. A very fun and different sort of fantasy.

Agreed.

Disagreed about nonhumans being bad by default, agreed about human only campaigns being fun.

Agreed.working on homebrew with 4 stats, no skills, no class

Agreed with everything: fantastic post.

Disagree. They're good at what they do; whether or not you like what they do is an entirely different thing.

Agreed with everything except the Warhammer fantasy RPG thing. I think it's a great setting, but then again I've never got to actually play a game set in it.

Everytime someone brings up Ironclaw it make me want sto run a Robin Hood-esque game.

>there's nothing wrong with playing a good Drow
>there's no bad RPG systems, just systems that aren't right for you
>dwarves can be deep, complex characters

What is Schrodinger's Wizard?

Been playing TMNT and Robotech for years. I like them.

Like what for example?

>there's no bad RPG systems, just systems that aren't right for you
FATAL.
>dwarves can be deep, complex characters
The only thing deep and complex about dwarves are their cavernous mountain homes.

paizo.com/threads/rzs2pq1k&page=1?Schrodingers-Wizard

Malefices, Aquelarre, In Nomine Satanis/Magna Veritas (the game that in USA was totally rewriten as In Nomine, the original is a dark humor game), any game by Croc (one of the best game designers in France), Pavillion Noir (great game about pirates).

>It's fine to have 30 player races, or more.
I think when you reach that point you might as well give a list of options for players to create their own races.

The only reason fantasy races are used is because people are uncomfortable assigning objective statistics to human ethnicities.

There is absolutely nothing wrong in playing a stereotype.

>Narrative indie games are the best thing that's happened to this hobby.

They're really not. They're a refreshing change of pace that pushes people who actually make games as opposed to community theater with create-your-own scripts to make better games.

Not only is this stupid, it's also wrong.
They come from the many stories of intelligent beings said to exist in legend.