Red flags

Granted, I use a volume-based inventory system and try to be semi-logical about storage in actual play. It just flows better. Then again, I mostly play Fallout. Worrying about this in a fantasy game and extrapolating that a game that doesn't do so couldn't possibly be even decent is absurd. Come to think of it, I probably just fell for a bait thread. Shit.

I was thinking more that human-only games are pretty much going to be /pol/ wankery. That, or a historical game, which usually means arm-chair generaling and historical misunderstandings.

viking campaigns where the players are top-tier warriors come to mind.

That, and historical games always have that one guy who wants to bring rape into the game, because "that's how the times were"
sometimes that's the GM.

>"that's how the times were"
So that shit didn't happen only to me, thank god
Small story time
>Respond to an add in LGS
>Me and two guys
>GM and his best friend are the hosts
>Do mission
>GM's bff says his character wants to go to a brothel
>We all say, ok, sounds nice, we're mercenaries who just got paid, drinking and fucking seems like a good investment
>GM's bff takes the lead
>"I want that girl"
>GM playing the madam "Yes of course"
>GM's bff starts describing how he fucks her right there, in the middel of the brothel, very descriptive, humiliating her, tapping every orifice, etc
>Starts choking her during climax
>Girl begs for mercy
>GM's bff stops, says he was jesting
>As the girl gets up GM's bff beheads her
>Pays double for the time to the madam
>Madam says "till next time"
>GM explains us how in medieval times whores were less than objects and when you paid for them you could do whatever you wanted with them
The rest of the players suddenly remembered we left the oven on and slowly walked away without avoiding eye contact

>ITT: GMs who can't enforce common sense

seriously, guys, it's not like you *need* mechanics to handle everything. Sometimes it's just a matter of discussing with your players and determine what is ok and what is not. Why do people depend so heavily on written rules is beyond me.

Yeah. Mine was a lot more tame than that, but still not something I wanted to deal with.

>players are a roving band of actual knights and hedge knights
>while passing through the territory of some nomads in a knock-off of southeastern europe, one of the players breaks off from the group
>he rides over to where the nomads are, who start fleeing on his approach. Apparently mounted strangers have a bad reputation in that land
>asks the GM to point out the best looking woman among the nomads, saying "she's probably the one in charge, who'd know their leader the best"
>GM is cool with it, has him roll spot, points one out with long straight hair
>That Guy rolls to grapple
>as in, he wants to grab the woman, sling her over his horse, and kidnap her
>uh, okay
>does so
>brings her back to camp
>turns out none of us speak her language
>later while bedding down for the night, he tells the GM he wants to strip and lie with the woman. Never mind that they can't speak the same language.

the GM shut him down on that, but the player in question wasn't seen in the same light since. He left the group after a few sessions.

...

Making changes to NSR systems in an attempt to get an OSR feel, or vice versa.

Attempting to use a system for something it wasn't intended for, like D&D for pike and shot combat.

realism is for people with no imagination

>laughing_Stanislavsky.jpg
>hell, laughing Russian golden age lit authors in general

I'm sorry Vladimir the salad bar is back at reddit

...

>Gaston memes

that's a big red flag.

I like low fantasy too.

But not all systems are made for low fantasy.

>encumbrance rules
Usually not worth the trouble of remembering/calculating them. In harder/low fantasy maybe.

>mounts
I blame players. But also usually not worth it.

>gold standard
Easy enough to just call everything once gold as silver and make peasants refuse to deal in currency since it's worthless to them.

>item durability
Way too much effort to calculate every time someone gets hit.

>mental powers
Don't like Psionics?

>enemies by name
Outside of 1st or 2nd level, all but really uncommon enemies should be identifiable on sight.

>humans taking damage
Damage and HP are highly abstracted.

>high mobility miniatures
Miniatures have no impact on high mobility

>anachronistic governments
No such thing as anachronistic in most fantasy settings since it isn't earth, but even then so long as infrastructure allows it, any government type can exist.

>naval vessels
But all three exist at the same time in RL.

>Helmets
Love me some helmets, but most games straight up tell you that a helmet is included in the armor sets.

>visor
Not a significant mechanical difference needed.

2/10, made me respond.

I can actually agree with pretty much all of this; they aren't prerequisites of a good time as such (especially if playing with newbies), but a mature group should be doing all of this.

Tldr version
>not playing GURPS

Funny thing:
I agree that those are bad things.
But, they're like "having a scuffed aglet on your shoelace" level bad.
Not a red flag, not even a flag, barely a blip.

This was an obvious joke, but it is true and made me laugh.

Not red flags, but they do get to me just a little.

>encumbrance
I like OSR ways of handling it. One number represents a combination of weight, volume, and general portability. Inventory tracking is little more than counting up inventory items, deciding "is this a big item, or a small one", and comparing the total to a small encumbrance table. For gold, quantities less than 1,000 are considered a "small" item, while if it's more, each thousand is a big item.

>mounts
A proper encumbrance system should be plenty of encouragement for players to use mounts, retainers, and other beasts of burden. If they don't learn, then I get to watch them squirm trying to figure out what loot to take home and what to leave. It's a win-win really.

>item damage
I want to, but I have not yet seen good rules for it.

>helmets
On one hand, I want to do the helmets thing. On the other hand, it would make me feel like a dick.

Last time I did that I was put on the sex offenders register.

This.

/thread

While I wouldn't call them red flags, I think op is correct in worrying about them.
Even though I think he is not serious.

>encountered enemies are introduced by name, be it as orcs or cultists, instead of describing them physically and giving any party member who would be familiar with them test Knowledge or equivalent

I've never actually considered doing this for my players, would actually make their knowledge checks a lot more important. Thanks, OP. The rest of your stuff is mostly around realism which, perhaps your GM doesn't do, but quite a few out there do try and have some semblance of realism, the amount of which of course depends on the setting™.

>Human, dwarf, elf characters
>and the Gnoll character

My group are not autistic so I leave the realism to be implied, the only physically weak character is the alchemost/wizard but even them he's an experienced roleplayer and carries what he can. It's never an issue because my group are relatively intelligent human beings that respect each other enough not to take the piss with ballistic strapped to their backs.

>>encumbrance rules are not in use
I deeply, deeply hope our DM never takes a look at my PC's carrying capacity, my little fucker should not be able to move

>>inventory size is not limited by volume
Eh, no guidelines for it for the most part and seems too autistic, as long as you're not trying to shove something blatantly bigger than you are in a fanny pack it shouldn't be an issue

>>Bags of holding are not held to these rules either
See above

>>the GM has not modified carry weight rules to be within reasonable standards
See above

>>the party is allowed to carry all of their gear into combat without penalty. Bedrolls, pots and pans, you name it. And not as improvised weapons either.
You'd be surprised how uncumbersome a well packed pack is, this is actually pretty realistic if they know what they're doing

>>mounts are not strongly encouraged for traveling
Never traveled far enough for this to be an issue

>>the economy is not based in copper and silver, but the transfer of gold coins for most items
Most fantasy settings seem to have a much higher concentration of gold than the real world, this is realistic

>>no limits are put on how much money can be physically carried
This is covered by weight

>>items carried cannot receive damage
Never came up

>>the GM doesn't understand how weapon hardness and sundering attacks interact, and gives the party adamantine weapons too early
Never came up

>>any sort of mental power is in play
What's the issue here?

>>encountered enemies are introduced by name, be it as orcs or cultists, instead of describing them physically and giving any party member who would be familiar with them test Knowledge or equivalent
We usually know what we're going to encounter (local animals, the orcs/worgs we're hunting), the one exception we did roll for it (a drider)

1/2

>>there is no system to determine what the character is holding in his hands, or where he set any held objects down
?????
The former is assumed by item slots and weapon/item drawing rules, the latter doesn't seem to need a system

>>normal human characters are able to survive more damage than they should
PCs aren't normal, N/A

>>the GM is attempting to run a "highly mobile action game" within a miniatures system
?????????

>>any anachronistic elements are built into the setting, especially types of government
Eh, actually necessary for players to remain sympathetic to the world, not to mention this implies a level of autism/research that would be off putting for or wasted on a table top game
Additionally you have to consider how the fantasy elements would affect the world's development
What seems anachronistic may not be so aligning a fantasy world and the real world's development on a 1:1 ratio or even assuming that they will take the paths is something only an idiot unwilling to put any thought in his setting would assume

>>naval vessels make an instant transition between rowed vessels, sailing vessels, and screw-driven vessels
Never came up, also see above

>>helmets are not considered as the most important part of armor, and given appropriate descriptions as such
I would like you to cite your reasons for this

>>no distinction is made for a character opening or closing the visor of his helmet
This can be assumed, but more detail on character action is always good

2/2

Yeah, that's the best way to do it. Most systems are bogged down in rules anyway. Mutual understanding between the GM and players to not take it too far or try to cheese makes playing a lot more fun.

In Fantasy Craft you can actually use one as a melee weapon if you're a big enough guy.

I wonder if it could be fun to write out an in universe bestiary.

make up a ton of creatures that can be identified in various ways.

Maybe a using some kind of monster generator and then printing the text out, and then handing a ton of papers to a player character, telling him this is a bestiary you brought with you from the magical college or whatever.

Then when something appears it's up to that player character to see if he recognizes the creature described from his bestiary.
Maybe say that he can't bring it out as a free action during fights.

>That's 20 lbs and at least four feet in length.
If my time in boy scouts taught me anything, with enough rope you could lash something that size to a young boy's pack and have him hike several miles with not too much discomfort much less a grown adventurer's
Also fire, the scouts taught me the joys of fire

>That, or a historical game, which usually means arm-chair generaling and historical misunderstandings.
Oh god, you just summed my deep, deep hatred of DMs that try to make things realistic in one sentence

Is that just in relation to others present, or just in general?

>GM makes us roll perception to see a large object like a building or a hill.
>GM claims to "do some balancing" after we use our standard kits to take care of an encounter that was way above our level.
>GM allows mages to run a train on everything he throws at us but gets mad when the Barbarian rolls over 30 damage for his attack.
>GM tells us that we're doing a custom setting that's based on an existing property, claims that we're playing in an era that's not represented in the original property, but we still meet not!versions of the protagonists or important figures.
>Forces us to roll diplomacy/persuasion/etc. rather than allowing us to roleplay a diplomatic discussion out.
>Gives every important NPC an inflated CHA/WIS so will never be able to convince them to do anything.
>Then gets mad when nobody ever bothers to roleplay and just decides to murderfuck our way to the top of the political food chain.
>Introduces a catch 22 for the Paladin and forces him to fall within the first three sessions.

>I was thinking more that human-only games are pretty much going to be /pol/ wankery.

What an absurd generalisation.

Who the hell gave you the right to declare that preferring less fantastical games makes you a right wing nutcase?

Not him, but experience unfortunately

for you

There's nothing worse than playing a game with a dude who THINKS he knows about history, only to create a setting that's based off of the romanticized versions of old world cultures, except everyone's really racist and really rape happy to woman because "that's how things were back in the day."

kek

Those are like the kind of red flags you get if you've been seriously, badly burned by someone before. For anyone else, the stuff you're talking about would actually be a hindrance to a fun game, since now the archer can't carry more than thirty arrows into a long and dangerous dungeon.

>gary gygax

>What's the issue here?

By "mental power" I assume OP is talking about mind control abilities. Probably a player agency thing?

>dnd problems the post