Why is Veeky Forums so bad at assessing RPG?

I see this shit time and time again. People looking at an RPG system and attempting to dismiss awful game design as a concern with 'The GM can fix it' or 'The system doesn't matter'.

It's fucking infuriating. Good game design matters precisely because it means a GM doesn't have to fix stuff. A good, well designed system gives the GMs the tools they need to make running the game easier and to support its premise. Not having to waste time wrangling with a shitty ruleset means a GM is more free to focus on running the game.

It's the stupid idea that a bad rule isn't bad if it can be fixed or worked around. The very fact that it needs to be fixed or worked around is what makes it a bad rule. If a system is making the GM work even harder to run the game, forcing them to jump through hoops or fix things on the fly, then it's a bad system.

This still applies even if you've gotten used to it. A good GM can learn to run a bad system well, but all the investment it takes doesn't stop it being a bad system.

This all coexists with the caveat that a system being bad doesn't mean it's impossible to have fun in it. Roleplaying games are primarily social experiences, the people you're playing with are going to provide you with a lot of fun anyway, but it's all about whether the system is a useful tool or a cumbersome burden on the GM and the group as a whole.

Almost all systems have elements of both, useful and shitty elements, but it's the balance of them which is key for saying whether a system is good or bad, alongside other things like mechanical tone, degree of options, character distinction and player choice.

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app.roll20.net/lfg/listing/65144/of-dragons-and-yet-more-dragons
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Nice blog post.

Excuse me while I go and have badwrongfun playing 5e with my group of friends.

So you didn't read the post then, got it.

Because people would rather be right than correct.

D&D is popular. Popular things can't be bad.
D&D takes a long time to learn. Learning another system for comparison must take just as long and isn't worth the effort.
D&D is expensive. If it was bad, I would have wasted a lot of money, time and effort. That can't be.

And yes, I know this is not limited to D&D, but it's a very good example.

Part of your error here is that you assume what you see as a problem is a problem for other people. What you think of as a negative others may see as a positive.

Are there truly bad systems out there? Ones that really don't work? Sure, those went out of business. By and large if a system is still in business your complaints likely have more to do with personal preference than anything else.

Tell us of the wonderful system that has none of the problems you speak of? The one that is objectively 'good' with nothing that anyone else would feel is broken. That system that objectively has a rules system that everyone will agree makes running the game easier.

As an example to the contrary, I really don't like 3.pf stuff. But I recognize that the very things I don't like about it are things that other players (and a lot of players) like about the system. That doesn't make them wrong, it just means we don't agree on what we want out of play.

Could you cite specific examples of "Veeky Forums" making these statements?

I did. Your article is completely self-defeating.

You spend the first half explaining that bad rules and mechanics are bad and that they shouldn't be considered good because they can be edited by the GM.

You spend the second half explaining that games are a social experience and that fun can still be had if a bad system is run by a good GM, etc, completely defeating the first half of the argument. Then you finish up by saying games have both good and bad elements, further undermining the points you made in the first half.

And overall, the point you're trying to make is "People shouldn't invest their time learning bad systems they're just going to have to fix later."

The problem is that you're yelling at the crowd that has already invested time in learning a system, so it's just easier to fix the system we know than spend the effort trying to find the One True System that works as-is, then invest time into learning that.

I've heard some of the stuff. Typically it is in response to someone theory crafting a problem and the response is 'no reasonable GM is going to allow that'.

It mostly is just a problem on places like tg or in places where an rpg is treated more like a competitive table top pvp miniatures game. Taking your 40k rules lawyering player competitive attitude to an rpg sort of thing.

Talk to 2hu some day.

It seems like it's only a problem for you.

>And overall, the point you're trying to make is "People shouldn't invest their time learning bad systems they're just going to have to fix later."

I agree with your evaluation of the post. But I really got more of a 'stop liking what I do not like' vibe from the entire thing. That gets tossed around as an accusation all the time. But I have rarely seen a more honest expression of it than in OPs post.

Completely outside of personal preference you can assess a system based on how well it executes its own premise. When a system tells you it is designed to work a certain way, but doing so requires the GM to ignore or modify the rules, you can point to it as an example of bad game design.

3.PF is a classic example. It tells you that it is a system suitable for running fantasy adventures with a varied cast of characters where everyone gets to be a hero, but RAW the class imbalance means that some players can easily end up feeling entirely superfluous and irrelevant to the actual events playing out.

While a GM can fix this, the conflict between what the game claims to do and what the rules as written accomplish can be pointed to as bad game design.

I'm not sure I understand your statement.

What did you see as 'my problem'? I didn't think I had expressed that I had a problem with anything.

Ah I see. So in other words what you're telling me is that this is just another thread where OP bases all his opinions one 3.PF, and tries to apply it to every other game system?

>You spend the second half explaining that games are a social experience and that fun can still be had if a bad system is run by a good GM, etc, completely defeating the first half of the argument. Then you finish up by saying games have both good and bad elements, further undermining the points you made in the first half.

Except not at all? The difference seems pretty self-evident.

A good GM running a bad system can create a good experience, at the cost of a lot more work, effort and difficulty on their part.

Alternatively, a good GM running a good system can create a good experience with significantly less effort on their part.

It's not about bad wrong fun, it's about being willing to acknowledge faults and flaws in systems honestly and not dismissing them out of hand. There's nothing wrong with putting in the effort to make a bad system work if that's what you want to do, but being aware of the systems issues is going to make the job of doing so significantly easier for you.

No system is perfect and all systems have flaws. It's the degree to which those flaws affect the ordinary player experience which is important. Honestly informing people about what they're getting into both helps them understand the system, prepares them for the work it might take and helps them get over those initial hurdles that might get in the way of their enjoyment.

A lot of the systems I love are very flawed, but I consider it very important to always present the known flaws honestly and directly whenever I'm recommending the system to anyone, rather than trying to act like the flaws don't exist or aren't a factor.

>3.PF is a classic example. It tells you that it is a system suitable for running fantasy adventures with a varied cast of characters where everyone gets to be a hero, but RAW the class imbalance means that some players can easily end up feeling entirely superfluous and irrelevant to the actual events playing out.

So it is hard for me to defend 3.pf, I don't like the system or the type of play it generates. I got to disagree though with your statement. Because a lot of people are having exactly the type of fun you describe.

And it would appear that in most of those games the DM isn't changing the rules in total by any means. I would suggest that there is a difference between someone theory crafting a character and a situation and what is usually a more common functional situation during a game.

Why not pick an example that isn't just going to derail your thread to "lol martials versus casters"? How about the fact that CR is a useless mechanic that'll lead to boring curb-stomps and TPKs if you trust it? Or the plethora of trap options designed solely for people to feel smart when they avoid them? Needlessly complicated sub-systems bolted onto the primary mechanics instead of making everything work as a unified whole? Dead levels and weird combos encouraging jumping around from class to class like a drunken grasshopper rather than coming up with a coherent character? So much to choose from that will rehash a slightly different old argument rather than the one we're constantly having.

Of course not. It's just the easiest and simplest example, there are plenty others.

Exalted 2e claiming to do high action dramatic combat but RAW ending up as a clunky mess of mote attrition and rocket tag is another good example. Again it was fixable, but the effort it took to do so, oversight from the GM, tweaking rules and double checking player sheets, is a clear and well known flaw in the system.

Ooh! I'm not even going to read this. You're another one of those autistic fucks who feels their point is right, but they've spent time doing enough research that they can and will write lengthy arguments to drive their point home.

The rest of this thread is just going to be trolls who take jabs at you trying to see who can get the bigger rant because you'll reply to every single post that disagrees with you.

People play Pathfinder because it's great for lewd games, just check out /pfg/:

A fair point. Those are also excellent examples of a system failing to achieve what it claims to.

>Oh no, someone is making an actual argument!
>I'll mock them for doing so rather than engage with their point

You talk like every player knows half a dozen systems, and the DM can just pick the best for the story.
It's not like that. Most people have played only 1 system in their lives, the majority of those that hit 2 have played 2 different D&Ds.
Then you have the ones that have tried a dozen or more, and read up on who knows how many, that end up foreverDMs.

People will play a familiar system before one that is not.

Since I'm rambling, just like you are, and have no point, what are the rpg systems that you think are closer to the ideal perfect system?

It's not even that. I'm not going to waste my time arguing with someone who refuses to see logic. Let's just chalk it up to not wanting to invest my time learning a game that I won't have fun in because of the faulty mechanics.

>Makes assertions
>Refuses to back up or defend them
>Claims to have logic on their side

>what are the rpg systems that you think are closer to the ideal perfect system?
I am curious as well.

>Has to reply to every post.

There's no singular perfect ideal RPG system, it's all about how well the system executes its own premise and how well it supports the GM.

There are crunchier systems like Reign, Riddle of Steel/Song of Swords or Legends of the Wulin which have their own issues but have a solid reputation as executing their premise well, but have their own degree of mechanical clunk. From what I've seen Ex3 likely falls into this category too.

Some of the best examples I've seen are actually incredibly focused lighter games. Things like Maid RPG for zany comedy or Don't Rest Your Head for self-destructive horror. It's probably easier with a lighter game, but it's still impressive at how all the mechanics they have contribute towards their premise.

It's likely not possible to be quite as focused and precise in a larger, crunchier game, but it's still a worthwhile principle to appreciate in RPG design.

Nothing about Pathfinder is conducive to lewd games, it just has the largest playerbase of autististic weeaboos.

You are right OP. Saying that a RPG isn't bad by pointing to rule zero is dumb. See the Oberoni Fallacy. What would be constructive would be to actually specifically say HOW you can fix bad RPGs, especially if you can point to a blog post or a PDF with some detailed house rules. Handwaving everything by just saying DIY is just wrong.

>Most people have played only 1 system in their lives, the majority of those that hit 2 have played 2 different D&Ds.
...for you

Has this ever been confirmed outside of the board? For all we know it could just be the 5 autists on /pfg/

Though to be fair, I do direct Fetishposters there because it's become Perverted Fantasy General more than anything else, and works well as a containment board for degenerates.

>autistic weeaboos
Autistic weeaboos obsessed with ERP, I think /pfg/ has like 4 "lewd" campaigns now.

app.roll20.net/lfg/listing/65435/rise-of-the-jade-regent
>Lewds will ideally be kept in private channels (or at least out of the main channel), though some events may occur in the main channel as appropriate to the situation. Examples are lewd traps and the occasional lewd monster. The general depravity level will be decided on by the group as a whole.

app.roll20.net/lfg/listing/62955/slash-pfg-slash-hells-vengeance
>As for "lewdness" in the main game, that decision will be up to the players, though I expect it will range somewhere between Empowered on the tame end of the scale, with Bible Black on the absolute furthest ends (more than likely somewhere in the middle). Anything that would be beyond the chosen setting will be need to go into its own chat, should it occur. By and large, Hell and its denizens will be taking on a bit more of a "Sex, Drugs, and Rock'n'Roll" bent to it than it has in canon Golarion, while the forces of Good will swing towards the prudish and puritanical end of the spectrum.

app.roll20.net/lfg/listing/65144/of-dragons-and-yet-more-dragons
>Lewd content should be, as a guideline, only a footnote in your character creation, with a hard maximum of 40% lewd. Lewd content in game should be suggestive at most. With anything extra handled after the game.

app.roll20.net/lfg/listing/65518/a-fluffy-fairy-tale-2-electric-boogaloo
>There will be lewds! Your foxgirl can go topless and rub her tits on a cute daoine sidhe wolfboy, but if you want sex, take it somewhat private, kay? You can post an F-List profile in your app if you want! Keep in mind this is a kemonomimi game, not a furry game.

app.roll20.net/join/1803693/cj7W9A
And this one has real ERP "on screen" in it, go check the chat logs.

*5, not 4

So, the usual suspects.
I'd throw in Munchausen too, it's a fun little way to pre-game a campaign and have the players build a common backstory.

>Veeky Forums is bad a traditional games

yo tru

I'm not sure if I'd even call Munchhausen an RPG, but it is a fantastic bit of design work that I truly adore.

To be fair, the Dragons campaign looks like it could be tastefully done. For context, the final boss will be Dragon Queen from Towergirls. Still degenerate though, just mildly interesting.

If you have the luck of having a playgroup that doesn't follow that pattern...
you're lucky.
You should be a gambler.

Being fair, you've provided no evidence that your statement is broadly true while his only applies to a certain niche. Unfortunately there isn't really any hard evidence to back things up either way.

You're right, and I can't provide any evidence other than personal experience, that might not be true past the city borders, if that.
We could do a quick worthless poll, tho.
Was your experience any different?

It has been, but that might just be confirmation bias and the way social groups tend to work. Because I'm interested in a lot of different games I only really know people who play lots of different games, and while I've met people who monofocus I tend to not play with them as much. Meanwhile, if I was the sort of person to only play one or two games I can see it having the opposite effect, of bringing me together with other like minded people and rapidly parting ways even if they bump into and share a game with someone like me.

Pathfinder also has an odd relationship with the furry community, with some official content tailored more to them (The PF Kitsune are a prime example) than the actual myths they're base don.

You seem bizarrely obsessed with other peoples ERP

it's subjective, OP

How do you mean?

it depends from GM to GM what they want to get out of a game/system. as such, the amount of tweaking required changes too.

But that isn't the point?

If you don't understand something, you have the choice of either sucking it up and learning, or pretending it doesn't matter because the goalposts are actually over THERE.

The latter is easier, and more immediately satisfying.

And plenty of shitty designers have encouraged that kind of behaviour, to defend their incompetence. Catalyst, WotC, Paizo - the same kind of disingenuous assertions that flawed mechanics are actually good and black is white and you should buy the next splatbook because it'll totally fix things.

but that makes it harder to label a system as objectively bad

It can be reasonably assumed that what a GM wants out of a system is what the system claims to offer.
That some GMs insist on using a fantasy dungeon crawling system for a political space opera game has no bearing on the quality of said system.

>Good game design matters precisely because it means a GM doesn't have to fix stuff.
Most games are going to be 'good' in this way to a healthy cross-section of players, though. Different groups have different concerns and put their weight on different aspects of games.
That's a contributing element to why it's so subjective, to a point.

And part of that sits with how the GM manages the pace--that's not even an issue of a bandaid solution like you're arguing against; different sorts of games work better with different narrative rhythms, different ways of directing attention and emphasis.

>It can be reasonably assumed that what a GM wants out of a system is what the system claims to offer.
Eh, not really. Lots of games get twisted for different usage.

True
Right now my group is using DH2e for general sci-fi setting and it is working well, even with refluffed influence.

>People looking at an RPG system and attempting to dismiss awful game design as a concern with 'The GM can fix it' or 'The system doesn't matter'.

They don't want to have to learn something new, and for their purposes, it is just as good.

Oh hey, it's that asshole from the other day. Have you been able to give any examples of what you are talking about? No?

OK, I just thought your argument wasn't based around imaginary systems.

There's a difference between a system that's bad but the GM can fix with little effort, and a system so bad the GM can't fix it without effectively rewriting it into something else. When people say the GM can fix a problem, they don't mean that it's not a problem, they mean that it's not a fatal problem.

Honestly, I've reached the point where I don't even think "lol martials versus casters" is as significant an issue as the others you highlighted.

Dead levels aren't really an example of bad mechanics, because they do serve their purpose - especially with classes where things already scale. Truly dead levels were rare, but the multiclassing rules largely counteracted the effects of those levels.

As far as trap mechanics go, the mechanics for traps are the best example I've seen - nobody uses the damn things because they are so clunky and designed to discourage PCs from setting traps. The easiest fix I've found was partial crafting - where you could repurpose other finished goods into the craft expense. For instance, if you are walking around with 20 spears, and you want to make a punji trap, and you find a hole in the ground, you stick the spears in the hole and you are basically done for a single-shot punji trap. But how much time that takes and how much damage it does and all that is enormously ad hoc, which takes time away from actual playing.

Which is bad.

Honestly, I'd like to use examples that aren't from 3rd.5.pf but first, they'd have to stop being examples.

Trap options are options for character building that turn out to suck really bad, not options to build traps.

It's not based around imaginary systems user. It's based around 3.PF, everyone's Scapegoat whenever they want to argue system choice with anyone. You can argue any flaw into 3.5 and Pathfinder.

So? You can't judge a hammer by how well it tightens nuts.

>Dead levels aren't really an example of bad mechanics, because they do serve their purpose - especially with classes where things already scale. Truly dead levels were rare, but the multiclassing rules largely counteracted the effects of those levels.

Which is the problem. Dead levels are fine in a single class progression but cause problems when 3.X style multiclassing exists. The 3.X Fighter ended up being a 2/4/6 level dip because +1 BAB and a d10 hp (level 3 also gave +1 to all saves) are pretty crap benefits from gaining a level when you could get far more from taking a single level in another class.>As far as trap mechanics go, the mechanics for traps are the best example I've seen

Trap choices are things that look good and/or useful to a new player but are actually not as good/useful as they appear at first glance. The 3.X Toughness Feat (+3 hp) is a good example, but direct damage spells would be another harder to identify example in the game.

I think you misunderstood. He's saying the literal trap mechanics are in his opinion the best example of a figurative trap option -- IE if you put effort into giving your character the ability to build traps, you're going to have a terrible time because the mechanics will punish you for trying to use them.

What you see as a flaw, others see as a way to show off their epeen via system mastery and being able to make bigger numbers pop up on screen.

It's the 1984 principle: everyone is equal and having ok amounts of fun is LESS of a draw than few people having fun but some people by dint of effort and memorisation of pointless rules, can have more of that limited fun than others and then rub their fun in all the other not fun having players, who will buy up lots more pointless rules so they can have slightly more fun by making the bigger numbers too.

Skinner boxes inherently appeal to capitalist mindsets and just sell better. A perfectly balanced game won't drive this sort of self-destructive antipathy to fellow players since it'd be easy to build a balanced character.

Except for the other examples given in this thread that people are ignoring because it torpedoes their assertions it's all about 3.PF

>No Pictures
>No Examples
>Just bitching

OP is a faggot

Everyone arguing with him would have more fun in other threads

>What you see as a flaw, others see as a way to show off their epeen via system mastery and being able to make bigger numbers pop up on screen.

There are ways to allow for that without trap options and dead levels. There is a different between choosing between an ok option and a good option and choosing between a bad option and a great option. Both show system mastery but the second can break the system.

I could give Ronin and Minor Clan Schools as examples of trap options in L5R 4e.

Yes, exactly!

I tried making a trap master once, and it sucked. Enormously. The only thing worse that I've found was truenamer.

The 3.X fighter had its own problems, namely, that it was a vehicle for feat acquisition, and nothing more. The various ACFs offered in later development almost gave it a class-like scaffolding, with enough features to be worth the smallest of prestige classes. If they had removed the feat tax from the game, and made feats actually impressive, rather than mother-may-I arguments or blatant slaps in the player's face (like toughness), then it might have been worthwhile. As it is, don't blame dead levels or multiclassing for fighter being worthless - it's worthless because it is a vehicle for dispensing feats, not because it has moments where it doesn't even do that.

3.x toughness is an abomination, and whoever came up with that should be shot.

On the other hand, direct damage spells at least do what they intend to do - they apply hit point damage on the enemies. It's just that hit points don't actually reduce enemy capability as long as they have one left - which makes them worse than anything that can be used to shape combat in a reasonable fashion.

Desufampai, I'd really like to bitch about other systems, like Exalted 2e, because Exalted has a lot of issues in its combat system, but I've never slammed my face into those issues.

Additionally, all WoD games have built in the expectation that you will fail at some point, no matter how ridiculously competent you become, without actually warning anyone about that anywhere. This built-in possibility of failure isn't really discussed, but having it also affect initiative in a game that is basically rocket-tag means that players either get terrified of combat, or build superheroes with fangs just in case the storyteller decides somebody pulls a gun during feeding.

Shadowrun has those issues too, but in that system, those are features, not bugs.

You have brain problems.
Eat your pills m8 and stop whining that nobody near you want to play your shitty systems.

>The 3.X fighter had its own problems, namely, that it was a vehicle for feat acquisition, and nothing more. The various ACFs offered in later development almost gave it a class-like scaffolding, with enough features to be worth the smallest of prestige classes. If they had removed the feat tax from the game, and made feats actually impressive, rather than mother-may-I arguments or blatant slaps in the player's face (like toughness), then it might have been worthwhile. As it is, don't blame dead levels or multiclassing for fighter being worthless - it's worthless because it is a vehicle for dispensing feats, not because it has moments where it doesn't even do that.

Dead Levels, insufficient skill points, crappy feats, feat taxes, class features disguised as feats, being a feat dispenser, diminishing returns on additional attacks are all problems the base 3.X Fighter suffers from. Just because the class suffers from a large number of problems does not mean that Dead Levels isn't one of them.

Dead Levels are a sign of bad design as it makes players ask why the level is even there. A class with 19 "dead" levels and a crazy good capstone at level 20 does not make for a good class.

>A class with 19 "dead" levels and a crazy good capstone at level 20 does not make for a good class.
This is a strawman of an argument - the closest thing to that is the Healer class, where you get free gates at level 20. That has class features and it does stuff.

My point about dead levels (there are almost never truly dead levels given scaling abilities, and the system allows you to ignore those by multiclassing) still holds. You object to frankenbuilds, where the PC is a bunch of abilities stitched together out of dozens of different classes. While that is a fair objection, it misses the idea that class and character aren't the same thing - you don't need to have levels of aristocrat to be an aristocrat, just to be a useless drain (Dragonlance Aristocrat excepted).

Those aren't all of the problems 3.X fighter suffers from - inadequate damage growth, inability to fulfill its stated goals, gear dependency rather than class dependency, extreme redundancy, poor growth in general, the shackles of the action economy, and even the wondrous nature of magic vs. the mundanity of the fighter's limits. Those are all further flaws.

I'd say that "dead" levels are more indicative of a design philosophy that allows for abilities or class features to be "taxes" a character must pay to get something nice. So while your example of 19 "dead" levels and a crazy good capstone is a poor approach, an example of 10 "dead" levels with an ability after each seems more tolerable, so long as that ability is commensurate to two whole levels. Something like flight in 3.X would be; a feat would not be.

I'm sorry, I'm saying that Dead Levels are a potential symptom of poor design, rather than being an indicator or act of poor design. I find them tolerable, so long as the aren't cloying.

>On the other hand, direct damage spells at least do what they intend to do
If by that you mean they were severely nerfed due to dealing with 2-3x enemy HP while doing the exact same amount of damage as before unless you want to use a higher level spell slot via metamagic, I guess.

>This is a strawman of an argument - the closest thing to that is the Healer class, where you get free gates at level 20. That has class features and it does stuff.

Its a hyperbolic example not a strawman. Its illustration of the problem with an obviously exaggerated example.

>You object to frankenbuilds, where the PC is a bunch of abilities stitched together out of dozens of different classes.

I'm not objecting to frankenbuilds. I consider it bad class design when frankenbuilding can lead to outright superior characters because of quirks in the multi-classing system and poorly designed classes with levels where the gain from multi-classing far exceeds the gains from single-classing.

Most 3.X classes were designed for single-classing where "dead" levels are a potential balancing mechanism but the system includes level-by-level multi-classing which ends up messing things up.

In theory, a Fighter 6 should be roughly equal to a Fighter 2/Barbarian 2/Ranger 2, but due to how the multi-classing system works the multi-classed character has one or more "abilities" (classifying a free Feat as an ability) per level, +4 Fort, +1 Reflex and 12 Skill points over the Fighter 6 at the cost of -2 Will.

Level-by-level multi-classing tends to have fewer problems when a system lacks dead levels.

So, first off, I feel a need to state that I'm not being dismissive of your opinion, but that I feel we disagree on relative strengths of systems.

>I consider it bad class design when frankenbuilding can lead to outright superior characters because of quirks in the multi-classing system
The specific quirk that makes that overwhelmingly superior in your mind is the lack of fractional BAB/Save accumulation - which was presented as optional rules almost immediately, because the fine happy people at WotC noticed that some numbers were going up a lot faster than they expected - nobody was planning for 1 level dips across the board when they came up with the base saves. While that was an obvious failing on the part of the game designers, I don't think

>poorly designed classes with levels where the gain from multi-classing far exceeds the gains from single-classing.
This reads like you are saying that dabbling in several fields should never make a better character than specializing in one action or role. I'll admit, there is a huge disparity between your two example builds, but I'd argue the disparity lies largely in the Fighter 2/Barbarian 2/Ranger 2 actually having a class feature or two lying around, just waiting to be used, as well as the 12 skill points, as Barbarian and Ranger being better vehicles than Fighter - not being a problem of dead levels, but being a problem of the Fighter being a piece of shit.

Compare classes actively penalized for multiclassing, such as Wizard and Cleric. Is a Wizard 3/Cleric 3 anywhere near as good as a Wizard 6 or a Cleric 6? The problem here isn't saves, or skills, or even abilities - it's that spell slots are better than anything else in the game. Never mind that Wizards are all dead levels after 5th, but for spell slots.

>Level-by-level multi-classing tends to have fewer problems when a system lacks dead levels.
Or if the dead levels preceed the powerful abilities they make up for, which is generally the case in 3.x

>wulin good

nope

you're right, it isn't just good. It's fucking fantastic.

No system is perfect and even a system that's well-designed for your group's style of play may not work as well with my group. With that said, some systems are more flawed than others, and just because you can fix a bad rule doesn't mean that the system containing it wouldn't be better if the rule didn't need fixing. But the idea that tweaking any rules is a sign of a bad system is simply unrealistic. And a further level to things is how easily tweaked the rules are. I'm typically willing to accept more flaws an easily-modified rules-light system than in a rules-heavy one because it's much easier to add and change things in the first case. So really, it's the amount of effort you have to put into changing things (and how well they work after you've changed them).

Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that if somebody is screaming about how horrible a system is because of one particular aspect that's easily fixed, I'm not going to be very sympathetic to his point of view. Yes, it is a flaw. Yes, the system would be better if it weren't there. But if you can easily make a tweak and have things work well, then it's not a big deal. Just as long as you can convince other people to go along with the tweak, anyway. That is a concern.

PF is way too crunchy to be ideal for lewd games. Lewd doesn't need that much crunch. It just gets in the way.

Tldnr
The answer to the title is that nobody here actually plays traditional games
Also, whatever the fuck you've written you're probably wrong

>Most people have played only 1 system in their lives, the majority of those that hit 2 have played 2 different D&Ds.
GURPS and oMage where is your God now? Although to be fair I once made a wizard for a D&D game then didn't play him because the group was pure cancer.

>Most people have played only 1 system in their lives, the majority of those that hit 2 have played 2 different D&Ds.
GURPS and oMage (storyteller first, than later also run in gurps) where is your God now? Although to be fair I once made a wizard for a D&D game then didn't play him because the group was pure cancer.

Be fair, this thread is all about acknowledging flaws and LotW is a very flawed game. Even aside from the awful editing the implicit imbalance between Block and Footwork or Elemental and non-elemental Chi are real issues that need GMs to fix them. Along with things like Armour being useless RAW and Heaven's Lightning needing nerfing/Fire Sutra being underpowered.

None of these are gamebreaking, but as excellent as the ideas in LotW are the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

This is a board where a LARGE FUCKING MAJORITY has problems with anima/rolemaster/GURPS's math.


These systems use literally math equations that any kid from thirdgrade or lower should be able to quickly solve.

If someone said the average Veeky Forums goer has an IQ of 90 I'd believe it.

if someone said that was your IQ, would you believe them? Joking aside, GURPS is obviously the best system, because it's got rules for anything you want and if you don't want them, you don't use them. people just don't like the math involved third grade level or not. This is speaking as someone pretty new to Tabletop who's trying to find a system that works for anything you want it to with little modification, and GURPS does just that.

I dislike GURPS for reasons entirely unrelated to the math.

GURPS can approximate anything but the core dice mechanic is bland and uninteresting. Yes, a 3d6 bell curve works, but for me a systems mechanics are a key part of setting the tone of a game, a real part of the experience.

With GURPS, you take a generic core and can make it do everything. I get the appeal, but the generic core is always there, as the foundation of the experience.

I much prefer finding specific systems with unique dice mechanics that create a different experience, making the system feel and act differently from the bottom up. Things like Don't Rest Your Head's explosive, self-destructive simplicity are a true pleasure to watch in action, and although you could emulate it in GURPS I can't help but think you'd lose a key part of the experience in doing so.

The entire argument in this thread boils down to personal preference, which makes it a pointless argument, because no one can agree on whats best. I understand there are people who don't like GURPS, but usually unlike you, it's not because of its generic core, it's because of the crunch, or because math, or all the memey bullshit that drives people away from a system that does anything well, if not perfectly, and unlike most other systems, actually improves with each forthcoming edition. I respect your opinion but I disagree.

Except some things are objective, as per and numerous other posts. If a system says it can do a thing, and does not effectively do that thing RAW, that is bad design.

But that's not what people were discussing, is it? Most of this thread has been devoted to subjective bullshit, because OP himself, faggot that he is, brought subjective shit into the thread in his post. If there is a flaw that is major and can't be fixed without significant modification in GURPS, for example, please bring it to my attention, otherwise it's all subjective, and a useless discussion.

This thread is OBJECTIVELY SUB-OPTIMAL

but imma bump it anyways