Things that make you drop a game instantly

>Alignments
The moment that alignments come into play as a mechanic, there WILL be an argument once there's a cognitive dissonance between what the DM believes is X and what the player believes is X, especially when people don't treat objective alignment as an objective measurement of shit.
>Encounters are balanced around our level.
Yes Steve, I know you played vidya and don't want to gib us at level 3 but if we walk into a dragon's cave looking for trouble, don't go easy on us just because you don't want the adult dragon to cause a TPK.
>GM cracks open the rulebook more than thrice and spends more than five minutes looking for a rule.
I understand going for consistency but for fuck's sake man, do you know how soft my boner gets when we're in the middle of combat and we have to waste time waiting for you to either find a rule or give up and give us a ruling anyways? Also can eat a dick, he's obviously never been in a game where this shit happens.

I have though. I am talking about systems, not actual campaigns.

>humans only

>wanting to play a gnome in a CoC campaign.

>>this campaign will take place in one large city
I've actually seen this one done well.

>GM loves watching PvP

>inexperienced GM
>has multiple pages of houserules
>okay let's hear him out here, there are some things that could be-
>full of knee-jerk reactions to non-issues
>nope.jpg

>less than 30 years of age
>describes himself as old-school

>we need a sorceror
>the last sorceror quit
>no-one in the group directly tells you why

>mfw the third one happened to me

You don't want to play L5R or 7th Sea. Your loss cupcake.

>"I'm running a low fantasy campaign setting of my own design."
>"I have some custom races/classes available."
>In order from merely intolerable to BY FIRE BE PURGED: 3.5/Pathfinder/GURPS/WoD (any except Vampire, the more obscure the worse it will be)/BESM/d20 Modern
>"Some of the other players have earned some bonus XP for side RP sessions."

>Encounters are balanced around our level
>red flag
I hate this meme.

>GURPS
>a sure sign of a shit game
How? I get the other ones (except you're totally wrong about WoD, Vampire is the absolute biggest red flag system for that): 3.PF and d20M are garbage rules, BESM attracts weebs, WoD attracts edgefags and Tumblr.

>It's a classic old-school dungeon delving adventure with a great ruleset that improves on 2ed!
No thanks grandpa, I don't really like roguelikes and going on verb hunts.

My GM.....he goddamn loves making Paladins fall. And he's a massive weeaboo. Says he can't love 3-D because 2-D is the only thing he can fall in love with. And he's memorized Slayers and Sailor Moon, for some goddamn reason. AND he's a rule lawyer.

I don't get what is so bad about this. If literally every perceivable action in the pnp has rules and is listed in the rulebook, it isn't really a roleplaying game anymore.

>it isn't really a roleplaying game anymore.
How?

It just devolves into min/maxing and saying "my character will perform action y, as per the rule book".

>I have some custom races/classes available
Yes god forbid that the GM have a healthy imagination.

Hell at least I would actually look them over to see that they do and what they are about before rendering judgement.

You sound like you've got a serious case of stick-up-ass.

I have never been in a game with balanced encounters that didn't devolve into a railroaded affair where everyone could afford to roll dice with no thought and still win due to superior DPR.

It's like playing something like Bayonetta on easy mode; why even develop a setting at all if we're only going to be traveling in a straight line with minor speedbumps littering the path until we reach whatever end goal you had planned for the finale?

Sounds like you've got shitty players, m8.

>I have never been in a game with balanced encounters that didn't devolve into a railroaded affair where everyone could afford to roll dice with no thought and still win due to superior DPR.
that doesn't sound like they were all that balanced of encounters to begin with.

Technically, a lack of rules is less of a game than more rules. If we define a game as an objective oriented activity with a set mechanism to achieve that objective, lessening rules makes achieving that objective harder or more free form. At which point it no longer becomes a game but more of make pretend session. Rules are what prevent players from going full
>I teleport behind you
>Too bad, that was a hologram.
>I knew that which is why I secretly implanted a tracking device on you to find out where the real you is.

And so on.

That's awfully shitty, user. I like to balance encounters out so that characters can and will die unless the players have good tactics or roll damn well.

>not having human as the only race

I am so sick of these fucking niggers who think they are allowed to play whatever they want in my campaigns. No, your shitty tengu is not allowed. No, your ratfolk is not allowed. No, your catfolk is not allowed. No, your tiefling is not allowed: that is a literal fucking demonspawn. Why the fuck would that be allowed in any campaign, let alone this one? No, you cannot play a drow. You will be shot on sight on the surface. Half these fuckers don't even read Drizz't so they have no excuse for wanting to play a drow, besides "lol it's different." Fuck different. Here's the thing: your race is the most boring fucking part of your character. Unless you do something interesting with it (which 90% of these stupid cunts don't do), then you are just weighing down the game. When you have a thri-keen, some homebrew furry shit, a tiefling and some fuck who wants to play kender, you know what? Fuck this. I made a setting that actually feels somewhat like the real world because it doesn't have 90 different races running around like it's motherfucking Mos Eisley cantina. It's not my fault that YOU are a bad roleplayer who can't be satisfied playing something out of the core book. Create an interesting character, and you can play as a human for the rest of your RPG career. I had groups that were entirely human yet they had personalities that seemed like real people. But no, no one wants to lump in 30 homebrew races plus 60 official wizards of the coast crapshit races they pump out like chocolate because they know it will keep people entertained and requires zero effort on their part. No DM worth shit wants to spend hours and hours putting that in his world. Play. A. Fucking. Human. You need to EARN the privilege of playing another race, by proving you can competently play a normal character first. You don't get the big boy toys until your prove you can be responsible for them.

yep, min/maxers gotta min/max.

even had one try to do it in my AoR campaign. Boy did he learn fast how little it does for you...

Quit the game not long after learning that hard lesson.

Not really though. People will take the lazy route and treat it more of as an video game. DnD and it's lot are especially bad at this, because rolls represent such tiny actions which means that when describing what you do you can just say "I hit" "I hit "I hit" "I hit".

Well, yeah. Having rules is important, but it doesn't have to be so tedious.
Also the GM (or whatever) is there to stop that.

>People will take the lazy route and treat it more of as an video game.
As I said, shitty players.

Well then, fuck you too.

>As I said, shitty players.
And again I say, when given the option, most people will take the lazy route.

Nigger listen. If people are doing that, they are not good players. If you are letting them do that, you are not a good GM.

You could just say "I don't like thing and won't change my mind" instead

Think about it like this mate, if both sides of the encounter can survive...three hits before dying, it doesn't really matter how much thought you put into it because the aim of the game at that point is hitting them three times before they hit you three times.
That's not a balanced encounter though, that's you designing an encounter where the bad guys clearly have an advantage though.

What I'm talking about is campaigns where every encounter fought is against a group that's always roughly as strong as the party is and you never feel like you're getting any stronger because you always fight people that have a 50/50 shot of taking you out, regardless of how many levels you earn or whatever tactics you employ.

Storytime?

>And again I say, when given the option, most people will take the lazy route.
except that they don't, just the lazy ones, and they are in the minority. That they are in the minority is why dealing with them is often a noteworthy experience and why we dedicate threads on Veeky Forums to talking about them; because they represent an anomaly in our usual gaming experience.

I'm sorry, have you considered not playing games with people? Clearly they disturb you.
Alternatively, perhaps, just perhaps, you could learn how to be a decent GM and learn some goddamn flexibility. Or do you think a good game table has a large pair of rails running through the middle?

>"the rules are fast and light so they stay out of the way of the story instead of slowing it down"
The only bit of this that I could possibly be leery about this is the mention of "the story", which could possibly indicate that the GM is trying to railroad folks through his pre-written novel. Then again, he could just be using "the story" to indicate the progression of events in the game. Other than that possible concern, I'm all in for this. If I want to play a tactical war game, then I'll just go play a war game. RPGs should be immersing yourself in the reality and playing out what your character does, not choosing and executing tactical options off of a list. Sure, it's still a game, and there are mechanically better options you can choose, but it's better to role-play than roll-play.

You know I never thought about playing as a dwarf in Chtulhu campaign. Now I desperately want to do that.

Yes there are surer signs
>d20
>pbta

...

>the premise of the system conflicts with my preferences

Yeah, sure whatever. Have fun arguing about the proper rules for sitting down on a chair for 40 minutes. Having an extremely rules heavy role playing game only impedes the role playing.

Study some game design then talk. Most people will exploit whatever the best cost/effective option they find no matter how boring it is. And to avoid that you have to train them, avoid said options en the game or make so that options are actually fun to use, because it is basic human behavior and you can't get rid of it so easily.

>having to resort to throwing strawmen around
As much as rules-light cultists may not want to believe it, it is in fact possible to roleplay with rules present.

>Have fun arguing about the proper rules for sitting down on a chair for 40 minutes.
That only really happens when the rules are designed in a way that uses vague language for almost everything that a PC could ever hope to accomplish within the context of the system.

jeez, or a whole all-dwarf undermountain CoC-style campaign, oof

*starts scribbling notes*

>As much as rules-light cultists may not want to believe it, it is in fact possible to roleplay with rules present.
There's a rather significant difference between rules-light and no rules. You know what the difference is? The presence of rules.

>everything I do is both completely by whim, of no consequence, and completely disposable

funny thing is we already knew

>implying you can call those disgusting Unicorn gaijin "human"

top raff

What in the fuck are you on about?

Your disdain for rules-light proponents indicates an obsession with rules-laden play which is, at best, as disposable as statistically driven rules are, and looked at more critically, as disposable and trash as you are. Do you need me to make you a crayon drawing? Or do you need to take an intelligence roll for comprehension?

I think you may have invented something entirely composed of impotent rage.

You don't have to feign ignorance, you sell it pretty believably on your own.

not all that much of a story.
> That guy is playing a Heavy/Trader Gank because the GM told him he couldn't outright play a "kill bot"
> guy pulls a fast one on the GM to get him like a 100,000 credits
> *gives* 1/3rd of it to one PC who proceeds to use it to upgrade the Hyperdrive on party ship.
> Gets all this gear and cybernetics to min/max his character and (he thinks) prevent the GM from taking his "toys" away.
> Next adventure arc they land in the middle of an enemy base with quote "a company of B1 Battle Droids" coming to attack the intruders.
> Guy, presumably thinking along the lines of someone with a min/maxed 3./PF might, declares that he will "distract them"
> GM stresses that a battle droid company is 56 droids.
> Doesn't seem bothered at all
> Unleashes a hail of blaster bolts onto the company
> Killing a whopping 8 droids from 2 squads
> Being the only valid target, the remaining droids fire on Guy.
> All of them
> ALL OF THEM
> Pretty sure his min/maxing is the only reason he survived that single salvo.
> But he's at 1 wound left.
> Gets healed by Jedi #2
> Runs back into ship
> Tries to fire ship weapons at the mobs
> While complaining that the GM made them mobs of eight rather than his usual mobs of 4
> Then complains about how hard it is to hit a mob of droids @ silhouette 1, with weapons on a silhouette 5 ship.
> Then tries to use the ship itself to run over the mobs of droids
> Despite not having any ranks in piloting (space). He's lucky that the worse he did was take-out the ship's ventral weapon.

1/2

> Next session,
> decides to stay on the ship rather than join the rest of the party in infiltrating the enemy base.
> Rest of party is doing shit.
> apparently he's moved the ship to high orbit so he's effectively not participating.
> after 1 hour (in-game) he tries to leave the system entirely (the party ship was the only working ship with a hyperdrive in that entire system as far as the party knew).
> GM says the npc crew openly objects to abandoning 3/4 of the command crew.
> says he's doing it anyway
> GM tells him that he can't because the crew sabotaged their own hyperdrive to stop him.
> Gets super-salty about it but decides to instead fly the ship down and rescue one of the other PCs
> Few days later GM tells the other players that Guy quit. Says its due to having too much else going on but no one believes that.
> No one except GM is upset by this.

You need to stop taking the drugs, user, they're making you see things.

...

Fuck off dice clutcher.

You seem really upset over such little banter. Maybe you should go back to Gaia, where those dirty dice won't ever come near you?

this

>Story takes precedence over what characters do.

Fucking. Dropped.

Personally I agree with you, man. I mean there's more than one way to play DnD, but some of those ways are objectively shittier ways.

My gaming group had a long standing policy against shit races like that. But then one campaign we started a new rule: homebrew races only. It actually was pretty cool, and lead to the integration of two of those races into our regular games.

It's not that catfolk are inherently shitty, it's that people who play catfolk are typically just mega retards

It's a pasta.

Look at the story game autist playing telepath with everyone Who disagrees with him!
Guess what? Your love for rules light games indicates you love the cock and wake up every day drooling a balanced adminixture between cum and saliva.

>medieval (high) fantasy
>"combat is going to be fast and deadly"

Like I said, it's not much of a story.

i have done this too many times.
im a dude and I have no problem playing female characters, but in their sexuality they are always either lesbian or bi because I just cant roleplay someone who likes dudes

gr8 b8 m8 i r8 8/8

also delicious pasta

>Text only

>gritty, low fantasy setting full of REALISM
>d&d

>have no problem playing female characters
>cant roleplay someone who likes dudes
Nice one.

So, Dungeon World.

But if they're bi, that means they do like dudes.

Most of my characters end up bi. I'm asexual so I figure I might as well give the DM as many options for romance as possible.

I accept your challenge!

mmmmh, pasta...

Here are the absolutes shittiest
>It's a sandbox game
>It's a freeform game
>It's a game of political intrigue, like ASoIaF
>(Talking about a system for medium-high fantasy like D&D)It will be gritty and realistic
>It's a game similar to Berserk(the manga/anime)

Now that I think about it, most game that are shit say things like "It's a game like [insert TV show/book/anime/other game/media here]"

That and sandboxes. Sandboxes a shit. Hexcrawl rule.

>"Playing this game is very easy." written on page 7
Page 7 out of 475 pages
I ain't time for that shit

>If we define a game as an objective oriented activity with a set mechanism to achieve that objective
I don't though. In my opinion, you can either play to win or play to play.
If you want to play to win in RPG's, the players will minmax and the GM can just go 'rock falls, everyone dies, I win'.

>Rules are what prevent players from going full hurdur
Not really? You as a GM set a narrative of what is possible and impossible in the setting right? Then why can't your players do the same thing. It's not so hard really, I've played dungeon world and rarely find myself in a spot where the players go do dumb shit like that.

You failed.

Half the book is setting fluff, from the remaining half is gm tips, from the remaining quarter half are optional rules. That leaves 60 pages.
From here a third are common rules (20 pages) and the other 40 are devided between each class option so you just need to read the ones that describe the class (1 page per class at most) and the specific rules for the one you choose (may vary and most will be tables) leaving you with an average of 33 per player to read.

this

>is pathfinder
fucking dropped

>the other 40 are devided between each class option
>having classes
Red flag. Dropped.

I don't know about DnD but fantasy craft has more pages per player than that.
Then again I am a bit at fault for wanting to play a battlemage à la TES

Nah.

I think I'm pretty good on both the "simple" and "tactical" fronts.

>BESM attracts weebs
It's made to attract weebs. It's a simplified GURPS for weebs.

Nope.

I dunno. Runequest once you understand the concept of Combat Maneuvers can be both. Your players just have to be familiar with the rules.

Probably not fast enough for someone who only has time for single word replies I guess...

Yeah: OP being in the game in any way

>But no, no one wants to lump in 30 homebrew races plus 60 official wizards of the coast crapshit races they pump out like chocolate because they know it will keep people entertained and requires zero effort on their part
but, user, that's american fantasy. that IS D&D. don't get me wrong, it's not my cup of tea either but I at least am aware of the fact that a lot of people out there play it differently.