Mechanics that just don't work

[Wiseman]

So I'm curious. We hear complaints of things being broken and so on... But what are some mechanics in gamebooks that are simply unplayable as written? I'm not talking about power levels (though feel free to post extreme examples of over or underpoweredness) what im talking about is rules that just don't work, make no sense, or are downright unplayable as written.

For example, the mass combat system in the Infernum D20 game. First of all, it's ridiculously complex to just make your unit in the first place. There there's all sorts of confusing situational modifiers, facing, unit formations, hp stages, and abilities.

But what makes it hilariously unplayable is the fact that you end up with units with thousands of hit points and pathetic damage. And each round of combat is supposed to represent about 5 hours of war.

Even the the sample unit doesn't help clarify it, with 5000 hit points and a pathetic 1d8+6 damage.

[zugschef]

shadow conjuration/evocation

[Wrathzog]

The Core Mechanic.

[Juton]

In 3.5 the literal reading of wealth by level. With the literal reading a character is supposed to have X gp in gear. If a PC lost all their gold betting on centaur racing then the MC is supposed to give them the gold needed to bring them back in line with their peers. This allows the Flask Rogue to function at the lower levels, since at every level the MC is supposed to top them off financially It would also allow you to really burn through scrolls and potions.

[Korgan0]

I'm not sure if SR4 hacking counts (it's an absolute clusterfuck but it's kinda playable in the strictest sense of the word), but it might well do.

[Wiseman]

Okay, you're going to have to elaborate. I don't know what many of these things do.

[Username17]

Well, Shadowrun's Matrix rules were gone over step by step Here. It is an unplayable mess, and laughably terrible.

-Username17

[rasmuswagner]

Dice pool systems with multiple axis of difficulty (x hits needed, -y dice, need to roll z to get a hit).

[squirrelloid]

4e. All of it except the combat simulator. Especially skill challenges, the Parcel system of loot, and all NPCs being literally unkillable friendlies.

[squirrelloid]

In 3.5 the literal reading of wealth by level. With the literal reading a character is supposed to have X gp in gear. If a PC lost all their gold betting on centaur racing then the MC is supposed to give them the gold needed to bring them back in line with their peers. This allows the Flask Rogue to function at the lower levels, since at every level the MC is supposed to top them off financially It would also allow you to really burn through scrolls and potions.

I kind of disagree. There's *no other wealth system that works* so long as a fundamental assumption of your system is that wealth -> power. (And eliminating the connection between wealth and power is really hard in a game like D+D).

[ishy]

In 3.5 the literal reading of wealth by level. With the literal reading a character is supposed to have X gp in gear. If a PC lost all their gold betting on centaur racing then the MC is supposed to give them the gold needed to bring them back in line with their peers.

So in your games, if I lost all my gold betting on centaur racing, I'd have to make a new character? Or play with a character who is far behind everyone else for the rest of the campaign, since I have so much less money?

[Red_Rob]

In 2e so long as you didn't bet your magic items you would almost never be less personally powerful if you gave away money. Magic items couldn't be bought or sold, only traded for other magic items, so noone really cared what you did with your gold.

Regarding the topic at hand, in Hero System buying stats used to provide you with certain "figured characteristics" that derived from those stats. Because it was a point-buy system you could get points back by lowering your stats. I seem to remember some funkiness where you could buy a point in a stat and then get more points than you paid for the stat by lowering all the figured characteristics back to their starting values. Repeat for infinite points!

A non-RPG example was 2nd edition 40k using different systems to denote weapon damage to vehicles and infantry. This seems like a good idea until you get to Terminators and Dreadnoughts. Terminators are very heavily armored infantry, whilst Dreadnoughts are a small mech, basically a larger version of the same thing. Because of the differences in rules, weapons that were great against one were poor against the other and vice versa, which was very unintuitive.

[Juton]

So in your games, if I lost all my gold betting on centaur racing, I'd have to make a new character? Or play with a character who is far behind everyone else for the rest of the campaign, since I have so much less money?

Yes.

Usually we'd play an adventure paths or modules, so there where set treasures or magic items they could find. If you play a sundertard you may be below WBL. If you waste your gold on stupid stuff you won't hit your WBL. The flip side of this is that the games I've played are usually pretty generous with gold, getting to or surpassing your WBL isn't hard at all.

Do you play in a game where your character's wealth is automatically set to the WBL guidelines every level? How does it work, is there an IC explanation?

[hogarth]

Most of these so far seem to fall into the category of "I don't like it" rather than "it's unplayable".

I'll vote for the 1E AD&D psionics rules, where people using psionics get ten times as many actions as everyone else in the party.

A second vote goes to the Heightened Speed power in Villains & Vigilantes. In D&D, a fast character moves something like 12-18 squares per move action. In V&V, a character with Heightened Speed can move around 1000 squares per move action (if he rolled lucky), not to mention getting an extra six actions every turn (e.g. 8 actions instead of 2).

[Username17]

Most of these so far seem to fall into the category of "I don't like it" rather than "it's unplayable".

Yes. Wealth By Level doesn't work the way people think it should, and it is surprisingly breakable in a bunch of ways, but it functions at all. Roy used to rage all the time about Sundertards on the grounds that it was deeply absurd that blowing up gear you didn't like gave you more gear that you did like, but that is how the rules worked. The fact that blowing all your money on "temporary" bonuses actually was the best way to expand your long term wealth position is deeply unintuitive and counter-immersive, but the rules did "work" by any conceivable definition.

I'll vote for the 1E AD&D psionics rules, where people using psionics get ten times as many actions as everyone else in the party.

Do they? I could never even figure out how AD&D 1st edition Psionic rules were supposed to work. They were missing all kinds of key information in explaining how the fuck they were supposed to function. I would definitely say that the rules didn't "work", because I've never met two people who parsed them the same way when trying to figure out what the fuck.

A second vote goes to the Heightened Speed power in Villains & Vigilantes. In D&D, a fast character moves something like 12-18 squares per move action. In V&V, a character with Heightened Speed can move around 1000 squares per move action (if he rolled lucky), not to mention getting an extra six actions every turn (e.g. 8 actions instead of 2).

See, that just seems like something that is "very powerful", and "a pain in the ass", rather than a rule that actually doesn't work. It sounds like you know what it does and how to apply it in game. The problem is just that it's obviously massively more powerful than comparably priced options? I mean fuck, there's lots of shit like that.

Champions technically allows you to have powers like Aid and Multiform to transform yourself into a version of you who is built on more points. That shit has a little symbol next to the abilities in question to ask the GM to go over it and make sure the game isn't being raped - but it's pretty clear that abusive powers exist in the system.

To my mind, things only count as "unplayable" if they actually cannot be played. AD&D Psionics were unplayable because no one knew what they supposed to mean. The Shadowrun Matrix is unplayable because there's actually no limit to the number of times you have to roll an opposed test before you're allowed to make an attack. If you can't parse it, or find out that you have an unlimited (or effectively unlimited) number of steps to carry out, you can't play it. Everyone else is just bellyaching.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

Shadowrun has a bunch of rules which are basically nonexistent - anything involved dual-natured stuff interacting with astral stuff and vice versa, the rules-as-written don't cover a lot of situations, and stuff like the FAB netgun didn't help any.

[hogarth]

I'll vote for the 1E AD&D psionics rules, where people using psionics get ten times as many actions as everyone else in the party.

Do they?

1E psionics work in segments instead of rounds.

A second vote goes to the Heightened Speed power in Villains & Vigilantes. In D&D, a fast character moves something like 12-18 squares per move action. In V&V, a character with Heightened Speed can move around 1000 squares per move action (if he rolled lucky), not to mention getting an extra six actions every turn (e.g. 8 actions instead of 2).

See, that just seems like something that is "very powerful", and "a pain in the ass", rather than a rule that actually doesn't work.

V&V came with little cardboard tokens 1" x 1" that you're supposed to use as miniatures. But all that goes out the window when you need a battle map 83 feet long just to fit in a single move for one of the characters.

Can you work around it by making up your own shit? Of course, but that applies for every mechanic that doesn't work, bar none. (See: rule zero.)

[Stahlseele]

Shadowruns Vehicle Combat Rules . .
They were and are just as bad as Matrix Stuff.

[Lago PARANOIA]

4E D&D's magic item acquisition system is IMO the thinnest that you can shave the line between 'playable' and 'unplayable' while still being on the side of playable. It's massively unfair to people in the group, counter-intuitive, destroys any sense of joy, has a wildly unpredictable effect on gameplay (especially if you just stick to core rules), etc.. but at least the outputs are knowable.

d20 Modern's wealth acquisition system is literally unplayable. It only 'works' because if you're playing core-rules only with Mindwreckers or Urban Arcana, you can pretty much get what you want without interacting with the system. If you plan to use the epic spell creation system and/or the magic item system, though, it utterly and completely wrecks the game.

[hogarth]

d20 Modern's wealth acquisition system is literally unplayable.

That reminds me of the original Top Secret game, where you could buy counterfeit money for ten cents on the dollar and one of the "classes" would get experience from passing counterfeit money. Maybe not unplayable, but ridiculous nevertheless!

[ishy]

Spoilered my reply to Juton since it is going a bit off topic.

So in your games, if I lost all my gold betting on centaur racing, I'd have to make a new character? Or play with a character who is far behind everyone else for the rest of the campaign, since I have so much less money?

Yes.

Usually we'd play an adventure paths or modules, so there where set treasures or magic items they could find. If you play a sundertard you may be below WBL. If you waste your gold on stupid stuff you won't hit your WBL. The flip side of this is that the games I've played are usually pretty generous with gold, getting to or surpassing your WBL isn't hard at all.

Do you play in a game where your character's wealth is automatically set to the WBL guidelines every level? How does it work, is there an IC explanation?

I have not no. I have played in games that increased the amount of wealth you'd find if you are below WBL though. And I've also played in games where you occasionally set your WBL to your level. (For example, when I was working in England for 6 months, when I got back, my DM told me, my character gained 4 levels and that I could select gear equal to my new WBL).
The IC explanation would be: your character happens to find more stuff / the maffia is offering you giant bribes for staying out of their way. Or whatever works for the story. The exact same way, you justify finding gear in the first place, just a bit more.

I just don't see the need to screw over the people I play with. For example houseruling sunder into a giant trap instead of the normal default of sometimes useful.

If we're talking about rules that don't work. How about the 3.5 Illusion rules? Or the vision and light rules. How if you're holding a torch, you're in an area of bright light, thus can see people in the dark. While they are in an area of darkness thus can't see your torchlight?

[Josh_Kablack]

The 3.5 illumination rules where the illumination level of the square where the character making the Spot check matters but the illumination level of the square where the character making the Hide check doesn't matter are crazy, counter intuitive and probably not what the designers intended -- but they are totally playable as written.

[Username17]

The 3.5 illumination rules where the illumination level of the square where the character making the Spot check matters but the illumination level of the square where the character making the Hide check doesn't matter are crazy, counter intuitive and probably not what the designers intended -- but they are totally playable as written.

True. But the Spot Distance rules where the distance modifiers are calculated by counting the distance up from zero in one place and calculated by counting down from the limits of line of sight in another are not playable because the modifier can only be one or the other and not both.

-Username17

[Dean]

I think Stealth in D&D or most systems is a reasonable answer in general. Without even needing to focus on the specifics of illumination and spot modifiers. Stealth in D&D is like baseball if no one ever invented the ball. There's tons of specifics of what someone can do and how far someone can lead off the base but there's no fucking game anywhere because the basic mechanic is nonexistent.

[Kaelik]

where the illumination level of the square where the character making the Spot check matters but the illumination level of the square where the character making the Hide check doesn't matter are crazy,

Um... where are you getting this information at all.

If someone is in a dark square, they have total concealment, then you can't see them at all.

If someone is in a brightly lit square, they have no concealment at all, so you can see them without even making a check (I mean, technically, they can't make a hide check, so the DC is 0, but in dungeon, you are unlikely to have line of sight to someone far enough away for that to matter).