Mechanics that just don't work

[Krusk]

How about the truenamer from 3.5?

You make a skill check with a DC of 10+2*HD of the target. For those unfamiliar you can increase your skill ranks by +1 per level (ish) and the HD of your target is generally nearish your level.

you start out unable to fail, and eventually become unable to succeed. There are some quick fix custom items you can bring in to help delay the problem but its never fixed.

[Ravengm]

How about the truenamer from 3.5?

You make a skill check with a DC of 10+2*HD of the target. For those unfamiliar you can increase your skill ranks by +1 per level (ish) and the HD of your target is generally nearish your level.

you start out unable to fail, and eventually become unable to succeed. There are some quick fix custom items you can bring in to help delay the problem but its never fixed.

Not to mention that every time you try again using the same utterance the DC increases. Failure begets more failure.

I frequently cite this as the worst written class for first-party 3.5 material because it is unplayable as written.

[Mistborn]

Not to mention that every time you try again using the same utterance the DC increases. Failure begets more failure.

Actually I think the DC only goes up when you succeed. This is why Truenamer guides suggest taking Quicken utterance, as long as your on the RNG for it there's no reason not to try.

[...You Lost Me]

Not to mention that every time you try again using the same utterance the DC increases. Failure begets more failure.

Actually I think the DC only goes up when you succeed. This is why Truenamer guides suggest taking Quicken utterance, as long as your on the RNG for it there's no reason not to try.

False on two accounts.

It applies on fails or successes (p.233 Tome of Magic), Quicken Spell is specifically encouraged in builds because new combinations of meta-whatevers and truenames start the RNG over, so LoR applies anew and is totally super broken and awesome... or it would be, if the truenaming abilities were worth anything.

[Roog]

If you fail a Truespeak check, however, the DC does not increase on your next attempt of that utterance.

If you went to the effort to check what page it was on, why didn't you read what it said?

#Edit: spelling

[...You Lost Me]

If you fail a Truespeak check, however, the DC does not increase on your next attempt of that utterance.

If you went to the effort to check what page it was on, why didn't you read what it said?

[Aryxbez]

Thankfully these guys don't count, but apparently anything "The Forge" writes would qualify (when have 20 page arguments on how to handle an ATTACK Roll!).

But more officially, as I understand it, the Rokugan's Roll & keep system, is apparently rather unsalvageable, though I never really found a detailed answer as to why however.

[Neon Sequitur]

Traveller 4th edition, aka T4...

Every. Single. Thing.

The entire game was broken, starting on page 1, though... I have no idea, didn't bother finish reading. None of it worked, even on paper it was obviously unplayable.

[Morat]

But more officially, as I understand it, the Rokugan's Roll & keep system, is apparently rather unsalvageable, though I never really found a detailed answer as to why however.

Okay, so it's a stat + skill, keep stat system. So when you roll, say, a sword attack, you take your agility 3 and swords 2 to total five d10s. You roll them, then you pick the values of three of those dice (from your stat) and add them together, comparing it to either some kind of fixed TN or your opponent's roll.

The resulting probability mechanics are super unintuitive, but I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say "unplayable". Adding up the values of a bunch of dice is really tedious and you have to consult a chart each time to find out your odds for success before you declare how many raises (i.e. how many extra effects that each add +5 to the target number) and then roll. But it is functional.

Same with the explicit playbalancing where samurai from the Great Clans (the big power blocs) are better than samurai from the small clans or ronin (though they occasionally fail at that because they never test enough and there's too many different powers). This is really dumb, because your fancy-pants duelist who has been prancing around in practice for a while should lose super hard to some wandering badass who's been killing people with his sword for 20 years. Your character being arrogant enough to think he's going to auto-win is appropriate, but your character being right about that is pretty weird as far as samurai in fiction go. Maybe Miyamoto Musashi takes pity on you after he KOs you and offers to teach you real swordfighting, or maybe your defeat triggers a drive to take him out, or maybe he just kills you.

But being from the major powers should be better because you've got more dudes and more resources, not because you're individually more capable. What's odd is that in the parts of the metaplot that weren't stupid (and driven by their CCG tournaments...), minor clan people and ronin can be totally amazing, it's just not really what happens in the RPG. Again, dumb, but functional.

[Juton]

Traveller 4th edition, aka T4...

Every. Single. Thing.

The entire game was broken, starting on page 1, though... I have no idea, didn't bother finish reading. None of it worked, even on paper it was obviously unplayable.

In a similar vein Battletech's A Time of War is atrocious from end to end. It seems hard to make a good hard sci-fi RPG.

[Username17]

Traveller 4th edition, aka T4...

Every. Single. Thing.

The entire game was broken, starting on page 1, though... I have no idea, didn't bother finish reading. None of it worked, even on paper it was obviously unplayable.

In a similar vein Battletech's A Time of War is atrocious from end to end. It seems hard to make a good hard sci-fi RPG.

It genuinely is. Decipher Star Trek is also a war crime. As I see it, there are two main problems: D&Dism, and Technobabble.

The first problem is that most role playing games are when you come down to it, hacks on Dungeons & Dragons. The basic assumptions of how the player interacts with the world through action declarations of the character are generally unchanged, and most games even have some minor variation of D&D's six stats (possibly with 1-3 extra ones to show how different they are). This is terrible, because how hard you can swing an ax means less and less the more likely you are to have access to advanced machinery. Forklifts are stronger than you, spaceships are faster, and so on and so on. Further, more advanced populations are also generally larger, and require the actions of more people to actually do anything. Picard doesn't even press buttons during space combat, he gives orders to a crew of over a thousand people. The 1:1 character action model is a complete failure.

The second problem is that the more powerful your game's special powers are, the less you can do (relatively speaking) without using them. Most fantasy games try to place themselves on a level of magic where the magic is weak enough that you can still get by with sword swinging and "having thumbs" (whether they succeed or not is another issue, but that is certainly the goal). Already in the modern era, the idea that you can get by as a character without interacting with cars and electronic devices is fairly absurd, but at least such devices are comprehensible to the players. For a Science Fiction game, the technology is presumably more powerful than it is today, meaning that the players are pretty much forced to have their characters do most of their interactions with that technology in order to matter. What this entails is that every character has to use the setting's special sauce, which means every player has to make a Wizard and every player has to interact with the setting's "magic system".

-Username17

[rasmuswagner]

Indeed, in Sci-fi, there's often no reason for meatbag characters to do anything other than actual tea parties.

[Dean]

Expanding on Franks second point; Sci-fi setting's also universally use gear as their main source of power and phlebotonium, but don't do anything to role-protect it or make people build around it. If you can buy a force field you now have one and if you can't and you kill someone WITH one you do. This makes every party and every character Rogue from X-men. Anything that is thrown against the party becomes possessed by the party increasing their power every fight. Bad guys with bazooka's? Now we have bazooka's. Bad guys have a bigger space ship? Now we have a badass space ship.

Compounding this fact is that Sci-fi games have vehicles and frequently spaceships. And since gear is power that makes money the actual one true power and in every setting I've ever seen vehicle costs are FUCKED compared to personal gear costs. So you fight an enemy in a used, stolen X-wing, get it, sell it, and then SWIM IN MONEY. As long as you don't turn vehicle money back into stupid vehicles your team can have all the robot suits, force-fields, and laser gatling guns they could ever want. While conversely your team would have to sell every rocket launcher and laser sword they ever saw for a year to be able to afford a Klingon War Bird. So gear is power and money buys gear but the gear's value isn't priced according to the power it gives you!

[shadzar]

(And eliminating the connection between wealth and power is really hard in a game like D+D).

It worked BEFORE 3rd edition....

heavy simulation. Weapon Speed, Segments, etc. these things a computer would be best served to do in real time on a video game. if it is turn based, then just take turns like going around the table and simplify it. dont take 6 hours per combat round trying to calculate out how much time it takes for each thing to happen every time to see who goes first.. everyone fires their gun at once and tally the dead and get to the next round.

wizard casts a spell that isnt instant, it happens in FCFO* order at the end of the round or happens the next round if it is that slow.. not counting exactly which persons the spell goes off between their turns.

*FCFO.. like FIFO but First Cast instead of First In.

[Blasted]

It worked BEFORE 3rd edition....

You know,
except that XP was effectively directly tied to money.

[shadzar]

It worked BEFORE 3rd edition....

You know,
except that XP was effectively directly tied to money.

except it wasnt. even when 1 GP = 1 XP, the GP only had to be taken as treasure. not spent on gear or kept. a night of whoring on the harlots table and your "wealth" being a grand shirt on your back and pair of boots in no way ties to level.

and in 2nd edition there was NO connection between XP and wealth unless you wanted to linger in the past and use individual class XP tables...which were optional.

so the werent really tied together it was all just a facade. not to mention the levels werent standard across the board, so there was NO $$$$ = XP as every class required different XP per level and no amount of specific wealth. and even under 2nd, only rogues got that XP per GP in 2nd.


so for 16 years it worked for D&D BEFORE WotC took over, and for the past 13 years, they havent been able to make WBL work at all.