Anatomy of Failed Design: D&D 2nd edition.

[Roy]

Ok, since you wanted more detail...

Let's start with the basics.

Character generation is incredibly simple. This is a very good thing, for reasons that will be detailed later. However it is also a very bad thing, as most characters of the same race and class will have nothing differentiating them except the luck of 3d6 in order, and maybe choice of weapon. Not that there are many actual choices, as there are more traps here than in 3.5 by far. Or any other system I've seen. I say most characters because mage types get random spells. Yes, random spells. You haven't even started playing the game yet, and it's already fucking with you.

Since the game repeatedly insists that it's not for roleplaying and you should just Magic Tea Party that while claiming it is a roleplaying game, let's move on to the basic mechanics of combat.

First, and foremost you can move and still be relevant. This is a good thing. However the fail starts in hard from here.

Movement is supposed to be arbitrarily handwaved, leading to lots of bullshit and Fail. Doing stuff delays your initiative, depending on how long the stuff takes, so you act later in the round. There was something else I was going to say here, but I forgot what it was.

Now, stats. THAC0 is... actually not that bad a system. You have your To Hit AC 0 number, and if the AC is better than that you need that much higher of a number and if worse, lower. So if the enemy has AC 5, and you have THAC0 10, you hit on a 5 or better. Simple enough. All you have to do is remember lower AC is better, and the range is 10 to -10. Enemies generally stay on the RNG, so AC actually fucking means something. And so do you. There are no crits, barring an optional rule that basically gives every weapon 20/x2 crits that auto confirm.

Next up is saves. Here the Fail really begins in earnest. Somehow there is a fundamental difference between getting hit with a Fireball from a wand and getting hit with a Fireball from a Mage. Even if it's the fucking Mage casting the fucking Fireball. There are other examples too, but basically the point is they overdivided saves.

Then there's stats. Stats... don't do a whole lot. Which is good, because if you're using their defaults all your characters are going to have peon stats, as if they were Commoners or something. But of course it's also fucking horrible if you want players to care about such things. Generally you need a 15 or 16 to do... well anything with a bonus really. And you need 10 Wishes to boost a stat by 1 once it gets to... what was it? 14? Anyways, stats apparently cap at 25. And tomes have their full effect on stats... but are temporary.

Now, here's where the Cataclysmic Fail kicks in.

Just about all of the rest of the PHB is devoted to ways the player will be screwed and should like it, all in the name of ROLEplay.

There's an entire section devoted to screwing PCs who want a horse. For emphasis: They spend several pages, going in detail on how horse traders can rip off the PCs. They went over making the horse seem to be a higher quality, to having undesirable traits like throwing you off at random times for the lulz, to having the horses stolen back.

Nearly every time some sort of misfortune is mentioned in regards to the PCs, it's strongly implied the DM should be enjoying it. This comes up in its most notable form when discussing falling damage. Which uses the same rules, but everyone has less HP so you actually care about those D6s.

Speaking of which, HP. You get 1 HD per level, until... 9 or 10 or so. Then you just get some small flat HP boost. There is no max HD at any level, and you die at 0. There is an optional rule that's basically 3.5 disabled and dying rules, except that you have to take a few days off after because you can't do anything. So you can seriously begin with a single HP, even if you're a Fighter or something. And since you have to roll really high on 3d6 to get a Con bonus... This is also why blasting was pretty good back then.

Blasting was actually better in the absolute sense as well. Some of them did 1d6+1 a level, or 1d8, or whatever. I think there was one spell that did 3d8 + 1d8 per level. So you're getting better than a D6, and you have less HP to plow through.

But back to the main Fail.

The biggest offenders though are the Death, No Saves. These will henceforth be referred to as DNS.

Even in the PHB, they're all over the place. The DM is actively encouraged to make up some arbitrary bullshit, then expect the PCs to be psychic. There's even a line in there to the effect of DM: You touched the fountain? Oh no... (DNS fucker!)

They are most prevalent in the DMG and MM though. In particular, the magic item section. For every 1 or 2 items you might actually want, there is one that is DNS. Or if you're lucky, it does give a save, or just screws you so badly you might as well be dead, or might perhaps even be better off dead. There is absolutely no way to tell them apart without actually trying the items on. Identify and shit won't work.

The DM is also strongly encouraged to make regular use of DNS traps.

The MM is the biggest offender though. There are so many enemies, even at low levels with a DNS, or if you're lucky a save with a penalty, or a lose effect that may or may not allow a save it's fucking ridiculous.

This seems like a good time to mention the death rules. You drop to 0 HP, you instantly die. You need Raise Dead or Resurrection to come back to life. Note that many effects, particularly the DNS effects prevent either of these from working. Apparently those spells won't work if the body is mangled, or if you've been eaten by a Grue. Go figure. Some of them won't even work with a Wish, you're just forever dead because you got eaten by a Giant Frog. Fail. I could see it if it was something like Finger of Death or Destruction or something. Also if you do get raised, System Shock check or you are forever dead. This is Con based, and being revived permanently lowers your Con by 1. There's also an absolute max of your starting Con. Which means combined with the above, it's a fucking wonder anyone lives to see level 2, even if such a character could somehow be returned to life.

It doesn't help you have even less in the way of defenses, aside from the AC that actually kinda sorta works than in say... 3.5. Enemy throws a javelin at you. You instantly die. Imagine your worst 3.5 level 1 horror story. Magnify it by a power of 3.

Then there's the save or lose users. Many of these are things like long duration paralysis, meaning the enemy can take their sweet time eating you. Sometimes it's stat drain or even level drain, and these don't allow saves for the most part. You just instantly lose 2 levels because it hit you once, and levels were hard to get. You needed really high level magic in a short time to get them back too. Suffice it to say there was no reason to ever willingly fight the undead.

My favorite one though is that they put the fucking Kitsune in the fucking Monster Manual. What's that? You're male, and have a Wisdom of 13 or less? Charmed, no save. And charm was more like Dominate back then. So have fun fucking, or more likely being used as cannon fodder by the fox woman. Lol. For the most part though, the DNS spam isn't funny.

Then there's dragons. Apparently breath weapons only delay init by 1 (and thus are very fast). They also do some shit like 24d10+fucking 72. Remember, even as a beatstick you only have 10d10+30 + your Con bonus * 10... which even if you had say... 20 Con would not amount to much, meanwhile the breath is doing 96-312 damage. So in other words, dragon breathes and everyone dies instantly. That's what you get for not sucking dragon cock.

Oh, and have I mentioned poison yet? Those are the biggest sources of DNS. Especially since they refuse to put up complete rules like onset times, and encourage the DM, again to fuck with players regarding them. Even many of the ones that don't explicitly kill you still do it, because they do 20 damage when you're low level, or they paralyze you for hours, or they cut your stats in half for a while. Some of them do allow saves though. Just those saves are often at a penalty. And sometimes they fuck you over even if you pass the save, so it seriously doesn't fucking matter.

Long rant is long. Let me know if you want more elaboration on the Fail that is 2.0.

[Psychic Robot]

I hope we can get a regular series of things like this. Can someone do WoD?

[Username17]

I hope we can get a regular series of things like this. Can someone do WoD?

We'll have to do so many of them for WoD. nWoD and oWoD fal in surprisingly different ways often enough. And Promethean needs a rant all by itself.

-Username17

[sake]

We'll have to do so many of them for WoD. nWoD and oWoD fal in surprisingly different ways often enough. And Promethean needs a rant all by itself.

-Username17

oWoD Hunter:tR comes to mind as extreme fail as well. Besides the fact that good portion of the book was just a teaser ad for Exalted, It's the only WoD book where you're probably better off being a normal mortal (and certainly better off being one of the earier supernatural-hunter type characters) than the superpowered emo freak the book's about.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Why is 2E so dead-set against giving you a horse anyway? 2E's mounted combat, as it were, is crummy. And horses are just there to get you to the speed of plot.

Now, I understand the impetus for the game to give you more travel difficulties. I think it could be a cool adventure where some jackass (pun intended) sold you and your buddies sick pack animals and the poor creatures had a heart-attack while you were scaling a desert mountain. Or it could also be a cool adventure that on your mission to deliver a letter to the king some cattle hustlers jacked your horses while you were enjoying some nice ale at a roadside tavern.

But to include that in the basic book? Come on!

[Amra]

I suspect that someone, at some point, said during a design meeting; "Hang on, characters with horses can go faster than some level-appropriate monsters and would therefore be less likely to die senselessly! For the love of christ, nerf the horses, quick!".

Or something.

[Psychic Robot]

They probably should have tried that with 4e.

[Amra]

I thought they pretty much had!

[Psychic Robot]

Nope. Horses in 4e are so good that the game pretends that they don't exist.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

I get the impression that 4e starts from the assumption that most adventures are taking place in dungeons, where the quarters are too tight to bring horses in. Therefore, the whole game breaks if you decide to run a wilderness adventure and somebody can afford a horse.

[Psychic Robot]

Ironically enough, I hate dungeons but love D&D.

[Ganbare Gincun]

I hope we can get a regular series of things like this. Can someone do WoD?

We'll have to do so many of them for WoD. nWoD and oWoD fal in surprisingly different ways often enough. And Promethean needs a rant all by itself.

-Username17

I'm very interested to hear your thoughts regarding the new WoD system and why it is full of fail. I haven't looked at the books myself, but I have been advised by some of my friends that the "new system" is much better then the "old system". Based on people's comments here, apparently they are mistaken.

I did read the fluff from Promethean, though, and I don't know why you'd want to play such a game - it's less depressing then Wraith, but it's still quite dark.

[koz]

Based on people's comments here, apparently they are mistaken.

Oh hells yes, they are mistaken. Basically, the gist is:

- Vampire is not playable if you have combat in it
- Mage is not playable ever

But I cannot recall the rest. I believe Frank wrote something about this a while ago, though.

[Maxus]

Based on people's comments here, apparently they are mistaken.

Oh hells yes, they are mistaken. Basically, the gist is:

- Vampire is not playable if you have combat in it
- Mage is not playable ever

But I cannot recall the rest. I believe Frank wrote something about this a while ago, though.

Funnily enough, I was describing the various things the Denizens do for intellectual exercise, and included the take on the World of Darkness. Each type (vampire, werewolf, what-have-you), had three sub-types (Venturi, Nosferatu, and...I forget the third) and so on. Trying to simplify the game down, as I recall.

[Koumei]

Roy: I wish to hear more of this blind rage.

As for WoD, I might take the gloves off and give it a shot. Expect vitriol of the kind that you usually only see in a statline of '72" S10 AP2 Assault 6'.

I haven't looked at the books myself, but I have been advised by some of my friends that the "new system" is much better then the "old system".

Think of it like this: applying an industrial drill to your elbows is better than igniting thermite in your eye-sockets and consuming hydrofluoric acid. But that doesn't change the fact that you're applying an industrial drill to your elbows.

[Kaelik]

As I recall, the favorite criticism of Mage is that you win by dieing.

Magic is based on belief, and if people watching don't believe you can do something, it is less likely to work, however, it is likely to backfire in a spectacular way, such as you exploding.

So now, you as a mage, your goal is to convince everyone magic exists.

You fly up above new york while invisible (because you can do anything you want when invisible, because the only person who knows it's happening is you, and you believe it) Then you drop your invisibility, shout out to everyone with a bullhorn about how magic works, then attempt to do something super awesome like crash the moon into New York.

It fails because they don't believe you, but what happens instead is the moon flies in, hits you, and then flies back to it's orbit, and you fly into the earth and die.

Of course, all New York, including X number of Camera's just watched you pull the moon out of it's orbit with magic, and now they all believe, and now everyone knows the truth so you accomplished your goal.

[RandomCasualty2]

You fly up above new york while invisible (because you can do anything you want when invisible, because the only person who knows it's happening is you, and you believe it) Then you drop your invisibility, shout out to everyone with a bullhorn about how magic works, then attempt to do something super awesome like crash the moon into New York.

It fails because they don't believe you, but what happens instead is the moon flies in, hits you, and then flies back to it's orbit, and you fly into the earth and die.

Of course, all New York, including X number of Camera's just watched you pull the moon out of it's orbit with magic, and now they all believe, and now everyone knows the truth so you accomplished your goal.

But that's not what would happen. Mage paradox botch effects are pretty much up to the DM to decide and can be anything. So pretty much a failure is just going to be a failure, not a failure that happens to prove your point. The moon isn't going to be pulled out of its orbit at all, you're just going to end up dead.

While paradox can sometimes lash out violently and destructively, it can also just end up erasing your existence and having you go out with a whimper.

[Lago PARANOIA]

If paradox erases your existence and undoes the actions of what you were doing in a subtle manner people don't know about, then why was there paradox in the first place?

[Username17]

The example paradox effects actually are incredibly obviously magical. We're talking things like huge gouts of flame surrounding you while the rain turns blue and a chorus of angry angels turns up to issue in the arrival of a giant spider demon that personally shows up and cuts you in pieces and throws you in five directions where the chunks then catch fire. How anyone is supposed to see that shit and decide that magic isn't real is completely beyond understanding.

Of course, that's oWoD Mage. nWoD Mage has an entirely different problem where it just sucks and no one cares. Seriously, people are fighting over possession of an ephemeral tower that has no impact whatsoever on the physical world and cannot even be detected by mortal means. In fact, just letting the bad guys have their stupid tower is objectively beneficial, since it doesn't do anything anywhere you care about and the more time they spend there the less time they spend interacting with anything that actually matters.

It's like if all the bad guys spent their time in a trap filled dungeon with no treasure in it. You could attack them there, but why?

-Username17

[Psychic Robot]

I need to hear more about WoD. Just the basics, even. I have a friend who really loves the system (and advocates it constantly), so I'm wondering why it is so loathed here.

[RandomCasualty2]

The example paradox effects actually are incredibly obviously magical. We're talking things like huge gouts of flame surrounding you while the rain turns blue and a chorus of angry angels turns up to issue in the arrival of a giant spider demon that personally shows up and cuts you in pieces and throws you in five directions where the chunks then catch fire. How anyone is supposed to see that shit and decide that magic isn't real is completely beyond understanding.

Yeah. Some of them are. Though there's also shit like the paradox time spirit Wrinkle who just makes it so you were never born.

And I'd assume anything done in public would pretty much do something similar where paradox just ensures that you die in some more subtle manner.

But mage had a lot of problems with paradox and observers in general. The concept was cool but the implementation was ass. The main problem being that you've got weird questions like, what happens if dismissing the spell, like invisibility would create a magical effect? Does that generate paradox? What if you had obvious magic in effect but were invisible and then dismissed the invisibility? Since paradox seems to come when a spell is cast, the main flaws I've seen seem to come from basically hiding somewhere, casting the spell then bringing it out for all to see.

And I never really saw anything preventing you from doing that.

[norms29]

I messed around with oWoD back in the day, probably the only game I've ever seen where the flavor text is better before you buy the books.

what I mean by that is that the various splats were all given "distinct" personalities, which made the backstory sound fairly cool when you're reading fansites and thinking about buying the books. then you buy the book, and they beat you over the head with " There is one right wayu to play the game" and it doesn't match the build up at all

take V:TM for instance, each vampire clan had it's own stereotype, some went in for politics, some didn't. but the overall thrust of the game is that you're supposed to play politics. which made no damn sense.

It kind of reminds me of Frank's description of why the fighter is traditionally the 'Suck Class'; he speciallises in Combat, but so does everyone else in the party. he's not filling a niche, he's trying to claim the central focus of the game as his "niche" and that's bad whether he succeds or fails.

and then their was the metaplot you had to buy every book in order to follow, and the fact that only two of the 8 chapters in each "Core Rules" book had any rules. and the epically gygaxian bullshit they beat you over the head with, "the players are never allowed to win! EVAR!!!111one-one-one!!"

[Roy]

Why is 2E so dead-set against giving you a horse anyway? 2E's mounted combat, as it were, is crummy. And horses are just there to get you to the speed of plot.

Now, I understand the impetus for the game to give you more travel difficulties. I think it could be a cool adventure where some jackass (pun intended) sold you and your buddies sick pack animals and the poor creatures had a heart-attack while you were scaling a desert mountain. Or it could also be a cool adventure that on your mission to deliver a letter to the king some cattle hustlers jacked your horses while you were enjoying some nice ale at a roadside tavern.

But to include that in the basic book? Come on!

You could escape insta gibs that way. Griffons are literally only in the game to say 'You no get horses nao, kkthxbye'. Yes, they specifically devote a full paragraph or two just to telling you that Griffons will almost never attack humans, unless said humans prevent them from getting at horses.

Without that you're stuck at a max move speed of 12... which means you cover 120 yards a minute on the overworld and 120 feet a minute in a dungeon. The justification for going slower is so you don't run into insta gibs, which actually makes sense. Regardless, your actual speed will likely be lower as encumbrance has a lot of tiers. Just your basic gear is likely to slow you down to 9... and if you have any Dwarves, Gnomes, or Halflings their base speed is 6, so you can cut that right in half. This is also likely where the whole 'You don't need to outrun the monster, just your buddy' thing came from. Point is, you're fucking slow.

This actually isn't new, as 3.5 does it too. They just offer ways of going faster that don't fuck you over.

Roy: I wish to hear more of this blind rage.

Blind rage? More like blatant mockery for the lulz. Anyways, be more specific. Around 1.8k pages of Fail is not going to instantly recall itself upon demand.

Anyways, get this WoD shit out of the thread. You're fucking with the categorization of Fail.

[DeadlyReed]

Hmm, I'd love to see someone take a look at Rules Cyclopedia D&D. Unfortunately, it'll be hard getting the book since it's very high in demand and WotC no longer permits the sale of the PDF.

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

Torrents Real Easy