>>95988369
Gray-furred snake and crystal ooze weren't specific enough for you?
I could probably point at the entirety of Tomb of Horrors as being awful and take any element from it as a specific example of really bad design, but those are some low hanging fruits.

Let's look at Barrier Peaks instead, and go through the process of learning how a newly discovered tech item functions. It takes the form of a mini-board game, which sounds like it could be fun, but it ends up just being a drawn-out series of intelligence rolls where your only options are "keep going or give up."

There's so much room for making something interesting and compelling, but the ultimate execution is just not very exciting and a tempo-killing time waster, especially since some of the items are basically duds. The biggest problem is that the longer versions of this minigame appear alongside some obviously good items, so it's less of a fun prelude and more of a not particularly entertaining impediment you have to roll through. Even just giving the player some extra choice beyond "stop or keep going" would at least make them feel more like they're actually involved in the process.

The idea is there. Making discovering how tech items work it's own special thing is.a great idea. The execution though is incredibly lacking, and manages to make the adventure less fun, rather than more.