Thread 96452041

What makes a system's mechanics "fun" for you? What turns you off?

>>96452041 (OP)
Big numbers are fun, but having to do math is not.
Truly a conundrum.

>>96452041 (OP)
Mostly when they provide me with the opportunity to do the system's thing. Like, if I want to do a "silver age superhero game" I'd presumably pick a system that allows me and rewards me for doing "silver age superhero game," like by having a power system that allows me to consume a resource to pull a new power out of my ass and rewards me for using a bizarre and far off the wall solution to a given problem, pushing players to keep things in the general spirit of "silver age superhero story," with bizarre happenings and equally wild solutions.

>>96452041 (OP)
Interactivity and simplicity.
Generally, I want a game that keeps it simple and fast because autistic rules just bog shit down and slow it down. Give the GM a ton of reference material, sure, but keep that shit behind the curtain, or players will sit there hemming and hawing over simple rolls.

BUT, In combat, I want it to be interactive if it's not gonna be simple. I want something I can pick apart like a puzzle and think ahead in, that gives me a sense of feedback and emulation without just being a convoluted means of flipping coins.

Most games fucking suck because you can't think ahead with any reliability. The typical max depth of tactics you get, is working out what specific action has the most optimal chance of success in a given turn. What happens on the next turn? Who fucking knows! Someone in the party might go down, the monsters might all get nuked with a lucky crit, maybe you'll fail a save and get stopped dead in your tracks, maybe you just fail your roll anyways and don't get to play that turn.
That, is just lame and boring. I hate to be the intj meme, but I've already calculated the ways this combat can go. The hour+ it takes to walk through turns, descriptions, and rolling dice to see how it will go, feels like a waste of time for me.

>>96452041 (OP)
>fun
Resources to spend on rolls. Give me a resource to control my destiny in a meaningful way. The best resource is one that serves some other function, so I have an internal debate about what to spend it on in addition of when to spend it.

>'off'
Not a specific mechanic, but fiddly subsystems with their own specific rules, dice-rolling mechanics, and other needless complexity. These things are pretty clearly necessary sometimes, like combat, but many just serve to bore the other players at the table while the one guy who can participate meaningfully in the subsystem does 99% of the work for a solid hour.

>>96452041 (OP)
Interconnected mechanics that play into each other in novel ways. I like it when you can create many different things with the tools given to you. I don’t like it when a system shoehorns you into a specific role, gives you a few inconsequential choices (if any), then sends you on your way.

But, while playing, I prefer things to stay relatively simple and not get in the way of the game.

>>96452041 (OP)
I like it when fluff and mechanics mix into into a flavorful full like with FFG 40k rpgs. I generally like simulationist systems but when it comes to stuff like Anima's or Eclipse Phase's shit on how long it takes to learn stuff I'm wondering who actually runs that straight.

>>96452041 (OP)
Simple to use and learn ---> fast game ---> good

Unnecessary bullshit and tons of things to consider for 1 simple task ---> slow game --- > no thanks.

I want to spend 2-4 hours playing the game, not calculating 10 different scores in a system inside another system to know if i hit the dumb elf with my sword, climb a tree or tame a wild boar se it can be my pet.

>>96452172
>Most games fucking suck because you can't think ahead with any reliability. The typical max depth of tactics you get, is working out what specific action has the most optimal chance of success in a given turn
Can you elaborate more about what you mean by being able to think ahead with reliability? What's that look like in a combat system?

>>96452172
Seconding what this guy is saying >>96453563
I'm not really sure what you mean.

>>96452041 (OP)
It's own sense of identity, I suppose. I'm perfectly fine with retarded gimmicky and finnicky mechanics as long as they're in the service of doing something you can tell the designer considered interesting or cool.

A game may not need a scaling table for creating earthquakes by punching the earth or for how far and with how much impact damage you can yeet someone, but I fucking love pulling that stupid shit out and calculating how much damage the player took trying to hold on a iron golem being magnetically pulled across the battlemap.

>>96452041 (OP)
I like rules that tie directly into the setting and lore. Blood points and virtues in VtM. The ship's attributes in Star Trek Adventures. The location tags in X Without Number. Things that make part of the story part of the mechanics of the game.

>>96453563
>>96453713
>Can you elaborate more about what you mean by being able to think ahead with reliability?
The outcome of typical actions, in typical games, are heavily randomized, to the point where any plan that extends beyond a single turn isn't really feasible and will often end in failure.
For an example scenario, take a fight in 3.5e: The party needs to take over a guard outpost, which consists of a medium sized room with five guards: One a mage who's sitting by a hearth alone, two with crossbows leaning against the back wall, and two with swords and shields.
You, the fighter, have Improved Initiative and Cleave, so you make a quick plan: You're going to kick open the door, rush into melee with the crossbows during the surprise round, win Initiative with your feat and cleave them both, and then be able to turn your attention to the mage.

With the rest of the party's approval, you kick the door in, the surprise round starts... And one of the melee guards passes his listen check, and rolls higher for initiative. He stands in the doorway and your entire plan immediately fails.
Alternatively: You successfully move in during the surprise round, but you're at the bottom of the initiative in the first normal round: The crossbows both withdraw or 5 foot step out and shoot you.
Alternatively: You successfully move in, AND you win initiative. And you flub your attack roll.
Alternatively: You flub the damage roll instead.
Alternatively: You succeed, hit, and kill the guard, but miss the second.

There's a lot of potential failure points, and none of them are in your control. At least the first possibility is a little exciting, because it means you have to come up with an entirely new approach, though again it's through no fault of your own and the other outcomes, where nothing changes at all, are more the norm in games.

However, though very rare, there are better systems, with better methods.

>>96455476
>The outcome of typical actions, in typical games, are heavily randomized, to the point where any plan that extends beyond a single turn isn't really feasible and will often end in failure.
This might sound dumb but isn't that part of the intended fun? The dice ultimately becomes the equalizer for both the GM and the Players because when they make plans sometimes it won't survive until their next turn. If I understand it correctly, are you saying that in most scenarios if your plan does not do what you wanted it to do, then ultimately your turn is wasted because worst case scenario you're in a bad spot, and best case scenario it's a "whoops you flubbed your roll, okay next player"?

I'm also curious about what systems you had in mind that has better ways of doing that so I can give them a try.

>>96457467
>This might sound dumb but isn't that part of the intended fun?
Nah not dumb at all, though it depends on the game. Most of them are just doing what they do because it's what most things that came before have done, without much more thought put into it.

>are you saying that in most scenarios if your plan does not do what you wanted it to do, then ultimately your turn is wasted because worst case scenario you're in a bad spot, and best case scenario it's a "whoops you flubbed your roll, okay next player"?
Sorta.
The issue I take with it isn't the plan itself failing, it's failing due to factors beyond your ability to control, consider, or plan for, and this often happens in ways that go against the character; The fighter here has two feats specifically to enable this plan, yet 80% of the time, Improved initiative doesn't matter, and Cleave has always been niche because it's just an extra attack roll that can occur under infrequent circumstances, and often doesn't matter even when it does materialize.

Far as systems that work around this go, I've got my own homebrew that's made to solve the issue, but the ones that gave me the ideas and helped me figure out why I found typical rulesets unsatisfying were Bizarre Adventures D6, and the Hollow Knight RPG, as well as The Riddle of Steel and its successors. Though for TROS, it isn't near perfect and still has issues, though there are free, fan-made successors that absolutely blow most systems out of the water in terms of core design.

>>96452041 (OP)
I like stacking effects and watching number go up
>hit Elf with special arrow
>he gets poisoned, stunned, slept, bleed, on fire, cancer, AIDs, herpes
>takes damage for each every turn
>also slips in grease and falls into a cloud of daggers

>>96452041 (OP)
>fun
character potential that can only be expressed by playing the actual game
unexpected character development
>turn off
incremental slop ( aka number go up )
powerlevels ( raw number vs number where if you have lower numbers there's no point in even trying against the bigger number )
major character decisions based on meta considerations ( most videogame rpgs, WotC D&D )

I like roguelikes. I like rolling 3d6 down the line and choosing a class based on that.
Don't like mmorpgs or arpgs.

>>96452041 (OP)
80% skill and 20% luck.
Backgammon is a good example of this. A clearly stronger player will win the overwhelming majority of the time, but sometimes the dice gods fuck them over and favor the obviously weaker player to the degree the weaker player wins.

Going much higher in either direction makes the game feel stupid for having luck involved at all while also being kind of a bitch to table if your opponent is clearly weaker or stronger than you OR the game is just outright bullshit to even play.

Strangely, going 100% luck based somehow makes the game go right back to being fun again. If everyone knows it's bullshit and you are just in it for the ride? Good times abound. If there is any strategy involved in those games it becomes a massive hinderance to enjoyment. DungeonQuest, for example, is great because you will most likely die no matter what the fuck you do and that's what everyone signed on for. Pandemic, however, is total horseshit because you need to strategize effectively to win but can play a perfect game and get a Candyland style loss because the deck just said No and you can't do a god damn thing about it.

>>96452041 (OP)
Resolution speed. Doesn't matter if it's a wargame or RPG. It's fun to have a system for everything, but if I can't resolve every decision instantly I'm put off from it. Cadence is important, and games that necessitate fiddling with either physical objects or mathematics or dice at length are annoying.

>>96452041 (OP)
>fun
Rewarding creative thinking. Getting bonuses for trying to approach a situation from a different angle be it combat or noncombat-wise.
>turn-off
Magic. Magic that blatantly gives you stuff (Yes, I'm talking about D&D) especially teleportation/flying magic. I fucking hate magic.

That has so many factors to consider. In general, I like the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanics of 5e. I think it's just real simple and clever. And most importantly, fun. As far as turn offs? Anything way too metagamy where I have to constantly be thinking about how it works.

>>96452041 (OP)
>fun
I can fit them into a clear game structure
>unfun
They mess with the pacing or are needlessly vague or abuseable.

>>96452041 (OP)
A level of complexity that allows for moments of system mastery without bogging things down. Bonus points if they're narrative inspiring.

>>96453554
This. I am a firm believer that complicating a check, no matter what it is, is almost always the wrong choice. Decision making should be based on what is intuitively reasonable from a real world perspective, checks should be swift and create a result that conveniently tells the GM how well the attempt went. The end. Others might like to play otherwise, I leave that to them, but nothing grinds my gears more than someone telling me that I'll have more fun if I have an attack matrix, or if I play a minigame. Fuck off, I want a simple roll, and then I want you to tell me what happens.

Plot twist I always GM and I'd like to keep it that way. None of my players want complicated rules, and I bless every day that they feel that way.