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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 21st, 2023

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  • I am specificly referring to things like the battledome and retained retraining rules. The creators don’t seem to understand what an RPG is and are treating it like video game mini-games are an ideal play pattern. Like are you going to want to reference some poorly designed minigame rule for Negg management?

    Neopets seems like an ideal IP for something rules light, not something that is trying to be GTA on paper. I also sense that some of these designs might make the game feel unfaithful to Neopets.

    Note that it’s making a lot of promises for more rules, but not describing what those rules are. Which is likely a sign of the rules being very rough and needing a lot of work. Which is why I say it looks like a mess.



  • With Hackmaster 5. The balance point of play is on health and equipment. This creates a long term dynamic instead of an encounter or “adventuring day” balancing act. Added with penetrating (exploding) dice and thresholds of pain (ToP) this makes even easy combats dangerous. So there is very little pressure on balancing a fight to make a challenge, every fight is dangerous. This is honestly the biggest flaw with GMing D&D 5e and PF2e, because there isn’t really a longterm balance point. And giving players a little extra healing (bonus action healing potions) or a night of sleep makes it much harder to challenge them without a TPK. Which is a consequence of the mechanics fighting logic in the game.

    Thanks to Hackmaster’s longterm framework equipment can be very impactful on play encouraging exploration. And giving a powerful item doesn’t create a future problem for me. I can just roll for items and it’s fine. I also don’t worry about mixed level parties, weak characters or broken abilities.

    Hackmaster Monsters are well designed with lots of supporting information that help inform my choices and provide easy answers. Stuff like sleep cycles and spell components are clearly listed.

    For WFRP and CoC, the d100 universal resolution system and simplicity of rules makes it very easy to arbitrate. Effectively there are few rules questions.

    Cthulhu also follows a particular flow of dread, terror, gore/horror that push the game forward. But it does typically work best with one shots.






  • In video game design there is the MDA framework. Where mechanics (rules) create dynamics (gameplay flow) that express aesthetics (genre and emotional expression). Thus in d&d the rules change the actions players take and these actions determine the tone and feel of the game. This is why Silvery Barbs is miserable, the dynamic it creates diminishes the roleplaying aesthetic by breaking suspension of disbelief.

    When looking at 5e the fact most players don’t just homebrew a few rules, but gut large mechanics (light, encumbrance, gold, travel) of the game. This has completed removed WotC’s control of D&D’s dynamics. This breaks the aesthetics of the system. 5e in it’s current state is not a heroic fantasy game, but everyone thinks it is. Which is why so many tables fail and new DMs burn out.


  • “Finally, this rule absolutely eliminates the need for anyone, be he player or, so help me gods, GameMaster, to fudge a roll. Fudging, also known as CHEATING has no place in a game that already has a mechanic designed to eliminate freak occurrences.”

    I guess you are right, DMs can fudge all they want. GMs keep their honor and don’t roll dice with Satan.




  • There is a wide range in how RPGs can be played. For TSR era D&D there it has a lot of in built mechanical flexibility. White Wolf games like WoD or Exalted adds a layer of dramatic flexibility at the expense of in-built heroics, which works well for a dark modern setting.

    I really like a lot of games for different reasons. WW games, particularly Wraith, are some of the more interesting to run. Due to the higher reliance on player creativity and inter-character interactions. I really enjoy Wraith’s shadow system for creating interactions between players for character flaws.

    Paranoia is perhaps one of the most interesting GM experiences because it encourages so many deviations from standard gamemastering; railroading, PvP, splitting the party, killing PCs, … . Still it works so well.








  • Yes, I want my players to roleplay. The issue I have with pf2 and 5e is that they require way more work to get into a decent balance between combat, roleplaying and exploration. Often ending up very combat heavy and characters that “excel” at non-combat encounters end up trivializing them instead.

    These dice rolls end up replacing roleplaying instead of enhancing it. In addition because of the rules interactions, poor wording and power creep in these systems the ability for GMs to avoid burn out is low. I don’t like them because they are toxic to new gamemasters, I have no technical issue running them. I ran several long campaigns in 5e, 3.5 and pf1. I don’t have burn out issues with Hackmaster, WFRP, Paranoia, Call of Cthulhu, WoD, Ryuutama, … . It’s purely a problem with recent d20 player option focused systems and it will only get worse with more WotC and Paizo releases.

    My GMing is fine. I make mistakes at times and don’t always follow my own best practices. But I run fun games in many systems easily. I don’t get why you are trying to gatekeep me out of the hobby. I don’t like two games because they suffer from fundamental flaws born out of ivory tower game design. If you can’t see those flaws, that’s you.

    Maybe I should make my point clear. Players love 5e and PF2, GMs learn to hate them or quit. Because they are only noob friendly to players, not GMs. It’s why homebrew games are less common in them and typically only run by veteran GMs. I literally do not care how hard players have it to learn a system. Players always have a GM to support them, it’s trivial to teach a player. Teaching a new GM is frustrating when 5e and pf2 teach bad habits like everything is combat or a pass/fail roll.