RPG dislikes

[Superfluous Crow]

glad to see the thread revived after its short hiatus.
I don't mind the pointy-eared-ness by itself, when it is used to make a race seem more bestial, but when the only defining characteristic is pointy ears, i can't help but agree. As far as dungeons go, i like "dungeon adventures" but they hardly ever make sense. Who the hell would pay for something like that?

[Raelifin]

I actually like pointy-ears too. I just don't like elves. (Or halflings, for that matter. Or just about every race that feels copy-pasted into a world.)

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

I find I don't mind "humans with pointy ears" so long as they're played up.  For example, Discworld has dwarves and their standard fantasy dwarves, but everything about the stereotype has been played up to the point at which you feel like they're an original creation.  (Playing the trope for laughs is also acceptable.)

[LordVreeg]

MY GLASS IS 1/3 FULL AND CRACKED...

Ressurection/Raise dead IN MOST SETTINGS.  Ishy and I were babbling about spells that change the rules last night, and this one has always cracked me up.  

I know there are limitations, but with the amount of people who can cure diseases, prevent injuries, and raise the damn dead in a normal kingdom, it's a wonder that any human, hobbit, or short-ish lifespanned nobleman ever dies, not to mention rich merchants, etc.  Even in my setting with small amounts of high power magic, it is very common practise to mutilate a body after you kill it.  There are no longevity potions in Celtricia, or longevity spells.  

Well, the duke's son has the clap again, but their are 12 priests within walking distance who would love to help him out...I think this would cause the discrepancy between the rich and poor to increase exponentially...some of those priest can do this 4-5 times a day.
[/rant]

[Raelifin]

Settings where the number of intelligent monsters > number of intelligent humanoids.

Game systems with morality/alignment as a mechanic.

@ Vreeg: With ya on that one. I actually removed magical healing in my world, in addition to resurrection. Well, not really, but stopping blood flow is not the same as "boom, you're at full hp."

[BlueFalcon]

1. Magic: I want it to be mostly ritually based. Drawings of circles, mixing of materials, communing with Demonic/Angels/Gods or something that is inherently magical, or useing your own (or others) blood. Magic should take time. You won't see wizards and sorcerers casting fireballs and the like, but you might see them animating objects, raising the dead, blocking out the sun, etc.

2. Magic Items: Your +1 magical swords, bags of holding, and the like should be rare. They should be coveted. Think of how magic was handled in Lord Of the Rings, and that's about how I think these items should be. Magical Bread, cloaks, a sword, etc. Those magical rings took a long time to make... and they are coveted by those who have them. I want a system that expects you to give out maybe 3 combat enhancement items, and maybe 7 trinkets that do minor things that maybe could be put to use for greater things. You have magical armor against frost, a +1 sword, and bracer's of ogre strength +str. Then they have an orb of Elune's light (No more torches needed), a cloak that will keep you warm even directly at the south pole, a device that lets you see what was previously in this room in time, a rope that never breaks. That's the example of stuff I want. 3.X seemed to me to require you to hand out oodles of magic items to compete with monsters -.-.

3. Resurrection! Where's the sense of danger if you can't "die." When you're dead, you're dead. There are exceptions... but those would mean you're undead. Healing should take time. I'm willing to hand wave realistic healing though... Do you really want to spend a month waiting for your party to completely heal? Diseases and the like should be more than enough to show you're still not up to par and the like. Lately I've been deciding if having a "Limb Based" random target. This is so you could potentially lose an arm. But I also thought, would you want to play your character if he lost a leg, or an arm? I've pretty much nixed this idea.

4. A good mix of RP and Combat. I want a solid and good tactical combat system. It needs to remind me of playing Warhammer 40k, only on a smaller scale. Right now I like DnD 4.0's combat. Lots of sliding, manipulation, and on both sides. DM's and Players. The RP "system" needs to be lose. RP doesn't need rules, but it does need some stuff to help assist players who themselves lack traits their characters are supposed to have. Bob my player is not very charismatic, man he can't talk for crap, but he's supposed to convince the Shopkeeper to give him a discount, or he's supposed to get information etc. etc. He should be able to roll for this. I think 4.0 can make this workout as well, but no reason you couldn't do this with 3.X either. I saw a suggestion somewhere that said, if your players want to make a diplomacy check and the like and you want their "RP" to match their roll, you tell them to roll. Depending on how much they succeed or fail you tell them to role play the results.

5. A setting where every things happy go lucky. Where the only bad is outside the city walls. There should be just as much evil within a cities high court, as there is inside the vampire's keep. There should be enough interest in the world for players to want to go deal with politics to killing that massive dragon that's lived for way to long. A setting shouldn't have any secrets, because a setting that relies on these secrets and is the focus of the campaign, will not be the same if you revisit it from another place.

6. Lack of customization. Players should be able to play what they want, but it should also be balanced so that the DM has an easy time creating combat encounters and social. This is a hard balance to find :-/

[khyron1144]

4 -I want to say this loud and clear - I may have never mentioned this on this site before, but I know I've at least implied this sentiment to my group over the years.  I HATE magic items as written by most standard fantasy!  I despise the premise of these items just lying around in treasure chests, awaiting adventurers to pick them up and save the world.  I can't stand the fact that there are just as many long swords +1 hanging around on merchants' guards in Forgotten Realms as there are regular long swords in our world.  The thought of magical belts that bring its wearer the strength of giants, of six different magical rings all blessed by various elemental powers, of chain mail that causes its wearer to blend better with shadows, and of boots that allow its wearer to leap tall buildings in a single bound - all being worn on the same person - brings a shudder of anger to me.  And I see it everywhere.  Not only that, but at least two members of my group aren't happy unless they are loaded for bear, like a magical Mad Max, with dozens of magic trinkets.  Shadowfell is taking a much different approach to magicality in mundane items.  All magic items are going to be treasures worth keeping, ancient artifacts that have a story and a history, and not a single one of them will ever be sold by a vendor in a street.  All items will be in the style of Midnight's covenant items, that bond with its bearer and gain more power over time, but they will be unique entities, handed down through the ages.  Players will be grateful by 10th level to have one dagger that is magically enhanced... at least, that's my plan.  Anyhoo, I digress.  Booster items suck.

We must have different definitions of standard fantasy.  To me, standard Fantasy is Elric, Conan, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Lovecraft, and Lord of the Rings.  In all of those, magic is rare and scary and strange and rarely found in item form and when it is found in item form, it's a one-of-a-kind item.  
I've read some David Eddings and liked it, but won't add him to the canon.  I love Terry Pratchett, but Discowrld, though a bit of inspiration for parts of tera, is also non-canonical.  Anything with a still-living originl creator is too recent for Canon.
Robert Jordan and Terry Brooks, I've tried to read and never really gotten into.

glad to see the thread revived after its short hiatus.
I don't mind the pointy-eared-ness by itself, when it is used to make a race seem more bestial, but when the only defining characteristic is pointy ears, i can't help but agree. As far as dungeons go, i like "dungeon adventures" but they hardly ever make sense. Who the hell would pay for something like that?

I like dungeons.  I like dungeon-crawl style adventures.  I will admit logic is sometimes thin, but in a few cases I can make it make sense.  
For insance: a country where liches and necromancers usually have a right to continued existence until they have crossed lines the head of state can't ignore and declares them renegade.  Wizards whether alive or undead and whether or not they have inclinations towards darker arts are the aristocrats of this country.  Naturally, there are certain foritifications in the hands of evil necromancers or liches who keep lesser undead and other unsavory things around.  Also naturally, eventually it occasionally becomes necessary to deal with the nasty critters in their home environment.
Or it might have started out as a normal castle/ fortification thingy, but in a bygone era, one of the most powerful wizards ever worked some amazing magic on it that causes it to shift through various worlds, only landing on our world for about a month or so once every century or so.  In its cycle through various worlds, it picks up hitchhikers.  Some of them aren't fun to ahve around and must be dealt with.


My peave:
Every time Hades is assigned an alignment in a D&D sourcebook (1e or 3e Deities & Demigods 2e Legends & Lore) it's an Evil alignment.  I mean Hades as a deific being as much as or more than the Grey Wastes of Hades as an outer plane.  I don't think this fits the flavor of the established mythology.  Hades rules the underworld, but the underworld is not like the Christian Hell, everybody goes there, Good or Evil, king, warrior, philosopher, or slave.

[Raelifin]

He meant modern standard fantasy.

And Hades, as a plane of existence, should have been named Tartarus. Which reminds me:

I hate planes of existence which are treated like magical places on the world. That is, I hate it when traveling to another plane is like taking a vacation. Heck, I just generally dislike planes.

EDIT: Aha. I misread that. Whoops.

[khyron1144]

He meant modern standard fantasy.

And Hades, as a plane of existence, should have been named Tartarus. Which reminds me:

I hate planes of existence which are treated like magical places on the world. That is, I hate it when traveling to another plane is like taking a vacation. Heck, I just generally dislike planes.

I believe that I have read in certain author interviews and other places certain modern fantasy authors base at least part of their work on D&D games they've been in.  This seems to create a rather vicious cycle:  D&D gets based on certain bad fantasy novels.  Fantasy novels get based on bad D&D.  Each feeds into the other and makes the fantasy genre a little worse with each passing year.


I probably should have made it clearer in the original post.  I mean Hades as a deific being as much as the Grey Wastes of Hades as an outer plane.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

I agree on the "Hades shouldn't be evil" thing.  As far as I've read about him in myth he's dower and gloomy, not evil.  (Yes, he kidnaps Persephone, but that's merely par for the god course.)

[LordVreeg]

Peeve #41 from the misanthropic desk of the Thread Murderer.
This strange idea that ancient, immortal beings of incalculable power can be pigeon holed into an alignment system at all.

Every ninth thread or so, we bunch our collective panties about whether the alignment system works for regular folks.  We weigh the merits of whether NPCs or PCs or classes should be constrained by alignment at all.
Yet some people want to to try to assign a 2 letter value to the motivational script of a potentially unknowable greater creature rife with creative juices borne form the time of creation,and driven by events and passions fired by a hundred or more human generations??

Right.
 x.
(More coffee)  

[brainface]

4 -I want to say this loud and clear - I may have never mentioned this on this site before, but I know I've at least implied this sentiment to my group over the years. I HATE magic items as written by most standard fantasy! I despise the premise of these items just lying around in treasure chests, awaiting adventurers to pick them up and save the world. I can't stand the fact that there are just as many long swords +1 hanging around on merchants' guards in Forgotten Realms as there are regular long swords in our world. The thought of magical belts that bring its wearer the strength of giants, of six different magical rings all blessed by various elemental powers, of chain mail that causes its wearer to blend better with shadows, and of boots that allow its wearer to leap tall buildings in a single bound - all being worn on the same person - brings a shudder of anger to me. And I see it everywhere. Not only that, but at least two members of my group aren't happy unless they are loaded for bear, like a magical Mad Max, with dozens of magic trinkets.

not[/i] automagically make it cool. A +1 Longsword that I just found after a month-long quest through the boglands is going to deal +1 damage and hit 5% more of the time. This isn't actually that exciting, and may or may not have been worth the trip through the boglands.

2: The math doesn't always work. 3rd edition relies on the players to have access to magic items to balance the numbers--at a certain level, it kind of expects players to have +x bonus to their important stat, saving throws, ac, and attack bonus. This is kind of a lame thing with third edition because many of those items are boring (amulets of natural armor aren't exciting). If players don't have this stuff, it can throw the math off, which can have different effects on different players.

3: It takes player customization out of the players hands and puts it into the DMs hands. Say I make a fencer player. I take my fencing feats, I go into the fencing class. Say the DM lets us find a magical greatsword, and its history fits really well into his campaign setting and makes a lot of sense with the story and it's one of the only magical items in the land. That's great, but my character wields a rapier. Greatswords, not so good at that. Doesn't really fit the character. Maybe it's good for a museum donation?

4: Rare magic items tends not to be fair--if the awesome Skullcleaver greatsword is one of the only magical weapons in the land, deals +oh god! damage and etc, the greatsword-wielding barbarian just got a huge boost. The rapier-wielding rogue? Eh, not so much.

That was... kind of longwinded, but I felt the need to respond to the post--the urge for magical treasure isn't to be like Mad Max (though he IS awesome--he carries death in his back pocket!). The reasons I want easy access magical items (magical stores) are instead: mantaining control of my character's customization (*I* decide what weapons he uses), keeping up with the other players (I don't want to be grossly outshone), and to be able to contribute in the combat minigame that takes up so much of a D&D session (I don't want to be useless).

We must have different definitions of standard fantasy. To me, standard Fantasy is Elric, Conan, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Lovecraft, and Lord of the Rings.

lot[/b] of fantasy. :)

[Raelifin]

This is a very interesting point, because if we understand the game to be interactive storytelling, than why in blazes would a fencer get a greatsword? What sort of story is that?

I think the issue isn't so much about rarity as good DMing in that instance.

Stats though, that's just a failure of d20, imo. I mean, the power level of a character should be dynamically composed by their combat skill, magical skill, items, racial prowess, political power, etc. If all abilities were treated like magic items (in that they were "purchasable") this problem would be fixed, as would LA and ECL.

[Ishmayl-Retired]

Just for my own ego and pride, I would like to mention that brainface wasn't talking about a specific time when he was playing a fencer and I gave him a greatsword - I tend to be a bit nicer than that, just cuz if nothing else, I get tired of being bitched at. ;)

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Stats though, that's just a failure of d20, imo. I mean, the power level of a character should be dynamically composed by their combat skill, magical skill, items, racial prowess, political power, etc. If all abilities were treated like magic items (in that they were "purchasable") this problem would be fixed, as would LA and ECL.

You mean it's a failure of D&D, and core D&D at that.  There have been d20 games an supplements that bring buying power: Buy The Numbers, BESM d20, Mutants & Masterminds (only this last one really opens it all up).  Probably others that I've never focused on.

The advantage to having pre-bought stuff is that most of the work's been done for you.  And such games should be chosen for that reason.