Irrational Hatreds in RPGs

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The first is time. Time scales in a lot of RPGs are way, way too long.

So how come fantasy games have kingdoms that are that old? It's one of those things that bothers me. Especially with me living in an area that has sites dating back to the Neolithic, the iron age, the middle ages and the modern era dotted here there and everywhere. The range of dates RPGs use just seems unrealistic and excessive.

I think RPGs just follow classical science fiction and fantasy, which often threw around really long time frames and also had to squeeze long-lasting civilizations into pre-history, and most fantasy games also support a fairly unchanging technology (so ancient enchanted armor found in a ruin is just the same as newly enchanted armor) and near-immortal races (which can't have appeared within a single generation).

But since hominids a million years ago sometimes looked like Raquel Welch in a fur bikini, it's all OK, like extra zeroes on a pinball machine.

The other one is distance.

I have to agree with this. Adventuring between established cities that trade with each other shouldn't be like going into unexplored territory. Probably they leave out the towns in between because it just slows the game down, since players want to find out names and meet noteworthy NPCs and check for rumors or adventure hooks in every town.
 
I think RPGs just follow classical science fiction and fantasy, which often threw around really long time frames and also had to squeeze long-lasting civilizations into pre-history, and most fantasy games also support a fairly unchanging technology (so ancient enchanted armor found in a ruin is just the same as newly enchanted armor) and near-immortal races (which can't have appeared within a single generation).

But since hominids a million years ago sometimes looked like Raquel Welch in a fur bikini, it's all OK, like extra zeroes on a pinball machine.



I have to agree with this. Adventuring between established cities that trade with each other shouldn't be like going into unexplored territory. Probably they leave out the towns in between because it just slows the game down, since players want to find out names and meet noteworthy NPCs and check for rumors or adventure hooks in every town.

I just assume that blank spaces on maps are meant for GMs to fill in, unless something is explicitly spelled out as some kind of overran wilderness.
 
The only thing that irks me a bit are games that put down another game or playstyle while touting theirs as "groundbreaking" or "revolutionary ".

But I feel that's rational.

Thankfully, the Savage Worlds people don't do that. The Savage Worlds FANS, on the other hand, LOVE to shitpost all over D&D. But yeah, when companies do it? Good way to unsell me.
 
I have an irrational hatred for double posts

On the forum I run for my job, double posts are actually against the rules. I keep thinking "is this really a needed rule" because its been one of those things that has been a rule forever and I don't think I originally made the rule, but then I remember how much I hate constant double posting (even though I fucking do it too, I'm a hypocrite about it), and I leave the rule in.
 
Excessive length in sourcebooks. WoD, which likes to start their books with chapter-length fictions. Exalted 3rd edition, which does d6 damage when used as an improvised weapon. Unknown Armies 2nd edition, which is nearly 500 pages spread over three books. D&D, which thinks you need different flavours of different races out of the gate. At that point I think you've written more game than 95% of your players will ever use.

Excessive dice pools. Once again looking at you, Exalted. It was a thrill the first time I fired my warstrider in anger and needed 90 dice to calculate the damage, but the thrill didn't last. Shadowrun, I enjoy you in spite of your system, not because of it.
 
Thankfully, the Savage Worlds people don't do that. The Savage Worlds FANS, on the other hand, LOVE to shitpost all over D&D. But yeah, when companies do it? Good way to unsell me.
I've been getting into SWADE a whole bunch lately and keep telling my friends that I'm going to spring it on them at some point. Seems like a game that we'd have a lot of fun with.
 
Also, I think some of you have been a bit off target for the thread. If you can rationalize why you hate it, it doesn't belong here :tongue:

(I mean, to me the point of this thread was to not turn into any arguments because as I said, there are no arguments to be had. It is all silly opinions with no need for trying to attack or defend, because its literally pointless to).
 
There's two things for me. I wouldn't describe them as hatreds, neither are they irrational. But they annoy the crap out of me in RPGs. and in fantasy in general.

The first is time. Time scales in a lot of RPGs are way, way too long. Take a fairly standard amount of time 'before now' in RPGs. 10,000 years. That long ago was the end of the extinction event that saw off sabertooth cats, woolly mammoths and cave bears. Farming was just getting started in the Middle East and it's the mid point of the range for when the entire population of everyone alive today is directly descended from the entire population of everyone who was alive then.

In other words, it's an incomprehensibly long time ago.

So how come fantasy games have kingdoms that are that old? It's one of those things that bothers me. Especially with me living in an area that has sites dating back to the Neolithic, the iron age, the middle ages and the modern era dotted here there and everywhere. The range of dates RPGs use just seems unrealistic and excessive.

The other one is distance. An average person can walk 20-30 miles in a day. They could walk a couple of miles, go to the market town and walk home in half a day or so. Covering maybe 5-10 miles in the process. Armies could manage a smaller distance and still be able to camp up at the end of the day. Or fight if they had to. Harald Hadrada's 200 mile march from London to York, done at a rate of 20-25 miles a day, is considered a mighty feat.

So how come it's acceptable for towns to be that kind of distance apart in RPGs? Neverwinter to Luskan is about 150 miles. That's over a week's travel on foot. And according to the map, there's nothing in between. No towns, no sites of interest. Just a road. And 200 or so miles of Neverwinter Wood.

The scale is a good argument for the Realms being a Tippyverse. And it's far from the only setting that has this issue.

Ye gods, this should be shouted out from the mountain tops. Gamers (and many, many fantasy writers) have no sense of scale whatsoever.
 
Also, I think some of you have been a bit off target for the thread. If you can rationalize why you hate it, it doesn't belong here :tongue:

(I mean, to me the point of this thread was to not turn into any arguments because as I said, there are no arguments to be had. It is all silly opinions with no need for trying to attack or defend, because its literally pointless to).
I hate targets
 
The radio station I listen to in my car played a recorded conversation they'd had with a Korean watchmaker about repairing an antique clock. The Korean accent makes the L disappear.

The woman my best friend was dating at the time had been working on repairing their bathroom, and loudly and publicly said "I love caulk!"

She had the kind of accent that makes "caulk" a homonym with "cock." We all had a good laugh.

I was in a Chinese restaurant once, and a woman at an adjacent table who was reading the Chinese Zodiac placemat suddenly burst out laughing, and said to her friend, "It says I'm supposed to avoid the cock!"
 
So how come it's acceptable for towns to be that kind of distance apart in RPGs? Neverwinter to Luskan is about 150 miles. That's over a week's travel on foot. And according to the map, there's nothing in between. No towns, no sites of interest. Just a road. And 200 or so miles of Neverwinter Wood.

Agree on the scale thing in general, but what you're describing here for the Realms is the result of looking at a map that's basically just listing all the state capitals.

This is what it looks like on the big map:

1580590229478.png

But you can zoom in and:

1580590463325.png

And stuff starts popping up. Zoom in again and there's more stuff:

1580590636719.png

This stuff has been around for a long time. Rassalantar goes back to at least the '93 Volo's Guide to the North, and I think it's actually in the original boxed set (but I don't have that at the office).

Digression over.

I hate decorative maps that lack essential game play utility.
 
I was in a Chinese restaurant once, and a woman at an adjacent table who was reading the Chinese Zodiac placemat suddenly burst out laughing, and said to her friend, "It says I'm supposed to avoid the cock!"

I always wonder who manufactures all those identical Chinese Zodiac placemats.
 
Agree on the scale thing in general, but what you're describing here for the Realms is the result of looking at a map that's basically just listing all the state capitals.

This is what it looks like on the big map:

View attachment 15380

But you can zoom in and:

View attachment 15381

And stuff starts popping up. Zoom in again and there's more stuff:

View attachment 15382

This stuff has been around for a long time. Rassalantar goes back to at least the '93 Volo's Guide to the North, and I think it's actually in the original boxed set (but I don't have that at the office).

Digression over.

I hate decorative maps that lack essential game play utility.
Waterdeep has a population of 130,000. That is insanely huge. The average medieval population is 95% rural. So to support a city that big you need around 2 million people in surrounding towns and villages from a dozen to a couple thousand people..

They dont exist.
 
Waterdeep has a population of 130,000. That is insanely huge. The average medieval population is 95% rural. So to support a city that big you need around 2 million people in surrounding towns and villages from a dozen to a couple thousand people..

They dont exist.

You would think there would be no more dungeons left to raid nearby as well.
 
New motivation for clearing dungeons: affordable housing for the millions of serfs needed to support Waterdeep.

giphy.gif
 
Waterdeep has a population of 130,000. That is insanely huge. The average medieval population is 95% rural. So to support a city that big you need around 2 million people in surrounding towns and villages from a dozen to a couple thousand people..

They dont exist.

Everyone eats goodberries from their bags of holding. Obviously.
 
Agree on the scale thing in general, but what you're describing here for the Realms is the result of looking at a map that's basically just listing all the state capitals.

This is what it looks like on the big map:

View attachment 15380

But you can zoom in and:

View attachment 15381

And stuff starts popping up. Zoom in again and there's more stuff:

View attachment 15382

This stuff has been around for a long time. Rassalantar goes back to at least the '93 Volo's Guide to the North, and I think it's actually in the original boxed set (but I don't have that at the office).

Digression over.

I hate decorative maps that lack essential game play utility.
I was using the same high res map as you, but you went south from Neverwinter. I went north to Luskan. But even on the smallest scale map you posted, Waterdeep is still two days walk from the nearest settlement of note.

Which is why I say the Realms is a Tippyverse.

And the original FR box set is based around the Dalelands, rather than the Sword Coast. I have the box packed away with my other box sets.
 
I also hate gnomes. Twee little fuckers.

I do too, but I know why.

My friend who got me into D&D and then refused to play it with me because I got filthy Basic, used to tell me all the time about his gnome character. I got regaled on many occasions on just how totally fucking incredibly awesome his goddamn shit ass gnome was. I was so sick of hearing about that pissant gnome. It has given me a burning hatred of gnomes that endures to this day.

In my homebrew fantasy world, there is only one hard and fast rule which has never been broken. NO GNOMES!
 
I do too, but I know why.

My friend who got me into D&D and then refused to play it with me because I got filthy Basic, used to tell me all the time about his gnome character. I got regaled on many occasions on just how totally fucking incredibly awesome his goddamn shit ass gnome was. I was so sick of hearing about that pissant gnome. It has given me a burning hatred of gnomes that endures to this day.

In my homebrew fantasy world, there is only one hard and fast rule which has never been broken. NO GNOMES!
Gnomes, halflings, kender and other twee races can all go take a long walk off a short pier.
 
Critical fumble tables. Perhaps they can be used for good, but in my experience they’ve always been used in the name of passive-aggressive douchebaggery by mongoloid neckbeards.
 
Excessive point-buy character generation. Buying stat points I can deal with. Buying skill ranks i'm ok with. Shit, buying the occasional 'feat' or 'talent' ok then. But balancing the points you've spent to painstakingly build a character that you want to play (a bit too much by the looks of things) with fucking advantages and disadvantages - NO. Ooh, if I buy colour-blind, I can get that thing that makes me ever so slightly better at that thing I wanted to be good at. If I read the entirety of the players handbook and all the point-buy options available, I might be able to squeeze out a tad more optimisation. Club foot for lip-reading! Annoying PvP hang-up that'll fuck up play for a monkey's tail so I can balance better!

grumble.
 
Critical fumble tables. Perhaps they can be used for good, but in my experience they’ve always been used in the name of passive-aggressive douchebaggery by mongoloid neckbeards.
Lately both critical hits and fumbles have lost their appeal to me. I've played a lot of DCC over the last few years and while I still love the game, the swinginess become more boring and frustrating over time. Wouldn't say I hate them, but I haven't got a real rational response for why I no longer like them.
 
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