Irrational Hatreds in RPGs

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TristramEvans said:
Ugh, there was a period of a few years where you couldn't have any thread on TBP about looking for a game system or adapting a property to a game, without a steady chorus of JehoFate Witnessess, even if in the OP you specifically stated "not interested in Fate" or "anything but Fate". They'd even drop into discussions of other game systems to tell people they should just convert to Fate. Seriousl;y, it was endemic.
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I mean I had a thread here where I said I wasn't interested in any D&D derivatives and people were still trying to suggest OD&D & OSR games.
 
Also, it's amazing how I made a thread with the express purpose of "These are all things we hate but for irrational reasons where we can't have arguments are shit on anyone who does play that way" and yet it still happens.

I feel like people don't understand what irrational means.
 
EmperorNorton said:
I mean I had a thread here where I said I wasn't interested in any D&D derivatives and people were still trying to suggest OD&D & OSR games.
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In your not-D&D thread you started with a request for a vague like-D&D game but without specific elements that were particular to later editions of D&D, so until you clarified it made sense to inquire about the scope of not-D&D. But by then I think other people were getting enough use out of the discussion that it was out of your hands.
Threads drift. You only get to create the thread, not to curate its contents.
 
under_score said:
In your not-D&D thread you started with a request for a vague like-D&D game but without specific elements that were particular to later editions of D&D, so until you clarified it made sense to inquire about the scope of not-D&D. But by then I think other people were getting enough use out of the discussion that it was out of your hands.
Threads drift. You only get to create the thread, not to curate its contents.
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I literally said "preferably not D&D at all" in the opening thread.

I said I didn't want D&D, yet people still were like "OH BUT HAVE YOU TRIED D&D". The general assumption for some reason seemed to be that I'm uneducated and don't know about OD&D/OSR despite you know, hanging out on this forum, which has a small mountain of incredibly passionate OD&D/OSR fans, often/long enough to have well over 1k posts.

And now they want to pretend that OSR/D&D people don't do the same shit that FATE and PbtA fans do. And all the time, people who are fans of whatever is being proselytized can't even seem to tell it is being done.
 
EmperorNorton said:
Also, it's amazing how I made a thread with the express purpose of "These are all things we hate but for irrational reasons where we can't have arguments are shit on anyone who does play that way" and yet it still happens.

I feel like people don't understand what irrational means.
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Calm down... you are being too rational.
 
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tenbones said:
As a Savage Worlds fan (relatively newly minted) I'm very conscious of this myself. I like SW a *lot*... but it is for a very specific type of play. There are certain genres I would never use it for.
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Just curious: what specifically would you not use SW for? I would probably not use it for a game where combat is unlikely to happen.
 
E-Rocker said:
Just curious: what specifically would you not use SW for? I would probably not use it for a game where combat is unlikely to happen.
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As a Savage Worlds fan, I think it is bad at vehicle combat and bad at supers personally. The SW Settings that use Mecha always seem bad to me. And while I like the concept of Necessary Evil I'd never run it with Savage Worlds.
 
EmperorNorton said:
As a Savage Worlds fan, I think it is bad at vehicle combat and bad at supers personally.
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I've rarely done vehicle combat with it, and never done supers.

What system(s) do you like for vehicle combat? And why?
 
E E-Rocker

I'm a huge fan of mecha in general, so I'll admit that my answers will be mecha-centric, but the two best I've probably seen are Silhouette (Jovian Chronicles 1e being my favorite version) and Battle Century G.

Mostly it depends on what style you want. Silhouette feels a bit more kinetic and real, Battle Century G goes more full on Anime.

The main thing is that in a lot of systems, mechs don't SCALE well. Especially in a game where mechs are a tacked on thing onto a system designed for human sized things interacting.

There are a few other systems that I do like but they are much more specialized than just "mech", like Remnants and Tears of a Machine, which can't really just run "mech combat" in general and are kind of more tailored to their specific setting/conceits
 
Voros said:
The grognard version of 'You Should Use FATE' is 'You Should Use GURPS.'
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I actually find myself recommending FATE to myself, as in, “I should tweak ‘X’ to run (genre)...or I could just use FATE.” It save me from making yet another kitchen sink heartbreaker I’ll never actually play. Not that I think FATE is TOSTRTA (the one system to rule them all). It’s just easy ro shape to fit. (...awaiting the GURPS rec now...):-)
 
E-Rocker said:
Just curious: what specifically would you not use SW for? I would probably not use it for a game where combat is unlikely to happen.
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Let me preface this with: SW *can* handle just about anything in the hands of a decent GM. But I find that its abstractions work best for what its intended: Fun, Fast, Furious. If you want detail, extreme genre-rigor - then you should look elsewhere.

For what I specifically wouldn't use it for:

Supers - While I think SW can do supers, I don't think it scales well enough for me to get what I want. I think it handles Spiderman-levels of supers just fine, but i'm "iffy" about going too far beyond that. Which I know it *can* - it just doesn't "feel right". The abstraction is a little too deep for me. I'd use Marvel Super Heroes always as my first choice.

Anything I intend to be super-detailed - like any form of genre-specific setting where where the conceits demand "specificity" at a granular level. So if you want a game with LOTS of differentiation between weaponry - SW is a little limited. And even as I say this - there ARE good exceptions even to this rule: Interface Zero in particular, is pretty damn good. But I'm still going to use CPRed over it because I think the mechanical "authenticity" of the Interlock system is better suited to my tastes. If I had to use IFZ - you wouldn't hear my complain however.

I also agree that anything where nuance is *really* important - social-heavy games where you want social skills to matter (I like heavy RP with a social-skill check to "bring it home") then SW is probably not the best choice.

Not sold that it natively handles Stronghold level play - but it's serviceable. But it's not really intended to either.
 
EmperorNorton said:
As a Savage Worlds fan, I think it is bad at vehicle combat and bad at supers personally. The SW Settings that use Mecha always seem bad to me. And while I like the concept of Necessary Evil I'd never run it with Savage Worlds.
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Very much this.

That said - I think the reason it doesn't do Vehicular Combat well is because for some reason every example of it I've seen is **really** generic without, imo, trying to really leverage the strength of the SW mechanics well. I plan on putting this to the test in the near future.
 
I always thought D6 vehicle combat rules were simple but effective.
 
Ostilio said:
U mean I should define, or go read something on this board? Excuse me, but I'm not English mother tongue ;)
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Sorry, I meant define. Before you get into whether the game is or isn’t “meta”, find out what each of you define meta to be.
 
TristramEvans said:
Ugh, there was a period of a few years where you couldn't have any thread on TBP about looking for a game system or adapting a property to a game, without a steady chorus of JehoFate Witnessess, even if in the OP you specifically stated "not interested in Fate" or "anything but Fate". They'd even drop into discussions of other game systems to tell people they should just convert to Fate. Seriousl;y, it was endemic.
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/r/rpg on Reddit was like that at one point as well.
 
E-Rocker said:
My irrational hatred is Steampunk. I just don't get it.

Flowing from that is a rational, I think, annoyance: nearly every Weird West setting I've encountered has Steampunk elements. Can I please just have cowboys fighting vampires & suchlike without your stupid clockwork gadgets?
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Are you me?

The only setting that I like that is (IMHO wrongly) called "steampunk" is Space 1889. I prefer to call that Victorian SF, though.
I do also like Terra Incognita, but I don't consider that steampunk either, as it's all about Victorian explorer-adventurers with access to the occasional weird tech gadget.

Faylar said:
My GURPS interactions have been more or less good. One guy insisted that we drop Shadowrun and port it to GURPS... like every. Single. Session.
We just stopped inviting him.
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We played ShadowGURPS for years. The GM who did the conversion, also adding stuff from other Cyberpunk settings, knew the system in-and-out so it ran great.

Savage Schemer said:
3D20, take the median result by default; take high on advantage and take low on disadvantage.

Betcha could make a decent system outta that...
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IIRC The Dark Eye uses 3d20...

E-Rocker said:
I have an irrational hatred for D6s with Arabic numerals on them. PIPS FOREVER!!!
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I have an irrational preference for numbered d6. I don't hate pips, though.
 
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Whille we are ranting about standard responses to system recommendations threads... what's the deal about "recommend me a system for X" threads? I totally get it if we are talking about some niche genre, like Mecha, that require specialised subsystems. Most of the time though these threads are for pretty vanilla IPs, based on TV shows that require no exotic rules at all.

Seriously, just go with whatever generic/genre appropriate system you're already comfortable with; that is what is going to give you the best results.

....or Fate
 
CRKrueger said:
Flowing from that is a rational, I think, annoyance: nearly every Weird West setting I've encountered has Steampunk elements. Can I please just have cowboys fighting vampires & suchlike without your stupid clockwork gadgets?
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Dang it. Whispered West is WAY on the backburner. WAY WAY. Sighs.
 
tenbones said:
As a Savage Worlds fan (relatively newly minted) I'm very conscious of this myself. I like SW a *lot*... but it is for a very specific type of play. There are certain genres I would never use it for. And there are genres I do use it for that I would never try shoe-horn it in.

Basically it's just a good serviceable pick-up-and-play system with very good range of playstyle and scalability. But it's not the one-all-be-all a lot of people pretend it is.

It's why I'm currently looking at some heavier crunch (Mythras) to change things up a bit at my table.
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Yeah. I'm a huge SW fan, but I'm running an Eldritch Skies game right now and... hoooo boy is it a poor fit. SW does a lot of things really well, but "cosmic horror techno-thriller" is not one of them.
 
Faylar said:
To be absolutely fair. Its an entertaining book with a lot of personality. If you like Fate and Dresden... I dont see how you could go wrong with it.
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Yeah, the Dresden file book is very good. Lays out the world without reading like a fan wiki.
 
3rik said:
Are you me?

The only setting that I like that is (IMHO wrongly) called "steampunk" is Space 1889. I prefer to call that Victorian SF, though.
I do also like Terra Incognita, but I don't consider that steampunk either, as it's all about Victorian explorer-adventurers with access to the occasional weird tech gadget.
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My main hatred of steampunk comes from it's fanbases tendency to be about the aesthetic rather than the... punk. And I get it, victoriana is cool, but punk is about being against The Man, not being on his side.

As a cyberpunk, I can safely say that nobody is in my subculture purely for the A E S T H E T I C, at all, ever, even a little bit.
 
Ladybird said:
My main hatred of steampunk comes from it's fanbases tendency to be about the aesthetic rather than the... punk. And I get it, victoriana is cool, but punk is about being against The Man, not being on his side.
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True, but let's face it, The Man has all the cool shit. No one ever feels nostalgic for the life of a medieval peasant. :shade:

Actually, I suppose you could argue that part of the premise of cyberpunk is that it's set in a future where you can be broke enough to have decent proletarian cred, yet still have a lot of the cool shit - either because it's become so commonplace as to be dirt cheap, or at least because it's become portable enough to be easily stolen... >_>
 
Savage Schemer said:
3D20, take the median result by default; take high on advantage and take low on disadvantage.

Betcha could make a decent system outta that...
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It's been a popular houserule for d20 for ages, or so I've been told.
Personally, I think you should roll 2d20 take highest on advantage and 3d20 take highest when the GM thinks it's a near sure thing, but still wants you to roll. But I guess some people just want to keep the number of dice again:shade:.

Baeraad said:
True, but let's face it, The Man has all the cool shit. No one ever feels nostalgic for the life of a medieval peasant. :shade:

Actually, I suppose you could argue that part of the premise of cyberpunk is that it's set in a future where you can be broke enough to have decent proletarian cred, yet still have a lot of the cool shit - either because it's become so commonplace as to be dirt cheap, or at least because it's become portable enough to be easily stolen... >_>
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Proletarian cred, comrade? Are you an infiltrator, perhaps:devil:?
We proletarians don't work with cred!
 
Baeraad said:
Actually, I suppose you could argue that part of the premise of cyberpunk is that it's set in a future where you can be broke enough to have decent proletarian cred, yet still have a lot of the cool shit - either because it's become so commonplace as to be dirt cheap, or at least because it's become portable enough to be easily stolen... >_>
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True enough. And I guess at least there's some escapism in "stick gears on it" victoriana, whereas we've been living in a cyberpunk hell for the last decade or two.
 
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