Game Design Sins

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Yeah, a lot of this thread is more about preference than abomination. Like generic spells, I keep using them in my games because I've seen too many lists of thousands of spells that amounted to difference without distinction.

But there's stuff like the misnamed table that's in the wrong part of the rulebook that's referred to repeatedly by a name that's not even on the table. Now that's a game design sin.

I think the distinction is that NOBODY wants it or likes it and it is just a straight up abomination.
Infamous White Wolf 'Page XX'. :hehe: In the Vampire CCG there was a card with a delightful, lengthy typo ending in "carriage return; whatever."
 
I remember some print ads for the D20 Star Wars RPG that showed scenes from the films with a bunch of stormtroopers or gungans in the background, and a random one being highlighted with text that was "What's their story" or something like that. The idea being that you could play any of these unnamed characters and have your own adventures with them.

But my reaction was just "I don't know; who the hell cares."
I've never seen those ads, they certainly would tugged at my imagination!
I suppose I'm odd... being the sort who watches James Bond movies and feels bad for the nameless mooks who get mowed down unceremoniously. I always wonder about their childhoods... did they want to grow up to be minions of a supervillain? Will there be anyone who cares that they died?
It's one of the things I loved about the No One Lives Forever games... you could sneak up and listen to the conversations between evil minions... usually about what they were planning for their day off, complaining about the commissary at the secret lair, or other mundane stuff.
 
So in most traditional “one GM” games, the GM can make things happen outside of dice rolls or player decisions.

By that I mean, outside of a critical failure, or a player rolling a 6- or 7-9 in Apocalypse World.

In most games, the GM can just declare “as you run around the corridor you come face to face with a whole platoon of Stormtroopers!”. In these new “GM has meta currency too” games, the GM could have only made that kind of declaration if he/she had some “Doom points” to spend (which are gained when the players generate certain results with the dice).

This is different than games like Cypher System or Fate where the GM can offer bad things in exchange for bonus luck or something if the player accepts it. But close. I’ve started to dislike that mechanic too.

The point is that the only reason why I THINK that these rules were invented was because some game designers had one too many bad experiences with GMs and felt that they had to impose restrictions on them in general.

I find that tragically sad.
It may be a crossover influence of boardgame design also. I seem to recall the baddie player in Mansions of Madness 1e had a limited amount of points each turn to do baddie stuff.
 
Most of my game design sin peeves involve what I'd call unfocused design. Generally speaking this is where individual mechanics sort of float in the jello of the rules text without being threaded into meaningful play loops of any kind. Unfocused design moreover tends to produce games that struggle to streamline play toward whatever the desired goals of play were meant to be. This is where you see those games with 'quick' char gen rules that actually take three hours. Games that I would consider top-end examples of focused design would be B/X, Torchbearer and Apocalypse World. In those games all the mechanical design decisions work together to push the play experience in the same direction and you aren't going to see a lot of random rules included that just kind of hang there without greater connection of function.

Having read this whole thread, I would put most of peoples' complaints into the category of unfocused design.
 
in Gott in Himmel, is there a better way to suck all soul out of a game than generic magic?

Yes, having a thousand and one variations of what's essentially an "Inflicts damage", "heals wounds" or "summons creature" spell, then having to bring the game to a screeching halt to look up the spell description—sifting through literally hundreds of pages and spell entries, just so that you can finally find this spell and figure out the artificial way this one variation differs from all the rest, so you can finally use it and get the game going again.
 
Yes, having a thousand and one variations of what's essentially an "Inflicts damage", "heals wounds" or "summons creature" spell, then having to bring the game to a screeching halt to look up the spell description—sifting through literally hundreds of pages and spell entries, just so that you can finally find this spell and figure out the artificial way this one variation differs from all the rest, so you can finally use it and get the game going again.
This actually speaks directly to my post above. Why not just have one damaging spell that scales with 'spend' (whatever that is) and that can have environmental riders like AoE and damage type added to it? I'm sure I don't know and neither do those designers.
 
Yeah, a lot of this thread is more about preference than abomination.
I should probably preface all of my posts in this thread with “In my personal opinion, I feel that the following game mechanic IS an abomination and you’re free to disagree with my opinion because I’m just some random jackass stranger”.

Of course it is about preference. While some things here are inarguably universal (Page XX) the rest is… well to generate conversation.

Now in response to my post about doom points, I’ve actually reconsidered my opinion thanks to some of the responses. People who disagreed with me actually made me change my mind a little. Who’d have thunk it?
 
I dislike focused design, I like my games to flow organically and I want the tools to handle events that get off track. If I wanted a controlled loop I'd write a novel.

But that doesn't make focused design a sin. Now if you built a game play loop equivalent to 10 print "whee" 20 goto 10 or worse the kind of massive looping spaghetti code created by the absence of function commands, and the gameplay flowchart was a 40 page folding diagram with card board pop-ups that would be a sin.
 
I dislike focused design, I like my games to flow organically and I want the tools to handle events that get off track. If I wanted a controlled loop I'd write a novel.

But that doesn't make focused design a sin. Now if you built a game play loop equivalent to 10 print "whee" 20 goto 10 or worse the kind of massive looping spaghetti code created by the absence of function commands, and the gameplay flowchart was a 40 page folding diagram with card board pop-ups that would be a sin.
You're mistaking what I'm calling focused design for something else. Play loops aren't about control at all, they're about the extent to which mechanical choices feed back into the play experience (or 'matter' I suppose). That can be light and organic or crunchy as fuck. What I'm describing as play loops aren't anything like what you describe in your second paragraph - they aren't a straight function of mechanical complexity.

Edit - as an example, resource management in B/X is an effectively designed play loop.
 
This actually speaks directly to my post above. Why not just have one damaging spell that scales with 'spend' (whatever that is) and that can have environmental riders like AoE and damage type added to it? I'm sure I don't know and neither do those designers.

That would be far more simple, streamlined and consistent than having hundreds of variants of every spell type to cover every eventuality. Just define the core effects, then whatever you pile on top of it adds to the effect's cost when casting. Range/AoE, Duration, plus additional details, like whether the AoE is Discreet (friend or foe only), or has extra effects (like Damage+Knock Down, or Damage+Blinded), etc. Then each stuff adds a set amount to the spell's cost, and damage always inflicts X per level, or Y per level if it's damage over time, etc.

But the way games like D&D handle it you have hundreds of spells, with inconsistent characteristics and little balance between each other arbitrarily assigned to different spell levels. So that you end up with some spells that are more powerful or useful in the same level, or even more powerful than higher level spells (one of the reasons everyone remembers Fireball in D&D; it's better than anything else), and everything is so inconsistent you have to check the book every time you're going to use something that isn't Fireball (or any of the tiny handful of spells everyone uses all the time) to see how it works.
 
I think having core effects based rules can work if you also have ways to modify those core effects in a way that really makes them feel different and captures the feel of different ways to do things - but often that doesn't happen, so what you get in practice is often a trade off between simplicity and setting feel.
 
Depending on GM fiat to resolve everything. Sure, the GM will have to resolve things sometimes. Ideally you've got a core mechanic that's robust and flexible enough to handle most anything with a skill roll. But look, if your game can't function without GM fiat handling everything all the time your game is incomplete and badly designed. It's common enough that you're only going to the first circle of hell because it's biggest and all. OD&D and Tunnels and Trolls get a pass on this because of the ignorance of early days but you'd think by eighth edition T&T's combat system would actually function in play. It's not avante garde or liberating it's laziness and incompetence. Into the pit with ye!
You always need judgment calls by a referee. Life even in a fictional setting is nuanced enough that there isn't a system designed that is out there capable of handling everything that comes up in a campaign. And if it is not that nuanced then a group might as well cut out the middle man and play a sufficiently detailed boardgame or wargame for all the use they are getting out of a system designed for RPGs.

An RPG is an aide to help make the campaign run smoother. To allow it to run within the time folks have for a hobby. To teach a novice about a setting or genre. And to help keep things consistent as players adventure throughout the campaign.

The goal of eliminating the referee's judgment is a fool's errand. Instead, the system should tersely present what is needed to get a campaign going for the setting or genre it's described along with teaching the reader how to be a better referee. Not by trying to cover every aspect of what could happen. Or by absurdly stretching a dice mechanic in a futile attempt to cover every contingency. Instead, the author of a system should briefly explain why the mechanics were chosen and why they work the way they do. With that information referees using that system will have enough information to come up with a way of resolving things not covered by the rules that is consistent with the rest of the system. Or if the system is that detailed, like GURPS, it will help the referee pick which elements of the system to combine for the ruling.
 
My rule of thumb when writing rules is to imagine what I would see if I was standing there witnessing the action. Is the result always a failure? Always a success? Or only succeeds some of the time, and if so what are the odds and what factors influence the odds. Then I translate that into the core dice system I am using whether it is 1d20 for D&D, 1d100 for Legends/Mythras/BRP, 4dF for Fate/Fudge, or my favorite 3d6 for GURPS/Hero System/AGE.

Welding the mechanics to how the setting or genre is described is what keeps things consistent. As one works more with a setting or genre, you notice patterns that when translated to an RPG system mean similar ways of using the dice to resolve them if the outcome is uncertain.

For example, I am now in my late 50s and have worked in my field of programming and metal cutting machines for nearly four decades. From helping up folks working in shops and factories I noticed that for most tasks the question isn't whether the person succeeds at a job, but rather how long it takes them. Most people succeed but some do it faster than others. However, when something has to be done with either time or resource constraints then there does seem to be an "odds of success" involved. What I write now about skills and tasks now compared to two decades ago reflects that.

But this only applies when I write for a genre or setting that is I want to be more grounded than fantastic. If we are talking about wuxia, superheroes, myths, or Saturday morning cartoons. Then I would take a different approach to reflect on how things work in that setting or genre.
 
Edit - as an example, resource management in B/X is an effectively designed play loop.
I think it reflects the fact that Arneson, Gygax, and others at the time think that if you marched into a dungeon with 20 arrows you only get 20 shots. Also, the fact that a character can't carry 1,000 arrows ready to use for combat. They could however probably put a lot of those arrows on a mule and reequip after each fight.

To be clear there are plenty of fictional examples where the "hero" only runs out of stuff when the plot requires them to run out. If a group wants to run a genre or setting that has this element more power to them. But the idea behind play loops is better off being relegated to the world of boardgames not RPGs. In its place, game authors should more explicit about the genre or setting behind their system and how the various mechanics support that.
 
I disagree about loops. Most of really well desidned games Im familiar with have well designed play loops woth uaeful feedback.
 
My number one is assuming rules for GM controlled characters should be identical to player controlled characters despite the substantial differences in their gameplay experiences. This is more commonly just ignoring the realities of GMing when designing rules.
I gotta say that sounded cool when 3.0 came out. The problem I had with it is at higher levels making the NPC didn't match how long most lasted in the game. So back toy above guidance that any complexity in a game should be roughly no more than proportional to how long you expect to do said element.
Yeah, a lot of this thread is more about preference than abomination. Like generic spells, I keep using them in my games because I've seen too many lists of thousands of spells that amounted to difference without distinction.

But there's stuff like the misnamed table that's in the wrong part of the rulebook that's referred to repeatedly by a name that's not even on the table. Now that's a game design sin.

I think the distinction is that NOBODY wants it or likes it and it is just a straight up abomination.
No mine are abomination observations. I know because I said so!
 
Originally I was going to respond to specific posts, but the thread has flown way past the posts I was going to respond to, so...

GM Meta-currency - the problem I have with, for example Doom Points, is if the GM needs points to be able to give the PCs an encounter, what happens if they do something in the sandbox that would logically be responded to, but the GM doesn't have the points to make that happen? I'm not talking about the GM just deciding there are storm troopers around the corner, I'm talking the PCs enter the storm trooper compound. Why does the GM need to have points to present a patrol in a logical place? Random encounter tables are different because their use corresponds to time passing in game play, or PCs entering certain areas.

Generic spells - I agree that having a million little different spells can be annoying. On the other hand, one thing I discovered I didn't like in Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved was the energy spells. Now in addition to them being generic, you actually determined energy type at casting time, but even if you had to memorize a specific energy type, no one would take fireball unless they knew they were fighting things vulnerable to fire. Take something that almost no one is immune to. With the choice, oops, immune to fire, cast something else, maybe even the energy the creature takes extra damage from. Now I do like spell patterns. Cold Iron uses a lot of spell patterns, but fire, lightning, and cold are all a bit different, and cold is at higher levels. But the fireball spells at different levels aren't entirely new spells, they are the same spell but the dice are larger. And I totally agree, generic spells across the board is boring. I like Cold Iron and RuneQuest that have a lot of symmetry to spells without them being totally symmetric, but I also do like D&D with all it's unique spells.

The problems of RPGs based on fiction is that authors don't follow RPG rules... BUT if you are going to have a Star Wars game, provide an option to play the iconic characters as PCs, and/or an option to play characters of similar power, and optionally an option to play characters at lower power levels. And incidentally, one reason to use the same mechanics for writing NPCs as PCs is it's much harder to have NPCs that could never be attained by the rules, other than things like races or creatures that aren't available for PCs. But hey, if someone wanted to have dragon PCs in Cold Iron, I can tell you how to do it. You can decide if they start off full size or gain size with level. But every Cold Iron dragon has a Fighter Level and if they cast spells they have a Magic User or Cleric Level and if they don't cast spells they have a Passive Magic Level that gains some defensive magic. My dragons probably have several levels of Fighter and Passive Magic or Magic User. Heck, in Cold Iron, I can even tell you what level Magic User you have to be to make any magic item in the game (and ALL the magic items are based on spells, WITHOUT the problems of D&D 3.x magic items).
 
GM Meta-currency - the problem I have with, for example Doom Points, is if the GM needs points to be able to give the PCs an encounter, what happens if they do something in the sandbox that would logically be responded to, but the GM doesn't have the points to make that happen? I'm not talking about the GM just deciding there are storm troopers around the corner, I'm talking the PCs enter the storm trooper compound. Why does the GM need to have points to present a patrol in a logical place? Random encounter tables are different because their use corresponds to time passing in game play, or PCs entering certain areas.

That's one of my issues, but honestly my main issue is that it places the GM in the role of deliberate antagonist to the players - rather than a neutral arbiter, the GM is making a delberate choice to (mechanically) hurt the players - not through roleplaying antagonistic NPCs nor the eutral roll of the dice. I don't think this is a healthy dynamic for a system to encourage.
 
I gotta say that sounded cool when 3.0 came out. The problem I had with it is at higher levels making the NPC didn't match how long most lasted in the game. So back toy above guidance that any complexity in a game should be roughly no more than proportional to how long you expect to do said element.
Yea, that was a problem. Cold Iron is nice in that aspect that the work of writing up a high level NPC isn't THAT much, and most of it is picking magic items and memorize spells (and there you don't even need to do the WHOLE list). I've been working on a spreadsheet that makes it real easy to make basic fighter type opposition by assuming a simple progression of skill, so the real work will be writing up opposition spell casters. And basic fighter type can be humanoids or animal/monster types (which are actually a bit simpler). Any of those can be tweaked.

RQ is quite amenable to NPCs written up very basic, but any stats you give them, a PC could gain experience and attain those stats or better. Well, OK, if the player didn't roll an 18 INT, he will never get there without unusual magic. But give the NPC a bunch of skill percentages and a PC can eventually attain those.

On the other hand, I'm also not totally opposed to GM specials. And actually most fantasy gaming will always have GM specials. There will be plenty of monsters that would never be allowed as a PC except in the most unusual circumstances, and plenty that no one would ever play even if they are cool monsters to fight.

I have done full Burning Wheel burns for NPCs just for fun... But an 8 life path Burning Wheel character is a lot more fun to write up than trying to figure out everything for an 8th level D&D 3.x NPC even if it might actually be more work.
 
That's one of my issues, but honestly my main issue is that it places the GM in the role of deliberate antagonist to the players - rather than a neutral arbiter, the GM is making a delberate choice t (mechanically) hurt the players. I don't think this is a healthy dynamic for a system to encourage.
Ah yes, that's a good point.

Actually with the right game mechanics I think it CAN be fun, but then you are buying into it actually being an oppositional game and then the GM budget keeps the game balanced and the most likely to be fun.
 
Oh, I wanted to toss one more thing out on the subject of heroic mover and shaker NPCs... I really pay little to no heed to those NPCs in my Glorantha. I don't care a rats ass about what Agrath or Arkat or whatever the fuck he's called is doing... So the fact that he's at some insane power level compared to the PCs just doesn't matter in my campaign. Sure, there are NPC Rune Lords, and Rune Priests, and Rune Lord Priests, but they aren't stealing the PCs thunder (and the PCs might well even take out one or both Rune Priests they are currently dealing with...).
 
When I ran Conan, and when I played in Infinity the game didn't feel oppositional.

I mean seriously, not even a smidgen.
 
When I ran Conan, and when I played in Infinity the game didn't feel oppositional.

I mean seriously, not even a smidgen.

Didn't for me either. Nor did the players seem to perceive it in that fashion.
 
That's one of my issues, but honestly my main issue is that it places the GM in the role of deliberate antagonist to the players - rather than a neutral arbiter, the GM is making a delberate choice to (mechanically) hurt the players - not through roleplaying antagonistic NPCs nor the eutral roll of the dice. I don't think this is a healthy dynamic for a system to encourage.
The GM has to perfectly balance three personalities: Antagonist, Ally, and Arbiter.
If you don't act as a true Antagonist, NPC opponents tend to be caricatured or woefully incompetent.
If you don't act as Ally, NPCs allies cannot establish trust when necessary.
If you don't act as Arbiter, your players cannot rely on you to interpret the rules consistently and thoughtfully.

My belief is you need to invest fully in each of these aspects to get the most out of sessions.
 
For this I have always returned a grateful word to AD&D 2e Punching/Wrestling Tables. They worked, quickly, cleanly, and with actual excitement (the KO% roll is da best! :thumbsup:) -- and then they got out of my way.

And whenever a martial artist junkie needed their fix I just asked them to scribble up their own [Favorite Martial Art Here] labeled Punching/Wrestling tables without blowing the originals out of the water. And then we could avoid the discussion at the table! :grin: And they could find the other martial art bunny at the table and work furiously, debating fine points, like studying for bar exams. And I didn't have to care about all that extraneous detail. ... and then and then and then :kiss:

:heart: Oh, how I love you Punching/Wrestling table! I wish you came in Gun for my gun bunnies.
I miss that, I mean I had a character with a warrior strength bonus, and damage /added/ to your chance of KO. Which was awesome.
 
When I ran Conan, and when I played in Infinity the game didn't feel oppositional.

I mean seriously, not even a smidgen.
Perhaps the design sin is the failure to recognise that a significant number of those potentially interested in the game will be repulsed by the meta-currency at its core. That sin is venial - no design appeals to everyone - unless the designer is imposing that design choice on IP that are already meaningful to many people. Hence, I suspect, the vitriol aimed at Modiphius’ 2d20.
 
For me the GM Metacurrency is a mixed bag.

I like them when they positively enhance what a GM can do with the npcs; for example Bennies in SW allowing Soak rolls and the like. The players know what they're up against with a Wild Card npc and that it's going to be a tough contest with an npc built like them.

For things like playing a coin to bring new enemies onto the scene it's a "read the room" situation for the GM. It can feel fake and, at an extreme, antagonistic. There's not a lot of difference between that and a GM just doing it anyway with a source of reinforcements that they already knew was written into the scenario. But, and this might be me, as a player I don't like it. I much prefer to have a GM I trust doing what that GM does to portray the opposition in a believable and organic way. A GM slapping down a token with an "a ha!" doesn't cut it, even if they do it with an apologetic smile.

As for spending currency to negatively affect the pcs? No. Never. Spending a token to have a gun jam or anything that directly and personally stymies a pc is a game to avoid with a passion for me. In my group we refer to these as GM fuckover points.

So GM meta currency that is used to positively enhance the GM's options - cool. Negative currency can do one.
 
For me the GM Metacurrency is a mixed bag.

I like them when they positively enhance what a GM can do with the npcs; for example Bennies in SW allowing Soak rolls and the like. The players know what they're up against with a Wild Card npc and that it's going to be a tough contest with an npc built like them.

For things like playing a coin to bring new enemies onto the scene it's a "read the room" situation for the GM. It can feel fake and, at an extreme, antagonistic. There's not a lot of difference between that and a GM just doing it anyway with a source of reinforcements that they already knew was written into the scenario. But, and this might be me, as a player I don't like it. I much prefer to have a GM I trust doing what that GM does to portray the opposition in a believable and organic way. A GM slapping down a token with an "a ha!" doesn't cut it, even if they do it with an apologetic smile.

As for spending currency to negatively affect the pcs? No. Never. Spending a token to have a gun jam or anything that directly and personally stymies a pc is a game to avoid with a passion for me. In my group we refer to these as GM fuckover points.

So GM meta currency that is used to positively enhance the GM's options - cool. Negative currency can do one.
This really sounds more like an issue you might get with GM intrusions in Numenera more than with Modiphius's Doom/threat mechanic* which tends to be so much more enmeshed in the basic mechanics of the system.

And really if the GM can't read the room, then the mechanics can't really be blamed.

*I'm not saying it can't happen but really if the GM is spending a doom point to have the player's bowstring break and negate an attack rather than using the point to have the NPC roll to try and leap out of the way of the arrow then he's really going against the spirit of the mechanic.
 
I think the thing about Threat or Doom or whatever they are calling it, is that for it to work, the GM has to know in advance what the effects of Doom are. Or in other words, I think it works best as a tool for designing your own little subsytems then as a generic floating tool - which of course implies work for the GM.

My on the job learning has me introducing a major "attack" by the opposition every time they hit 10 threat. It's the only way where I can perceive they have some narrative control. The players are aware of the Threat total and I've told them my 10-Threat rule.

With Dune I felt the same way about zones. It makes so much use of zones in an abstract sense that I bounced off it hard, as I couldn't see myself actually able to run the game without doing a lot of prep work in advance to decide what zones were in play at any particular time (maybe if I ran it for long enough that might become intuitive, but I couldn't see myself starting a game without doing a lot of that prep.)
I decide on Zones at runtime. Just circles and boxes on the whiteboard.
 
My principal criticism of 5e is the proliferation of specific, named effects, and rules for spells and the like that interlock with those effects. It tends to encourage rules lawyering. I get that this is sort of by design for certain demographics of the D&D fan base, but you wind up with a 300 page player's handbook and endless looking up the specifics of spell effects.
 
This really sounds more like an issue you might get with GM intrusions in Numenera more than with Modiphius's Doom/threat mechanic* which tends to be so much more enmeshed in the basic mechanics of the system.

And really if the GM can't read the room, then the mechanics can't really be blamed.

*I'm not saying it can't happen but really if the GM is spending a doom point to have the player's bowstring break and negate an attack rather than using the point to have the NPC roll to try and leap out of the way of the arrow then he's really going against the spirit of the mechanic.
Fair. To be clear, I'm not specifically criticising any particular game.

I agree that a crucial GM skill is "reading the room." I don't agree that mechanics get a free pass in that process, however. The mechanics are just one of the many ingredients that influence "how" the GM reads the room and each game session make-up will apply its variables to that process.

With the bowstring example, I think this actually confirms why I'm not keen on the negative meta currency application. It is, of course, purely a taste issue. I would much rather that archer has the ability to roll and leap on a set basis because it sets them apart from the mass of other archers and makes them a character to remember. Someone to go after, keep an eye on or otherwise hold the spotlight for the encounter. If it's just an average archer that the GM has mechanically allowed to do that because of a currency they've played then they're not a meaningful npc and we know they can probably be ignored for the rest of the encounter as nothing special; they're just a guy who's briefly benefited by paying me back for something that I, or someone else did earlier that was in all likelihood something entertaining, heroic or catastrophic. There is an argument that spinning a negative outcome to a pc by way of it seeming to be a positive outcome for an npc may well be smoke and mirrors.

One of the reasons I like SW Bennies for Wild Card npcs is it allows them to do what they, or any pc, can already do - possibly more of it - rather than them pulling a random move that won't repeated. This move is relatable to them specifically and enhances their status. Yes, you have a small number of Bennies in SW which you could use for non-Wild Cards and this is where reading the situation is key and understanding the mechanics will influence that decision.

It's all a matter of taste.
 
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That's one of my issues, but honestly my main issue is that it places the GM in the role of deliberate antagonist to the players - rather than a neutral arbiter, the GM is making a delberate choice to (mechanically) hurt the players - not through roleplaying antagonistic NPCs nor the eutral roll of the dice. I don't think this is a healthy dynamic for a system to encourage.
I actually think that's the best use of them. A way of keeping oppositional GMing balanced.

But a) oppositional GM games are almost an entirely different part of game and b) most use of metacurrency doesn't fully commit to the idea. So you end up with weak hybrids like "we give you these points to spend on encounters but your role is to give challenge not to see the players as the opposition". Which is just having your cake and eating it. If games want to be oppositional they need to go all in or not bother.
 
With the bowstring example, I think this actually confirms why I'm not keen on the negative meta currency application. It is, of course, purely a taste issue. I would much rather that archer has the ability to roll and leap on a set basis because it sets them apart from the mass of other archers and makes them a character to remember. Someone to go after, keep an eye on or otherwise hold the spotlight for the encounter. If it's just an average archer that the GM has mechanically allowed to do that because of a currency they've played then they're not a meaningful npc and we know they can probably be ignored for the rest of the encounter as nothing special; they're just a guy who's briefly benefited by paying me back for something that I, or someone else did earlier that was in all likelihood something entertaining, heroic or catastrophic. There is an argument that spinning a negative outcome to a pc by way of it seeming to be a positive outcome for an npc may well be smoke and mirrors.
I think you'd really have to play it to see how this is not a fair description.

I think that's probably a large part of the issue with 2d20. The problems with the system tend to not really be the issues that people think they will be. I think it's because there isn't a system to which metacurrency is added. The metacurrency is the system.
 
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I actually think that's the best use of them. A way of keeping oppositional GMing balanced.

But a) oppositional GM games are almost an entirely different part of game and b) most use of metacurrency doesn't fully commit to the idea. So you end up with weak hybrids like "we give you these points to spend on encounters but your role is to give challenge not to see the players as the opposition". Which is just having your cake and eating it. If games want to be oppositional they need to go all in or not bother.

Huh.

I have had a CoC Keeper and a D&D5e DM who both thought it was their job to kill us using the resources provided in a published adventure.
This has, on multiple occasions, resulted in TPK. One recently which needed a retcon (to prevent player revolt).

My issue with Metacurrency isn't necessarily about the GM spending resources for challenge (because the monsters in a published dungeon are resources) but in the allocation and motivation of those resources.

I admit, I use Dune Threat like the Eye of Sauron score in TOR. It's a trigger for actions when it gets to a certain point. But that's not the way the metacurrency is designed. It's like the GM spending Karma to help baddies in MSH. It feels wrong.
 
I think you'd really have to play it to see how this is not a fair description.

I think that's probably a large part of the issue with 2d20. The problems with the system tend to not really be the issues that people think they will be. I think it's because there isn't a system to which metacurrency is added. The metacurrency is the system.
FWIW, I have played it several times. Let's agree to have different views on the subject of metacurrency. :thumbsup:
 
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