RPGs: hall of shame

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Yeah, I don't think that Vampire et al are fair examples of point build systems because of how badly they implement it. (Linear/progressive combo is the main one, but there's also big issues like not making it clear up front to new players how vital having the right abilities is to discipline use or the fact that the generation merit is far better than any other for the same cost).

As best I can tell, it was an atttempt to make certain things "simpler" at the price of having, as you say, inexperienced people making dumb assumptions because they assume the designers knew what they were doing.

That said, I like both random and point build depending on my mood and prefer games to commit to one or another rather than mixing and matching. If I'm designing a character I want full control over everything from stats to background. If I'm random rolling I'll have a good solid lifepath system please.

A lot of it depends on how broad or narrow skills within the system are, too. Its easier to make a random system that doesn't turn out weird results when many of the components are broad enough that linking them to a lifepath will produce a result that at least looks coherent.

(There are also non-random systems that aren't pure build-point approaches; NEW and its kind involve sort of a "walk through a lifepath style structure and pick certain things at each stage" approach.)
 
I also think that it can lead to situations where you are more likely to get better rolls at a lower skill level.
There was a significantly increased chance of fumbling when you went from a skill value of one to two; it took only rudimentary mathematical skills to recognise this. When this was pointed out, the authors just said, "The maths might indicate that, but we didn't notice it affecting play, so it doesn't matter." and then essentially proceeded to stick their fingers in their ears and go "NANANANANANA! I can't hear you!"
 
Interstellar Elite Combat might qualify, except I only bought it because I happened to see it sitting in a bargain bin and picked up for a few dollars because, "Why not?". I found it an interesting novelty, and have no regrets.

D&D 4E is the game I own that comes the closest to qualifying by the OP's standards. It was actually the game that helped motivate me to emerge from a period of GM burnout, and I was super-excited. The opening session I had a really cool minis combat planned, with exciting terrain and all that jazz, and it went really well. But, as the game went on, the whole thing just felt more and more hollow. It genuinely is a great minis combat game, but as a roleplaying game, it really just felt sterile and lifeless to me, and to most of the players, and the feeling just grew and grew as game progressed. The extreme balance, down to accounting for every single item of treasure and making sure it was level-appropriate was constricting. The set-piece, balanced encounters were a chore to build, and the effort required to design them meant the game became more and more focussed around these pre-arranged battles. I ran it for about 12 months, and no one in the group was sad to wrap up and move on.

My negative impressions weren't helped by some of the extreme fans who supported it, especially the Literal RAW Zealots, who would lose their shit over the idea that a DM somewhere might rule that you can't trip a puddle of slime.

It's fair to say that my problems with GM effort in designing interesting combats leading to the game being about the pre-planned combats is similar to the experience I eventually had with Hackmaster, but in the latter case I could actually use Hackmaster for a non-combat game if I wanted to. 4E offers me nothing of value if the PCs aren't getting into complex fights on a grid.

As usual, this is, of course, just my personal experience. I am happy to accept that many others had a great deal of fun with 4E, and did not encounter the problems I did.
 
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Yeah, I don't think that Vampire et al are fair examples of point build systems because of how badly they implement it. (Linear/progressive combo is the main one, but there's also big issues like not making it clear up front to new players how vital having the right abilities is to discipline use or the fact that the generation merit is far better than any other for the same cost).

That said, I like both random and point build depending on my mood and prefer games to commit to one or another rather than mixing and matching. If I'm designing a character I want full control over everything from stats to background. If I'm random rolling I'll have a good solid lifepath system please.
Fair - maybe not. But illustrative perhaps, because I think a lot of the same issues crop up in other point buy systems, just not thrown in such stark relief.

I remember in particular when I was playing at the University role-playing club there was a stark divide between players who used the system to make a character (ie. they imagined a character and used the system to make it) and those who made their character for the system (ie they looked at the system and what it could do and thought up a character idea that would work well in that system.) The second group were generally the more experienced players, generally had more fun, and generally didn't have their characters get killed in gunfights or the like.

I remember my first Cyberpunk character died in the first gunfight because he was a Media, and I gave him the skills and equipment I imagined a media would have. The system was great for making make the character I had in mind.
 
I remember in particular when I was playing at the University role-playing club there was a stark divide between players who used the system to make a character (ie. they imagined a character and used the system to make it) and those who made their character for the system (ie they looked at the system and what it could do and thought up a character idea that would work well in that system.) The second group were generally the more experienced players, generally had more fun, and generally didn't have their characters get killed in gunfights or the like.

That's more accurately an example of a culture of play. I'd guess the club style was to play the system, so it's no wonder the players who wanted to play characters as a priority had less fun.
 
That's more accurately an example of a culture of play. I'd guess the club style was to play the system, so it's no wonder the players who wanted to play characters as a priority had less fun.
Well yes it became so because of the way the games we were playing worked.

It doesn’t take long for the incentive structure to become clear.
 
At least with a build system, that's an issue of how the player plays, not what a set of dice rolls has forced on them.
My point about balance is that ultimately balance comes from how the players and GM use the game.

Do you get to "build" your poker or bridge hand?

And force is a pretty strong word to use for a hobby.
Note I've been very specific criticizing mandatory random generation. its entirely possible to introduce random generation into an otherwise build system as long as you don't insist on it being able to gust above what the range of potentials with the build system do.
Mandatory is also a pretty strong word to use.

Neither random or build are objectively better. They are all preferences. You prefer to build characters. Other folks prefer random characters and others prefer something in the middle. I personally prefer some choice in characters, so I allow re-rolls, I allow swapping, I like systems where there are things like skills to choose. But I less and less enjoy a wide open build system like Hero or GURPS. I do enjoy something like Burning Wheel where you get to choose lots of things, but each life path choice comes with specific requirements of skills or traits to be taken.

I'd also add that my frustration with Hero (specifically Fantasy Hero) was that the players put a lot of effort to make characters, and then a design that seemed like a good design to fit a specific role actually wasn't even that good at the role chosen.

I've also gone through periods where I was frustrated by rolling up a "bad" character. I've come to understand that most of the problem though was the GM and other players, not my bad rolls. And yea, maybe being allowed a re-roll or a swap would have been nice. I also made some changes in Cold Iron for my campaigns to change some of the issues I saw. I made it easier for a straight fighter to be a better fighter than a caster/fighter combo after playing in a game where I had the only character not able to cast spells, and it was also one of the worst fighters. But I'm sure there are players who would have been happy with those rolls IF the rest of the players also supported a play style that allowed the PC with the poor rolls to still have a role and shine.

So yea, ultimately I put it on the GM and other players. If someone isn't having fun, look at the situation and address it. Make a new character. Tweak a character. I started allowing re-design in Hero after the first session or two (that didn't help Fantasy Hero though, the problems we kept seeing continued to show up well into the campaign).

Heck, these days I don't even care if a player cheats on their rolls. If that's what you need to do to have fun do it. You probably won't enjoy the game in the long run and if your cheating becomes an obvious detriment to the game, we'll ask you to leave.
 
Interstellar Elite Combat might qualify, except I only bought it because I happened to see it sitting in a bargain bin and picked up for a few dollars because, "Why not?". I found it an interesting novelty, and have no regrets.
That's usually my bar also. As long as it was an interesting read, I don't really have regrets. The only time I regret a purchase is when I double purchase. This is also the reason I have such a hard time pruning my collection.
 
This assumes that's the only reason for a build system as compared to, say, it being about ending up with the character you want to play rather than what the dice say you should play. This may involve optimization but that's entirely an issue of individual player expectation, not anything a build system forces on you.

I can't agree. 'Build' systems, point-buy, etc. for the most part are about making effective choices--you have a set number of options, or some 'currency' to purchase attributes, skills, spells, gear, whatever it may be. If the goal of the system was simply to allow players to make whatever characters they wanted, then there would be no such limits. You'd just set the stats, pick the skills, etc. with no cost-accounting involved.

Making those choices well requires system mastery. How much depends on the particular game and how transparent its character-generation procedures are. But to do it effectively you need to know a fair amount (generally) about how the rules work.

As I said above, I prefer the choices to come after the character is made, and in play, rather than before. You clearly feel differently. I will admit that I rarely sit down with a set character concept I want to play before generation: 'this character will be a slight but quick escape artist whose father beat him and so has problems with authority figures' or some such. I can see why people who do start out with a set character in mind before generation would not like random generation.

I hate rolling for stats. If one player rolls well and another poorly (this always happens) you end up with an unbalanced party consisting of Sir Guillaume the Golden.... and Blop the potato peasant. No fun for the guy playing Blop, and the Guillaume character would only be fun for a certain kind of player. Plus the GM then has to do extra work balancing scenarios and encounters for a wider range of characters' capabilities.

That's a good point, but I think it depends a fair amount on the particular game. In some, the randomly-rolled stats don't necessarily have much impact on
game-play or grant much of an advantage. That was true of OD&D, for instance.

Neither random or build are objectively better. They are all preferences. You prefer to build characters. Other folks prefer random characters and others prefer something in the middle.

I think that's precisely right. I wonder if age or route-of-entrance to the hobby could have something to do with it. Random or semi-random character generation was pretty common in the early days of RPGs and so seem natural to me. If a player came to tabletop more recently, out of a computer-rpg background where building your character was standard, he or she might naturally like that better.
 
I can't agree. 'Build' systems, point-buy, etc. for the most part are about making effective choices--you have a set number of options, or some 'currency' to purchase attributes, skills, spells, gear, whatever it may be. If the goal of the system was simply to allow players to make whatever characters they wanted, then there would be no such limits. You'd just set the stats, pick the skills, etc. with no cost-accounting involved.

Making those choices well requires system mastery. How much depends on the particular game and how transparent its character-generation procedures are. But to do it effectively you need to know a fair amount (generally) about how the rules work.

I think that's very system-dependent, assuming that there are both effective vs sub-optimal choices, and "system mastery" is something rewarded - basically the specific approach of Wizards of the Coast.
 
I think that's very system-dependent, assuming that there are both effective vs sub-optimal choices, and "system masery" is something rewarded - basically the specific approach of Wizards of the Coast.
Yes, Over The Edge is technically a build system, but it's not even close to a system mastery game.
 
Yeah, I've gone to excrutiating efforts specifically to remove the concept of system mastery from Phaserip, and to de-emphasize "power gaming" as an appproach as best I can.

The system can still be "broken", as any game system more complicated than Risus can, but one would have to completely abandon the game's inborn conciets and the GM has to not be doing their job right.
 
I think that's very system-dependent, assuming that there are both effective vs sub-optimal choices, and "system mastery" is something rewarded - basically the specific approach of Wizards of the Coast.

It is system dependent, but I think it's not limited to WotC. IMO knowledge of the system helps you build a character more effectively in GURPS, in Ars Magica, and certainly in Champions, to mention a few.
Yes, Over The Edge is technically a build system, but it's not even close to a system mastery game.
Fair enough. There are so many different RPGS with such variant approaches and ideas that coming up with generalizations that hold about all of them is nearly impossible.
 
If the goal of the system was simply to allow players to make whatever characters they wanted, then there would be no such limits. You'd just set the stats, pick the skills, etc. with no cost-accounting involved.

I've taken to doing this with most games (whether 'random' or 'design' based): "Just fill in numbers that are mechanically possible and don't worry about character generation rules." (By 'mechanically possible' I mean, for example, that if the rules say skill X must be at level A before you can have skill Y, you must ensure that you've set skill X to at least level A.)

I first did this as an experiment to see if, as is often claimed, everybody would just max out everything. The actual result was so interesting in how people didn't do this that I started to do it a whole lot more often.

As I said above, I prefer the choices to come after the character is made, and in play, rather than before. You clearly feel differently. I will admit that I rarely sit down with a set character concept I want to play before generation: 'this character will be a slight but quick escape artist whose father beat him and so has problems with authority figures' or some such. I can see why people who do start out with a set character in mind before generation would not like random generation.

I have rarely seen that kind of pre-planning for design systems, and as a result I've viewed advantage/disadvantage-based design systems with a somewhat jaundiced eye courtesy of all the proverbial 'ill-tempered, albinos with a limp' I've seen over the years. What actually seems to be the thought process behind the selection of disadvantages can be summarized in this IC view: "Hmmm... This spell is really hard to learn. I'm not sure I can do it. No, wait! My leg! It's gone gimpy! I can't walk right! Now I can learn this spell!"
 
I've taken to doing this with most games (whether 'random' or 'design' based): "Just fill in numbers that are mechanically possible and don't worry about character generation rules." (By 'mechanically possible' I mean, for example, that if the rules say skill X must be at level A before you can have skill Y, you must ensure that you've set skill X to at least level A.)

I first did this as an experiment to see if, as is often claimed, everybody would just max out everything. The actual result was so interesting in how people didn't do this that I started to do it a whole lot more often.
Yea, when I started my mid-2000s RQ campaign, the first two players were told just pick attribute values. Now after that I gave the rest of the players a number of points to spend based on what the first two had picked. I also separated the Ability Bonus from the attributes so there wasn't a perverse incentive to max out INT.

I have rarely seen that kind of pre-planning for design systems, and as a result I've viewed advantage/disadvantage-based design systems with a somewhat jaundiced eye courtesy of all the proverbial 'ill-tempered, albinos with a limp' I've seen over the years. What actually seems to be the thought process behind the selection of disadvantages can be summarized in this IC view: "Hmmm... This spell is really hard to learn. I'm not sure I can do it. No, wait! My leg! It's gone gimpy! I can't walk right! Now I can learn this spell!"
Yea, this is the problem I have with disadvantage systems...
 
It is system dependent, but I think it's not limited to WotC. IMO knowledge of the system helps you build a character more effectively in GURPS, in Ars Magica, and certainly in Champions, to mention a few.

Sure, WoTC was just the one example I could think of where it was intentional. I don't know Champions, I aways avoided that one for the excessive crunch for something that worked fine with WAY lighter systems. Ars Magica is an odd case, in that system mastery is basically required to play the game, a game in which each player has a stable of characters. One of the reason it's so difficult to get on the tabletop is because of the unprecedented amount of player investment required. In that way, though it's a game that I'm glad exists - it does limit it's own success, becoming a niche within a niche.

When it comes to GURPS though, I think that falls on the shoulders of the GM not doing their job. GURPS is a toolkit, and the GM should be curating and presenting the options for players based on the specific game they are running. If they are just leaving them to have to navigate thhrough endless Advantages and Disadvantages tryig to guess what is appropriate for the game - well, they aren't doing GURPS right, and setting the players up for failure.
 
When it comes to GURPS though, I think that falls on the shoulders of the GM not doing their job. GURPS is a toolkit, and the GM should be curating and presenting the options for players based on the specific game they are running. If they are just leaving them to have to navigate thhrough endless Advantages and Disadvantages tryig to guess what is appropriate for the game - well, they aren't doing GURPS right, and setting the players up for failure.

I agree with that. I've also run into a problem where one player will have access to material the other players don't have. "Hey, GM, can I take this advantage from GURPS: Asparagus", even though you'd only intended to use Basic Set stuff plus a bit of ultratech. Then you have to either veto it even though it probably would fit sensibly into the campaign, or let all the other players use asparagus stuff too.
 
I agree with that. I've also run into a problem where one player will have access to material the other players don't have. "Hey, GM, can I take this advantage from GURPS: Asparagus", even though you'd only intended to use Basic Set stuff plus a bit of ultratech. Then you have to either veto it even though it probably would fit sensibly into the campaign, or let all the other players use asparagus stuff too.

Yeah, that was a constant frustration for me running WoD in the 90s, I always wished White Wolf would have put out a comprehensive book, or at least index, of character options spread across the hundreds of splats
 
One thing to remember about optimisation in point buy games is that it's not necessarily a bad thing. Many character concepts are optimised. If I want to play an amazing pilot or a super skilled hacker, I can do that in many point buy systems. If I was playing something like a level based system I would basically be beginning as a something like a novice pilot or hacker and have to work my way up zero to hero.

But that's not the way characters in a lot of genre media work. It's a refreshing element for many gamers that these systems allow you to play super-skilled specialists. The weakest element has always been more that it was just generally more fun to be a combat specialist then any other kind of specialist.
 
I prefer the other two character creation options myself to either random roll or point buy
 
When it comes to GURPS though, I think that falls on the shoulders of the GM not doing their job. GURPS is a toolkit, and the GM should be curating and presenting the options for players based on the specific game they are running. If they are just leaving them to have to navigate thhrough endless Advantages and Disadvantages tryig to guess what is appropriate for the game - well, they aren't doing GURPS right, and setting the players up for failure.
GURPS has way more balance problems than how advantages and disadvantages work! Some point-build games (imperfectly) use the points as some kind of simulation: things that are "hard" cost more points. Character points reflect how much "effort" a character has to expend on picking things up. Other point-build games (imperfectly) use the points as some kind of balancing mechanism. Character points reflect how much "power" a character is deemed to have in the assumed setting. GURPS' characters point measures precisely nothing beyond "this is how much X costs in GURPS". Sometimes (as with skills) the point costs reflect the difficulty of learning like the first class of games. Sometimes (as with stats and advantages) the point costs reflect how "important" the value is to the campaign. Still other times there's no visible rhyme nor reason to the costs. This leaves you with an incoherent mechanism that is trivial to abuse if you're the kind of person who likes to abuse game systems to "win".

I had this spelled out in gory detail when a group of us, having gotten tired of the Megatraveller cavalcade o' errata, tried playing Traveller-in-GURPS. There were five of us in total: the GM and four players. Everybody but one of the players had limited experience in GURPS (I had none at the time) and as a result we, the players, made 'suboptimal builds' (as the experienced player put it).

My character was the navigator. Another player made a gunner. The third inexperienced player made a ship's captain. The experienced guy made a character on the same amount of points ("to show you how it's done") that was a better tactitian than the captain, a better navigator than my navigator, and a better gunner than the gunner. How? By dumping all his points into stats and buying a bunch of ½-point skills based on those stats, hazarding the occasional 1-pointer or even 2-pointer here and there. Because as expensive as stats were, they weren't as expensive as the exponential rise in skill costs, (especially for the "hard" skills). Raising a single stat by one point (usually IQ) could net you gains in skills that save you dozens of character points.

We eventually ditched Traveller and switched to CORPS instead and had a much better time.
 
The weakest element has always been more that it was just generally more fun to be a combat specialist then any other kind of specialist.
I've never experienced that problem, largely because I came to RPGs from the drama flake side of things and the games I was in were always more interaction-based than combat-based. In our games people who made combat-focused characters usually had a second character for the huge amount of time we'd spend doing things where combat wasn't going to get you very far. (The look of pure joy on their faces when they finally got the chance to unleash their combat might was always a warm fuzzy generator for me!)
 
I prefer the other two character creation options myself to either random roll or point buy
Do the alternative options include making people play themselves like in Villains and Vigilantes?
 
In theory I prefer life-paths to both random and point-buy. But one of the strengths of life-paths - that they're so setting focused - is also the reason I rarely use them as I prefer to make my own settings or use historical periods.
 
Do the alternative options include making people play themselves like in Villains and Vigilantes?

uhhhhhhh....that sounds like a profoundly bad idea.

I was talking about lifepaths and character modelling.
 
In theory I prefer life-paths to both random and point-buy. But one of the strengths of life-paths - that they're so setting focused - is also the reason I rarely use them as I prefer to make my own settings or use historical periods.

A book of just lifepaths for different historical settings would be the bomb
 
Rifts. Always and forever. I bought the rules waaaay back in the day because it looked and sounded so fucking cool. I was so stoked to get it out on the table, and a bunch us of rolled up characters. Well holy suppurating shit was the MDC/SDC thing a kick in the face. Our Glitterboy was like Wooo!!!!1! and everyone else was like I'd chime in there, but greasy spots don't talk much. So very disappoint. I still love the setting though.
I could have posted this exact post. My first time playing (everyone else was experienced) that system, the GM allowed me to play a werewolf, which I thought was super cool. I even had a 1d4 MDC weapon. Then the Juicers and Glitter boys showed up. That first experience was enough for me to never play that game again.
 
I have purchased countless rpg books which when you read blow you away with all the detailed rules and subsystems. You sit up at night fantasizing about all those rules coming together to make the ultimate gaming session... Except the game is unplayable because actually implementing those rules is impossible or sessions would come to a screeching halt under its weight.
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My favorite is watching live plays with the actual game designers discarding their own rules...
Chivalry & Sorcery has some wonderful lore. The designers (of the first two editions, the ones I've actually played) are Edward E. Simbalist and Wilf K. Backhaus. Simbalist had an education degree and worked as a teacher at the time of publication. Backhaus was a lawyer.

Can you guess which of the two insisted on having rules for every little thing? Can you guess which of the two basically said "oh, those rules are *the other guy*'s, I just ignore 'em"?

[1] A sampler:
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I know nothing about these people so I will hazard a guess: the actual lawyer was not the rules-lawyer.
 
I know nothing about these people so I will hazard a guess: the actual lawyer was not the rules-lawyer.
Nope. The lawyer insisted on rules for everything. Amazingly convoluted rules at times, like the anal retentive (does "anal retentive" have a hyphen?) rules for "influence" that went through dozens of calculations and rolls to determine if someone higher in status than you does something for you or not.

The teacher just went with what worked for the scenario and was sensible.
 
Chivalry & Sorcery has some wonderful lore. The designers (of the first two editions, the ones I've actually played) are Edward E. Simbalist and Wilf K. Backhaus. Simbalist had an education degree and worked as a teacher at the time of publication. Backhaus was a lawyer.

Can you guess which of the two insisted on having rules for every little thing? Can you guess which of the two basically said "oh, those rules are *the other guy*'s, I just ignore 'em"?

[1] A sampler:
View attachment 46345
What book is that from? It's not from any C&S1 or 2 book I recognise. Aside from the language (which is fairly typical of rules of the time, aside from GDW's, which tended to be wonderfully clear) that looks like a pretty standard "count up the ranks, act when your turn comes, action is resolved a few moments later" initiative count. The typeface is wrong too.

I don't recall the influence rules being that terrible, though they did have extra rolls in them that were completely unnecessary. Those editions had a love for modifiers of the "+2d10%" variety, so you had to roll for the modifier, and then roll again for the adjusted check. We just used the rough average of random modifiers like that unless there was a clear reason the modifier might be variable.

The rules for gaining honour, on the other hand, were very over-detailed.
 
What book is that from? It's not from any C&S1 or 2 book I recognise.

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Sorry that wasn't clearer. I wanted to make the actual rules a footnote. SP:G was what Phoenix Command derived from. PC was the simplified version...

I don't recall the influence rules being that terrible, though they did have extra rolls in them that were completely unnecessary.

That's the part I'm talking about. Plus the whole BIF + this + that + the other + ... nature of them. It turned human relationships into a pretty boring cost accounting game and kind of turned social situations into a slog of things.

Those editions had a love for modifiers of the "+2d10%" variety, so you had to roll for the modifier, and then roll again for the adjusted check. We just used the rough average of random modifiers like that unless there was a clear reason the modifier might be variable.

Yeah, that was always hilarious, and our solution was the same as yours: use the mean unless there was a good reason for variance. (There's a school of game mechanism analysis that says you should do that for all die rolls to see if your game is any better than, say, Parcheesi for making meaningful choices.)

The rules for gaining honour, on the other hand, were very over-detailed.

I kind of place honour in the pile with influence since your honours had a huge impact on your influence.
 
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Sorry that wasn't clearer. I wanted to make the actual rules a footnote. *SP:G* was what *Phoenix Command* derived from. *PC* was the simplified version...
Ah, I missed the footnote marking. Gotcha.

That's the part I'm talking about. Plus the whole BIF + this + that + the other + ... nature of them. It turned human relationships into a pretty boring cost accounting game and kind of turned social situations into a slog of things.
As I recall we mainly used it as a list of things you could do to improve your relationship with someone. You know, look at the modifiers and say, "Right, we'll put together a really expensive gift, Have Roland go and get his uncle to put in a good word..." and then the GM would look at what we'd done and how much the guy already liked/disliked us and would make a ruling. Maybe they rolled something, maybe they didn't.

I liked C&S for the chargen tables - great if you had no idea what you wanted, and when there was a definite plan for a party you just took whatever matched that rather than rolling (i.e. the GM's got an adventure that calls for a bunch of landless knights, so you just choose 'kinght' as you father's social status, etc.). The jousting tables were also interesting. And I thought that C&S2's combat had a very good feel (C&S1 didn't give out enough Body and Fatigue with quite work, the same way, especially at lower levels) when it came to knights slugging it out, and made it very clear why not-knights in light or no armour had no business being in melee with knights in armour.

Edit: I left out that it was also great for designing mages. Not so much for playing them, but rolling up and mages and doing all their times studying and enchanting and stuff was a fine afternoon's entertainment.
 
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As I recall we mainly used it as a list of things you could do to improve your relationship with someone. You know, look at the modifiers and say, "Right, we'll put together a really expensive gift, Have Roland go and get his uncle to put in a good word..." and then the GM would look at what we'd done and how much the guy already liked/disliked us and would make a ruling. Maybe they rolled something, maybe they didn't.

See, that's the kind of thing that could have been handled with a modicum of common sense and a blurb about what kinds of things could be done to make your social betters look upon you more graciously. Not endless tables of BIFs and modifiers and strict admonitions as to what levels of which go where.

I liked C&S for the chargen tables - great if you had no idea what you wanted, and when there was a definite plan for a party you just took whatever matched that rather than rolling (i.e. the GM's got an adventure that calls for a bunch of landless knights, so you just choose 'kinght' as you father's social status, etc.).

Yes, character generation in C&S2 (the one I have the most experience in) was fun. And I liked the fact that you didn't have all characters starting off as barely-capable people who could be taken out by a determined house cat.

The jousting tables were also interesting.

They certainly gave a very nice flavour of the period and setting, yes, though they didn't matter all that much in the games I played in outside of the Harn campaigns.

And I thought that C&S2's combat had a very good feel (C&S1 didn't give out enough Body and Fatigue with quite work, the same way, especially at lower levels) when it came to knights slugging it out, and made it very clear why not-knights in light or no armour had no business being in melee with knights in armour.

Very much a game of specialists, yes. Fighting-men of all stripes, when properly equipped, were a force to be reckoned with. (Until they met a dragon. Long story.)

Edit: I left out that it was also great for designing mages. Not so much for playing them, but rolling up and mages and doing all their times studying and enchanting and stuff was a fine afternoon's entertainment.

Afternoon? You didn't accidentally roll an 11th level mage in C&S2 then, apparently. I spent six WEEKS getting all my enchantment and spell learning tallied up!

But my sorceress character was fun to play. Mostly in how she had to hide her ability because, well, Churchmen were around and always looking for witches to blame things on...
 
See, that's the kind of thing that could have been handled with a modicum of common sense and a blurb about what kinds of things could be done to make your social betters look upon you more graciously. Not endless tables of BIFs and modifiers and strict admonitions as to what levels of which go where.



Yes, character generation in C&S2 (the one I have the most experience in) was fun. And I liked the fact that you didn't have all characters starting off as barely-capable people who could be taken out by a determined house cat.



They certainly gave a very nice flavour of the period and setting, yes, though they didn't matter all that much in the games I played in outside of the Harn campaigns.



Very much a game of specialists, yes. Fighting-men of all stripes, when properly equipped, were a force to be reckoned with. (Until they met a dragon. Long story.)
Yeah, my players found that, too. Giants? Scary if they hit you, tons of health, but not that dangerous really. Dragons or Trolls? RUN!!!
Afternoon? You didn't accidentally roll an 11th level mage in C&S2 then, apparently. I spent six WEEKS getting all my enchantment and spell learning tallied up!
Oh, I did! And yes, it took a while. OTOH, the knight that was first son of baron did too, because I decided that just saying 'has been granted a fortified manor house to give experience in managing a fief' wasn't enough, and that aside from adventuring gear I should detail his bed chambers and the furnishing in his great hall. Oh, and his favourite few outfits. Remember the rules for clothing? Each piece, with prices by quality and modified by dye colour, embroidery, etc.?

Of course, sensible people would've just added up the cost of a set of clothes of the right quality, added 20 or 50% for dyes, etc., and multiplied by whatever seemed right for the number of outfits that character would have, but back in the day that seemed like cheating.
 
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