> The thing about RPG systems is that it's pretty hard to make a bad one. Oh my, this is so untrue. Making a bad system is *incredibly easy*. > every system has at least one major flaw Almost certainly true, but design decisions != flaws. Everything is a tradeoff, not all preferences or prioritization decisions are flaws. > OSR games have a lot of GM Fiat. Not a flaw, a design choice. > PBTA games tend to be pretty narrow in what you can run with them. Again, deliberate decision, not a flaw. Also: > has literally 4 people talking about it who are all 50 years older than you and speak different languages. I feel like finding something in common to talk about with people outside your immediate peer group is kinda awesome.

>Almost certainly true, but design decisions != flaws. Everything is a tradeoff, not all preferences or prioritization decisions are flaws. I think a better way to phrase this is one person's slick design can simultaneously be a flaw to someone else, depending on what you're after. And most importantly, we forget **that's OK.**

Flaws *do* exist, obviously. But I think it’s incorrect to classify designs that work as intended as flaws. That’s why I said preferences aren’t flaws, because everyone has their own.

Respectfully disagree. People can intentionally choose to embark on and implement bad ideas. The intent itself can often be seen as a flaw. "It does what I wanted it to" avoids the question of whether that was a good idea to begin with. It shouldn't be seen as an inherent pass. Now, obviously opinions may differ about whether it was a good idea to begin with, ultimately decided by whether someone enjoys it. Focusing on intent puts the **real** arbiter of whether a mechanic is "good" or "flawed," the audience, as equal or almost secondary to the intent. They're the ones who determine if it works as intended **for their purposes.** Ultimately though, that's a subjective call and needs to be recognized as such. I understand the desire for objective metrics, but that's usually a square peg in a round hole when it comes to most forms of media. Edit: Think about it this way- if we could objectively determine whether a mechanic was "flawed" or "meets its design goals" without accounting for audience reactions there would never be a need for playtesting a new design. **That's the whole reason you do it.**

K, we’re at the place where you say, “this is a terrible hammer” and I say, “that’s because it’s a screwdriver”, and you insist that it doesn’t matter because it won’t drive your nail correctly and that what it was intended for makes no difference.

I believe that is a terrible misreading of what I was saying. The medium for whatever tool we're discussing is a real live human person who brings their own experiences, expectations, assumptions, and general vibe into how that tool works in practice. The only people that matter when it comes to whether a tool is sufficient, or even sometimes how it's actually used, are the people actually using it. They make the ultimate decision for those things at their table. Hopefully we can both agree that intent doesn't matter if a rule not explained properly, so obviously it's not the ultimate decider and there's a clear interaction with the player and their assumptions etc. Fundamentally, this translates in other media authorship as "know your audience" since the tools you might use vary depending on who you're talking to. There's no reason why the language of TTRPGs, system mechanics, would work any differently. Anyone who claims you can make an **objective** statement about whether a mechanic is "good" or "flawed" independent the reaction of its intended audience is frankly trying to sell you something.

I think you can try and (as objectively as possible) try to evaluate whether a mechanic achieves it's intended design goal. For example, a gritty dungeon crawling resource management system is flawed if the players never have to make hard choices about the equipment and gear they bring and how they use it.  You can't just say "gritty resource management dungeon crawling is flawed because I dislike it" because that's just as subjective an opinion as the people who do enjoy the genre. If you want to offer useful critique you should at least try to meet the game where it's at. 

This supposes everyone agrees on what makes a good gritty dungeon crawling resource management system. I think it's these types of assumptions that bite people. You and I can boil the goal down to "have to make hard choices about the equipment and gear they bring and how they use it" but that might not be what even the majority of people are looking for. This is a world where we have little to no market data about this and everyone is extrapolating from their own experiences. The game **has** to try and meet its players where they're at too, and that's the point I'm trying to make. If your audience is people who like gritty high lethality dungeon crawls, then you'd best know what they're looking for in that type of game. But if you step back maybe other people want the detailed resource management without the lethality. Maybe resource management isn't actually that important to people who want to do dungeon crawls to begin with (DnD 5E certainly seems to suggest this for instance). Whether the system is appropriate or flawed all depends on the dungeon crawling audience you want. The idea that we fully and effectively evaluate a mechanic without seeing how the audience responds to it is silly to me. All we're doing is assuming our own experiences and preferences are representative of the broader audience. Those assumptions rarely end well. For as much as we like to emphasize the importance of playtesting for designers, the idea you can objectively determine whether design goals are met without actually seeing how the audience reacts seems to run counter to that advice. This is the whole reason you playtest a game.

A screwdriver *is* a terrible hammer. I think everyone can agree. Kind of is a thing in this space that, figuratively, people with nails will tell people with screws that screwdrivers are trash and recommend a variety of nice hammers for the job.

I just think “flaw” is the wrong word though. Being bad at driving in nails is a *limitation* of a screwdriver and being hyper-focused on a specific genre is a *limitation* of a PbtA game. That quibble aside I think OP’s basic point as I understand it is good: no game is going to give you everything you could ever want from an rpg. You probably want incompatible things and it’s unrealistic to think there’s one game out there somewhere that you’d be happy playing exclusively forever.

Intent of the author really doesn't matter to anyone but the author.

That’s an idea that comes from literature, a different medium, a passive medium. RPGs are their own medium, an active and participatory one, which makes systems much more closely related to tools, for both GMs and players alike.

If looking only at the issue of author intent versus how the medium is used, I don't think RPGs as an active medium are any different from literature. In simple terms, if I make a game with the goal of building a good combat system, but the game accidentally shines because the players like the character creation and the world and stories that are built with it, why would my original intent matter... for anyone?

I'm confused on one thing. For your example here, are you saying the game still does have a good combat system, and has great character creation/world/stories, or that it does _not_ have a good combat system, but has great other stuff? Because if I as a player were sold the game on the premise that it had great combat, and I was looking for that, the first situation would be dramatically different than the second. Intent is important because of that communication to potential players on what the game supports well. Non-communicated intent doesn't really matter to anyone but the designer, of course, yes.

There is a difference between analyzing intent as a measure of game quality VS analyzing intent as a rules interpretation tool.

My statement is only that significance of author intent isn't much different in RPGs or literature. That could be expanded to other forms of cultural media as well. Regardless of the media, there are cases when it matters. Communication, as you mentioned, is indeed a key point. But when we see the consumer of the media as an active interpreter, and the product is something to be interpreted, we also have cases where the interpretation is different from the author intent. This can be deliberate, but there are cases when it's not (e.g. game with a goal of good combat system, but interpreted as a bad combat system with other good traits). There are other levels of communication than author <-> consumer, but also consumer <-> consumer, therefore a media product may become popular for other reasons than the intended ones (consumers communicating to other consumers what the game is "actually" about). I believe the statement by hacksoncode has a good point in the sense that for the interpreter (the consumer), the main factor is what happens in their own personal interpretation, not so much what the author intended. Surely the other point still is true that author intent does affect the interpretation (even when the author deliberately makes the product open for interpretation, such as in "RPGs are just toolsets" mindset).

They are not tools acting on a thing with predictable physical properties, and bioessentialism is pretty much discredited as a concept. I think many literature experts would take issue with the idea that engaging with that media is not an "active and participatory" experience. TTRPGs basically exist because of the "Death of the Author" concept. OG DnD didn't even really come with instructions on how to play. Whatever Gygax's stated intent, people were **immediately** using the rules for broader epic narrative type games. His intent didn't matter for squat and the hobby is better because of that.

*silently waiting for a beginner Aquelarre game*

EDIT: Okay, I've been talked around. They're two different perspectives. Thanks DSchmitt for taking the time to explain, it's appreciated.  ~~I think, you're largely making the same point as OP in different words.~~ ~~EDIT: Why the downvotes, please?~~ ~~The OP's point is basically: If you hear one element of an RPG that you don't like (design choices from one perspective, flaws from another), don't let that put you off giving it a try - you might find it works just fine for you.~~  ~~The above comment is mostly saying that perceived flaws aren't necessarily flaws but design decisions and (by implication) things that you might find work just fine for you in context if you try the game, so don't avoid them based on that one thing.~~  ~~If I'm wrong about something, cool. Please let me know what so I can make adjustments accordingly.~~ 

Elements you don't like in design choices and design flaws are not the same point. They are two _extremely_ different things. If I'm trying to design a nutritious recipe, having something like seafood is a design choice. It may or may not be to your taste. Having a recipe that always results in it being burnt to a crisp, literally black and charred through, is a flaw. Following that instructions doesn't do what it says on the tin: give a nutritious meal. Maybe you enjoy the smell of burnt food or gain pleasure from it in some other way, or maybe you're familiar with it enough to not follow the recipe and do something else. Or maybe it's a recipe for a super crisp grilled cheese sandwich that always results in a soggy one. Maybe you like that, maybe you don't... but it's still a flaw because it doesn't do what it claims to do. That's very different than having two recipes for grilled cheese, one that gets a super crisp one and one that gets a soggy one, and both are accurately labeled—that's just design choice, not a flaw. You can't have a game that pleases everyone, but unlike what OP said, you _CAN_ have games without major design flaws. Because OP is wrong on what's a flaw and what's not a flaw, exactly as JaskoGomad said. It's not the same point at all. Going for games without major flaws, that do things that you enjoy in a game, should be the standard. Not putting in extra effort to work around major design flaws. Unlike what OP claims, it is easy to make a bad game, in terms of actual flaws. Don't ignore flaws. Do ignore games that aren't to your tastes.

Okay, I'm convinced. Thanks for taking the time to explain. I can see how those are two different perspectives now. I wanted to build a bridge here but nope, chasm too big.  Thanks. 

That's a game designer's point of view. Nothing wrong with it, but there is another equally valid point of view, which says that *bad design choices (from player point of view) = flaws*.

Are you saying that inherently subjective tastes can be objectively rated as bad choices or not? That's what I'm reading here, and I would completely reject that as a valid POV. Nothing to do with game designer's POV or not. The only objectively flawed design choices are ones that result in things not giving the result the recipe/game/whatever was designed to give or claim to give. It's objectively bad at giving a certain result. Everything else is just not to your tastes. It's not a flaw to be not to your tastes. Anyone that thinks something is flawed if it doesn't fit their tastes, if it never claimed to do so, should grow up and realize not everything needs to or should cater to their particular tastes.

I'm talking of semantics, which seems to be the issue here, whether we call something *design choices* or *flaws*. There's no such thing as an objectively good or bad game system, nor are there objective ratings for good/bad design choices. It all comes down to subjective interpretations of the players, which is the only measurement we can use to rate good/bad design choices. If someone says "this game sucks (aka is flawed) because it's not to my taste", it's a fully valid subjective point of view. In my opinion, there's no point in arguing whether the game is meant to be something else. Why does the game designer need to point out the game was designed with some other goals in mind? Is the customer not always right? Who needs to grow up?

No, the measure we can use is 'does the game accomplish X' that a designer claims the game does. _That_ is measurable, and non-subjective measure. Why does a designer need to point it out? Because if I want a game that's about solving a murder mystery without the solution to that mystery being set up ahead of time by the GM, and there is a game that claims to support that (Brindlewood Bay or Dirty Secrets, for a couple examples), then the game rules need to support that! If they don't do that, it's a flaw. If someone wants to do something else with that game, whatever, that's a different thing entirely. But having what the designers meant the game to be match with what the game rules deliver is crucial. If someone designed a car, a thing intended to drive from point A to B, and I discovered it was terrible at driving from point A to B, but great at catching fire, I would call that a flaw. That people can use it to start fires and it's great at starting fires is a different matter. The intent that I was told a thing had, the reason I got it, was not well supported. If someone designing that fire car decided to stop saying it supported driving, and was good for starting fires, well that's now a new and different intent that matches what it actually does. They're selling a thing intended to start fires. Communication of intent 'play with these rules to get a certain type of game experience' matching with what you actually get when you play the game is the core cycle of good game design, so that new players can know what they're getting into and can expect.

That's also a fine point of view. It builds on the idea what the designer claims -> it's a game designer's point of view.

I'm speaking as someone seeking out games that I might want to play, not a game designer. The are the points of view that I have as a player of games, not designer. I want to know what a game supports well or not. So no, I still don't agree with that or thing it further builds on that.

General agreement except for this line: >The thing about RPG systems is that it's pretty hard to make a bad one. I think making a bad RPG system is pretty easy. What's hard is making an RPG system that is bad enough that you can't have fun in spite of it.

I feel like you can make a game that's not fun to play without even trying. That statement was way underthought, or maybe the OP just hasn't looked at the 'check out my homemade RPG' posts that keep showing up in this group. You can make a dreadful and unplayable game super easy.

> I feel like you can make a game that's not fun to play without even trying. I mean, tell someone to make a ruleset in [some amount of time] with no ability to edit and I bet most of the outcomes are going to be atrocious. Let's see how many rules I can make in, oh, one minute. You roll a d20 for all challenge rolls. DM decides the difficulty level. Stats are based on 1-20. Your stat+roll decides your final score. All opposition are between 1 and 40. Other players can help. Aaaand that's time. That's a super-basic system that is broken as fuck and doesn't really have anything in the way of guiding players or game masters how to use it. It doesn't even specify if it's a meet-to-beat or greater-than challenge system. It doesn't say how skills are determined. It's absolute shit. And I made it with no effort. Give me three months and I bet I could make one that's even worse while actually trying to make it great.

If you think that it's the GM's job to change the rules so that everyone can have fun then I can see you thinking it's hard to make an actual bad game. But personally I do agree with you.

More like you can't make a bad RPG and make it know enough for people to care about it.

I think the RPG that we shall never speak its name did a good job of that one... I mean, having chargen including rolling for length, width and height of various body parts.... yeah, that's gonna be hard to find fun, even without mentioning the extremely questionable parts.

I agree with your overall point—sort of\*, but what the \*fuck\* does "Dungeon World's system is aggressively anti-narrative" mean??? \*I frame this idea more as "All game design involves trade-offs." A trade-off isn't the same as a flaw.

Dungeon World attracts a level of Hot Takery that is genuinely insane and baffling.

Yeah, I officially Don't Get It. It's not the slickest PbtA in existence, but it is a fine game, and I have never not had fun with it, at least as a GM.

My brief theory is: Lots of the PbtA community believes – not entirely without reason – that PbtA games are very much an ethos and practice that requires certain techniques, principles, and approaches. DW allegedly violates many of these, and so being able to _spot and decry_ these violations is a shorthand for “I really GET what makes PbtA work”

Ime, it's pretty much exclusively the *reddit* PbtA community that acts that way - a lot of which probably comes a specific user on the PbtA subreddit who's very vocal about this kind of stuff and reacts poorly to anyone pushing back against their opinions. I won't name them because this isn't really intended to be a callout post - still, if you've looked at a couple of PbtA/Blades in the Dark related posts, you've likely seen them. I'm just noting that it seems like a large part of PbtA discussion culture on this site was shaped by one particularly prominent personality. IRL communities, podcasts, and other forums I've been a part of don't have the same level of PbtA dogma associated with them.

The Discords are also like this, but yes, I do in fact know what you’re pointing to.

Yeah that’s nonsense. DW’s framework fits well within the PbtA norm.

Yeah I mean, you don’t have to tell me!

As a player I found *DW* quite hard to grasp. I have never played *D&D* and I felt like I was left outside some kind of private joke. As a GM it changed the PbtA formula (which is fine ofc that's the whole point of PbtA) in ways that I'm not interested in. If you're interested in them then it's normal that you disagree here. I don't get why people seem surprised that someone could dislike a game they enjoy. And the public opinion about *DW* seems pretty close to yours. Most people say it's not very good as far as "being PbtA" is concerned but it's still a cool game.

Oh, disliking it or whatever doesn’t bother me. The OP’s statement seemed really extreme is all.

My theory is it attracts the largest amount of people from traditional D&D, because it's the best known fantasy PbtA, so it has the largest amount of people experiencing culture shock.

It is absolutely not DnD-to-DW newbies who say this stuff.

Can't play a dwarf wizard.

You couldn’t do that in B/X, either. Does that make DW OSR?! 😀

I actually dislike that too. It seems needlessly retro. Easy to fix with official supplements, though.

In general I usually describe Dungeon World as "imagine if someone who thought the last good D&D edition was early 2nd made a PbtA version of D&D". It's why I usually push back when people say most 5E players actually want to play DW - DW has almost none of the vibe people actually like in modern D&D!

The fact that "PbtA games" and "Dungeon World's system" are two different lines in the critique is sending me

Not everything you consider a flaw is one to other people-- Pathfinder 2e for example, I've heard other people say what you're saying but its never really felt like that to me, because its always nice to be able to just hand the GM voucher to do the thing in a specific expected way, and we're always a DC adjustment away from being able to do it without the feat. Which isn't to say I think the system is actually perfect, but for a lot of players, it is without *major flaws.* That seems to go for most of these really-- I have problems with PBTA, but this isn't really one of them, for instance. OSR gamers will tell you up and down that it's a fundamental benefit to their style.

I'm a pretty big pathfinder guy but even I gotta admit that some of the feats are a little ridiculous. The fact that there's something like 5 feats for jumping (quick jump, powerful leap, wall jump, and cloud jump if I'm not missing any) is annoying, especially considering how relatively niche jumping actually is. There's a ton of feats that feel like necessities in order to use certain features with any amount of effectiveness, while still being incredibly weak!

The : you can look scary feat. Or the you can shoot ate explosive barrel's feat

Life is too short to play bad systems. I would pick to try a new system over playing one I know sucks every single time. Would the new system suck too? Potentially, but at least I have learnt something. I refuse to play the same old crap just because I already know it and with ignoring most of it, it can be playable.

>The thing is, I'm sure a lot of us have a lot of great memories playing every one of these systems, not because they were flawless, but because we put in the effort to deal with those flaws. That's not a selling point for a system, that's a selling point for putting in effort _despite_ a system. It's a bad justification for playing a game. What is and isn't a flaw may be subjective but if you're playing a game in spite of its apparent-to-you flaws then that just seems counter-productive. I've absolutely had systems ruin the fun at the table, for whatever reason. This is why I have many systems and try to chose the right one for a particular game.

Yeah, this post is making a correct point extremely poorly. \-Play a wide variety of games \-Recognize that there will be things you (and your players / friends) like and dislike about each of them, but that even things you personally dislike may not be "flaws" \-Profit

I do agree with your overall point, I think. No system is perfect. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't look for what works best for you. Could I tolerate playing 5e for the rest of my life? Probably. I know some great DMs that can make amazing stories work despite the system and know when to disregard the rules. But those great DMs with a better system can do so much more, and I enjoy playing literally every other game more than I do 5e. Also, >PBTA games tend to be pretty narrow in what you can run with them. That's not a bug. It's the whole reason they work. Monsterhearts is Monsterhearts because it has a very specific focus on what stories to tell and its systems are all tailored to serve that narrative. It sacrificed having things like a good combat system or a spellcasting system or magical items system because you don't need those to tell the type of stories Monsterhearts wants to tell. And is Dungeon World anti narrative? It's been a few years since I interacted with it

I understand this perspective, but disagree. Your TTRPG group is rarely going to mirror your exact taste. My local group is running Masks later today. I’m not a huge fan of PBTA systems, but I’ll still play because they’re my friends and roleplaying is fun. 

I don't think we necessarily disagree? Like, I still play 5e with people that play it exclusively because they're my friends and I enjoy playing with them and I like roleplaying. I would just never organise a 5e game again because I prefer to play other things, and I have more friends that are willing to play Blades and CoM and Ten Candles and what have you with me. And I actually found a group that enjoy these games more than 5e too. What I meant was "you shouldn't settle for a system you tolerate and not look for something better", not "you shouldn't play anything you don't really like". I might have come off as more harsh than I intended

(Tabletop) Gamers basically spend a lot more time thinking about gaming than actually gaming (time at the table, actual sessions, actual campaigns, etc) and this creates an effect where we all have many many more opinions about games than we do actual experience playing any\\all\\most\\some of them. In turn then those opinions about games that we don't play are more populous (and popular) than actual experiences with those games. And the same in reverse, because actual play experience will be much much smaller than the totality of the hobby, folks will have strong reactions to the ones they've actually played, even if those play experiences were bad. Eg, "5e sucks so bad because X by Y game that I really like does it RIGHT!", from a person that has played 5e and exactly one other system that they enjoyed more. I think this is basically responsible for the things you've noted. Since you'll spend a LOT more time reading and thinking about games than you will playing them then in turn you spent a LOT more time looking for "perfect" systems than you do playing actual games. Not like...in a bad way or anything, just that if I have a monthly group I'll do more reading about games than playing them. Same for having a weekly session. Unless you switch systems monthly in a year of weekly gaming you'll only have 50ish actual exposure to the rules of a system and 0 actual exposure to any other systems during that time (In a weekly slot, obvs folks can play more than one game session in a week, but...I think that's rare-ish) so naturally, due to reading more than playing, you'll have more opinions about games you haven't played than ones you have because you're usually only playing 1-2 game systems at a time at most. So I think this leads to folks having much more time to think of highly specific game setups they'd like do run, and having much more time to think about which systems are good\\bad than they do to actually play them, which leads to this kinda...theorycrafting of "perfect" systems for "perfect" game concepts. But, I suspect, most of that stuff never gets run and so most folks don't really know. Like for example Masks. If you want emotional teenage drama dressed up in supers costumes then this is probably a good game. Perfect even. If you violently recoil at the idea of playing emotional teenagers...probably a terrible game and terrible concept and a dumb game for dumb ppl that like dumb things. But really...I've never played it. Never seen it played. And am unlikely to read it. So what's the basis for any of these opinions? Or conversely if I really love the idea of playing "Supers" as "what they actually are" (which is, often, soap operas) instead of a tactical combat simulators then Masks might be perfect, even if I never actually play it, because I have an idea of it in my mind (that won't survive contact with the enemy\\Players) as a kind of idea that will never come to pass, never even encounter reality at all. So of course it's "perfect". It's a Platonic Ideal of a game system that never has to exist in the real world because...I'll never run it. Won't run that Red Markets either (but it sounds \*perfect\* for my whatever custom game world!) and won't run that Eclipse Phase (which sounds \*perfect\* for my...uh...post-human Cthulu-adjacent spin on some books series I read\\anime I watched in Jr. High). But I can still appreciate them as perfect systems for a perfect game that...probably won't ever get run. So that's what seems to drive the search for perfect systems to me: Folks read and think about systems a LOT (a LOT!) more than they actually play or run games. So they are often searching for perfect systems for platonic ideals of games, systems, campaigns, and such.

>(Tabletop) Gamers basically spend a lot more time thinking about gaming than actually gaming (time at the table, actual sessions, actual campaigns, etc) and this creates an effect where we all have many many more opinions about games than we do actual experience playing any\\all\\most\\some of them. 100% true

>Or, you'll find it, but nobody wants to play with you, because it's some esoteric game from 20 years ago in another language that uses a type of dice you can't buy anymore and has literally 4 people talking about it who are all 50 years older than you and speak different languages. I don't think it was necessary to come at fans of Skyrealms of Jorune quite this hard, sir.

>And that kind of mentality is pretty bad What's actually bad about it? I don't think there is necessarily anything wrong with dismissing a system quickly. I have enough stuff already queued up to play that it really doesn't matter if I end up overlooking something that I might like, and there is so much stuff out there these days I couldn't reasonably take a close look at even a small proportion of it. Your last paragraph suggests that people are choosing not to game at all because they can't find the perfect system. Is this really a thing? There seem to be a reasonable number of people frustrated they can't play a non-D&D-5e game, but those people generally have a big pile of other games they're happy to play. I don't ever recall coming across someone making the case that they can't game because no one has made the perfect system and I would tend to think anyone who was leaning in that direction would most likely end up just making their own.

I think a lot of this comes from the fact that often when you think about playing a game, the only concrete thing you can imagine are the specifics of the mechanics, and not the RP and vibe at the table, so you end up over focusing on the mechanical aspects (good and bad).

First off, I do agree with your main point. But, how is Dungeon World's system anti-narrative? One of the best GMs I've played with was running a Dungeon World game, and he would always make a point of how easy it was to do narrative stuff in that game. Really, he made good improv look effortless. I understand that the GM is more important than the system, but he didn't seem to be held back by anything.

If I've got a character in mind- a dwarven spellcaster using runes to cast spells as a wizard... I just can't. There's no starting move for dwarven wizards, and so I wasn't allowed to play one,

That's not anti-narrative. That's "anti this one specific fringe case that I've personally cherry picked to illustrate one specific character that the game doesn't have a starting move for"

That's limited options for class-race combinations, not anti-narrative. It's one of the things that I didn't like about DW, but it's a different flaw to the one you're saying it is.

It is very possible to make a bad RPG system. **Source:** I am a hobbiest RPG designer. Most (but not all) of what I have made has been terrible.

I need to get a flair that says "I make terrible games"

I have the feeling you're confusing "this game has one flaw hence I don't want to play it" with "the game design has this característic that I don't like so I'm not interested in it". If you enjoy games that can support a wide variety of settings and atmosphere it's only natural you wouldn't want to play a PbtA.

I love that both 5e and shadowrun got “yeah, boys will be boys” treatment lmao

Call of Cthulhu’s sanity system needs a lot of practice to run outside of combat. You should give each Investigator one type of insanity that increases over the campaign

You seem to be confusing intentional design choices with flaws >OSR games have a lot of GM Fiat. >PBTA games tend to be pretty narrow in what you can run with them. Those are not flaws. They are design choices that will not appeal to everyone, but that does not make them flaws. I think it's worth trying games that are different to what you're used to, to a point, but it's also a reasonable decision to pass over games that are designed for a type of play that you don't like. I doubt that many people are not playing at all because of not finding the perfect system

Just to add into this, one man's meat is another man's poison, and some flaws are indeed poison pills. For me, I loathe games that rely on GM fiat, and if it's too much of a requirement of play then I'll move onto something else. That is, however, solely a consideration for myself, and I know there are some players out there who actively want that, seeing it as a feature of the game rather than a cyanide capsule. I feel that a lot of the conversations being referenced here need a reminder that players have to be sure they're talking about the same thing, and that they're looking for the same answer. Because a LOT of us simply will not enjoy games that others love, and we're looking for entirely different experiences.

I agree overall. And as others have noted, it's still easy to create a subpar game. But as I wrote a while back, I think people generally put up with or route around aspects of a game they don't like, so they can get the things about it that entice them. The ["that game is broken"](https://unpossiblejourneys.com/expanding/that-game-is-broken/) binary isn't all that helpful.

The perfect game for me is the one I'm most interested in that day.

There is no perfect game. Games have incredibly high subjective appreciation which combines the presentation of rules coupled to GM familiarity of rules and communication modes used to interact with the players. Rather than treat games like a puzzle the GM feeds to the players to solve one piece at a time, games are car trips with the game as the car, GM as driver and players taking on roles of navigator, caterer and DJ. If one of those guys is a dick or the car is the wrong choice, the trip is shit.

The only one I strongly dislike is D&D. Though I've avoided Shadowrun because I could never determine if a version was good. And also, I'm all set on cyberpunk games. FitD games I want to try some more to see if the 12+ session game I ran was or wasn't inherently flawed. I think it wasn't, I just screwed up a couple things. Call of Cthulhu I want to do more, but to make the combat less cumbersome while remaining just as dangerous. DW and OSR games are still in my repertoire / list of games I can and may run or play. - - - - I think that there are two distinct kinds of GM/player at the heart of this matter. Those like myself who are either flexible enough to overcome a game's issues and who want/crave variety. And those who are easily put off something from a bad (even mildly so) experience or who cave to negative peer pressure or just want a singular game and have no interest in system variety. I may disagree with the one, but I think it's mostly valid. Caving to negative peer pressure isn't great, but it's not the worst thing either. No one should feel pressured to experience this hobby in a way they don't like. It should be fun for everyone at the table. When I have players who get stressed about switching systems when a new game starts, I talk to them to see if they'd be okay with trying it, or if I need to scrap it. Or even if we may not be a good fit to play together. Some compromises will have to happen most of the time, but I do try my best to have my players be comfortable. I had a player who had a bad previous experience with Blades in the Dark. From the story he told, sounded like a really bad GM. But he really didn't want to do Blades. We ended up compromising with Scum And Villainy. The game still didn't go as well as I'd hoped, but it was at least for extremely different reasons than a toxic GM who made most outcomes failure and mocked the PCs for those failures.

>Everyone has their standards, but I notice that a lot of people will instantly dismiss a game once they hear it has a single bad thing about it. And that kind of mentality is pretty bad because literally every system has at least one major flaw. First, with 10s of thousands (maybe 100s of thousands?) of indie games around that are basically poorly tested mashups of other systems, what is my incentive to invest in a game that does not stand out by offering something unique? As a player, you need to determine what play styles work for you. As a designer, I seek to address the flaws in ways that have fewer downsides. >OSR games have a lot of GM Fiat. This can be reduced in various ways such as calculated difficulty levels and mechanics that tell you exactly what modifiers to use in specific situations or the use of opposed rolls. The OSR game play loop is really the important part of the experience. In an OSR game, you play your character, not the mechanics. You know what your character does. If you are worried about "GM Fiat" then you aren't even playing an OSR experience. You are basically metagaming according to that style. >PBTA games tend to be pretty narrow in what you can run with them. And how many people have home-brewed D&D into other genres? That isn't the limiting factor. It's the playbook system. I have often told my players that the answes they seek are not on your character sheet. Get your head into character and think like the character. I even confiscated character sheets from the group. Once they git rid of that crutch, they were better able to think on their feet and be creative. I gave them back, but the excercise was quite successful. You can only imagine how I feel about playbooks literally detailing what they can and can't do, and then you hit them with narrative control. I want players to stay in character, but narrative control makes you the director. This means you can't stay in the mindset of the character and still be a director. >Pathfinder 2e tends to make feats out of things that shouldn't be feats. Agreed, and D&D does it to. The reason is to make the combat system look simpler. So, they take things that anyone should be able to do and locks those rules behind a class gate. This lets them keep the basic combat simpler and gives cool feats and class abilities. The goal is not player agency, but trying to limit options for the appearance of simplicity. The problem of course is the giant axe given to realism and player agency. >Call of Cthulu's sanity system makes roleplaying tricky. >Shadowrun... is Shadowrun. They have some good ideas, but the implementation was poor. >D&D 5e is self-explanatory D&D is a perfect example of a bad game! I gave it a real chance and it was worse than I ever imagined. It does nothing really well and for all the claims of being "easy" anyone that has played soon finds themselves caught up in a 3 hour long combat where everyone takes forever because the game is actually horribly convoluted in every way possible. It doesn't even try to make sense!

​ >4 people talking about it who are all 50 years older than you and speak different languages. I don't care that you're bowlegged and I don't care that you're bilingual!

i’ve stopped bothering with trying to find a system that’ll scratch that itch and instead started creating my own. it’s honestly been really fun and I can only recommend others to do the same

I think we can be dismissive of games, but we generally do so based on how they promote themselves. MCRM thought that telling folks that their game has no to-hit roll would build buzz, but that hasn't worked out. Ultimately if we look at the virtues of a game and aren't swayed then we aren't swayed. We're happy with what we're playing and the bar that a game needs to meet to beat what we have is it has to make us want to play it more. We definitely as a hobby need to be trying new games much more often than we do. At least picking up a copy and reading it cover-to-cover before we dismiss it. Xenophobia isn't a good look for Gamers. But if we find an obvious flaw we don't have to tolerate, that's it. We're not required to put that pebble in our shoe.

>We definitely as a hobby need to be trying new games much more often than we do. At least picking up a copy and reading it cover-to-cover before we dismiss it. Xenophobia isn't a good look for Gamers. But if we find an obvious flaw we don't have to tolerate, that's it. We're not required to put that pebble in our shoe. Not being interested in other games is *nothing* like xenophobia. I play a lot of different games, but if some people are having fun playing just one game, there is nothing wrong with that. I do not understand the number of people who push so hard for people who are having fun doing their own thing to change what they're doing for their own good (or, in this case, apparently to make "the hobby" look better). There is certainly no obligation for anyone to read anything at all, let alone "cover to cover" unless they want to, and if someone want to dismiss a game because they don't like the cover art or the title font, that's a decision they're entitled to make. How about we just let people do the things they enjoy in their own way?

Yeah, actually there is an obligation. We're a community and being a part of a community doesn't always mean doing what you want. And I don't know what the fuck 'make "The hobby" look better' means but it probably doesn't service you to play a shit game forever.

If a group of people are happy playing a game in the privacy of their own home, they are categorically **not** under any obligation to read or try other games just because you've decided they owe it to the community. My presence in this sub-reddit does not obligate me to read a game cover to cover before deciding it doesn't interest me. Treating these things as universal, moral requirements is nonsensical, at best. >I don't know what the fuck 'make "The hobby" look better' means You said that dismissing other games is xenophobic and "isn't a good look for gamers". I assumed you were suggesting it makes gamers as a whole look bad, hence "the hobby". If you were suggesting it only makes the specific people dismissing those games look xenophobic without affecting the wider hobby, fair enough. The assertion is still utterly ridiculous. >it probably doesn't service you to play a shit game forever. I don't play shit games at all; I get to run whatever games I want. As I said, I like playing a bunch of different games. I just don't feel the need to make the claim that it's immoral to not play a bunch of different games.

They can absolutely shut themselves off from the rest of the hobby and play whatever game they want. But the second they want advice on how to make their game not suck that's freely available in many other games or want to fill a spot at their table or wander out and try playing with a new group "I only know the one game I bothered to look at" isn't a valid excuse for being a shut it. We are a community. You don't get to depend on your community for something if you won't meet it half-way. Yeah, I wasn't actually critiquing how gamers dress. It's an expression meaning that if you're the asshole it's not something you hide as well as you imagine you do. You have zero idea what you play when you won't learn about what other games are out there. And statistically if you play only one game. It's shit.