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A lot has been said about modern versions of games being betrayals of their original conceits or audiences, but at least we can kind of see some vestigial elements or other aesthetic or thematic tissue connected to its origin. I wonder about the truly out there cases, the ones where the jump from first to last edition leaves you wondering why the game still keeps its name.

Another broad question, but this is one that came to my mind after yesterday's thread, and really excited me. There's a quote from a book I quite like-Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Messy, True Story Behind the Making of Video Games. That I often find myself reciting whenever I dislike any game or system.

"No one ever sets out to make an intentionally bad game"

There were some really interesting tidbits about how often controversial or disliked systems in games were made with a genuine assumption from the design team. This came to my mind with the Alpha for VtM 6E and the controversial addition of a meta currency. The team themselves admitted in a blog post that they had tried to use Drama for the sake of introducing friction to the story outside the story itself, without feeling punitive towards the players. This however, didn't work as intended ("it added needless bookeeping to something storytellers were already able to do without it") and it seems the team will either be revising it or scrapping the mechanic.

Whether you think it's something that they should have known beforehand or not, I think it's a stark reminder that human error is a very real issue when it comes to game design, whether virtual, board, card, or TTRPGs. Very often a bad mechanic* (itself subjective because people like and dislike different things.) was done because the design team genuinely thought it would make the game or system better.

So that's what I wanted to ask about today, what are some mechanics or systems you dislike, and why do you think the designers made it that way? I don't intend for this to be a negativity thread, quite the opposite really. I want folks to be able to take a hard look at what they dislike, and think about how or why it was made that way. I hope it might generate some interesting discussion or appreciation for something you otherwise dislike.

Several years after release, how has Pathfinder 2e been treating you? There’s a local game advert and I’m likely going to sign up to see how it plays.

What have you liked? Disliked? What keeps you playing, or what caused you to drop it?

I’m curious to return to crunchy “trad” play after so long steeping myself in the old-school scene.

I've noticed that with certain systems, I can't tell whether I don't like the game or the group. This is a major reason I was worried about playing Daggerheart or Call of Cthulhu, because most of the time, my first time meeting the group is when we play. When I was watching Daggerheart, part of me was thinking, but the reviewer played Daggerheart with either other YouTubers or your friends, which changes your review because I feel half of all RPG problems can be dealing with people and lessons you learn in Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers (not saying they are easy lessons to learn and use). Because of that, and because of what the game requires socially, I would only play with a group I know. I have played some Vampire: The Masquerade, which is the only horror game I have played, and the GM and other players have a separate out-of-character chat to check in.

For my PbTA experiences, I have played Ironsworn solo, Monster of the Week, and Brimblewood Bay. Ironsworn was fun by myself, and it was a unique way to expand my roleplaying without worrying about others' time and pace. I played Monster of the Week, and it went really well. I enjoyed it, but it was with one other person, and she was a social worker, so it was pretty easy to navigate and make sure everyone had space. Brimblewood Bay was the least enjoyable to play because, even with two other players, both of them warmed up to roleplaying much faster than I did, so I was frustrated (plus I was sick for a month, and that was my first social activity in a month).

How do you guys learn what systems that you like, especially if you are changing up groups? Do you set up extra things, or do you wait to get to know the group? Am I just being too picky?

Hi there,

In the last few years my taste as a DM have mutate a lot. I have enjoy a variety of settings and systems but I have grown tired a lot.

Everything just revolves around a few ideas and archetypes of what is a fantasy or sci-fi or terror ( you get my point) game.

In the past months I like the fresh taste of : vampires and claymores, chicken not pie, the skeletons, every villain is a loser and vaesen (naming a few).

I realized I have grown tired of : mörk Borg system (Lore is pretty cool and community content too), DND style games, chulthu style games, daggerheart, exalted, city of mist, dragon bane, blades in the dark etc.

Could you recommend me a ttrpg that feels like something very smart or innovative or new or with a original system or just make you feel Inlove again with roleplaying?

Near the end of the 90's TSR released the role-playing game Alternity, which was intended to be for sci-fi what D&D was for fantasy- only Alternity didn't seem to succeed like its counterpart and quickly folded. What are some people's feelings/opinions on why this occurred?

Hi everyone,

I'd like to know if the backers have already received their copies of the Broken Empires PDF, and if so, what their first impressions of the game are.

Thank you for your answers.

Heya everyone! Reddit tells me that today's my 10th cakeday.

It got me thinking about how fun this subreddit has been for me! I don't comment a lot - and yes, I've self promoted a bit, too - but more than anything, I enjoy reading the wealth of opinions, suggestions, and random tidbits of information that get offered up here.

So, from the bottom of my heart - Thank you all for being a great community and for me so much great stuff to read!

So, first off, I'm not Italian. I'm a German that has observed a certain trend that raised a question for me: Is there, like, a large, or at least, a very active, TTRPG-community in Italy that seldomly gets talked about?

I've had it happen a few times now that I desperately tried to get my hands on certain physical books (the Strata Sourvebook for Apire, the Dolmenwood collection and Wilderfeast, to name a few examples), that my usual German online shops just did not have stocked or even on their way. But what I always found was Italian localisations of the same books! And that just piqued my curiosity. As far as I could tell, Dolmenwood, for example, has not been translated into any other widely spoken European languages like French, Spanish or German, but there just is an Italian version.

So, what I'm wondering is: Is the demand for RPGs in Italy just so high that it is worth it for local publishers to localize these books? Are the publishers themselves just enthusiasts that do it even if the profit margin is low? Did I just stumble upon a few choice examples by accident and there actually is no trend like this at all?

If anyone has any insights on that I'd love to hear it. I think the idea of a country in which, for whatever reason, RPGs are just wildly more popular than in its neighbours is just very intriguing :D