Hit points in non-D&D games. In D&D, they are part of the game system history and have a legacy status. In everything else, they don't make a damn bit of sense.

Roll under dice mechanics. Traveller 5 has a whole chapter complete with probability tables explaining why roll under is better and thus preferred. The only problem is that roll under is counter-intuitive for most people.

Oh and roll and assign stats. It combines the worst aspects of point buy and random rolling while retaining the best points of neither.

Classes.

Levels and, by extension, level-adjusted anything

Most implementations of "zero to hero" (I'm fine with characters improving over time, but when a sufficiently-experienced character can wade into an army of starting characters and massacre them by the hundred without feeling even slightly threatened in return, that's just stupid unless the character is a superhero or a god or something like that.)

Narrative metacurrencies

The entire concept of "balanced encounters" and "standard adventuring days"

Quote from: nDervish;1063626The entire concept of "balanced encounters" and "standard adventuring days"

I'm not a fan of "balanced encounters" as you seem to be using the term.

I AM a fan of a system that makes it easy for the GM to know if he's sending a cakewalk or a slaughter at his party without having to guess and then fudge the dice later because he just wanted a tense fight for the first encounter of the campaign not a TPK.

Properly used the "balanced encounter" mechanics exist to give the GM that feedback. If you throw X at the party they'll burn through about 25% of their resources. If you send 0.5X at them they'll probably not lose any significant resources at all. If you throw 2X at the party there's a good chance one or more of the PCs will be killed during the encounter. If you send 3X then it will almost certainly be a TPK.

I see nothing wrong with providing that information to the GM. They're still the one that decides whether they want to include a 3X encounter in the game or not and whether they want to provide that encounter with obvious clues to warn the party they might not be ready for this fight yet or means of escape if it all goes wrong.

Making the GM GUESS what's going to happen when they put an ogre in a dungeon for starting PCs is just bad design work on the game designer's part (I picked an ogre because whether a starting PC party can handle one varies a great deal from system to system so it would be really hard to guess if having the ogre in the dungeon would be a cakewalk or a TPK unless you understood the game system's actual math).

So actually, put that under hated mechanics for me... system that do not allow GMs to properly assess the threat level of what they're throwing at their party.

-Almost anything that makes injuries and illness a nonissue early in the game.
-3.5's action economy for fighters and descending BAB for iterative attacks.

I would say Thaco. Not os much the mechanic as how TSR explained it in the core books and how they implemented the formula. It works yet t could have been designed so much better.

Systems that do not allow GMs to properly assess the threat level of what they're throwing at their party and leave it as a guessing game. Too much damn hassle imo.

Stars Wars D6 lack of balancing mechanics for high level Jedi. Not really mechanics just suggestions and mostly it's a polite way saying screw over the players because we the DEvs are too lazy to fix a major issue with the rpg.

Not sure if it's a mechanics so much as a play style the way earlier editions of D&D try to push that Joe/Jane Average goes out and and adventures. Nice try both stay behind and farm the land where it's mostly safe. Exceptional people dare I say insane want to go into a Dungeon where one wrong step lands one in a trap or smashed to bits by the Ogre.

Rifts which began as cities being few and far between suddenly became too populated with many cities. Which really kills the post apocalyptic vibe it's author is trying to convince us of exists.

I hate Roll 3D6 keep what you get as rolls systems. Again Joe and Jane average usually do not go out adventuring and stay behind while Joe and Jane exceptional go out and risk their lives. I don't min it so much as how such a system tries to find low stats. They are part of the hobby yet don't try and tell me a Con of 7 is a good thing.

Quote from: jeff37923;1063604Hit points in non-D&D games. In D&D, they are part of the game system history and have a legacy status. In everything else, they don't make a damn bit of sense.

I'm going to go one level more abstract and just say 'Justifying Hit Points.' If you have hit points in your game and say something along the lines of 'hit points are a gamist, simplified wound mechanic. They are like Link/Megaman/whomever's life bar in video game. We are using them because a realistic wound system would by more clunky and complex than we want for this game system,' I'm down for it. TTRPGs are deliberate granularity-reduced reality emulators. We actively choose which ways we simplify things. I just don't want my game system pretending there's more to it than that.

Quote from: Brad;1063562Amber has the right amount of explicit mechanics for me, every other game has "too much".

I love Amber so much...

*Ahem* So for mine, it's "unique" dice, like Genesys or anything FFG is putting out right now. (Which is weird, because there was an era where I loved almost everything they put out.)

Quote from: nDervish;1063626The entire concept of "balanced encounters" and "standard adventuring days"

Quote from: Chris24601;1063639I'm not a fan of "balanced encounters" as you seem to be using the term.
...
Properly used the "balanced encounter" mechanics exist to give the GM that feedback. If you throw X at the party they'll burn through about 25% of their resources.

Yep, that's pretty much what I meant I don't like.

If there's an ogre there, then there is an ogre there.  I don't care whether it will *shudder* "burn through about 25% of [the party's] resources", or whether it will be a walkover (for either side).  There's an ogre there.  I don't want it to mysteriously transform into a goblin if approached by weak PCs or multiply into 17 ogres if approached by strong PCs.  It's an ogre.  It's there.  It's alone.  Period.  No matter who approaches.

If the PCs meet the ogre, it's up to the players to decide whether they want to fight it, plead with it for mercy, try to intimidate it into submission, sneak past, or turn around and run for the hills.  They can make their own assessment of how risky fighting it would be and whether that risk is acceptable to them without needing me to assess what fraction of their resources will be consumed in defeating it.  (And, seriously?  Planning in terms of percentages of "resources" consumed?  "I think I'll fight that bear because it's just going to break my arm and a couple of ribs, which is only 25% of my resources" said no real person ever.)

Which reminds me of one that I meant to include, but forgot:

Instant healing with no long-term consequences

Quote from: Tanin Wulf;1063655I love Amber so much...

*Ahem* So for mine, it's "unique" dice, like Genesys or anything FFG is putting out right now. (Which is weird, because there was an era where I loved almost everything they put out.)

The unique dice are technically not required; you can roll typical polyhedral dice and index a chart to see what come from it. Not entirely unlike Rolemaster in that way, but the feel is very different.

Quote from: nDervish;1063662Yep, that's pretty much what I meant I don't like.

If there's an ogre there, then there is an ogre there.  I don't care whether it will *shudder* "burn through about 25% of [the party's] resources", or whether it will be a walkover (for either side).  There's an ogre there.  I don't want it to mysteriously transform into a goblin if approached by weak PCs or multiply into 17 ogres if approached by strong PCs.  It's an ogre.  It's there.  It's alone.  Period.  No matter who approaches.

No one is saying is HAS to transform into a goblin (or a red dragon). But isn't it, as a GM, good to know ahead of time if the ogre you put in that room is going to TPK the entire party on the first round or not?

A "Balanced Encounter'' is the game equivalent of an ammeter. It lets you know ahead of time whether or not the amount of current your device is drawing is going to fry the circuit or not before you plug it in. You can still connect the power supply anyway and hope for the best, but why does knowing the likely outcome ahead of time hurt anything?

You seem to think that a system with a means of determining a balanced encounter REQUIRES you to use balanced encounters. You don't. Its just a benchmark to be able to judge what's likely to be the result of the encounter so you as the GM can tailor the game to meet your goals without having to rely entirely on guesswork.

Essentially, if you applied this same logic to automobiles you'd say you hate having to drive a car with a fuel gauge. You'd rather just guess how much gas is in the tank and how far you can get on it, because God forbid the manufacturer provide you with a means of measuring how much gas is left in the tank reliably. Better for everyone to just guess. You're still perfectly free to ignore what the gauge is telling you; Lord knows there have been days where the fuel indicator light comes on and I decide I'll fuel up next time I go out instead of stopping on the way home; but there's nothing wrong with being able to tell at a glance if you're going to need to get more gas before the trip you're taking.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1063667The unique dice are technically not required; you can roll typical polyhedral dice and index a chart to see what come from it. Not entirely unlike Rolemaster in that way, but the feel is very different.

It's entirely the feel for me. The "feel" of a game is very important to the total experience I'm trying to create. (Ahh, my moment of self-indulgent pretension at my table...)

Being able to buy a speech impediment as a Disadvantage/Flaw/whatever.

If the player doesn't have to roleplay it, then it's a completely pointless decision. Here, have two Bonus Points for nothing.

If the player does have to "roleplay" it, then every time he needs to speak in character, he has to do a damned stutter/Elmer Fudd voice/Daffy Duck lisp, which is a huge problem in a roleplaying game, where communication between players and the GM is the core around which the entire exercise is built. Here, have two Bonus Points for bogging the game down every time your character opens his mouth and annoying the shit out of the rest of us every single fucking session. All because...you can do a funny voice? But it's not funny. It was never funny.

The number one rule of behavioral psychology is that you do not reward bad behavior. The option to buy a Speech Impediment as a Disadvantage exists for no other reason than to reward bad behavior.

And to sabotage interpersonal communication in an activity based entirely on interpersonal communication, there's also that.

(This is why you playtest games before you publish them. And the playtesters should be the biggest assholes you know, because you need to stress-test that sumbitch, and find where it bogs down under casual abuse.)

Quote from: asron819;1063585GM metacurrency - the GM is god. They don't need to spend points to do things.

This. With no exception.

Quote from: Barghest;1063683Being able to buy a speech impediment as a Disadvantage/Flaw/whatever.

If the player doesn't have to roleplay it, then it's a completely pointless decision. Here, have two Bonus Points for nothing.

It could be expressed purely mechanically, e.g. "you take a -2 penalty to all checks to intimidate others, who are as likely to laugh at you as feel afraid of you."