I really don't like levels, and I especially do not like the escalating HP that usually accompanies them.  

I don't like forced game-balance mechanics like d20 challenge ratings.

I don't like combat mechanics that are heavily tied to maps and miniatures.

I don't like non-variable initiative, and I don't like intricate count down initiative either.

I don't particularly like armor as AC or "armor makes me harder to hit" rules.  I prefer armor as damage reduction.

I generally dislike roll-under mechanics, but make an exception with percentile systems as I find these simple and quite intuitive.

SPD in Champions. It's the most abused characteristic in the game. Always pushed to the max by powergamers. To the point it just breaks every game.

Players buy up SPD because they want to go more often. And not because of what their characters abilities actually should be according to their character concept.

To combat this. I created a SPD characteristics maxima formula based on the Normal Characteristics Maxima. To provide a control that would mitigate players buying up their SPD scores too high. The formula made it so that they had a certain maximum amount of SPD they could go to based on their DEX. And it worked. For the most part.

However, it failed in one very important aspect of running the Hero System. It created more work for the GM.

Quote from: Brad;1063707GM can't cheat, bro.

While I generally agree with the GM is god theory, GMs can cheat the game and cheat the players by pulling punches, lying about die rolls, hiding dice behind a screen to create a "better" result, playing with bias, trying to "win," severe railroading, playing to a pre-decided story, or infringing on player decisions... etc.  A good GM uses his godlike power to facilitate the game from a neutral and unbiased perspective.... and yes, he sure as hell does not need re-rolls.

Builds in D&D and other RPGs.

Such a thing takes players out of the mindset of actively playing in the campaign. And focuses them on making their character the most optimal possible. In other words: They are trying to win the game by having the most optimized and exploitive character they can possibly design.

Taken too its extreme. This hampers playing the game itself. Because it forces the GM's attention away from the story content of said campaign and the other players. And instead focuses it exclusively on the player who is acting up in this way.

The only way this is going to stop lies in the realm of the game designers themselves. To stop designing game systems that reward baked in mechanical exploitation.

No character in any RPG should be mechanically superior to the others. They should all possess the same level of effectiveness. And if you have a player who creates a build of a character that breaks that. Then they are actively trying to cheat everybody else playing and running the game.

Quote from: Madprofessor;1063755I don't particularly like armor as AC or "armor makes me harder to hit" rules.  I prefer armor as damage reduction.

My personal preference is for armor to be both resistive and ablative.  Thats the sweet spot.

I'm surprised to see so much hate for roll under mechanics. Although I do like it when higher numbers beat lower numbers. It's just blackjack that way, everyone understands blackjack.

Damn the math related to armor class & to hit numbers, ala D&D 3.5

Give me no more than 5 or 6 armor class categories for everything in the game; instead of 7 - 47, with all numbers in between.  Just tell me I need a 14 or better to hit monster type a, period.  

Thank you.

Quote from: Daztur;1063820I'm surprised to see so much hate for roll under mechanics. Although I do like it when higher numbers beat lower numbers. It's just blackjack that way, everyone understands blackjack.

Roll Under works great against your 6 Ability scores.

My strength is 15.  Cool; as long as the item, or task doesn't require a 16 or better, I can do it.  Simplicity.

Quote from: VincentTakeda;1063806My personal preference is for armor to be both resistive and ablative.  Thats the sweet spot.

So you're saying like armour as Damage Reduction?  Cuz that's what your saying, resisting is minimizing the amount of damage taken, ablative is very rarely modelled because no one wants armour that degrades every single fight.  AC as it works in basic D&D is a binary damage AVOIDANCE, AKA Dodge mechanic.  Either you're hit for FULL damage (Whatever the damage die tells you) or you aren't.  There's nothing in between.

Also, the human brain handles additives better than subtracting, which is why roll under is so counter-intuitive for most people.

I don't like armour as damage reduction; either you get silly results - can never avoid partial armour - or there's way too much book-keeping. Especially in pre-modern settings, armour either did its job or did not do its job, and a hit to armour was typically useless, so armour making the person harder to hit is fine. For a modern setting where people fall down after being shot in their bullet-proof vest, ok have armour as DR if it's also possible to hit the non-armoured bits.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1063844So you're saying like armour as Damage Reduction?  Cuz that's what your saying, resisting is minimizing the amount of damage taken, ablative is very rarely modelled because no one wants armour that degrades every single fight.  AC as it works in basic D&D is a binary damage AVOIDANCE, AKA Dodge mechanic.  Either you're hit for FULL damage (Whatever the damage die tells you) or you aren't.  There's nothing in between.

Also, the human brain handles additives better than subtracting, which is why roll under is so counter-intuitive for most people.

Yep. I'm running an sdc palladium world where AR is replaced with DR.  While armor does ablate (can be damaged) it also has damage resistance, such that  a baseball bat cannot damage the tank pretty much at all unless wielded by superhuman strength. Normally folks that complain about ablative armor dont like having to buy new kit all the time, but damage resistance slows that process down to acceptable levels.  It does bring back the feeling that a big metal brute walkin down the street is well and truly able to take out whatever you can dish out for a long time, and the normally quite squishy police officer with the 50 sdc bullet proof vest arent made worthless after taking  a bullet or two, but still seriously consider whether they want to stick around for a few shots more.  Its going pretty well I gotta say.  Helps little guns seem like little guns and big guns feel like big guns.  The only folks who don't seem to like combat in my game are the ones who prefer killing everything they shoot at and leaving nothing alive in their wake, because that now takes quite a bit more A: ammo and B: commitment and C: time.  Folks who are used to being the quick and deadly murderhobo tend to endure rapid reprogramming or head for the door.  People who hate 'armor as resource managment' on the other hand tend to hate it less because they don't have to do it nearly so often and it feels sooooo much more organic in the heat of battle.  Not always having to repurchase or repair armor after every single fight.

Then you can either handle the partial armor with natural 20's hitting the non armored bits or finding 'chinks' in the armor...  Palladium also has P.V. (armor penetration value) that allows it to bypass armor if you're into that sort of thing, which can be improved by buying armor piercing rounds and such... Gives sharpshooters, snipers and marksmen something interesting to keep themselves busy besides a neverending tide of thump thump thump.

Obviously storyteller folks and folks who dont like hit point systems aren't joining a palladium game in the first place, or they're playing savage rifts.

Quote from: Darrin Kelley;1063771Builds in D&D and other RPGs.

Such a thing takes players out of the mindset of actively playing in the campaign. And focuses them on making their character the most optimal possible. In other words: They are trying to win the game by having the most optimized and exploitive character they can possibly design.

Taken too its extreme. This hampers playing the game itself. Because it forces the GM's attention away from the story content of said campaign and the other players. And instead focuses it exclusively on the player who is acting up in this way.

The only way this is going to stop lies in the realm of the game designers themselves. To stop designing game systems that reward baked in mechanical exploitation.

No character in any RPG should be mechanically superior to the others. They should all possess the same level of effectiveness. And if you have a player who creates a build of a character that breaks that. Then they are actively trying to cheat everybody else playing and running the game.

Builds have two general reasons to exist:

1. Your game has a lot of bad options.

2. The player wants to do something incredibly niche in your game.

Not-sucking isn't the same thing as optimizing "to-win". I have met people online who were playing 3.X era Paladins, Druids, and Wizard, and they would get mad that my Fighter had a preplanned build. Sorry? Maybe I wanted to play a fighter and not be dead weight you narrativist trash-goblin.

Quote from: Chris24601;1063681But 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?

I'm not quite sure what part of "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)." was unclear.

Quote from: Chris24601;1063681You seem to think that a system with a means of determining a balanced encounter REQUIRES you to use balanced encounters. You don't.

In theory, that's generally true.

In practice, I see a strong tendency of players in games which have rules for "balanced encounters" to expect the GM to give them only "balanced" encounters and complain rather loudly if they run into something that isn't "level-appropriate", sometimes with those complaints including accusations that the GM is "cheating" by giving them something that's "too hard".  It tends to foster a player mindset of "it wouldn't be there if it wasn't expected to be beatable", at which point PCs start dying because the players insist that they must be able to win the fight and refuse to withdraw, even when they're clearly losing to something which has them completely outclassed.

I much prefer to leave mechanical calculations out of this so that the players will engage their minds, assess the situation, and actually think about whether they can expect to win (and at what cost) instead of just saying "we're level X, it should be CR Y, so no problem!"

Quote from: Chris24601;1063681Its 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.

Yes, "tailor the game to meet your goals".  Your comments here are consistent with someone whose goal is to design specific encounters to be faced by specific parties of specific characters to produce a specific result (depleting X% of resources) when (not "if") the party faces them.

That is not my goal.

My goal is to run a wide-open sandbox world which at least appears to exist independently of any PCs and contains things which are simply there because they are, and, if a specific thing is ever encountered by PCs, I have no idea when placing it how many characters will be there at the time, or which PCs those will be, or how experienced they will be at that point.  The only "purpose" of the encounter is to be a part of the world and contribute to making that world feel "real" and alive.  If everything is balanced relative to the PC party (it doesn't matter whether it's balanced at the "difficulty X" level or the "X/2" level or the "3X" level - I'm not talking about making it an "even" fight here, but rather about scaling it relative to the party, regardless of what the chosen relative power level might be) then it fails at that purpose.

But, yeah, sure, I can just place it and not rescale it when it's encountered... but then what's the point in balancing it against some hypothetical party which will likely bear no particular resemblance to the actual party which encounters it?  Much simpler to just place what makes sense for the world, let it be encountered by whoever encounters it, and then leave the players to decide what they want to do about it.

Quote from: Pat;1063688Not to mention that THAC0 itself is unnecessary. All you need to do is write down all the ACs from -10 to 10 on your character sheet, and the number you need to hit that AC below them. Presto, no subtracting ACs from THAC0, or adding ACs to the 1d20 roll. Subtraction (or addition) are replaced with a simple one-row table lookup.

Funny, when my friends and I "invented" THAC0 back in the day, it mostly came about from us saying, "Man, that row of numbers to hit each AC from 10 to -10 takes up a lot of space and it's a pain in the ass to update all of them whenever you gain a level.  You know, it's a really straightforward progression of adjusting the to-hit number by 1 for each point of AC, so it would be really easy to use a little math and only have to record one number instead of 21 of them."

Quote from: Madprofessor;1063757While I generally agree with the GM is god theory, GMs can cheat the game and cheat the players by pulling punches, lying about die rolls, hiding dice behind a screen to create a "better" result, playing with bias, trying to "win," severe railroading, playing to a pre-decided story, or infringing on player decisions... etc.  A good GM uses his godlike power to facilitate the game from a neutral and unbiased perspective.... and yes, he sure as hell does not need re-rolls.

That just sounds like a bad GM.