worst game mechanic ever

[kumakami]

There is a lot of good free games out in the net.....
But! what are the worst games you've found. We count only mechanics, as there are WAY more half arsed setting then can be counted!

[SheikhJahbooty]

My first point, please nobody mention THAT GAME. If we start mentioning that game, this thread will be a lot less interesting. It will turn into, "You know what else I hate about that game, rolling 10d100/5-1 for attributes."

My second point, I find it hard to remember bad game mechanics. Good game mechanics stick with you because you want to play that game, or at least you want to incorporate that game mechanic into a game that you are writing or playing.

And finally my response.

As a kid I used to play Palladium. We had a really ornate Transdimensional campaign for a bit. There was one big thing that annoyed me about Palladium games though, and it wasn't mega-damage. It was the fact that attributes never came up. If your attributes were less than 16, you never referred to them at all, ever. (In case you didn't notice, I mention this because games still do this, even games submitted here.) I even wrote an article that was a few pages long of a house rule to bring attributes up in play.

Modern games still do this, even though they are usually slicker about this. In d20, your attributes sit on your sheet largely unused, but at least attribute bonuses or penalties are a lot more common. This is why True20 doesn't even use attributes, but skips strait to the attribute mods. But it still get's on my nerves when I see a rule like that or like - your dexterity times your secretarial skill equals the number of words you can type per minute, but it never comes up, - or - roll for mental celerity, multiply it by 5, add it to mental acuity, and divide by 3 to get intelligence and then never use mental celerity or acuity ever again, but keep them on your character sheet.

As I get older and crotchetier, I find that this even extends to tables that I once thought of as cool fluff. Nowadays I don't want a table to tell me what my cyberpunk's most valuable possession is, unless I get penalized for losing it. If it never affects the game mechanics then let me make it up myself. Take that rule out of the game or put it in a section on quick roll NPC quirks or something.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

[BubbaBrown]

@Chainsaw Aardvark: I think that short list covers a majority of the reasons a mechanic can fail. I actually thought about all the mechanics that annoyed me and almost all fell into at least one of those categories.

My personal, bad game mechanic that I still despise... despite playing games that have it... is random base stat generation. Now, I need to be a little more specific. I like random stuff in certain spots, but I'd like the ability to agree upon such conditions. It seems to be a bad idea to place it at the very beginning of character generation and this is usually the base stats. DnD set this bar. Admittedly, as noted, DnD tends to be a bit apathetic to base stats after a certain point, so it lessens the impact. Unfortunately, some games actually make heavy use of base stats. So, nothing will fubar a character quicker than having "Average Roll Syndrome" and rolling base stats. And nothing will pooch group unity like a significant disparity between party members.

Now most games use decent pools of dice to derive numbers from, so you at least have something of a statistical curve on your side. Still the odds are equal each roll and you are still one bad stretch of rolls away from having to work some minmax accounting magic the likes of which would make a big bank blush in some attempt to salvage a character.

[misterecho]

I tend to shy away from systems which provide rules for *everything*.
i.e.
"you want to put a cat into a bowler hat and have him smoke a cuban?... ok page 24356 covers that"

If i cant remember the vast majority of the rules, and I have to look through 3 or 4 books then I'd rather just make it up.

[Rob Lang]

The Icar space combat mechanics for 3.5. Scientifically correct for the setting but about as interesting as a ham sandwich.

[misterecho]

Finest cured Ham on a traditionally baked cottage cob with lashings of handmade butter makes a pretty darn good sarnie!

[sean2099]

If you hate d20 feats, then what do you think about exalted? In general, i'm a "me too" when it comes to discarding the bad and keeping my eye on the good.

[kumakami]

(warning spell check is dead)
thats a bit of a non-comittle response......I find the act of living is rooted in judgement. While the more enlightned do try to avoid letting there judgements hamper their lives, we still have them. As for the field of gaming I tend to find that poor system kills ones experence as much poor setting. Infact I seem to almost be more of an insult then poor setting.

However that is indeed only my opinion........facts in this case take more research.

[This responds to a Bot post was removed by Rob. Kuma makes a nice point, so I'm leaving this in]

[Rob Lang]

Good man, Kuma. You tell that bot.