fenrispunk/site/archive/meta/criticism-of-ttrpgs.org

Update notes

This originally started as an ongoing notes file before it became a blog post.

General Critique

Ability scores do not always match or easily convert or encode real-world measurements. E.g. using IQ or physical feats such as 5k run times.

D&D 5

Armour

Helmets

Why no common helmets? OOU, they represent the only type

of armour most folks continue to use. Or, maybe I will just treat IU d&d5 chacters as completely unskilled at using helmets.

Leather

~Leather armour, particular with studs, is probably

without any OOU basis.~ I stand corrected regarding leather with the [Brigandine][2], though studs by themselves without also having metal plates seems like wearing a nail. Also I still feel that gambesons get undervalued IU.

Bias

Halfling

The term [Halfling][1] already seems racist OOU and just

feels like a copy of EU hobbits, without the name. Though apparently some use it to mean a person of mixed heritage, which also seems racist.

Humans

Having a "standard" and "variant" human seems like an

oversimplification of diversity, OOU.

Languages Common

Having "Common" as a language means that either

there's a bias to humans as the default or that humans have no language.

Orcs

• Why no orc option? If one can play character who has an orc as a
parent? Also feels racist.
• The game seems to consider Orcs and some other beings evil, allows
evil players, but seems to use "evilness" as a reason to exclude some beings from default playability.

Combat

Combat Reactions

These initialize with the first round and reinit

with subsequent turns [3][4]. It would be fairer to all players, though harder to track, if in the turn to make it init on the turn and to reinite one round later at the turn they used it previously. Or it would be simplier to just make both the init and reinit happen at the top of the round.

Combat Surprise

If someone counts as surprised and rounds take up

6 seconds of time, it makes no sense that they would simply not move or perform actions. They should at least continue with their business. Or the surprise round takes up less time than 6 seconds.

Numbers, General

Metric System

D&D uses USC instead of SI.

Money

As of 2019-03-01, the value of gold at 1315.19 US$/troy-oz

significantly overshadows platinum at 872.89 US$/troy-oz, where the IU statically places platinum above gold. I think IU should have some kind of system build in to mind the OOU market value fluctuations.

PF 2

Bias

If humans really have the most diverse group, then why do

the elf-folk have four ancestries and the human-folk only have two?

Shields

The Pathfinder Second Edition rules make AC from shields

something that requires active management. It turns the shield into portable cover with its own HP. But in what state does someone carry a tower shield where it does not provide any sort of cover when surrounded on all eight sides?

SF

Material Hardness

It seems unclear whether or not the game

developers used an existing OOU hardness scale. Perhaps Rockwell C since it matches for one point in the grand range of steel, listed as 20.

SR

The Matrix

If SR copied so much from Neuromancer, including the

idea of the matrix, how does SR have the trademark and how did the movies get to use the names?

4th edition

• With all the reorg for country maps in North America, Alta
California previously of Mexico feels like it gets forgotten.
Magic vs Tech
SR has concept where magic only affects
non-technologic objects. But since cyberware either is-a magical item or has-a magical property of its own, eg Essense, that means the magic SR folks use probably only represents a subset of all magic. Nerfed magic. So for this game, ignore that distinction. I've said it before, "Essense and Magic are coupled"[5].
Shields
IU, anyone using one suffers a penalty for all
occasions. OOU, if these had no advantage they probably would not exist as ubiquitous tools around the world.

Sprites

Instead of just using the huge AI spectrum, for some reason SR has another term for these.

Sprite Powers

Most of these powers enable the Technomancer

abilities that any contemporary hacker or cracker could do today, albeit without the discipline of learning it the conventional manner.

References

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halfling [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigandine [3]: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/150727/when-does-a-characters-reaction-reset-per-turn-or-per-round#answer-150749 [4]: https://web.archive.org/web/20190812030338/https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/150727/when-does-a-characters-reaction-reset-per-turn-or-per-round#answer-150749 [5]: https://web.archive.org/web/20190813231340/https://drek.is/archive/20131026/shadowrun-critique/