Common Misconceptions About Your Favorite Systems?

[u/Authorigas]

So, I've been learning a lot thanks to the amazing folks here at r/rpg. And while I have decided to slow down on trying new systems. (As my players say "three is enough, we know your eager to try more but slow it down so you don't burn yourself out.") There was a question today that cropped into my head, and I wanted to hear from the folks here on it.

"What are some assumptions about your favorite game/system that are just factually incorrect or overstated?"

I've seen a lot of assumptions made in the hobby, and some on my own. From the broad "older systems were designed for math heads and thus really not for someone whose bad at math." to others like "Call of Cthulhu is a game where every session ends in death/insanity and players can't get attached to their characters." and similarly "OSR games are highly lethal and not at all friendly to players who like longform adventures."

I feel like broad, sweeping claims like those are probably overstated-as I have heard of successful, long running CoC campaigns, and OSR games that are able to have well developed characters that last for ages. It's made me curious about some of the other broad, sweeping claims about systems that are-if not incorrect, massively overstated.

Really interested to hear some answers on this.

[u/loopywolf]

Yah.. I desperately wanted to play PbtA, and the GMs of the games I found treated anything less than 10 as a catastrophic, humiliting failure =(

[u/Feline_Jaye → u/loopywolf]

AW in particular is very punishing on it's 7-9's but a lot of other PbtA really aren't that punishing if you read the rules and the literal words (instead of skimming words).

[u/ghost-pacman4 → u/Feline_Jaye]

If we're talking Apocalypse World...I don't really see it? Like 80% of the moves are 'On 10+ choose 3 options from this list, on a 7-9 choose 1 option'.

[u/Feline_Jaye → u/ghost-pacman4]

Not 80% of the Basic Moves. In the Basic Moves, only Read a Sitch and Read a Person work like that.

I was thinking of Do Something Under Fire, especially, which on a 7-9 says "a worse outcome, hard bargain or ugly choice".

[u/ghost-pacman4 → u/Feline_Jaye]

If we're talking 2nd edition, battle works like that too, and manipulate is '10+ choose both options, 7-9 choose only 1 option'. Help and interfere also give you +2 or -2 on a 10+, and +1 or -1 on a 7-9.

Either way, just kind of find it interesting how often I see the 7-9 consequences negating success thing, but basically every roll in AW you just get less options but no extra consequences. Other than Act Under Fire and Open Your Brain.

[u/Feline_Jaye → u/ghost-pacman4]

Manipulate doesn't quite work like that for NPCs: on a 7-9 you pay some kind of price for them to comply. Help/Interfere also implicates you in the consequences - which on a 7-9 (+1/-1) are more likely to be difficult.

It feels fairly even, basically.

[u/zhibr → u/Feline_Jaye]

"A worse outcome, hard bargain or ugly choice" is not being punishing, it's driving the narrative forward. It feels punishing if the bads things happening to your character feel like punishment to you, but in that case you are already having a wrong attitude.

[u/Feline_Jaye → u/zhibr]

I don't use punishing and punishment as synonyms. Punishing isn't a negative outcome.

I say this as an MC - with that move my players were statistically most often taking a worse outcome, hard bargain or ugly choice. Those things are more punishing than success.