How Quickly Do You Bounce Off a System?

[aramis erak]

I sat down with this system for about 30 minutes and started reading the rules. Within those 30 minutes I went from a curiosity (and generally positive disposition) to thinking "I'm never going to run this." Do you have such a quick turnaround? Do you suggest trying something that you don't expect to work? Or do you just put it back on your shelf and move along - knowing there are many other games out there?

I generally will bounce of the resolution mechanics after first read, but if I have a compelling reason (ie, players want to try it anyway), I'll give it 3 sessions to convince me.

I, also, bounced off TOR 2e... because, in every way that matters to me, it's inferior to 1E. It took a hard but rewarding game with lots of needing to consider the effects and reduced the difficulty, and reduced the benefits of resource spending... and nerfed the critters. I realized this having skipped the char gen and going straight to the task system and combat system, so, about 15 minutes. It wasn't a hard bounce, tho'.

My players did want to try it anyway. We made it about 5 sessions before all became grognardy (grumbly) about it being way too easy.

For games I don't immediately bounce off of upon read, I'll usually need 3-5 sessions to find the "major bugging me points"...
Sometimes, the points that bug me don't exist at starting levels of play... It took me one session of tier 3 D&D 5E to realize I «bleep»ing hate the one new class ability per level... especially since, unlike 3.x, many are in fact totally new powers, not improvements on earlier levels powers... which 5E also does with some.

Some elements I don't like aren't lethal - I dislike that Dragonbane doesn't have differenced attributes by kin... especially since many of the Kin types are pretty implicitly not just humans with funny ears and abnormal height and build. Wolfkin, Satyr, the winged catpeople... but that's not enough to keep me from enjoying it. Tho' I'm likely to use the 3rd ed att ranges if I run another campaign. Currently, the core has "earned" it's worth, not counting the Bestiary. Given that the players are enjoying it, and the adventures are nifty, it's going to continue... it does, however, make me want to run 3rd ed...

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Not sure if it counts as bouncing off the system per se, but if your rulebook is so riddled with typos and other more serious errors that I can't get through it without reaching for a red pen, that's it for me. The most recent example I ran into was the current edition of Feng Shui, which was just saturated with little mistakes that added up to more than I could tolerate. And believe me, I tried hard to get past it, having been a big fan of Shadowfist and the first edition of Feng Shui for as long as they've existed. Of course, as a big fan of both the Jammers and Architects of the Flesh factions and their original dystopian future juncture, I was going into 2nd with some doubts about the new canon timeline. So that didn't help any.

The biggest problem, gaming is a group activity.

Contrariwise, there are quite a lot of solo TTRPGs around these days, and if you extend into e-RPGs there are...what, thousands? Tens of thousands? More? Most e-RPGs are solo by nature, and the TTRPG field is starting to borrow ideas from them in a reverse of how many early e-RPGs cribbed from the tabletop games.

You can certainly debate about whether solo roleplaying is actually roleplay or not, but that's way beyond the scope of this thread.

 

[The Soloist]

Some elements I don't like aren't lethal - I dislike that Dragonbane doesn't have differenced attributes by kin... especially since many of the Kin types are pretty implicitly not just humans with funny ears and abnormal height and build. Wolfkin, Satyr, the winged catpeople... but that's not enough to keep me from enjoying it. Tho' I'm likely to use the 3rd ed att ranges if I run another campaign. Currently, the core has "earned" it's worth, not counting the Bestiary. Given that the players are enjoying it, and the adventures are nifty, it's going to continue... it does, however, make me want to run 3rd ed...

Which 3e are you talking about? I'm assuming DoD but I'm not sure.

 

[GrimCo]

I bounce rather quick.

I dropped PF2 the moment i saw how bad character creation rules layout is.

Some games i dropped after single session since players weren't into it ( Mork Borg and Cairn).

I generally drop games for two reasons:
System is too complex and too crunchy- both players and myself have nor time or patience to learn new and complex system.
Game doesn't suit my group's play style

On the other hand, if game has interesting setting, I'm more than willing to buy it and just rip off all the fluff parts and use it with other system.

 

[payn]

I bounce rather quick.

I dropped PF2 the moment i saw how bad character creation rules layout is.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've bounced off several systems two sentences into the Kickstarter description or reading a review. I don't have the space, physical or mental, for games I'm never going to run, so I now try to look in detail at systems before they ever show up on my doorstep.

 

[aramis erak]

I'll just point out that the oldest versions of the game did not even have merchant as an option, and as I noted, in a game that classically had two main models supported being mercenaries, its still perverse to tell people combat is a mistake.

Wrong. The original 6 are Navy, Marines, Army, Scouts, Merchant, & Other.

 

[demoss]

I can bounce pretty quick if the system is too fiddly for my tastes: especially if it doesn't seem fiddly bits don't get me anything I'm interested in.

Another way to bounce me fast is bad or overly verbose writing, or too much empty fluff in core books. Short evocative fluff is great, though. (Think Nobilis 2e sidebars...)

Offensive art doesn't directly bounce me, but it will hasten the exit for sure.

Stuff like mentioned by the OP, "specific rules doing specific things" doesn't really bother me.

If I go "Wait, so Sam would be a high Strength character in this system?", or "Three almost identical skills?!", my second thought is "Ok, so what does that buy me?".

Like, in the case of three different perception skills, does it lead to better spotlight sharing in the information gathering department, or does it just mean scout characters have to buy multiple skills to do their job? How does that compare to other specialists and the number of skills they need?

Game design is full of tradeoffs, and even if I don't like some particular tradeoff I'm almost always interested in understanding the tradeoffs different designers make.

 

[aramis erak]

Which 3e are you talking about? I'm assuming DoD but I'm not sure.

It's always safe to assume I don't change game lines when mentioning edition numbers. It's proper English to assume the written form does not change subject until the subject is obviously explicitly changed.
Futher....
I almost never prefer D&D to non-D&D, nor D&D 3.x to literally all other editions.
So, yeah, I was referring entirely to DoD, not D&D. If sig blocks had been turned on, I'd have it read, "When reading my posts: It's never D&D unless explicitly stated to be D&D."

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Wrong. The original 6 are Navy, Marines, Army, Scouts, Merchant, & Other.

Yeah, the original Traveller LBB trilogy wasn't as military focused as often claimed, that's an artifact of hindsight where the earliest career expansion books (ie Merc and High Guard) leaned into it rather than commerce, espionage/diplomacy or exploration - which were the four main campaign movers IME, not two. Presumably GDW was going with what they thought would sell best to a community that was still largely derived from wargamers (RPGs were still very young back then) or maybe it was purely personal interests behind pushing the merc playstyle, but it's colored perceptions of the game ever since then.

There's some alternate universe where Scouts and Merchant Princes came out in 1978/1980 instead of 1983/1985 and GDW didn't leave politics and spy work to 3PP to focus on, and Traveller has a whole different reputation. Or maybe it doesn't exist, because not catering to wargamers early led to it flopping altogether. Without some TL25 timeline-hopping tech, who can say?

Worth noting that of the six original careers, only two of them are really optimal for ground combat mercs. You can get personal combat skills from any of them in theory, but they're usually not what you're hoping for from Navy and Scouts and Merchant. You need the skills that let you operate and maintain the ship everyone's hoping for when they muster out, and they don't come from Army or Marine terms so much.