Game rules that make no sense to you

[mlnevese]

Sometimes games have rules that make absolutely no sense to me. For instance, in D&D 2nd Edition a wizard would have the number of spells known limited by their intelligence. How does someone's intelligence make any difference to copying more spells to a book? I can understand the page limitation, which was a rule as well in tabletop, although I never saw a computer game use it.

We often ignored that rule on our tabletop games which lead to some famous NPCs in our games. There was one who was an idiot from the other Wizards point of view, but he had inherited one of the biggest known magical libraries in the world that had been built by his ancestors and was defended by tremendous magical protection which led to a dialogue that became famous in my group.

"(Wizard) - I hate to deal with him he's a pompous idiot
(Mage/Thief) - Yes but we really need that spell, and he probably has a copy somewhere in the library.
(Wizard) - Yeah, I know, it could cut months from the quest if we could grab a copy fast
(Mage/Thief) - And to our advantage he likes money.
(Wizard) - Yeah, that he does"

 

[Antimatter]

Limited camping supplies if the game also allows you to carry thousands of lbs of weight (Pillars of Eternity). This is an artificial limitation to prevent some rests, but the end result is that you constantly travel between taverns and new areas.

Party members' approval/disapproval when they are not in the party but in the camp (Dragon Age: Inquisition). I can be in the middle of some wild area, commit something, and then suddenly a party member sitting thousands of miles away in the camp gives disapproval.

Looking at the approval/disapproval mechanics, it also doesn't make sense to me when a party member shows their disapproval towards very small things when the world is in danger. I can imagine that in RL in a similar situation the main character would certainly be able to convince such a party member that, for example, not helping a villager with their crops, when the whole nature of existence is in peril, is not a crime.

It also doesn't make sense to me when you get a quest to protect someone and this someone is a pushover. I can imagine if such quests only involved peasants, but sometimes they involve military men and yet all you see is still one or two hits, and this NPC you have to protect goes down.

 

[mlnevese]

I love when you are playing solo and your reputation increases or decreases because you did something but there is nobody close. The gods must be a bunch of stalkers

 

[Eternal]

Among all the items you can equip on your character, there is such category as rings. But you’re rarely allowed to equip several rings at once. Seriously, why are there always one or two slots for rings? Of course, I understand this is a balance issue but I still fall into a stupor when I see the opportunity to equip only one ring per hand. Why not call them bracelets in this case then? If in real life I’ve come across enchanted rings, I would definitely figure out how to wear several of them on one hand.

 

[Chronicler]

In one of the forgotten realms novels I remember a priest cast a spell from a scroll.

As she read the words, they disappeared from the scroll. So if she fucked up a single word then she couldn't just start over, because the scroll's already ruined.

I figure it's probably something like that, when copying spells from scrolls to your book. Some kind of set up where a simple mistake leaves you with no scroll and nothing of worth in your spellbook.

Among all the items you can equip on your character, there is such category as rings. But you’re rarely allowed to equip several rings at once. Seriously, why are there always one or two slots for rings? Of course, I understand this is a balance issue but I still fall into a stupor when I see the opportunity to equip only one ring per hand. Why not call them bracelets in this case then? If in real life I’ve come across enchanted rings, I would definitely figure out how to wear several of them on one hand.

It gets particularly silly in Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup, with the octopode race.

The octopode's main strength is that with eight tentacles, they can equip eight rings at once, though they cannot wear most armors making them ill suited for martial specialization.

Why eight tentacles is so much better than ten fingers in the ring department is never to my knowledge elaborated on.

 

[alice_ashpool]

5e Attunement. Like the ring thing it only makes sense from a "balance design" perspective. Meta rules always make me go "huh".

 

[mlnevese]

Not an RPG rule but most strategy games do it... You send a retreat order, and your unity just turns their back to the enemy to run... Seriously? If I order a unity to retreat i expect it will, at least, return fire... Total Annihilation is one of the few games I remember where the units will fire upon anyone following them if they are moving away from a battle instead of just dumbly turning their backs to the enemy.

 

[Urdnot_Wrex]

5e Attunement. Like the ring thing it only makes sense from a "balance design" perspective. Meta rules always make me go "huh".

I don't understand, not familiar with 5e rules. What exactly are you referring to?

 

[alice_ashpool]

I don't understand, not familiar with 5e rules. What exactly are you referring to?

In 5th Ed, certain magic items, but not others, need to be "attuned" before you can use them which iirc requires a "short rest". There is a limit to the number of items you can have "attuned" at any one point. My issue is that it is clearly there purely to enforce "bounded accuracy" and stop you swapping certain items around on the fly as a crude "balance solution" - where I grew up on a much more realistic diet of quickly swapping rings, helmets, even boots in the middle of a BG2 fight

 

[Urdnot_Wrex]

In 5th Ed, certain magic items, but not others, need to be "attuned" before you can use them which iirc requires a "short rest". There is a limit to the number of items you can have "attuned" at any one point. My issue is that it is clearly there purely to enforce "bounded accuracy" and stop you swapping certain items around on the fly as a crude "balance solution" - where I grew up on a much more realistic diet of quickly swapping rings, helmets, even boots in the middle of a BG2 fight

I see. That seems like a restriction that people might want to use for themselves, but it doesn't sound reasonable to enforce it. Swapping armour is unrealistic, of course, but seeing which type of enemy you're facing and quickly snapping a different bracelet around your wrist or throwing another amulet around your neck? Or throwing that to one of your companions who might need it?
If anything, it will lead to more people reloading, spam-resting somewhere and then coming back to the same fight after "attuning" the appropriate item. So, similar to the limitation of camping supplies in PoE, it will only turn into a logistics and travelling challenge instead of a tactical one.