Forbidden banished exiles. Especially in MMORPGs, I've found that the most common overall in-setting guild theme is "we don't belong in the society that this setting established." It's not just in MMORPGs, of course. It's often a crutch (or training wheels, if I'm being generous) for some roleplayers to participate by not participating. I'm not saying that a character (or a player for that matter) has to bend the knee to Lord So-And-So, but it's kind of hard to find plot excuses for the the forbidden banished exile to even be in the same picture, let alone get the quest to do the thing.

Plot armor dependents. Yes, it's quite likely that if I'm running the game and telling the story that I won't have the guards kill a player character on sight even if they do something exceptionally stupid just to see what happens, like stabbing a random citizen. Those kind of players don't tend to last long if their only contribution is "try to knock down the props just to see what happens on set."

People that directly lift an established character in well known fiction, often just changing the spelling, and often not even trying to resemble or act like that character. In an older MUD, I recall a "Frrodoh Bhaginz" that was a Half-Ogre hunter. Again, it didn't ruin the game, but it was annoying. I admit it can sometimes be a red flag warning, and a helpful one, if the lifted name is from chud fiction, like if they have "Rahl" in their name. It can show me what to expect, either in a tabletop group or in a MMORPG guild.

  • Eris235 [undecided]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    Pathfinder 1e, 100%. Build to be compatible with 3.5, it has the same 'linear fighter, quadric wizard' stuff, though its base martials are probably a little stronger than 3.5's, though that's not saying much.

    Pf2e, in my experience, is the best dnd-like system I've played for caster-vs-martial balance, improving on 5e, where casters and martials were almost balanced in combat, but caster had a bit boost out of combat. In PF2e, all else being equal, a martial will usually be better in combat than a caster. Does mean that 5e players coming into the game will probably have some feelsbad about how 'little' damage their blaster is doing, but IMO casters do way to much damage in 5e for how much other shit they can pull on top of that. Though they make up for it their lower damage by giving good buffs and debuffs, and by dealing more AOE and diverse energy types, to take advantage of the more common damage weaknesses and resistances.

    They also, of course, have more out of combat utility, though even there, martials have a big leg up compared to 5e. Rituals can be performed by anyone with the right skills, and some important stuff, like raise dead, are rituals, so anyone with training in religion can do it, magic or no. Similarly, skills are far more powerful. Out of combat, the medicine skill heals people right up (with the right skill feats), making healing magic only useful in combat, or to break curses and stuff.

    I also in general really like their 'save or suck' spells. The real suck effects only happen on enemies crit failing their save, which is rolling 10 below the DC, and rarely happens. But there's still good debuffs applied on fail, and small or 1 round only debuffs that get applied on a successful save (similar to 5e's 'half damage on successful save' effects). It makes save-or-suck spells way less binary, as unless the enemy critically succeeds, they'll still get some damage or debuff on them, but also to really just negate an enemy the way 5e's 'hold monster' can, they usually need to roll like a 1.

    • BeamBrain [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Wow, I hadn't played Pathfinder since 1e. Had no idea so much had changed.

      • lurkerlady [she/her]
        ·
        2 years ago

        pf2e is pretty revolutionary for the whole genre. very balanced and very tight math

      • Eris235 [undecided]
        ·
        edit-2
        2 years ago

        Yeah, PF2e is closer to a blend of DnD 4e and 5e, mechanically, than PF1e.