What will you not allow?

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I use wandering monsters because hanging around in dungeons ought to be dangerous, and camping after every encounter is tedious and somewhat breaks the resource economy, unless there is a risk in doing so. It also simulates patrols and the like without laborious tracking all movement in the AO.

Both of these, plus one more. As the designer of GURPS Dungeon Fantasy and the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, I'll own up to sticking with the old genre convention of wandering monsters – when I could have changed it – for three reasons:

1. To attach risk to spending time between encounters healing, recasting buffs and held Missile spells, and recovering FP. You can do these things, but there's a random chance on 3d that you'll end up even lower on resources if you do. Without such risk, it's too easy for spellcasters to game the system and outshine everybody else.

2. To emulate the effect of patrols without having to descend into a dire, high-detail simulation which is almost precisely the opposite of this genre's values – i.e., willingly suspending disbelief and not questioning the "how" and "why" much or at all.

3. To attach risk to doing noisy things, which are frequently attempts to game the system (liking bringing pack animals and warhorses into dungeons) – and, conversely, to attach reward to being sneaky, meaning stealthy characters don't necessarily need to be combat monsters, because they can avoid combat.

There's also ". . . and because people expect it," if you want to call that a fourth reason.

But #1 and #3 are especially important. There's a de facto hierarchy among delvers: casters (who can learn 100 neat tricks for 100 points, and upstage everybody else while they have energy) > warriors (who dominate most of the cool action scenes and take care of most of the monsters) > rogues (who mostly wait for rare moments when the challenge isn't about fighting, the casters don't happen to know a spell to trump it, and the warriors aren't being clanky). Point #1 empowers warriors and rogues relative to casters, as it puts pressure on the group to press on without recasting and FP recovery, forcing casters to use magic less casually and more strategically . . . or to rely on rogues as lookouts and warriors as bodyguards while resting. Point #2 empowers rogues relative to everyone else because they're sneakier and don't usually do their jobs with explosions, flashes, clanging melee, and clanking armor. Giving the middle tier of the hierarchy one boost, and the lowest tier two boosts, makes things fairer.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

Yes, Lup3rcal, you nailed it. It's like watching a movie where some actors aren't the same sex as their character, even though the sex of characters isn't really germane to the story being told.

It's not at all like that for me. With the poorer roleplayers, there is description of the character's actions and statements; with the better ones, there is actual dialogue. But the part of a dragon, or a fallen angel with six arms, or an information elemental, is played by a human being; I have to set aside the person I'm seeing and envision what the character looks like. The player is not the equivalent of a movie actor who can be seen on camera. They may be comparable to a voice actor—say, June Foray playing Rocky the Flying Squirrel. Foray's not being a flying squirrel is so big a difference that her not being a male flying squirrel doesn't add much.

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

As a rule, I don’t allow players to play not-their-sex. For some reason, that just takes me out it.

Do you expect all NPCs to be the sex of the GM?

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

Weirdness Magnet, potentially the most.campaign-disruptive disad out there. I will reject all characters that have it, though usually in a "replace it with something else" manner

Most of my campaigns are player-driven with me providing world-response and large backdrop events. I allow weirdness magnet, but only for one character per campaign, and only if it fits with the genre (perfect for supers or fantasy). It could even be normal in a surreal game world (toons); being the straight-man would be a disadvantage not unlike unluckiness.

[Flyndaran]

I don't think Weirdness Magnet has to be played slapstick or overtly supernatural. I find it could act as a catch all for odd bad luck. While I don't believe in luck in reality, for games, it seems perfectly "realistic".

Its main issue is that it regularly forces story focus onto one PC and that is often a problem for other players.

[whswhs]

As an addendum on the cross-gender play issue: One of my campaigns, some years ago, was akin to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen or Planetary in having large numbers of characters imported from popular fiction of the early 20th century (and adjacent years). In one scenario, the daughter of a PC was carried off to Neverland and the PCs had to fetch her back. So they ran into Peter Pan. I invited another of my players to guest star in the role of Peter Pan: A woman who teaches English and is fond of dressing all in green. She did quite a good job. And of course that particular gender swap is a long-established theatrical and cinematic tradition!

[AlexanderHowl]

I generally require everyone to take Weirdness Magnet or allow no one to take Weirdness Magnet, just having one character with Weirdness Magnet generally ends up with everyone else in the party suffering without fair compensation.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Culture20

Do you expect all NPCs to be the sex of the GM?

The GM is the Morning and the Evening Star. He is GM King of Kings, look on his works ye mighty and despair.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I generally require everyone to take Weirdness Magnet or allow no one to take Weirdness Magnet, just having one character with Weirdness Magnet generally ends up with everyone else in the party suffering without fair compensation.

The weird stuff happens directly to the magnet and only indirectly to anyone else (and I try to have it happen when the magnet is alone whenever possible). The fans only care about the magnet and will ignore the other PCs. The reaction penalty only applies to the magnet.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I generally require everyone to take Weirdness Magnet or allow no one to take Weirdness Magnet, just having one character with Weirdness Magnet generally ends up with everyone else in the party suffering without fair compensation.

You could say the same about many disadvantages though like most social or self control disadvantages.