Post #959889

2026-04-05 23:03 UTC

I cannot stress enough to RPG designers in all media that the very worst design you can come up with is one in which the result of a character action is “nothing”. The saving throw that negates all effects, the hit result that completely missed, these whiffs are instant deflation of the momentum and mood in any RPG. This is why D&amp;D sucks; it has a ton of these cases and they always feel bad for everyone. You don’t even need them in an RPG anymore, something we’ve learned since the 80s

Replies (11)

@SRAZKVT@tech.lgbt 2026-04-06 07:42

@sinbad@mastodon.gamedev.place rather than missed, it's a botched strike that deals 1hp

Open ##1106460
@sinbad@mastodon.gamedev.place 2026-04-05 23:06

*Something* should always happen. In a Forged in the Dark style system for example, enemies never roll dice, because their successes are triggered by the character’s failures. A simple idea that completely removes the “nothing happened” outcome on both sides of the equation. So much more elegant

Open ##1281799
@ALWyvern@mastodon.social 2026-04-06 00:07

@sinbad in Draw Steel hits never ever miss!

Open ##1281823
@moss@kind.social 2026-04-06 03:23

@sinbad strong agree here! (with a joking exception for when "nothing" happens 8 times in a row back and forth and then it becomes hilarious) Def need to check out Forged in the Dark now because that's such a smoother situ

Open ##1281824
@VANTABlack2000@mastodon.gamedev.place 2026-04-06 04:01

@sinbad Actions causing nothing is so annoying. Another thing in RPGs that annoy me at least is the random instant death moves in a lot of JRPGs. Like no count down or anything to prevent it just "BOOM insta death no matter how much health you have" that can get really annoying if done too often with no sort of timer.

Open ##1281826
@smn@l3ib.org 2026-04-06 04:56

@sinbad yeah, the "nothing happened" results are a vestigial relic of D&D wargaming ancestry. But D&D's combat has evolved so far away from those roots that it would benefit from abandoning more of its wargaming mechanics. Hasbro's management of the IP is utterly uninterested in the details of things like mechanical consistency in their game though, so I think people are going to end up migrating to systems that better suit their tastes as D&D stagnates for a generation.

Open ##1281827
@gilesgoat@toot.wales 2026-04-06 09:45

@sinbad Allow me to disagree with that, I think like in real life 'sometime things don't work' or 'you want to do something and nothing happens'. As long as "nothing doesn't happen too often" I think it should be allowed.

Open ##1281828
@sinvega@mas.to 2026-04-06 11:27

@sinbad significant part of why I hated those old infinity engine games on pc. oh a fight, great. 45 seconds of cycling animations where everyone repeatedly misses each other until one random number is big enough to do something see also: xcom vs ufo/silent storm. "oh you missed, nothing happens, might as well have skipped your turn" vs "your team all missed, but all those shots scared the crap out of the target, and also the unseen guy standing in the room behind him had a really bad day"

Open ##1281831
@RogerBW@discordian.social 2026-04-06 11:52

@sinbad I find particularly disruptive systems that offer something and then take it away. "You hit… oh, they defended/saved."

Open ##1281855
@Thebratdragon@mastodon.scot 2026-04-06 12:16

@sinbad I call this the goblin problem, where the fighter cannot be hurt by the goblin, but die to poor die rolls misses 13 times in a row... Move the game on.

Open ##1281856
@cutesobri@cathode.church 2026-04-06 12:41

@sinbad yeah, as a DM I try to make everything do something even if it's effectively nothing it needs to do Something even if that something is like effectively nothing because when the world ignores the player then it's not fun

Open ##1281857