History ScrappyMechanic / TabletopGames

* ''{{Car Wars}}'' Confetti Rule: Due to a combination of factors (tournament games at conventions with strict time limits; extremely-low-weight engines; minimally-ablative armor), it became a simple matter to design a duelling car whose armor could not be penetrated easily (if at all) by the weapons of the game, singly or in linked masses. The "solution"? Institute a rule where if a car took damage equal to its mass divided by 50, it was automatically reduced to debris even if its armor was unbreached. Unfortunately, the writer of this rule forgot about Ramming, and specifically the fact that a car which was hit by a Ramplate wound up taking four times as much damage as the rammer (due to a poorly-written Ramplate-damage rule -- not only did the target take 2x damage, the rammer took 1/2 damage!). Worse: A ram-car could easily have enough armor and other items to render it impossible to hit, much less damage. End Result: Ram-cars became the vehicle of choice, especially in tournaments; players who brought gun-equipped cars had no chance of winning. Mention of Confetti around gamers who remember this period is a Bad Idea....

* The least popular mechanics of ''TabletopGame/ThirteenthAge'' seem to be the "variable class complexity" and "flexible attacks" rules. For the former, classes are arranged from things like the barbarian (whose most difficult decision is "when do I rage") to the wizard (who can pick all kinds of talents that encourage stunting on the fly, coming up with creative ritual uses for combat spells, and so on); while there isn't a great deal of imbalance, at least not in combat, gamers used to 4th edition TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons often find barbarians and so on to be comparatively dull, leading to a number of homebrew classes aimed at making more complex barbarians and so on. The latter is a mechanic, used mostly by fighters and bards, where the effects you can use depend upon what your hit roll is - some require an even, some an odd, some a high roll, some an even miss - and some people don't like the lack of tactical control this gives you when you're playing those classes, leading to, again, homebrew classes that fill the same battlefield role but with different mechanics.

** To explain. If a card says "If", even if the effect is optional, you can use it any time after the event, because it grants the ability from that point on. But if the card says "When" then you are only granted the ability to do the optional effect at that specific time. The problem is that the timing rules can and will block you from activating the effect at that time, because something else needs to resolve first. Because the rules force something else to happen before you can use the effect the opportunity is gone, and you have thus missed the timing. What's so annoying is the name of the rule implies that you could have used the effect, and you missed the chance. However the opposite is usually true. There was no way to prevent the timing form being missed!
** Inverted with ''Franchise/YuGiOh'' video games, where this rule becomes a ScrappyMechanic because it asks you if you want to use the effect ''if literally anything happens in the game''. [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard Unless it will actually benefit you to activate the card/effect in question.]]

** There's also the "Harpie Rule", which only really affects the titular monsters, but is still fairly annoying. To wit, there are several monsters with effects that change their name to that of another monster, usually while it's face-up on the field. However, most all of the Harpie Lady monsters past the initial 2 don't specify ''where'' their effects treat their name as simply "Harpie Lady". As such, Konami has issued the ruling that these monsters are treated as having the name "Harpie Lady" ''for all intents and purposes, including deck construction''. What does that mean? Well, you can only have three copies of a specific monster in your deck at any one time, so with the other Harpie Lady monsters being treated as "Harpie Lady" all the time, instead of being able to have three copies of each one of them, you can only have three of any combination of them (for instance, you can only have either one of the original Harpie Lady and two of Harpie Lady # 1, '''or''' two of Cyber Harpie Lady, and one of Harpie Lady # 3, but not three each of Harpie Lady, Cyber Harpie Lady, Harpie Lady # 1, and Harpie Lady # 3). This severely limits the potential of a Harpie Lady deck, even more so when you consider [[WhatCouldHaveBeen all of the awesome support they have]]... though that might be ''why'' [[GameBreaker they were given this treatment]]. Later Harpie cards wouldn't follow this rule, instead only changing their name to Harpie Lady when on the field or in the graveyard, making it possible to use more of them in the deck.

* Examples from ''DungeonsAndDragons'':

** While pretty much everything relating to the laughably underpowered [[IKnowYourTrueName truenamer]] could land in this trope, special thanks must be given to the Law of Resistance and the Law of Sequence. For the uninitiated: The truenamer uses his abilities, called "utterances," by rolling against 15+double the target's CR. (You may be asking, "Doesn't this mean he [[LowLevelAdvantage gets less effective when he levels up]]?" [[GameBreakingBug Answer: Yes.]]) The truenamer is a buff-and-debuff centric class, so he wants to use his utterances as much as possible, and he doesn't get a lot. Meet the Law of Resistance, which raises the DC of an utterance by 2 every time you use it. (And yes, this ''is'' a nightmare to keep track of!) One major trick the truenamer has to boost his utterances is the ability to "reverse" an utterance; for instance, the reverse of a flight utterance forces a target to the ground; the reverse of a sensory booster gives the target a sensory overload. You're probably thinking of ways to use these effects in tandem... meet the Law of Sequence. If you have an utterance active, you can't use it again as long as it's active. Oh, right, and most utterances are single-target, so if you've got two melee fighters in the party and you want to help one out when he's under pressure but you've already buffed one up, you need to cancel all the buffs on the other guy, then redo all of them onto the one who needs them, only they're harder to use now thanks to the Law of Resistance. Yeah, there's a reason [[TierInducedScrappy this guy]] gets [[PickedLast picked after]] the [[LethalJokeCharacter adept]] in Mage Kickball.

*** The new edition seems to have addressed this, partially, by not deducting Resources for purchases out of hand. A purchase equal to your Resources merit is now a "significant but not ruinous expense". However, any Resources above the default of 0 reflects above-average wealth (1 for "agrarian landlords" and the like), meaning a purchase of, say, a single mace, whip, or short sword, is a "significant expense" for a successful business owner. However, this no longer means immediate bankruptcy any more.

** In the same system, the diverging math between character creation points and experience points is regarded as this. Most traits bought up in character creation are paid for at a flat rate, but increase in cost exponentially afterwards when bought with experience points. Sub-optimal point investment in character creation, consequently, can leave a character behind literally the equivalent of hundreds of experience points (in a game where 4 per session is the baseline rate). This has persisted through the first and second editions of the games, and the developers have [[http://avatarcomic.net/ExaltedWiki/mediawiki-1.19.1/index.php?title=Exalted_3E:_What_We_Know#General_3E_System stated it will continue through the upcoming third edition]], because it would be "fake equivalence" to correct it, and because "[they] never really bean-counted with any of [their] characters".

** For low level [=1E/2E=] games, level limits for non-human races were utterly irrelevant as a balancing factor. For higher level games, OTOH, they put a giant brick wall in the way of the demihuman races being useful, because suddenly you couldn't gain any more levels. To add insult to injury, the level limits also acted as further straitjackets on character design, since outside of the single favored class for a given race, they were often so low as to be punitive even in a low level game. Thankfully eliminated in 3e and later.

* The least popular mechanics of ''13th Age'' seem to be the "variable class complexity" and "flexible attacks" rules. For the former, classes are arranged from things like the barbarian (whose most difficult decision is "when do I rage") to the wizard (who can pick all kinds of talents that encourage stunting on the fly, coming up with creative ritual uses for combat spells, and so on); while there isn't a great deal of imbalance, at least not in combat, gamers used to 4th edition TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons often find barbarians and so on to be comparatively dull, leading to a number of homebrew classes aimed at making more complex barbarians and so on. The latter is a mechanic, used mostly by fighters and bards, where the effects you can use depend upon what your hit roll is - some require an even, some an odd, some a high roll, some an even miss - and some people don't like the lack of tactical control this gives you when you're playing those classes, leading to, again, homebrew classes that fill the same battlefield role but with different mechanics.

** In the same system, the diverging math between character creation points and experience points is regarded as this. Most traits bought up in character creation are paid for at a flat rate, but increase in cost exponentially afterwards when bought with experience points. Sub-optimal point investment in character creation, consequently, can leave a character behind literally the equivalent of hundreds of experience points (in a game where 4 per session is the baseline rate). This has persisted through the first and second editions of the games, and the developers have [[http://avatarcomic.net/ExaltedWiki/mediawiki-1.19.1/index.php?title=Exalted_3E:_What_We_Know#General_3E_System stated it will continue through the upcoming third edition]], because it would be "fake equivalence" to correct it.

** The 5th edition wound allocation rules have a large hatedom as well because of the large number of Ork ([[GameBreaker Nob Bikers]]) and Eldar (Seer Council on Jet Bikes) players that have highly varied load outs on multiwound units so you have to pump out large numbers of wounds to kill a single model because wounds can be placed on individuals rather than inflicting full wound casualties. For example, it takes 10 wounds to kill a single nob biker. Both cases are units that are very hard to kill thanks to special rules and proper equipment. It came to the point where the metagame shifted toward being able kill those units with either a few high-powered shots (which due to a ChunkySalsaRule could kill regardless of wounds) or just spamming so many shots that they could not save against them all. Armies released later in this addition included options with that metagame in mind, introducing balance problems between those armies who could do this easily and those who could not. The update to 6th Edition changed the ways that wounds are allocated, thus reducing the effectiveness of these kinds of builds.

* The priority system for character generation in ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' effectively forces you to design characters in narrow archetypes. The Build Point system replaced it in Fourth Edition, which was much more open to customization, and the Karma Generation system introduced in ''Runner's Companion'' is possibly the most versatile character generation method for the system. The developers reintroduced priority generation for Fifth Edition, "fixing" what was not only not broken, but better in the first place.

** In a similar vein, level adjustments are almost never worth it. Playing a vampire looks awesome on paper, since you get huge stat bonuses and awesome powers like a healing factor, turning into mist at will, and draining your opponents' life with a touch. Trouble is, that will set you back ''8'' levels in a system where the usual level cap is 20. The end result is a character that can't cast with a damn, hit the broad side of a barn, or survive blows even the SquishyWizard could tank.

** Favored class/multiclass XP penalty rules from 3rd edition was notable for completely failing at what they were meant to do (the idea was to show the difficulty of maintaining skill sets, buta character that takes 1 level in 20 classes takes no hit under them, a character that takes 15 levels in one take and 5 in another DOES take a hit) and acting like a straitjacket on customization. Exotic base classes were rarely supported as favored classes, making them harder to use. Humans had no set favored class, whereas everyone else had a single favored class - which meant that the already overpowered humans became even more dominant, except that in some cases, the lack of a single favored class actually imposed a XP penalty another race would avoid. And on top of this, prestige classes -- which are generally more powerful than multiclassing anyway -- don't take the penalty. Very few groups actually use this rule.

** In a similar vein, level adjustments are almost never worth it.

*** It has ritual that lets you sacrifice XP (a level 1 template costs 1000 XP, a level 2 costs 3000, etc) to apply ''templates'' to your character. Kobolds are bad enough, but when you factor in that the character can drop from level 6 to level 5 and pick up the [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Necropolitan, Half-Celestial, and Weretiger templates]] without much hassle, maintaining balance in a party becomes pretty much impossible.

** Favored class/multiclass XP penalty rules from 3rd edition was notable for completely failing at what they were meant to do (a character that takes 1 level in 20 classes takes no hit under them, a character that takes 15 levels in one take and 5 in another DOES take a hit) and acting like a straitjacket on customization. Exotic base classes were rarely supported as favored classes, making them harder to use. Humans had no set favored class, whereas everyone else had a single favored class. And on top of this, prestige classes -- which are generally more powerful than multiclassing anyway -- don't take the penalty. Very few groups actually use this rule.
** For low level [=1E/2E=] games, level limits for non-human races were utterly irrelevant as a balancing factor. For higher level games, OTOH, they put a giant brick wall in the way of the demihuman races being useful, because suddenly you couldn't gain any more levels. To add insult to injury, the level limits also acted as further straightjackets on character design, since outside of the single favored class for a given race, they were often so low as to be punitive even in a low level game. Thankfully eliminated in 3e and later.
** In a similar vein, level adjustments are almost never worth it.

** In the fifth edition, the Annihilate mission has generated a huge hatedom from Imperial Guard players because the Guard's Troops rules are incompatible with the kill points rule, making this an extreme example of FailureIsTheOnlyOption. For example, one Troops choice for an IG player is worth as many kill points as any other race's ''entire'' army in a 500-point game.

** Let's not forget the "pile in" mechanic added to 5th edition's assault rules. Previously there was a considerable amount of finesse in positioning you miniatures right which could allow a weaker squad to defeat a stronger one if you set up the assault right. Not any more...

** WordofGod (Gary Gygax himself) said that he wished he hadn't included the rather cumbersome weapon type having bonuses against certain AC types (almost universally ignored mechanic), and that he only included psionics in 1st edition (which at the time caused major baolance issues since creatures from previous material didn't come with any psionic resistance, which allowed psionic characters to run rampant.) because a friend talked him into it. 1st edition had a LOT of Scrappy Mechanics. They were just flat ignored most of the time and most DM's made houserules instead.
** Favored class/multiclass XP penalty rules from the 3rd edition. Notable for completely failing at what they were meant to do (a character that takes 1 level in 20 classes takes no hit under them, a character that takes 15 levels in one take and 5 in another DOES take a hit) and acting like a straitjacket on customization, further exotic base classes are rarely supported as favored classes, making them harder to use. Very few groups actually use them. Made worse by Humans being omni-class, whereas everyone else had a single favored class. And on top of this, prestige classes -- which are generally more powerful than multiclassing anyway -- don't take the penalty.
** Levels limits for races other than humans. For low level games, utterly irrelevant as a balancing factor. For higher level games, OTOH, they put a giant brick wall in the way of the demihuman races being useful, because suddenly you *couldn't gain anymore levels.* To add insult to injury, the level limits also acted as further straightjackets on character design, since outside of the single favored class for a given race, they were often so low as to be punitive even in a low level game. Thankfully eliminated in 3e and later.
** In a similar vein, level adjustments. They are almost never worth it.
** The Savage Species ritual: the one that lets you sacrifice levels in XP cost (that is, a level 1 template costs 1000 XP, a level 2 template costs 3000, etc) to apply ''templates'' to your character. Kobolds are bad enough, but when you factor in that the character can drop from level 6 to level 5 and pick up the Necropolitan, Half-Celestial and Weretiger templates without much hassle, maintaining balance in a party becomes pretty much impossible.

** [[GrapplingWithGrapplingRules Grappling]] in 3rd edition was considered confusing and in any event, it generally wasn't worth versus hacking a creature to death.
*** However, the 3rd edition grappling rules were the very soul of clarity compared to the 1st edition unarmed combat (grappling/pummelling/overbearing) rules. It wasn't all that uncommon for the bad guys to kidnap, imprison, or otherwise de-equipify the party, only for the DM to suddenly announce that the party found a crate of daggers when one of the players pointed out "So I guess we'll be using the unarmed combat rules?"
** [[HitPoints Hit Point]] damage. While this is not normally a Scrappy Mechanic even when coupled with the usual CriticalExistenceFailure when player damage outputs are relatively low compared to enemy HP without specific and highly optimized builds but the same is not true of enemy damage output relative to your HP your options become 1: Bypass the broken mechanic by not doing HP damage, which [[LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards not all classes can do]], 2: Limit yourself to one of a select handful of builds, as otherwise the enemies will survive to get a turn and thus kill you. 3: Die.
** 3.5 featured two kinds of casters: VancianMagic casters, who prepared their wide selection of spells in the morning, and spontaneous casters, who knew a small pool of spells that they could cast without preparing. This looks fairly balanced, so of course the designers decided to cripple the latter system with how nearly all spontaneous casters advanced. They learned stronger spells when their level was double that of the spell (so a sorcerer learned 3rd-level spells at level 6), while Vancian casters learned at double the spell ''minus one'' - so a wizard would be learning that same spell at level 5. To make matters worse, most challenges and {{Prestige Class}}es were designed with Vancian casters in mind. This basically meant that spontaneous casters were always at least one level behind the curve, and levels 2 and 3 (since you learned your first-level spells at first and your second-level at fourth) were practically EmptyLevels. Result? Vancian casters became [[TierInducedScrappy Tier Induced Scrappies]], and many spontaneous casters started using tricks like [[GameBreaker White Dragonspawn Loredrake Dragonwrought Kobold]] just to catch up.

** In 4th edition you have a similar problem. Player damage output compared to enemy HP is still lower, while enemies don't do much damage either. [[HitPoints HP]] became a Scrappy Mechanic anyways, because you're likely to fall asleep long before the enemy has been ground down by HP damage and there are not any ways of bypassing the snoozefest.

* 3rd edition's sister product, ''D20Modern'', had the Wealth Check system. In theory, this means that instead of nailing down all equipment in terms of absolute cost (which was guaranteed to fall victim of TechnologyMarchesOn as the high tech gadgets of 2002 like mobile internet and sub-notebook computers became commonplace by 2009), items have a "Wealth Check DC," which is the character's Wealth modifier (arrived upon via the player's Starting Occupation and rank in the Profession skill, then altered by some Feats) plus a d20 roll. In theory, this keeps item pricing from ever looking too ridiculous. In practice, it meant that a character's gear was essentially randomized, ''and'' that characters had to either requisition equipment on the honor system or with the GM present. In the end, most [=GMs=] ignored it because telling a player he can't play a sniper because he rolled a 2 on his Wealth check and now can't afford a sniper rifle.

** The Wealth system was also broken wide open by the ''D20 Future'' splatbook. Among the things it added was a futuristic device that, while expensive, granted 1-3 Feats of the player's choice to that player. The existence of the Feat "Windfall" (+3 to Wealth checks, special caveat that it can be taken any number of times), meant that a character could repeatedly buy version of the device that contained multiple Windfalls until his Wealth modifier was so high he could buy anything.

* For ''TableTopGame/YuGiOh'' card game players: Missing The Timing. Basically, there are two general types of effects: Mandatory (where you ''have'' to activate it, regardless of what else is happening, at the time), and Optional (where you can ''choose'' to activate the effect or not). Thing is, rulings dictate that the Optional effect ''must'' be the last thing to happen, else it "misses the timing" and doesn't get to activate. This can be anything from activating in the middle of a card chain (and not being the last chain link to resolve), to being used as a cost to activate another card, to ''being tributed to summon another monster''. You cannot believe the amount of otherwise-powerful cards that get thwarted simply because their effects say "you ''can'' do X", instead of "you do X".
** To explain. If a card says "If", even if the effect if optional, you can use it any time after the event, because it grants the ability from that point on. But if the card says "When" then you are only granted the ability to do the optional effect at that specific time. The problem is that the timing rules can and will block you from activating the effect at that time, because something else needs to resolve first. Because the rules force something else to happen before you can use the effect the opportunity is gone, and you have thus missed the timing. What's so annoying is the name of the rule implies that you could have used the effect, and you missed the chance. However the opposite is usually true. There was no way to prevent the timing form being missed!

*** To put this into further context: due to the abolishment of Priority, some creatures that were once thought irreparably-broken have now been unbanned (though still limited), chief among them is Black Luster Soldier, Envoy of the Beginning. Some fans have called for it's brother card, Chaos Emperor Dragon - Envoy of the End, to be unbanned as well, since the entire reason WHY it was broken was because Priority made its ignition effect nigh-uncounterable; it's still extraordinarily powerful, but arguably no more so (or even LESS so) than Judgment Dragon (since CED destroys itself and your hand, as well).

* ''{{Exalted}}'' had the Reactor/Perfect Spam/Lethality/Paranoia Combat/Overwhelming issue, which was a whole ''bunch'' of these. Elaborated: Reactor meant that with relentless stunting and mote regeneration Charms it was comparatively easy to come out of any given action with more motes of Essence and more Willpower than you started. These motes and WP were then spent to activate "paranoia combos", which were massive experience sinks containing every single NoSell power that could be accessed, including perfect defences. If you didn't activate your paranoia combo, you would die because of a preponderance of unpleasant "bad touch" effects, which would kill you, cut off your arms, turn you into a ferret, or otherwise make your life very difficult, not helped by the low health levels of these ''titan-killing god-kings'', which ensured that even if there weren't any bad-touch effects in the oncoming attack, it would still deal quite a lot of harm if it got through your overpriced armour. Overwhelming damage and Essence Ping ensured that armour was [[ArmourIsUseless largely unhelpful]]. Notably, the 2.5 errata tried to kill ''almost all of these''; combos became free, mote regeneration was nerfed in the head, stunt regen was dropped to once per action, Essence ping was killed, Overwhelming became far weaker, and armour got cheaper. More abstractly, some players dislike Charms, believing them to be either annoying, too limiting, or overemphasised, and attunement motes in the 2.5 errata were liked by exactly nobody, but the lethality/paranoia issue was the most widely complained about and the source of many fixes.

** Though not quite as widely maligned, due to having some positive upshots, the Resources system is similarly problematic. The Resources trait gives a simple zero-to-five abstract rating of a character's general wealth, meant to avoid having to do painstaking math or accounting. A character can't buy something that costs more than their Resources rating. Purchases below it are "out of pocket" expenses. A purchase equal to the rating is a significant expense, and lowers the rating by 1. However, this means 1: That characters can purchase "insignificant" things in infinite quantities, 2: That characters with Resources 1 literally cannot buy anything at all without bankrupting themselves, and 3: That merely buying the same items in the right or wrong order will completely change their impact on your wealth. Ex: At resources 3, buying a resources 3 item, then a resources 2 item, then a resources 1 item would drop you to resources 0. If you bought them in reverse order, despite their prices and your wealth being completely unchanged, you would only drop to resources 2.
* ''{{Car Wars}}'' Confetti Rule: Due to a combination of factors (tournament games at conventions with strict time limits; extremely-low-weight engines; minimally-ablative armor), it became a simple matter to design a duelling car whose armor could not be penetrated easily (if at all) by the weapons of the game, singly or in linked masses. The "solution"? Institute a rule where if a car took damage equal to its mass divided by 50, it was automatically reduced to debris even if its armor was unbreached. Unfortunately, the writer of this rule forgot about Ramming, and specifically the fact that a car which was hit by a Ramplate wound up taking four times as much damage as the rammer (due to a poorly-written Ramplate-damage rule -- not only did the target take 2x damage, the rammer took 1/2 damage!). Worse: A ram-car could easily have enough armor and other items to render it impossible to hit, much less damage. End Result: Ram-cars became the vehicle of choice, especially in tournaments; players who brought gun-equipped cars had no chance of winning. Mention of Confetti around gamers who remember this period is a Bad Idea....

** In the same system, the diverging math between character creation points and experience points is regarded as this. Most traits bought up in character creation are paid for at a flat rate, but increase in cost exponentially afterwards when bought with experience points. Sub-optimal point investment in character creation, consequently, can leave a character behind literally the equivalent of hundreds of experience points. This has persisted through the first and second editions of the games, and the developers have [[http://avatarcomic.net/ExaltedWiki/mediawiki-1.19.1/index.php?title=Exalted_3E:_What_We_Know#General_3E_System stated it will continue through the upcoming third edition]], because it would be "fake equivalence" to correct it.

** There's also the "Harpie Rule", which only really affects the titular monsters, but is still fairly annoying. To wit, there are several monsters with effects that change their name to that of another monster, usually while it's face-up on the field. However, most all of the Harpie Lady monsters past the initial 2 don't specify ''where'' their effects treat their name as simply "Harpie Lady". As such, Konami has issued the ruling that these monsters are treated as having the name "Harpie Lady" ''for all intents and purposes, including deck construction''. What does that mean? Well, you can only have three copies of a specific monster in your deck at any one time, so with the other Harpie Lady monsters being treated as "Harpie Lady" all the time, instead of being able to have three copies of each one of them, you can only have three of any combination of them (for instance, you can only have either one of the original Harpie Lady and two of Harpie Lady # 1, '''or''' two of Cyber Harpie Lady, and one of Harpie Lady # 3, but not three each of Harpie Lady, Cyber Harpie Lady, Harpie Lady # 1, and Harpie Lady # 3). This severely limits the potential of a Harpie Lady deck, even more so when you consider [[WhatCouldHaveBeen all of the awesome support they have]]... though that might be ''why'' [[GameBreaker they were given this treatment]].

** WordofGod (Gary Gygax himself) said that he wished he hadn't included the rather cumbersome weapon type having bonuses against certain AC types (almost universally ignored mechanic), and that he only included psionics in 1st edition because a friend talked him into it. 1st edition had a LOT of Scrappy Mechanics. They were just flat ignored most of the time and most DM's made houserules instead.