Do you think so? I tried to play NWN with a mage character, and thought it was wretched. Dozens of goblins attacking the academy in a battle that apparently went on for days, since my wizard character had to limp back to a safe place and rest for eight hours every time my pitiful store of magic was depleted.

I dislike how everything in the world revolves around you. It is rare for an npc to mention something unrelated to the heroes. They always seem to talk about your past deeds or future ones. I realise that everything *does* revolve around the player but I feel most games could hide it better.

You know what would be cool? If, in an open-world RPG like Oblivion or Skyrim, there was one or more other "heroes" that go around doing things. For example, they could do quests that would also be available to your character. Of course, if they do them, they would no longer be available to you. But that way, the world wouldn't really revolve around you. Instead of NPCs always talking about you, they could talk about these other heroes. And if you do want the world to revolve around you and these other heroes are stealing your thunder, you could try teaming up with them or killing them.

My previous post made me realize one thing I dislike in RPGs.
Why do some RPGs play like a economy simulator or merchant game? I'm out to save the world or doing something else extremely important and heroic. It really irritates me when I have to think about my characters economy a lot at the same time. :(

So many of the points raised thus far are very good, so I will not regurgitate them here.

I do however want to share with everyone this list of cliches for RPGs that you may or may not have come across, but I think it covers plenty of additional flaws design-wise, plot-wise, and other-wise. :-)

The list specifies console, but many of these could be applied to PC RPGs too.

http://www.project-apollo.net/text/rpg.html

A hysterical read.

Ah, the classic list. :-) In a similar vein: http://www.flyingomelette.com/oddities/rpgs.html

Since this is about stupid things that bug you in RPG's here's one that doesn't change the game at all but has always gotten on my nerves (although they have reduced the number of games that do it now) is when you purchase/loot awesome looking gear but your character looks the same throughout the game from your starting gear. I want to see my Road Warrior style spiked shoulder pads and horned Viking helmet, not the rags I started with since I was obviously an orphan with amnesia who was really the chosen one/King/deity.

IWD II, I break open a barrel and inside is a... 10 foot long pole? I mean what, did I bust the barrel open, see that it had nothing in it, and then assemble the pole from the wreckage? Or are these random 10 foot long barrels lying over the place. I kind of want to know how they fit inside a barrel.

Not being able to dye my clothes. Yes, it's crazily shallow but I want to customize my clothing dammit! That was one of my favorite things about Two Worlds II and NWN.

Lack of reactivity, especially if my character is doing something blatantly stupid/obvious. I loved NWN because the NPCs would call you out for running around waving your sword like a lunatic! Or streaking naked through the town! It was teeny little things, but it was fantastic. I also love in games where the bar keeper cuts you off from just drinking 500 ales or whatever trying to scrounge for rumors.

And on that note, hostile environments should be actually hostile. Swamps, lava, snow, deluging rain, it should not just be pretty background graphics! Grrrrr.

+1 to you - thanks for sharing that! It is another excellent read! I am amazed that I never bothered to ask these questions as a kid when I was playing these console games. So many conventions then I just took it for granted just so I could lose myself in the games of the times. Now I would snicker a lot whenever coming across one of these.

Here's another one of my crackpot theories about adventurers. It came to me when I was trying to figure out why every creature in the goddamn world would attack my party on sight. In real life, even big carnivores will generally leave you alone unless they're starving or you're pissing them off. And they're rarely so single-minded that they'll risk serious injury.

So I was trying to think what might account for this, and then I realized - adventurers spend their entire lives in close proximity to magic. Even if they aren't magic-users themselves, they're kitted out head to toe in magical gear and usually spend a good portion of their time mucking about with ancient artifacts of power. The constant exposure probably builds up in their bodies over time, saturating them with weird energies. A creature that ate even a moderately seasoned adventurer would likely get a huge rush of magical power in their system, with effects not unlike eating fermented fruits or psychoactive fungus.

And that's why every creature on the planet will compulsively attack adventurers with no regard for self-preservation. They're not hostile...

...they're addicted.

The worthless NPC's that have no information to pass. Developers please stop giving every NPC something to say. If there is no point in talking to that NPC, I should not be able to talk to that NPC. Save me the five seconds per filler NPC. My favorite games BG1&2 are big into that and it irks me every time I play those wonderful games.

Inventory systems that can't group scrolls together or gems together, but yet I can carry 30 Two-Handed Swords. Still looking at BG1&2.

Once completing a sidequest, not being able to find who I originally got the quest from.

Having a cool character in your party, but being stuck carrying along their weak and annoying significant other.

Filler junk in my inventory...All the books, rocks, potions that have no reason to be in your inventory, but you are too afraid to get rid of it in case somewhere down the line it is important. Thinking of BG with the rotten ore, all the books on shelves, and the liquid that was poured on the ore....I kept that stuff with me for a long time the first play through.

reading posts in this thread spoiled my appetite for RPGs. *sigh*

Shit combat that's made even more shit by obfuscated RPG mechanics and dice rolls

The ability to use only one magical ring in a hand could be also explained by e.g. that they work only on index fingers (something to do with your blood circulation etc.), or that only one finger is the correct size for the ring etc. (then again, are all rings and all index fingers exactly the same size?).

What irritated me though is how it is not obvious which magical items can't be used together. Like now in Icewind Dale I have this nice cloak that give 2 bonus to AC and saving throws, and a ring that does the same. Yet, I don't seem to be able to use them with any of my characters, because they are wearing something else that prevents to wear those. What is it? The heck I know. With one character, it seems to be his non-magical(?) +1 plate armor, because if I remove it from him, suddenly he can wear either the cloak or the ring. But I don't want him to move around stripped without armor because it is freezing cold in Icewind Dale and it would look funny.

But then, I also have another cloak that gives bonus to AC and other things, and it apparently can be used freely by anyone, no matter what else they are wearing. Why these incoherent restrictions which (magical) items can be used together? It is not nice having to test each item separately on each character, and trying to juggle with party members' armors and items so that they all could use the maximum number of magical items.