Captain Anorak's Guide to Gaming
Don't Reinvent the Wheel!
Depressingly often, people write new games which just do what has been done before. Sometimes I'm browsing the internet and I come across an RPG that someone has written and put on a website. All too often it just seems to be a re-invention of AD&D: I start reading and it tells me that the races are Human, Elf, Dwarf and Halfling and the character classes are Fighter, Wizard, Thief, etc. A great many such games give me the impression that the writers have only ever seen AD&D, and they want to write it again for themselves. I can understand not wanting to play with the AD&D rules because they are so incredibly stupid, but surely there must be some elves-orcs-dwarves fantasy game out on the market which these people would be happy to play. Why not play Dragon Warriors or WFRP? Why does the world need another game that does basically the same thing as so many others?

GOLD PIECES AND CREDITS

Here's another annoying repetition of cliches: people create yet another fantasy PRG, and it's set in a world where people speak a language called Common and the currency is Gold Pieces. Or in a science fiction game, the common language is called Standard or Galactic or Basic, and its currency is called Credits. The writers have really stretched themselves to come up with something original there, haven't they? Instead of spending the trivial amount of effort needed to invent two names, they just go with a standard cliche that has been used dozens of times before. Do these people have no imagination at all? They don't even have the creative sense to see that this makes the game seem boring and routine. They might as well put a sign on the front of the rule book saying 'The author of this game can't think of anything original'.