dtgreene specifically mentioned this one.

Its terribleness cannot be understated, though. Additionally, it very clearly was intended to be a playable system, not a joke system. That's part of why it's so legendary. There are numerous bad-on-purpose systems, but FATAL is almost 900 pages, and it even got a second edition aimed at addressing some of its criticisms. That's a degree of effort that's far beyond a joke system. Besides, the review itself is worth a read.

D&D:

1) Clerics gain access to all the spells of a given level, and can choose to cast any of them at any time; whereas magic users have to learn each one of their spells (and oftentimes, must find or buy them from somewhere in the first place) and then on top of that, have to decide in advance which ones to memorize during their rest period.

1a) For that matter, wizards need high intelligence whereas sorcerers need high charisma. The former makes sense, given the complexity of higher-level spells; the latter feels like an afterthought. ("Here we have what's traditionally been considered a dump stat; how can we possibly make it meaningful again?")

1b) On top of which, clerics can wear armor and wield some fairly decent weapons. Which means they can protect themselves and their party both physically and magically. Whereas thanks to armor-discouraging fumble checks, most MUs are basically walking talking beef jerky.

1c) And then there are spell components. Clerics generally need carry only their religious icon; MUs might require anything from a single ogre hair to a multi-carat diamond. Which have to be collected somehow, and carried with them; and are therefore vulnerable to loss, theft, or a delay in casting the spell. So tell me again why anyone would choose to be a wizard, given the existence of practically any other magic-based option?

2) Grappling. Just, grappling. Oy.

Another bizarre one from AD&D 2nd Edition (possibly 1st as well, I'm not sure) was that a character with 16 or more in their class's prime requisite ability score(s) got a 10% experience bonus. I've never seen any kind of attempt at a rationale for that one.

That's not a horrible rule. If that's sufficient to keep women from wanting to play, then good riddance. It's not like they haven't got all sorts of other areas pandering to their whims.

Realistically, this is Role Playing, if they can't comprehend that male characters are generally stronger, then they don't really understand the concept of role playing.
TBH, that's real life. If somebody is in a club based on strength, they would likely rise more quickly if they were super-strong than if they were moderately strong. Same goes for a club based upon intelligence or something else.

I think they didn't bother to try and rationalize it because it's intuitive.

I don't care much for realism in RPGs. At least not in something like D&D or WFRP. As a DM I always upfront tell the players that we're not going to bother with food or encumbrance. I think it slows down the game needlessly to have the players always buy food and inform the DM that they did remember to eat today and so on. Of course there are exceptions- if they find themeselves in a survival type situation then we do bring out the appropriate rules.

I'm going to say something that will likely sound terrible and will brand me as sexist to some people, but in my experience (and I do speak from experience), it's best not to play in a mixed-gender group anyway. I'm sure it doesn't have to be like that, but more often than not, something about groups like that tends not to work very well. It somehow always negatively impacts the group dynamic. And this isn't just about some socially awkward nerds. It's just that people always, always tend to act different in a group of friends of the same gender, and in mixed company. And it's not against women. I'm prety sure it works the same way if there is a group of women players and suddenly a guy is brought onto the team. And that's all without even bringing relationships into the mix. Trust me, if someone brings over their significant other the rest of you may as well go home.

^This. For me it's always more about the story and the characters. Rules are always bent if they get in the way.

^Not this. I've been DMing for 20 years now and while it's easier to find male players by far, the female players - rare as they are - have never ever been had a bad impact on the group. In fact, it often spiced things up... sometimes... a lot.
What I find more awkward is gender-crossing with male players playing female characters. Some have a knack for it and it's fine, some are just really embarrassing.

Which version of DnD are you talking about with the memorizing spells bit? From what I remember of 2nd and 3e clerics had all spells available to pick from, but still had to pick which they were going to memorize when resting like wizards did. So they couldn't just randomly choose to cast a summon in the middle of a fight because that would be useful, they had to choose to memorize said summon at camp/rest and then hope it came in handy during the day's travels.

Sorcerers could cast from their known spells at a whim, but had a much smaller list to compensate for that.
There was eventually a variant divine caster added to Neverwinter Nights 2 that operated like a sorcerer. More limited list of known spells, pick and choose at time of casting, but I don't know if it was ever officially added to PNP via source book.

The second bit about INT v CHA for casting, it is kind of gamey I'll admit but it does make some sense to me anyway. A wizard casts via force of will/learning and thus int. A bard/sorc casts via force of personality. Inborn talent for bard/sorc, years of learning for a wizard.

Not a perfect explanation, but I think they did just kind of want a different way for these different casters to use spells.
Its hokey, but it does allow for more variation as a spell caster.

And spell components and armor. Aside from the one shot in which i played a mystic theurge I never much dabbled into priests in PnP, so I can't really say for sure, but it was my understanding that wizards had more varied and in some cases more powerful spells in exchange for the trouble with the somatic components and thus armor.
Or at least thats how I justified it in my brain so I'd stop thinking about it. I forget at this point XD.

This forum could use a multi-reply. In response to Breja and the magic carpet situation:

Yeah, there are times when what should be done is guesstimation and winging it. Keeping the flow going, especially at a tense moment, is probably more important than keeping things "realistic".

Besides, how the hell can you be realistic with a flying carpet?

And the comment about women in groups: I think you people just have been playing with the wrong people. My first group ever had my sister in it, and the group I played with in college had a lady consistently playing in it. Neither group had any trouble.

If the people you play with can't relax and have some fun with a woman around... well that sounds like their problem, not the lady's. (And if the ladies you know can't relax and have some fun with guys in the group, same thing applies to them.)


Edit: on the subject of the mystic theurge. Holy carp did that class have a ton of magic to toss around. It lost a bit in caster level due to having to multiclass into arcane and then divine spellcasting, but every encounter I was just tossing out spells willy nilly and I still had plenty to spare when we found an OK place to rest.

Maybe I just had bad luck then. I don't mean to hate on female players and it's not meant as some "women stay away from RPGs" manifesto. I'm just speaking from my experience (such as it is, not even close to yours).

I always find that awkward, though usually it amount to nothing really. The last time I had a player do that (and he's a really good player overall, one of the best I know), the end result was that him playing a female character barely ever came up, he didn't really role play it in any way whatsoever, and we all kept forgetting his character even is a woman. I think he made the decision to play a woman on a whim, but didn't really see much point in it later.

We had a house rule. Female characters got -1 to Str and +1 to Dex. This was on top of racial bonuses. I played a few female fighters in my day. Never really cared that I couldn't start with a natural 18 in Str, because I played like a woman in a male dominated world. Most men weren't her match, and the few who were respected her for her prowess.

Not quite true; Clerics still have to choose which spells to prepare in advance. It is still necessary to choose which spells you want to be able to cast at the beginning of each day (though 3.x allows you to replace those spells on-the fly with basic healing spells); it's just the initial learning of the spell that they have easy. (Incidentally, the extent to which this is an advantage depends on the DM and campaign; in some CRPGs (Dungeon Hack, Icewind Dale) scrolls are scarce, giving Clerics a huge advantage over Mages (that's in addition to IWD's prevalence of undead enemies and DH's tracking of food (and the Create Food spell being available to Clerics), while others (Baldur's Gate) make scrolls common and some (Gold Box games) allow some spells to be picked at level up).

(Note: I am assuming that all references to D&D are excluding 4th edition unless stated otherwise, as that edition is very different from other editions, to the point where the edition could have been called something other than D&D.)

I can think of one very good reason to allow gender-crossing. A small (but nonzero) percentage of the people who play tabletop RPGs are transgender, or suspect they might be; playing a character opposite their apparent gender, for those players, can be a good way to explore their gender identity and to relieve dysphoria.

Personally, I think that, if you want to make gender stat modifiers, it would be better to instead give males +1 str and females +1 dex; this avoids the problem of either choice being seen as the default choice. Of course, this assumes the stats are balanced with each other, and that there isn't any mechanic like the exceptional strength mechanic of AD&D 1e/2e to mess things up (and make 19 str much better than 18 str).

From my experience, the worst, you can face in tabletop game, is when someone voted for mixing it with drinking game.

D&D 4th edition is by far the worst. It is a dumbed down WoW-clone forthe autistic millenials.

Oh god, yes. Drinking and RPGs don't mix. I mean, sure, a beer won't kill the game, but any kind of serious amount of alcohol will. If your players decide it's drinking time, pack up your campaign, or it will be ruined beyond repair.

once we got drunk Dungeon Master. One of these moments, you will never forget :DDDD