What do you love/hate in RPGs?

What I mean by this are features.  Gameplay or game mechanics.  Not narrative events or characters specific to certain RPGs.

So, as a starter for ten I'd suggest co op is a great feature for an RPG. 

For me I always harken back to the best times of my pen & paper roleplaying games.  And that was almost always about co op.  Even when the party was divisive and split down the middle and one half waged war with the other.  (Which reminds me of a story I might share in a later post) - it was always about players discussing their next moves and then embarking on a quest together.  So co op is something we aim for here.

Another great feature was Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis system.  This provided some truly memorable moments for me, playing that game:

          "Oi!  Man filth!  I killed you before...."

And then the intense satisfaction of besting an opponent which has killed you repeatedly. Nothing quite like it.  And they say genius steals, so we've wholesale borrowed this system, massaged it to suit our purposes, and Underland will present its equivalent - which we call the Bane system.  Except, obviously, we do things a little differently.  And virtually any creature can become a Bane of the protagonist in our game.  Because we want to capture those moments that engage a player.  When an enemy slips through your fingers, learns from your mistakes, and ambushes you later.  Taunts you.  Steals from you.  And then you eventually out smart that sonofa, and crush its skull beneath your boots.

For years, as a games designer, I used to think that game play was the pinnacle of game design.  It's what you allowed your player to do that was important.  How you extended and evolved a genre by applying a new feature.  But it is not that.

Don't  get me wrong.  All that is important.  But it's emotional engagement that is the pinnacle of game design.  If you can get your player to love, hate, be furious in (temporary) defeat, bring tears to their eyes and fist pump the air when they ultimately succeed. These are the moments that define a game.  These are the moments that stay with you as a player.

Gameplay and game mechanics support them.  But it is emotional engagement which captures the heart and mind and rewards the player.  It is for these reasons gamers invest time and money.  And this is what we strive for with Underland.  We want you to tell stories around the water-cooler and down the pub, and salivate for the next time you log on.

So what features in other RPGs have you loved and/or hated?

What's made a game for you, and what's broken a game for you.

I could fill pages with this stuff.  But I want to hear from you.

Please.

There, I said please!  :-)