Ever shelled out money for what appears to be a great RPG only to get it home and after a close read discover it is unplayable? Or how about hearing the hype on a game only to discover that it wasn't very good? Ever discovered the rule system of a game is too complex to make heads or tails of? What about a game with no back story or limited setting? Please share away so we know what to avoid.
Lords of Creation, by Avalon Hill.. back in the early to mid 80's.
An interesting idea, awkwardly and clumsy in execution.
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Now see, I just started a thread about Lords of Creation. Looking for love of the game, not hate, but hey, different strokes for different folks. :)
But my real question is did you see my LoC thread which reminded you of your bad memories, or is just a freaky coincidence?
RUS: Roleplaying in Heathen Russia. Terrible mechanics, and failed to live up to the potential of the setting (a magical version of northern Russia around 900 AD). Yet somehow I ended up with 2 copies of this book.
I also tried valiantly--several times--to get through the rules of Mythus: Dangerous Journeys by Gary Gygax, RIP, but couldn't even get through the "Mythus Prime" part, which was the "lite" part of the rules.
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I thought everyone knew that the worst RPG ever was The World of Synnibarr by Raven c.s. McCracken and Bryce Thelin.
I bought a copy just to see how bad it was and it is pretty bad. Its the only RPG I ever bought that I did not, as I read it, even try to make a character for.
EDIT: A Review of Synnibarr
for real? Dogs in the vineyard seems to get about 80% hate, also twillight creations put out a Boardgame/rpg esque system. Played it once and have since warded it back into the box with unholy gusto. bad badb ad.l
That's a surprise. I played Dogs in The Vineyard last year and had a fantastic time. I can still remember each scene of the adventure but then my GM was fierce.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I thought everyone knew that the worst RPG ever was The World of Synnibarr by Raven c.s. McCracken and Bryce Thelin.
I bought a copy just to see how bad it was and it is pretty bad. Its the only RPG I ever bought that I did not, as I read it, even try to make a character for.
Well, of course not. You don't read ill-written descriptions of a massive natural disaster and try to imagine yourself in the middle of it, either.
For people who aren't familiar, imagine a cross between RIFTS and METAMORPHOSIS: ALPHA. Written by someone on speed.
A friend of mine decided to run a SYNNABARR adventure at a convention, which unfortunately required him to read the rules. He ended up referring to it as the "running and jumping game" because calculating the running speed and jumping distances of characters was amazing. Most PC's were running between 30 and 90 mph. Before you think that's just wacky neat, I shouldpoint out the turning radius and braking distance rules, too.
A good GM can make SYNNABARR entertaining. I'm not sure a good GM could salvage FGU's AFTERMATH, the intensely precise game of radiation poisoning. It's like GAMMA WORLD without any whimsey.
I could also mention MEGA-TRAVELLER, a game written by people who weren't actually play-testing the rules.
Now see, I just started a thread about Lords of Creation. Looking for love of the game, not hate, but hey, different strokes for different folks. :)
But my real question is did you see my LoC thread which reminded you of your bad memories, or is just a freaky coincidence?
2nd tme posting... Gary Teter is the Man, but these message board bugs are really starting to piss me off.
It was an amazing coincidence! I usually pick up stray threads in the side board of recent posts, so I didn't actually scroll down to the section and see this thread.
Yeah, complete coincidence. Sorry!
Lords of Creation was not that bad, truth be told. I was young (I think I was in 10th or 11th grade in high school when it came out, and I'm 40 now). I couldn't GM worth a damn and that was okay because nobody I knew could play worth a damn either.
I think it was the disappointment of what it could have been juxtaposed against what it wasn't that made me volunteer it as the Worst RPG. It was ultra cool in concept (probably the game of my dreams at the time), and I had no idea what to do with it. It wasn't supported and we didn't have the internet for us gamers to make a community to support it.
But like I said, there were a lot of factors back then could have easily skew my judgement. There was no good model of how to run a campaign in DnD let alone this wacky setting. I was in love with an idea, and angry that it wasn't the ideal.
The original 1st Edition of the Immortal: The Invisible War by Precedence is probably another good nominee. Cool idea with an incomprehensible rule system and an unbelievably poorly edited Core Book. (I know there's a 3rd Edition in the works as a free RPG, I wish them well).
Guys, guys . . !
C'mon, c'mon, c'mon! R U Daft?
The *Worst* game ever (and arguably the greatest, but only if you have a B-movie appreciation for too much awesome) is the late Dave Hargrave's Arduin Grimoire!
Phraints, Technos & Deodanths, oh my!
And talk about a wild imagination that couldn't organize itself in any way, shape or form. That dude was crazy!
I think I'll knock one off on old Dave's behalf! Hell, D&D probably wouldn't have Thri-Kreen if he hadn't come up with Phraints first!
;^))
I disliked TORG rather intensly, but I seriously doubt it would be in contention for the worst game ever created.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Now, y'see, I liked Arduin, more for the ideas it gave D&D than for any merits it had as a game in its own right.
And I loved, and continue to love, TORG. I marvel at the elegance and simplicity of the baseline mechanics, the card use, the "Pixaud's Practical Grimoire" magic system.
And although I like SHATTERZONE and MASTERBOOK a lot, I also marvel at how they took and damaged each element of TORG. (For example, they cut corners by only including part of the TORG deck. So, they picked the first 120 cards or so, without checking to see if the "good to PC's" cards and "bad for PC's" cards were evenly spread through the TORG deck. (And they're not, by the way.)
So, tastes vary.
Hmmm. On topic: Has anyone else ever tried to play the THROWING STONES Fantasy Role-Playing Game? The book comes with dice, and --I kid you not-- to be a, say, fourth level fighter, you need four of the "Fighter" dice. So, it really is collectible, in the way people used to joke that Wizards of the Coast would make classes in 3rd Edition collectible.
Other than that notable game mechanic, THROWING STONES was terrible. There was a lot of arena combat against other slaves, and all the role-playing that could muster. Not for nothing was the name of the game reminiscent of both hurling and cahones.
I thought everyone knew that the worst RPG ever was The World of Synnibarr by Raven c.s. McCracken and Bryce Thelin.
I bought a copy just to see how bad it was and it is pretty bad. Its the only RPG I ever bought that I did not, as I read it, even try to make a character for.
EDIT: A Review of Synnibarr
LINK WARNING: The review itself is fine, enjoyable, and well worth reading. However, near the top of the review is another link labeled "Timecube.com." Don't click on this link. Seriously, don't, or your head will explode and you will die.
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LINK WARNING: The review itself is fine, enjoyable, and well worth reading. However, near the top of the review is another link labeled "Timecube.com." Don't click on this link. Seriously, don't, or your head will explode and you will die.
Ha.
Didn't notice it.
You're head only explodes if you fail your Sanity check. Fortunately for me, when I read timecube some years back I made the roll and now can't remember what it said exactly.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Ha ha.
When I was teaching high school computer application classes, and a student were to finish an assignment early enough that there was a few minutes' lull before I wanted them to begin the next one, I would drop them into TimeCube.
It was amazing.
And it needs to be turned into a RPG. Perhaps as a background philosophy for the Zero rules system.
And I loved, and continue to love, TORG. I marvel at the elegance and simplicity of the baseline mechanics, the card use, the "Pixaud's Practical Grimoire" magic system.
Hear, hear! I just started up a Torg game, actually, to show all my local D&D players what else was out there. They're just about done with the Relics of Power trilogy, and loving it.
What about the Time Cubicle site?
Warning: profanity and satire.
From a fanboy perspective, Robotech by Palladium. It abjectly failed to capture the atmosphere of Robotech, and failed even worse to be at all faithful to the original three series (Chohjikuu Yosai Macross, Chohjikuu Kidan Southern Cross and Mospeada). The Rifts system is too clunky to do convincing anime-style action (and trying to pull off a Itano Circus was an unsatisfying experience to say the least). The craft, both friend and foe, were too over-armored to be convincing to a show where unless your name was Hikaru Ichijyo, Jeanne Francoise or Stig Bernard (or *sigh*...[rolls eyes] if we must... Rick Hunter, Dana Sterling or Scott Bernard) your craft was made out of highly explosive material. The weapons in many cases bear little resemblance to their show counterparts, and the whole game seems to be geared to little roleplaying and getting people blowing stuff up as soon as possible (remember that at least two episodes of Macross had little or no mecha or combat in them at all...)
The authors also didn't care to do any research, taking animation errors as canon -- NOSE-CONE LASERS, I'M LOOKING AT YOU!, introducing new errors such as mistaking a large, 400-man space destroyer for a one-man fighter craft, representing that the "Booby Duck" FAST-Pack add-ons to the Valkyrie/Veritech were a completely new fighter (even when we see the fighters pop the packs and armor off in numerous episodes) and grossly mistranslating (when not out-and-out ignoring) one of the better refernce materials of the time for Macross, "Perfect Memory" (even getting the name wrong as "Memory Perfect", when it's on the book's cover. IN ENGLISH. IN HUMONGOUS, BLOCK-TYPE, RED LETTERS.) in their atrocious "Japanimation notes" section.
In short, this is one of the worst licensed RPGs I've come across.
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Contributor
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I also loved TORG and was greatly disappointed by Masterbook.
But Another classic is SPACE 1889. The setting was HAWT, and the adventures and resources were full of awesome flavour. But the rules STANK! Quite likely the worst set of rpg rules ever published.
My friends and I converted the setting to TORG of course...
Return to the Pool of Radiance. Yeah, its a video game. Well, more of a virus than a video game, really.
Table Top? Star Fleet Battles. Not really a role playing game, but uber-complex none-the-less.
Table Top? Star Fleet Battles. Not really a role playing game, but uber-complex none-the-less.
Oh, I like Star Fleet Battles. But if any one has been paying attention to my posting trend, that should come as no surprise.
For worst RPG.... That is difficult. Because RPG experience comes down to group and GM. I mean, my old group had a blast with Robotech. But no one scratched too deeply beneath the surface to find faults because we were all familiar enough with it.
On the other hand, some systems were painful to read if you knew too much about what they were based on. Street Fighter is one of those. Man, I hated reading the maneuvers and seeing how they messed them up...
But for all time pain, not even a great group and GM could completely quell the stench of the Dragonball Z rpg.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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There was a DRAGONBALL Z role-playing game!!???!
Wha-Hoo!
Now, that's great news! I've been looking for something like that for years!! It makes so much sense as a role-playing game. Characters get beter, they fight intereting battles! You, Mr. Disenchanter, have MADE MY DAY!!
What's that you say?
It's poorly designed?
It's ... b-bad??
Oh. It's worse than bad.
Oh.
Ever shelled out money for what appears to be a great RPG only to get it home and after a close read discover it is unplayable? Or how about hearing the hype on a game only to discover that it wasn't very good? Ever discovered the rule system of a game is too complex to make heads or tails of? What about a game with no back story or limited setting? Please share away so we know what to avoid.
Yup, fairly recently too..."Warhammer Fantasy Role Play 2nd Edition". It's like they took out all the stuff that made WHFRP an "adult-oriented FRPG" and played it to the 14 year old Pok-e-mon crowd. No longer to we have "Necromancers" or "Demonolgists"...we have wizards with "Colors" (Blue Mage, Red Mage, etc.). Combat went from deadly and chaotic, to 'kinda bad, but predictable'. A few other things seemed to be heavy on the "lets tone this down for the kiddies". Overall, I was very disappointed. :( I'll stick with my 1e WHFRP and Realms of Chaos books, with full-frontal (back, side, etc.) nudity, thankyouverymuch. :)
Oh c'mon! Hasn't anyone ever heard of the game Super Babes. Now there is a truly crap game. Acctually I don't even think the writers tried to play the game since the rules where either non-existent or just plain dumb.
I think it was the cards that made me dislike TORG so much actually... I have never found a RPG that utilizes cards as a base mechanic that I liked... I hated the Dragonlance "SAGA" system as well for instance.
My own experience goes back to the 90's when I was looking for a "Cyber Punk" themed RPG. Cyber Punk was just released and Shadowrun was about 2 years away but I found what I thought was a 'gem" at Gen Con that year. It was called "Space Time" and it was what I thought my vision of a Cyber Punk world would be. Very Blade Runner like with aliens and drug ridden youth in a garbage filled world. Perfect I thought! And in talking to the designer I was told that space travel rules and alien world would be next! Woot! A win for me. The designer was so passionate that I laid down my hard earned $20.00 and walked away with the soft cover core book. A few days latter I sat down and decided to read the book (as I do with all of my RPGs) from cover to cover! I brought along a note pad to make a character and go over the rules. Ten minutes in I was lost. One hour later I was even more lost. I could not figure out the rules to save my soul. I had a game geek buddy take a look and he said the same thing. It was hopeless! I sold it the following year at Gen Con in the auction for $7.00!
I've been suckered a few times since then. Often the rules don't live up to the setting or the way I imagine it. I guess that's how it is with RPGs.
Now as I have noticed on this post/ Thread (which is a good thing! So many of you have played and are interested in many RPGs) someone might just love Space Time... I only wish they would have/ could have run that game for ME!
(the following concerned Synnibar)
For people who aren't familiar, imagine a cross between RIFTS and METAMORPHOSIS: ALPHA. Written by someone on speed.
One of the lower points of my professional life is the time Raven declared himself my biggest fan. Talk about guilt by association....
But in the 90s I recall getting some truly awful efforts to review as a magazine editor. And I remember trying ever so hard to be polite about how bad they were.
The nineties was a great time for the old angsty rpg- White Wolf's stuff was all full of trenchcoats and crying in the rain, Chaosium's Nephilim was a bit arcane, but had a nice vibe and Steve Jackson's In Nomine was just plain fun.
On the other hand, without a doubt the worst game I've ever even cracked open was Immortal: The Invisible War. Pretentious, dense, unplayable b*ll*x of the first water, laden with some of the most hideous Photoshopped artwork I've ever seen. Even the character sheet needed a color copier. I won this "prize" at Gaelcon, back in Ireland, and wasted a weekend trying to get into what exactly the whole point of this twaddle was. It was the kind of patronizing nonsense that one would expect from drama soc whose read too much Joseph Campbell, watched too much Highlander and imagines role playing to be some kind of Jungian exercise. Oh, and since it was all perfect bound with heavy art paper, it fell apart within 20 minutes of being picked up.
An yet I hear it's made it's way to a second edition- I'm just baffled.
FFG's Fireborn. The ideas a good starting point for a game, (half human half dragon types scraping in a modern day secret war) but the rules are just dull. And it felt like a lot of work to run it.
That said, its not as bad as some of the total disasters others on here have found.
You're right- the rules don't do the setting justice, and lack of subsequent support didn't help show what the game was capable of. That said, it's one of my favorite short campaign games.
Someone actually FOUND A COPY of Spawn of Fashan...
I've been trying (half-heartedly) to find one ever since I read a review in Dragon Magazine (issue 36, IIRC)...
It's INTENTIONALLY bad, a parody of RPGs, right down to the typeface used. Basically it was HoL 20 years earlier (and with no intentions of being playable).
I beg to differ. I've read a copy of SoF (my erstwhile roommate bought the last of the original print run from the author some years ago). I don't at all have the impression it was a parody-- just really, really bad.
One of the special abilities that stands out in my memory is "Ultra-High Hearing" -- which gives you the ability to hear things flying far above you.
C'mon people now... The Batman Roleplaying Game.
I picked up a copy for $1 and still felt like it was a waste. I have never encountered a worse game system. It was a rules light version of the DC Heroes game but flawed to the point of incomprehension and the playability was nearly nonexistent.
I heard so much hype about Call of Cthulhu I got it home and tried to run it only to quickly discover it was fatally flawed and didn't support any kind of gameplay outside the traditional style.
The system I reserve the most loathing for is still the needlessly complex and clumsy Palladium system. Some people love it and that just baffles me. I have similar reservations about the GDW system that ran Twilight: 2000 and Traveler. The GDW system was still playable, just awkward.
The Pokemon Jr. Adventure Game. It's a baby RPG sold for 10 bucks at Sav-on back at the height of Pokemania. You and your friends play trainers, someone's Mom is the referee (the rulebook specifically calls for someone's Mom to fill this role), and you all try to win gym badges and protect your pokemon from Team Rocket.
Rules-wise, it wasn't too bad. Very simple, by necessity. Your trainer couldn't ever even be hurt! It's just... too silly. We picked up a copy in high school as a gag, but couldn't ever bring ourselves to play it.
From a fanboy perspective, Robotech by Palladium. It abjectly failed to capture the atmosphere of Robotech, and failed even worse to be at all faithful to the original three series (Chohjikuu Yosai Macross, Chohjikuu Kidan Southern Cross and Mospeada). The Rifts system is too clunky to do convincing anime-style action (and trying to pull off a Itano Circus was an unsatisfying experience to say the least). The craft, both friend and foe, were too over-armored to be convincing to a show where unless your name was Hikaru Ichijyo, Jeanne Francoise or Stig Bernard (or *sigh*...[rolls eyes] if we must... Rick Hunter, Dana Sterling or Scott Bernard) your craft was made out of highly explosive material. The weapons in many cases bear little resemblance to their show counterparts, and the whole game seems to be geared to little roleplaying and getting people blowing stuff up as soon as possible (remember that at least two episodes of Macross had little or no mecha or combat in them at all...)
The authors also didn't care to do any research, taking animation errors as canon -- NOSE-CONE LASERS, I'M LOOKING AT YOU!, introducing new errors such as mistaking a large, 400-man space destroyer for a one-man fighter craft, representing that the "Booby Duck" FAST-Pack add-ons to the Valkyrie/Veritech were a completely new fighter (even when we see the fighters pop the packs and armor off in numerous episodes) and grossly mistranslating (when not out-and-out ignoring) one of the better refernce materials of the time for Macross, "Perfect Memory" (even getting the name wrong as "Memory Perfect", when it's on the book's cover. IN ENGLISH. IN HUMONGOUS, BLOCK-TYPE, RED LETTERS.) in their atrocious "Japanimation notes" section.
In short, this is one of the worst licensed RPGs I've come across.
Oh. Hells. Yeah. I didn't want to go there, but you did first. I have to say that as a wannabe hardcore otaku around the time these books first came out, they were my only link to the larger world of anime around me. I remember shelling out gobs of money just to have the page and a half of "authentic" information in the back of the book. I still have the first three books in places of honor with my "main" RPG material. Of course, I know better nowadays, and I'm just waiting on my subtitled copies of Macross to come in to round out my Southern Cross/Mospeada collection, but I still thumb through them and remember...
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The Pokemon Jr. Adventure Game. It's a baby RPG sold for 10 bucks at Sav-on back at the height of Pokemania. You and your friends play trainers, someone's Mom is the referee (the rulebook specifically calls for someone's Mom to fill this role), and you all try to win gym badges and protect your pokemon from Team Rocket.
Rules-wise, it wasn't too bad. Very simple, by necessity. Your trainer couldn't ever even be hurt! It's just... too silly. We picked up a copy in high school as a gag, but couldn't ever bring ourselves to play it.
No Way does the Pokemon Jr. Adventure game deserve to even be mentioned in this thread. For High School students, yeah it would be dumb, but for young children, say ages 5-7, it is one of the very best gateway RPGs ever made in the history of RPGs. There was a time I recomended this game to every RPG parent who wanted to share the joys of Role Playing with their tykes. I still would but its probably too hard to find now.
Of the somewhat questionable thematics, there is of course delightful Macho Women with Guns., but from what I remember the system for it was actually pretty nifty and playable (simple, of course).
...and because it has to be said...Pathfinder barbarian iconic would feel right at home in that game.
How about games that 'should be good' but aren't. Perhaps a great writer/ designer, good art, great theme. But when it all comes together it sucks.
I popped this thread open to see how many of the RPGs I'd worked on (even slightly) were mentioned as people's all-time worsts. I'm proud to say the number is four. I challenge anyone to beat that.
I have too much professional courtesy/fear of reprisals to give my list of my all-time worsts, but I will say that three of my top five have already been mentioned, and not in a good way.
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Though I have not Played all RPGs...I have Played alot... and to this day.. the worse I still have ever played.. is D&D... all editions *can't say anything about 4E Yet*..
I just don't like the game... Only reason I play it..and run it.. Is because I can not find players for the games I want to play...
To me the Rules of D&D don't work as well for Role-Playing as other games..
LINK WARNING: The review itself is fine, enjoyable, and well worth reading. However, near the top of the review is another link labeled "Timecube.com." Don't click on this link. Seriously, don't, or your head will explode and you will die.
I was reading part of the review, and then stopped because I thought it was too long.
Then I saw this warning, and of course had to click on it. Buy, I was just happy I ran out of sanity points long ago. That stuff makes negative sense. And it's long.
Did you know there's a page two?
I think if someone reads all of it in one go, his state of mind will change. He will not be normal. He will not be insane. In fact, this universe has no definition for it.
Someone told me that a guy she knows read 50 lines in one go, before he was luckily saved by his bleeding eyes, which obscured his vision. After that, he went on a cannibalistic killing spree and ate everyone in a small town of 300 souls, including babies, the corpses in the cemetary, and all pets and domestic animals. Except for one girl's pet squirrel, who made a full testimony. In the end, the guy ate himself.
After having read maybe 10 lines, I believe her.
So Azathoth writes web pages now.
TimeCube.com was good but the tubgirl was better. Talk about sanity devouring...
I can't believe I never heard of the Unholy Trinity before. Racial Holy War is every bit as bad as it seems. I just finished a detailed readthrough, which I should add only took a few minutes (it's that simple), and it is every bit as flawed as the linked review makes it sound. There are a few core mechanics that the review glosses over and using a bit of intuition it can be figured out as to what, form a game mechanic standpoint, the designer was trying to do. So the mechanic isn't broken and is playable with a little thought.
Don't get me wrong, however, the game still belongs in the Unholy Trinity of worst games ever.
I tried to read Hybrid but got lost somewhere in the first line. I think the designer read all of TimeCube.com and lost his sanity somewhere along the way. Is that even a game?
I tried to read Hybrid but got lost somewhere in the first line. I think the designer read all of TimeCube.com and lost his sanity somewhere along the way. Is that even a game?
I looked at Hybrid recently, and I noticed a couple of problems with it.
1. It's written like a blog, so when you go to the website you find yourself staring at Rule 500-something. Also, the oldest rules seem to have fallen off the bottom of the page (as of this writing, the first rule available is #312).
2. If there's any structure or organization to Hybrid, I couldn't find it.
3. I suspect that sometimes the author forgets that he's writing RPG rules, since some of his "rules" read like plain old blog posts. For example...
Rule # 551:
Formatting note: The above doesn't duplicate the original's intermittent font-color changes, and ~1/3 of the quoted text was underlined, which this messageboard doesn't support (not that I'm complaining).
At least he sticks to the same, semi-reasonable font size.
Did you know there's a page two?
Did you know there have been at least two Timecube RPGs? Thankfully, one of them seems to have vanished, but there's a review of it here. The other one (very short) is here.
The surviving version (by Jeff Yaus) gets the general idea across, escept that Jeff is apparently too sane to capture Timecube's true essence. A sample:
All gameplay is done by rolling a cube, which gives a result of 1 through 4. (6 sides constitutes a sextet -- not a Cube. Rules that say a Cube has "6 sides" with no top & bottom induce an evil curse that pervades all role-playing games.)