I'd say 4e.. but that'd open up a hole can of worms we don't need here. :)
Video reply ;)
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.
Mystic Eye (now defunct, I believe) crapped out a superhero RPG called Vigilance. Had some good ideas, but obviously no playtesting. Lots of gaps.
No trolling, this is a tread about awful rpgs, I threw in my vote for 4e.
Come on now, half the people on this site know that 4e is a horrible game. (And the other half like playing it...) Now, can we get back to horrible rpgs that don't have their own subforum?
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.
Yeah, but you could wear an ARMORED JOCKSTRAP!
Okay, yeah, it was pretty awful.
My personal (least)favorite was Time & Time Again (from TSR, perhaps?), featuring the player-favorite element of inability to engage in combat (okay, ALMOST inability; the most combat-oriented character possible could achieve a 25% chance of hitting an unaware opponent from behind). Extra kudos for the most pointless introduction of a "new" die roll, the d200.
Heh, heh. If you've never played Bruce Galloway's "Fantasy Wargaming," you have NO IDEA how bad an RPG can get.
Player: "I attack!"
GM: "OK, calculate your current excess Str and Dex for that weapon, factoring in losses from wounds."
Player (some time later): "4!"
Clearly you are both a mathematician and a fanatic. Our gaming session went something closer to:
Players: "We attack"
GM fumbles around with several hundred pages of dense text, formulas, reference charts, unintelligible appendices, and un-annotated tables for about an hour.
GM: "Wanna make some D&D characters?"
Players: "ZZZZZZZZZ"
Ick...I made that mistake once.
On the "maybe not so bad but I never thought much of them" side of the aisle, I've got a few on my shelf that failed to impress me much: R. Talsorian's Mekton, a Palladium game called Recon, the Palladium Fantasy RPG, SPI's DragonQuest, maybe a few others. I'm not saying these are the worst games ever (they all had elements I liked or I wouldn't have purchased them) but I just never could get enough fire under me after reading them to actually put them into play.
If we can expand to wargames for a second, anyone ever play Harpoon? It actually looks like an *awesome* game...if you happen to have some sort of mini-computer cybernetic implant so that you that can process all of the rules and such.
M
Ick...I made that mistake once.
On the "maybe not so bad but I never thought much of them" side of the aisle, I've got a few on my shelf that failed to impress me much: R. Talsorian's Mekton, a Palladium game called Recon, the Palladium Fantasy RPG, SPI's DragonQuest, maybe a few others. I'm not saying these are the worst games ever (they all had elements I liked or I wouldn't have purchased them) but I just never could get enough fire under me after reading them to actually put them into play.
If we can expand to wargames for a second, anyone ever play Harpoon? It actually looks like an *awesome* game...if you happen to have some sort of mini-computer cybernetic implant so that you that can process all of the rules and such.
M
Ninjas & Superspies. Erick Wujick had some great ideas but marrying them to Palladium's system did not work out very well. I have no real idea how to run that game or make a useful character.
Ah. I wasn't aware that TSR bought SPI and revised the game. I had the second edition, published by SPI. It chapters and sections were numbered wargame style. I wonder if the TSR version was very different?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DragonQuest
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If we can expand to wargames for a second, anyone ever play Harpoon? It actually looks like an *awesome* game...if you happen to have some sort of mini-computer cybernetic implant so that you that can process all of the rules and such.
M
Harpoon was pretty cool - but, like most of the Avalon Hill wargames of the 1980s, was ridiculously rules-heavy. I used to go to wargaming conventions, and there would be 3 of us who wanted to play Harpoon. The odd man out would man the rulebook.
Similarly, as divinely inspired as Advanced Squad Leader as, you know that you're in for a long slog when you read in the (loose-leaf!) rulebook that they "worked very hard to cut down and shorten acronyms and abbreviations", yet kept things like PAATCH. Makes you wonder what had to go... Still, ASL was a breeze to play if you kept vehicles out of the equation. Once you included tanks and had to keep track of turret facing, radio-equipped command vehicles, gyrostabilised main guns, suspension type... Gack!
Ah. I wasn't aware that TSR bought SPI and revised the game. I had the second edition, published by SPI. It chapters and sections were numbered wargame style. I wonder if the TSR version was very different?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DragonQuest
Played the SPI version and bought the TSR version after it came out. The TSR version was very similar, i'd guess about 90% the same feel.
Ninjas & Superspies. Erick Wujick had some great ideas but marrying them to Palladium's system did not work out very well. I have no real idea how to run that game or make a useful character.Ick...I made that mistake once.
On the "maybe not so bad but I never thought much of them" side of the aisle, I've got a few on my shelf that failed to impress me much: R. Talsorian's Mekton, a Palladium game called Recon, the Palladium Fantasy RPG, SPI's DragonQuest, maybe a few others. I'm not saying these are the worst games ever (they all had elements I liked or I wouldn't have purchased them) but I just never could get enough fire under me after reading them to actually put them into play.
If we can expand to wargames for a second, anyone ever play Harpoon? It actually looks like an *awesome* game...if you happen to have some sort of mini-computer cybernetic implant so that you that can process all of the rules and such.
M
hahah I too own Ninjas and superspies. I never understood how the hell one could play more than one session of that. Even the introductory adventure has a nuclear bomb. How is a GM supposed to up the ante after that?
Ninjas & Superspies. Erick Wujick had some great ideas but marrying them to Palladium's system did not work out very well. I have no real idea how to run that game or make a useful character.Ick...I made that mistake once.
On the "maybe not so bad but I never thought much of them" side of the aisle, I've got a few on my shelf that failed to impress me much: R. Talsorian's Mekton, a Palladium game called Recon, the Palladium Fantasy RPG, SPI's DragonQuest, maybe a few others. I'm not saying these are the worst games ever (they all had elements I liked or I wouldn't have purchased them) but I just never could get enough fire under me after reading them to actually put them into play.
If we can expand to wargames for a second, anyone ever play Harpoon? It actually looks like an *awesome* game...if you happen to have some sort of mini-computer cybernetic implant so that you that can process all of the rules and such.
M
I've never tried to run an actual Ninja's & Superspies game, but I still love the book and pull it out anytime I'm doing Rifts. Most flavorful and unique way of doing martial arts I've seen for any system.
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Ganelon, ostensibly a mortal from Shadow, then proceeds to beat Gerard unconscious with four blows.
Nope not a mortal from shadow at all, rather he is Corwin and Gerard's father Oberon in disguise and therefore well capable of giving Gerard a beating. It's in the books.
I love Amber. Some of the best pure roleplaying experiences I have ever had have been in Amber games. However it's not for everyone. Some people can't or won't adjust to it. Fair enough, horses for courses and all that.
2 more for the "worst ever RPG" collection, the Last Unicorn Star Trek Game which somehow won an Origin Award!? And the delightfully unbalanced "Violence" which as far as I know is the only game to contain different damage codes for orbital and belt sanding machines.
Violence was a joke game like H.O.L. so I'm not sure that counts...
Well, I did buy a 4E book and was greatly disappointed, though mildly interested in trying it out since I had the book anyways (this was before my fencing buddies helpfully introduced me to Pathfinder).
There are so many tangled up rules for Rifts that I could never imagine GMing a game of it, though my friend can by mainly ad-libbing and ignoring half the rules and we have a great time playing it (when we're not laughing so hard we can't breathe).So, neither of these are very awful. That's probably because the extent of my gaming experience is Rifts, D&D (several editions), and Pathfinder.
You should try to get into one of the 4e play by post games on the games fourm to see if you like it enough to keep playing it.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Ganelon, ostensibly a mortal from Shadow, then proceeds to beat Gerard unconscious with four blows.
Nope not a mortal from shadow at all, rather he is Corwin and Gerard's father Oberon in disguise and therefore well capable of giving Gerard a beating. It's in the books.
I love Amber. Some of the best pure roleplaying experiences I have ever had have been in Amber games. However it's not for everyone. Some people can't or won't adjust to it. Fair enough, horses for courses and all that.
True, he is Oberon in disguise, but Corwin and Gerard don't know that at the time. They believe him to be a mortal from shadow (hence my use of the word "obstensible") and when he beats of Gerard, that's not an immediate give-away that they're dealing with Oberon.
The game rules make it impossible for anyone from Shadow to have even the base Amber-level strength, let alone beat someone ranked First in Strength. If that scene had played out in the AMBER game, the scions of Amber would have known immediately that Ganelon was "real" (of Amber's royal family or the Courts of Chaos) and a much more serious player than them.
Further venting below the cut
So yeah, you can have a great game. But you can't simulate the actions of the novels, because Wujcik decided to write all the Amberites as much more powerful, in every way, than anyone from shadow, and able to psychically dominate us mortals at will. Any Amberite could travel to Earth and, without any effort at all, change Earth's history, or make all Earthlings methane-breathers. Does that sound like the story presented in the novels?
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I could get into an argument here Chris about the various merits, or otherwise, of the Amber system but to be honest with you I'm not really that interested.
Y'see we would post back and forth for ages both putting our perfectly valid points across until eventually we would agree to disagree or until one of us (probably me) gets bored.
Let's save ourselves from the inevitable carpal tunnel syndrome and agree to disagree ok? I don't think either of us will be changing the other's mind through a long argument :).
Amber is what we call a Marmite system, you either love it or hate it. I am well aware that it is not everybody's cup of tea. It's a different style of game, virtually systemless. Some people hate it and that's cool. I happen to love it and that is also cool.
It's all good.
:)
I may be a little late to this party, but I have to find it ironic that I stumbled on this thread when one of my players wanted to start an Aliens vs. Predator game (with us playing the hapless space marines caught in the middle...hmmm maybe I can get an Avatar crossover in there too :) ).
Anyways, I remembered that I actually had the Aliens roleplaying game, which I was VERY excited about. It was based on another RPG, but I can't remember the name. All I remembered was that it was VERY complex, at least in the combat system.
I read passages to my group, and the moment the words 'cross reference the two tables' came up under the damage rules, everyone exploded in laughter. They kept asking me what the damage on pulse rifles was, and I explained that it depended on range, ammunition and the armor being hit (not to mention the part of the body). The damage listing was a TABLE, and the weapon had different effects against armor depending on range. Each weapon had its own table.
I can't say it's the most 'awful' game (because it does have the distinction of being fairly realistic or accurate, and it has great info on the Aliens setting). So, while it may be 'accurate' or 'realistic' it was also 'unplayable' in the sense that each combat action took ten minutes and several tables to resolve.
Game over, man. Game over.
So, while it may be 'accurate' or 'realistic' it was also 'unplayable' in the sense that each combat action took ten minutes and several tables to resolve.
This is exactly what makes me grimace anytime someone trots out the 'role playing games must be realistic' argument.
I do not know about anyone else, but I have never had a character go to the bathroom in a role playing game. How realistic can it be?
I may be a little late to this party, but I have to find it ironic that I stumbled on this thread when one of my players wanted to start an Aliens vs. Predator game (with us playing the hapless space marines caught in the middle...hmmm maybe I can get an Avatar crossover in there too :) ).
Anyways, I remembered that I actually had the Aliens roleplaying game, which I was VERY excited about. It was based on another RPG, but I can't remember the name. All I remembered was that it was VERY complex, at least in the combat system.
I read passages to my group, and the moment the words 'cross reference the two tables' came up under the damage rules, everyone exploded in laughter. They kept asking me what the damage on pulse rifles was, and I explained that it depended on range, ammunition and the armor being hit (not to mention the part of the body). The damage listing was a TABLE, and the weapon had different effects against armor depending on range. Each weapon had its own table.
So, while it may be 'accurate' or 'realistic' it was also 'unplayable' in the sense that each combat action took ten minutes and several tables to resolve.
Game over, man. Game over.
Sounds a lot like chartmaster. Not unplayable if you have someone who REALLY knows what their doing.
This is exactly what makes me grimace anytime someone trots out the 'role playing games must be realistic' argument.I do not know about anyone else, but I have never had a character go to the bathroom in a role playing game. How realistic can it be?
Oh, I'm fairly certain it's happened in one of my games, but not because the rules dictated it.
To be fair, there ARE games that balance realism vs. playability fairly well. Personally, I think that 'realistic' wounds would be important for any horror/terror game (such as an Aliens game), to capture the feeling of desperation and fragility that the movies created.
The Aliens game took it to an extreme, though. But on the other end of the spectrum, my player wants to run it with Pathfinder based rules, which are heroic in scope, and I think it will lose much of its impact. They work great for cinematic fantasy (or space fantasy, since the Star Wars Saga rules are similar) but not so much for 'gritty' sci fi. Plus, I think he's missing an opportunity to use concepts that already exist, and will probably burn himself out.
Hit points are easy, but definitely not realistic in any sense of the word. Even a little bit. :)
Also, I am adamantly opposed to class-based 'hard'ish science fiction games (though Saga rules work FAIRLY well for Star Wars). It doesn't make sense to me. But it's not my game, and he's a budding DM, so let him be encouraged.
Sounds a lot like chartmaster. Not unplayable if you have someone who REALLY knows what their doing.
I want to say it was based on Shattered Suns, but I could be very wrong. VERY wrong.
Oh, I have no doubt it could be played, but just long enough to realize that there's easier ways out there :)
We had the same experience with Rolemaster games!
I may be a little late to this party, but I have to find it ironic that I stumbled on this thread when one of my players wanted to start an Aliens vs. Predator game (with us playing the hapless space marines caught in the middle...hmmm maybe I can get an Avatar crossover in there too :) ).
Anyways, I remembered that I actually had the Aliens roleplaying game, which I was VERY excited about. It was based on another RPG, but I can't remember the name. All I remembered was that it was VERY complex, at least in the combat system.
I read passages to my group, and the moment the words 'cross reference the two tables' came up under the damage rules, everyone exploded in laughter. They kept asking me what the damage on pulse rifles was, and I explained that it depended on range, ammunition and the armor being hit (not to mention the part of the body). The damage listing was a TABLE, and the weapon had different effects against armor depending on range. Each weapon had its own table.
I can't say it's the most 'awful' game (because it does have the distinction of being fairly realistic or accurate, and it has great info on the Aliens setting). So, while it may be 'accurate' or 'realistic' it was also 'unplayable' in the sense that each combat action took ten minutes and several tables to resolve.
Game over, man. Game over.
Yeah, and your speed in combat was based on your intelligence. And there was no real guide to constructing adventures. I think it was based on something like 'Steel Phoenix'
To be fair, there ARE games that balance realism vs. playability fairly well. Personally, I think that 'realistic' wounds would be important for any horror/terror game (such as an Aliens game), to capture the feeling of desperation and fragility that the movies created.
And, see? If someone wanted to put it thusly, I would have no problem. It is not so much realism as a different feel. Then we can agree that we prefer different feels.
A lot of people want to say their game is more realistic because, in their mind it seems, it makes it a 'better' game. The truth of the matter is that it is little more than preference. But few want to admit that.
To be fair, there ARE games that balance realism vs. playability fairly well. Personally, I think that 'realistic' wounds would be important for any horror/terror game (such as an Aliens game), to capture the feeling of desperation and fragility that the movies created.And, see? If someone wanted to put it thusly, I would have no problem. It is not so much realism as a different feel. Then we can agree that we prefer different feels.
A lot of people want to say their game is more realistic because, in their mind it seems, it makes it a 'better' game. The truth of the matter is that it is little more than preference. But few want to admit that.
The level of realism does refer to realism, but you are definately correct in saying that realism only makes a game better if it helps create the right feel for a game.
I'm using GURPS for my current horror campaign because it is more realistic than PF or other systems I could be using. Of course I'm still running a PF game. The two are really not similar in feel. Despite what some people on the board have said the differences in systems are important in that they lend themselves better to different styles of gaming.
In the end most important point is to game in a way that is the most fun for yourself and the other players.
In the end most important point is to game in a way that is the most fun for yourself and the other players.
Hear hear!
Wait... Last Unicorn Star Trek? I love both the Last Unicorn and Star Trek, but whose brilliant idea was it to put two so irrelevant things together?
I thought the idea was so bizarre that I was forced to look it up. "Last Unicorn Games" is the company's name. :-P
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Anyways, I remembered that I actually had the Aliens roleplaying game, which I was VERY excited about. It was based on another RPG, but I can't remember the name. All I remembered was that it was VERY complex, at least in the combat system.
It was a simplified version of the Phoenix Command combat game.
Yes, simplified.
Anyways, I remembered that I actually had the Aliens roleplaying game, which I was VERY excited about. It was based on another RPG, but I can't remember the name. All I remembered was that it was VERY complex, at least in the combat system.It was a simplified version of the Phoenix Command combat game.
Yes, simplified.
Oh dear god! That chills me on levels that shouldn't be known by man.
Anyways, I remembered that I actually had the Aliens roleplaying game, which I was VERY excited about. It was based on another RPG, but I can't remember the name. All I remembered was that it was VERY complex, at least in the combat system.It was a simplified version of the Phoenix Command combat game.
Yes, simplified.
Oh dear god! That chills me on levels that shouldn't be known by man.
Yeah, I think if you look in the appendix for using the equipment with standard Phoenix Command rules, some of the stats go to like 4 decimal places. Like, "XX.XXXX" is one of a weapon's 10 stats.
And there weren't hit points. You could suffer "500 points" of damage and die, or "36000 points" and live, depending on what basically amounted to system shock saves.
I remember the Living Steel sci-fi version of Phoenix Command. Great backstory but one combat took 6 hours to play through.
OK, I can now regain some of my sanity. Thank you.I thought the idea was so bizarre that I was forced to look it up. "Last Unicorn Games" is the company's name. :-P
Wait... Last Unicorn Star Trek? I love both the Last Unicorn and Star Trek, but whose brilliant idea was it to put two so irrelevant things together?
You didn't know that Worf was half unicorn?
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. :)Actually, I just ran this for some friends of mine. I ran it very much in the vein of 1e, and all but one had a blast. And yes, I did kill a PC in the second round of combat.
In comparison to 1e WHRFP, they made it more balanced across the board, whereas in 1e my druid was by far the more powerful party member simply because of how priests advanced. I pretty much skipped every other priest level under that system, but I still got the skills and the advances.
A lot of the changes also involved a lot of what Black Libraries was putting out in the Warhammer novels. That's where the entire Winds of Magic thing came from. Which works as long as you don't have a mage in the party. But if you do, then it gets ridiculous quick.
Mage: I use my mage sight to follow the winds of magic.
Me: You see a very strong brown wind...
Laughter for 20 minutes.
Or you could have gone with:
'on the ground ahead, a soft furred brown hare glances up at you, blinking for a momment before turning and starting to lope off. After a two steps the hare desolves into a trail of whispy brown light coiling off down the path, as you follow the concentration of Ghur increases, making the trail scream with the sound of paniced beasts and the smell of animal terror.'
The Colours and their collages have been in war hammer since at least 4th edition fantasy battle, and are a consistent and interesting metaphysics. The 2nd ed WFRP rules, are generally more stable than first edition, and the magic rules change is hands down the single biggest improvement to the game.
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3.5e D&D. At higher levels this game just plain sucked (as a DM). From levels 1 to about 12 a good game, then complete poo-on-a-stick. Even the original writers (of 3e) said some not nice things about the direction 3.5e took. We never got high enough level under 3e to see if the same thing happened, but I know that under 2e the game ran fine at levels 16+. Not sure why they decided to break things so badly?
S.
3.5e D&D. At higher levels this game just plain sucked (as a DM). From levels 1 to about 12 a good game, then complete poo-on-a-stick. Even the original writers (of 3e) said some not nice things about the direction 3.5e took. We never got high enough level under 3e to see if the same thing happened, but I know that under 2e the game ran fine at levels 16+. Not sure why they decided to break things so badly?
S.
Never had that problem and I ran a game all the way up to level 26-28 range.
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Never had that problem and I ran a game all the way up to level 26-28 range.3.5e D&D. At higher levels this game just plain sucked (as a DM). From levels 1 to about 12 a good game, then complete poo-on-a-stick. Even the original writers (of 3e) said some not nice things about the direction 3.5e took. We never got high enough level under 3e to see if the same thing happened, but I know that under 2e the game ran fine at levels 16+. Not sure why they decided to break things so badly?
S.
You are the exception rather than rule then. The high-level issues of 3.5e have been well expounded. You must have had a good group of players that all played "for fun" rather than exploiting the rules to the benefit of their character "crunch-wise" but annoyance of the DM.
S.
Clashing creative agendas can cause problems in nearly any system at nearly any stage in the campaign. That is not to say that high level play in D&D does not exacerbate the problem. Point buy systems expose this problem very early.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it's poo on a stick, but it is a pretty big challenge to GM. It wasn't long before I was looking forward to the days of that 5-11 level range sweet spot again.
3.5e D&D. At higher levels this game just plain sucked (as a DM). From levels 1 to about 12 a good game, then complete poo-on-a-stick. Even the original writers (of 3e) said some not nice things about the direction 3.5e took. We never got high enough level under 3e to see if the same thing happened, but I know that under 2e the game ran fine at levels 16+. Not sure why they decided to break things so badly?
S.