It seems to me more players should consider proper care and feeding of their GM. I believe it is common enough to understand you should not ruin other players' fun. But how many realize you can ruin the GM's fun as well? And if the GM ain't happy, ain't no one happy.
It seems to me more players should consider proper care and feeding of their GM. I believe it is common enough to understand you should not ruin other players' fun. But how many realize you can ruin the GM's fun as well? And if the GM ain't happy, ain't no one happy.
I can second that. Most of the time it's not a problem, but a GM with too many headaches just trashes the fun for everyone (including and especially the GM). It's a vicious cycle.
I miss the days when folks bought extra points on their rolls with chewy Spree candies. :)
Worst RPG I ever played was Dark Heresy. You suck at everything and you can die tying your shoes. I played a game at Origins. Our party Psyker healed a wounded NPC guard for 1 point of damage and incapacitated 5/7 of the party for 3+ rounds in round 1 of the end fight.
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.
This was my biggest problem with 3E. high level play was so not fun to play or Dm that I figured I wouldn't be running or playing D&D again. It probably would have been a good time to break out WFRPG (1E please - I own and read the 2E rules - aside from the magic system it was crap). I've been dying to run a WFRP game for a few years now. I had one in the late nineties that last for 4 years with 9 players - they ended in their 3rd or 4th careers finishing up the Enemy Within campaign. Possibly the great 'adventure path' ever written.
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This was my biggest problem with 3E. high level play was so not fun to play or Dm that I figured I wouldn't be running or playing D&D again. It probably would have been a good time to break out WFRPG (1E please - I own and read the 2E rules - aside from the magic system it was crap). I've been dying to run a WFRP game for a few years now. I had one in the late nineties that last for 4 years with 9 players - they ended in their 3rd or 4th careers finishing up the Enemy Within campaign. Possibly the great 'adventure path' ever written.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.
+1
Worst RPG I ever played was Dark Heresy. You suck at everything and you can die tying your shoes. I played a game at Origins. Our party Psyker healed a wounded NPC guard for 1 point of damage and incapacitated 5/7 of the party for 3+ rounds in round 1 of the end fight.
I am sorry but this simply is not true.
First off, while a starting characters raw chance of success as often in the range of 36% for things your good at they simply do not have to role unless it is a stressful or dramatically important situation. If you are in a safe place, picking the lock and time is not a factor, you successed, the DM might rule it takes ten minites, but that matters not a jot, unless its time sensative, in which case you'd role.
Now if I remember correctly, a combat round is around 3 sec, in dark heresy. If you can show me an individual who can, in 3 seconds can open an average door lock, using of the shelf lock picks, with a success rate of 36%, i will show you a talented lock picker. Doubly so if he can do it in the middle of a fire fight.
Next, if your using your raw attribute your doing it wrong. If your trying to research a secretive trade house(difficult -10%) in dark heresy you don't just try to do it with publicaly research materials(+0%), you bribe your way into the secret libraries of the watching sisterhood(+20%), where you and one of your companions(reduce the difficulty one step) work together to uncover the trade houses origins, giving you a 56% chance of successfully discovering the information within the space of one time unit.
In combat you don't just stand in the open and shot with an ordinary gun, you take cover behind a bulkhead(making you harder to kill) and aim for a half action(+10%), then on your next turn put a single dumb dumb round into the unarmoured bone box(called shot -20%) of the taitor, using your stub revolver(+10%), with red-dot sight at closs range(+10%) with a 46% chance of success at character creation(very close to a garenteed kill against most minor NPCs). The similar character, with only having rolled a little above average on Ballistic skill, could take two such shots, thanks to duel weilding.
You can take it even further if you so wish, with a good roll on ballistic skill, a starting pc using an autogun can have as much as a 75% chance of doing between 1 and 3 hits, every other turn, or 65% every turn.
In short, Dark heresy character really arn't bad.Sure they are not superheroes, and they are far from the most powerful being in their world, but they arn't terrible either. They only suck if you haven't absorbed the game. Modifiers, be they from situation, team work, or equipment, are a major element of the game.
Sounds to me more like you not having understood either the setting or the implication of the rules.
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Worst RPG I ever played was Dark Heresy. You suck at everything and you can die tying your shoes. I played a game at Origins. Our party Psyker healed a wounded NPC guard for 1 point of damage and incapacitated 5/7 of the party for 3+ rounds in round 1 of the end fight.I am sorry but this simply is not true.
First off, while a starting characters raw chance of success as often in the range of 36% for things your good at they simply do not have to role unless it is a stressful or dramatically important situation. If you are in a safe place, picking the lock and time is not a factor, you successed, the DM might rule it takes ten minites, but that matters not a jot, unless its time sensative, in which case you'd role.
Now if I remember correctly, a combat round is around 3 sec, in dark heresy. If you can show me an individual who can, in 3 seconds can open an average door lock, using of the shelf lock picks, with a success rate of 36%, i will show you a talented lock picker. Doubly so if he can do it in the middle of a fire fight.
Next, if your using your raw attribute your doing it wrong. If your trying to research a secretive trade house(difficult -10%) in dark heresy you don't just try to do it with publicaly research materials(+0%), you bribe your way into the secret libraries of the watching sisterhood(+20%), where you and one of your companions(reduce the difficulty one step) work together to uncover the trade houses origins, giving you a 56% chance of successfully discovering the information within the space of one time unit.
In combat you don't just stand in the open and shot with an ordinary gun, you take cover behind a bulkhead(making you harder to kill) and aim for a half action(+10%), then on your next turn put a single dumb dumb round into the unarmoured bone box(called shot -20%) of the taitor, using your stub revolver(+10%), with red-dot sight at closs range(+10%) with a 46% chance of success at character creation(very close to a garenteed kill...
I agree with Zombieneighbours. The Game is neither awful nor are the characters completely uneffective dorks, but i imagine it might seem that way, if the GM ignores the rule that says you don't have to roll for routine skill uses or the GM or the players are ignoring the high bonuses that can be obtained from common sense actions or almost always available helpful circumstances.
I am sorry but this simply is not true.
I found it to be so. Even your example doesn't really change my mind. You're basically saying that under optimal conditions, with the right equipment and enough time, you have a pretty good chance to kill a mook who's standing out in the open. OK, I'll give you that. But let's not make this personal. I'm not attacking people who play it. If you can find fun in it, that's great. I just found the game pretty awful. And I think I understood the setting and the rules pretty well. As a player, and not a GM, I had no control over what the GM declared my difficulty for a task was. Perhaps he didn't understand the rules as well as he thought. But I attempted to gain conditions as optimal as possible under every circumstance I could find an advantage for.
I don't think you can deny that it's possible for the party healer to disable the party in that way. Not only that, but each of them gained a certain number of (not insanity, some kind of darkness or chaos, I apologize for forgetting the name) points while they were disabled.
I actually played it twice. First time over several sessions, when a guy in our D&D group wanted to run it while we were between D&D campaigns. I was the face man, Cutter Cain (based the character on Charlie Croker, took his first name from another Michael Caine character, and did my best Caine impression the whole time - IOW, I was really TRYING to get into the game). In the first adventure he ran, I was unable to talk my way into or out of anything, despite being an agent (of an agent of an agent) of the government. Second was a meat grinder, which made me wonder why my character would agree to go on that mission at all. My most active contribution in that game was attempting to lob a grenade down a 15-meter-wide hole in the floor, which I was standing about 5 feet away from. I failed to hit it, so I damaged the party fighters (they might have soaked it all, I don't remember, but that was annoying). I decided to skip the rest of the DH sessions because I just wasn't enjoying the game.
I jumped into a session at Origins 2010 because the game I had signed up for only had one attendee besides me, and she was the GM. They were running DH at the next table over. I was curious to see how the game would play under a different GM. So I sat down with a positive attitude and purged my mind of the previous bad experience. I actually had more fun in the game because of the rest of the players making it fun, but the completely random crap that was happening because of bad die rolls was pretty annoying. When the psyker disabled most of the party, I was one of the ones that made his save. And in fact, I held off the BBEG long enough for a couple others to come out of their condition, and we did beat it. But there were two or three players who spent the entire fight waiting for their turn to come up so they could roll the 20-30% chance to stop being disabled. I felt it got in the way of the game, it didn't add any value at all to it. It was enough to let me know that my bad experience with it before wasn't the GM's fault; I just didn't like the game.
So that's the basis for my opinion of it. I found it to be too hard to do anything of value, and the many many pages of tables for critical hits and fumbles and accidents made it clear that the designers of the game really liked random disasters. Maybe this is the soul of the game; maybe people who really like it find these random accidents a lot of fun. Do DH players remember fondly the games when something absolutely terrible happened to their character and that was the fun part for them? I don't know. The only person in my regular gaming group who liked the game was the one who ran it for us.
Now, I haven't played a huge number of RPGs in the 30 years I've been gaming, but a fair number. And I feel I'm entitled to my opinion that Dark Heresy was one of the least fun setting/systems I've played in. Upon reflection, however, I think it might tie with the single session of With Great Power that I played at last year's Origins convention, which also wasn't fun at all.
First example, I'm pretty sure your GM didn't get the message about how a basic +0 Challenging roll was only for, you know, Challenging acts. (Can't blame him for that, the people who made the sample adventure in the back of the book didn't get that message either. You shouldn't need to make a Challenging Agility roll to not sprain your ankle climbing up a hill. But I'll get to that stuff later.) Basically, it was probably his first time running the system and the book was a bit confused in it's presentation of the average Acolyte's skill level.
Second game, well, that was just bad luck. Later games using the same system introduced a way for a sanctioned psyker to use a power at lower power without causing Perils of The Warp, but they didn't think of that in time for this book. (Or they wanted to hammer home the grittiness, but I'd rather just port in that one mechanic personally.) I agree with why they added in the Perils of The Warp (make sure psykers don't go around constantly invoking their chaos-born powers and remind them that they're, you know, using the powers of hell to do stuff.), but they overdid it a bit in execution.
Also,
I don't think you can deny that it's possible for the party healer to disable the party in that way. Not only that, but each of them gained a certain number of (not insanity, some kind of darkness or chaos, I apologize for forgetting the name) points while they were disabled.
Corruption. Anyway, the psyker isn't supposed to be the medic. The guy with Medicae is supposed to be the medic. (Which you can't get until Rank 3. Like I said, authors were confused about the power level.) If you get shot, well you're just going to have deal with it until you can sit down and have it sewn shut and let it heal, because even if you work for the Inquisition you're still a normal human. (Mostly) Of course, since psykers can learn Medicae and their healing power usually doesn't cause the Warp to infringe too badly onto our plane, most groups just do that and don't bother to sit around for their wounds to heal mid-mission.
Anyway, Dark Heresy is a good game when run right, and the whole "stacking every bonus possible" thing is certainly in-genre, but they just failed to keep a standard power level through all the rules/fluff.
hahaha. Sorry Chris, DH wasnt the worst game youve ever played. Turned out you liked it. 8p
Know what game I never liked? Shadowrun. Specifically 2 edition. Im sure most of you disagree with me, but it just didnt do anything for me. I would have rather played Ninjas and Superspies or All Flesh Must be Eaten. I actually like both of those games, my only complaint with em, being that it would be hard to run more than a one-shot with em.
I found it to be so. Even your example doesn't really change my mind. You're basically saying that under optimal conditions, with the right equipment and enough time, you have a pretty good chance to kill a mook who's standing out in the open. OK, I'll give you that. But let's not make this personal. I'm not attacking people who play it. If you can find fun in it, that's great. I just found the game pretty awful.
I am not taking it personally. I could care less that you don’t like the game, but you made a statement of fact that “You suck at everything and you can die tying your shoes.” Which is the statement I am challenging. It is not true, characters in dark heresy are compitant, moreover, they are much better than the vast majority of people in the game setting.
And I think I understood the setting and the rules pretty well. As a player, and not a GM, I had no control over what the GM declared my difficulty for a task was. Perhaps he didn't understand the rules as well as he thought. But I attempted to gain conditions as optimal as possible under every circumstance I could find an advantage for.
Look I don’t know the full details of your game, but if the difficulties where outside of the range of your abilities to actually achieve your aims with relative ease, I would go with one of two probably causes. Either your GM was giving you challenges which would realld be better targeted at higher ranked characters, or he had written/was running, material aimed to highlight the brutal nature of the setting.
But the game itself does not generally cause you to always fail.I don't think you can deny that it's possible for the party healer to disable the party in that way. Not only that, but each of them gained a certain number of (not insanity, some kind of darkness or chaos, I apologize for forgetting the name) points while they were disabled.
Without knowing exactly which perils of the warp/psychic phomina he roll, and not having either table in front of me, I can’t comment specifically, but it is within the character of the psychic powers
In the 40k universe that such a thing might happen yes, and that is a deep-rooted setting element. If you are uncomfortable with the concept that ‘power comes with risk’, I would say you should avoid Dark heresy, WFRP (all editions), mage (The Ascension & The Awakening), unknown armies, Ars Magica, and many other excilent games. Saying you don’t like that element doesn’t make it a bad approach to achieving it. The Psychic power system does offer really powerful effects to the acolytes, even at low levels, but it comes with risk and forces the PCs to make real choices about their actions.
I actually played it twice. First time over several sessions, when a guy in our D&D group wanted to run it while we were between D&D campaigns. I was the face man, Cutter Cain (based the character on Charlie Croker, took his first name from another Michael Caine character, and did my best Caine impression the whole time - IOW, I was really TRYING to get into the game). In the first adventure he ran, I was unable to talk my way into or out of anything, despite being an agent (of an agent of an agent) of the government.
If your rolling, there should be a reason. IE. the individuals have good reason to say nothing to you.
So let do an example.Spyder Jones, a scum in the service of Inquisitor Marr, strides up to two(raise difficulty by one) street punks and asks to know where Jonah Vren, a member of their gang, is hiding out(Hard).
Spyder doesn’t go out of his way, and doesn’t announce his position as an acolyte. So the total difficulty is -30% The chances of success are low, as they would be in real life under those sorts of condition. In fact, the chances are good that you will fail by so many degrees of success that the thugs might go so far as to attack and attempt to kill spyder for asking questions.
In comparision, if enforcer Jando Malrack, an arbiter, turns up in stylised cloths, designed to evoke the image of the witchhunders of the ordo hereticus(+10), with the other four members of the cell(reduces the difficulty to ordinary(+10%)) and shows their inquisitors rosetta(+30), they not likely to fail. If they do, it will only be a set back, because they can take the Gangers for interrogation, where sleep deprivation and torture will get answers.
Second was a meat grinder, which made me wonder why my character would agree to go on that mission at all. My most active contribution in that game was attempting to lob a grenade down a 15-meter-wide hole in the floor, which I was standing about 5 feet away from. I failed to hit it, so I damaged the party fighters (they might have soaked it all, I don't remember, but that was annoying). I decided to skip the rest of the DH sessions because I just wasn't enjoying the game.
Sounds like your GM didn’t understand the scatter rules. The grenade should have gone down the hole and scattered from point of impact, not point of origin. That is ofcause unless you fumbled the grenade.
I jumped into a session at Origins 2010 because the game I had signed up for only had one attendee besides me, and she was the GM. They were running DH at the next table over. I was curious to see how the game would play under a different GM. So I sat down with a positive attitude and purged my mind of the previous bad experience. I actually had more fun in the game because of the rest of the players making it fun, but the completely random crap that was happening because of bad die rolls was pretty annoying. When the psyker disabled most of the party, I was one of the ones that made his save. And in fact, I held off the BBEG long enough for a couple others to come out of their condition, and we did beat it. But there were two or three players who spent the entire fight waiting for their turn to come up so they could roll the 20-30% chance to stop being disabled. I felt it got in the way of the game, it didn't add any value at all to it. It was enough to let me know that my bad experience with it before wasn't the GM's fault; I just didn't like the game.
So that's the basis for my opinion of it. I found it to be too hard to do anything of value, and the many many pages of tables for critical hits and fumbles and accidents made it clear that the designers of the game really liked random disasters. Maybe this is the soul of the game; maybe people who really like it find these random accidents a lot of fun. Do DH players remember fondly the games when something absolutely terrible happened to their character and that was the fun part for them? I don't know. The only person in my regular gaming group who liked the game was the one who ran it for us.
Best character death ever, being crushed by a car in New York city when a outer horror flung it at me in Call of Cthulhu. And there have been some awesome paradox backlashes over the years, and the power behind the throne would have been far less cool at the end if it hand struggled for six turns in an epic battle of strength and will with the KHV, before finally throwing him from the via duct, thanks to several turns of neither side gaining the advantage.
Failure, loose, death, insanity and betrayal can be every bit as enjoyable as victory, loot, and love, in Roleplaying. There is a tright old optimiser line ‘you can’t roleplay if your characters dead’ Actually, sometimes, death is the best thing that can happen to a character.If you don’t feel the same, well, I feel sorry for you, and think your missing out, but none of the means that Dark Heresy is badly designed, it only means that it isn’t to your taste.
Now, I haven't played a huge number of RPGs in the 30 years I've been gaming, but a fair number. And I feel I'm entitled to my opinion that Dark Heresy was one of the least fun setting/systems I've played in. Upon reflection, however, I think it might tie with the single session of With Great Power that I played at last year's Origins convention, which also wasn't fun at all.
Sure , your entitled to the opinion, but I haven’t challenged that. All I am challenging is your factual claim about the systems.
You can save a bad game by changing a few mechanics and you can save yourself from a bad DM by changing who sits in the big chair, but nothing can save anyone from a bad game with a bad DM.
hahaha. Sorry Chris, DH wasnt the worst game youve ever played. Turned out you liked it. 8p
Ha! I disagree, for the square.
Know what game I never liked? Shadowrun. Specifically 2 edition. Im sure most of you disagree with me, but it just didnt do anything for me. I would have rather played Ninjas and Superspies or All Flesh Must be Eaten. I actually like both of those games, my only complaint with em, being that it would be hard to run more than a one-shot with em.
I really got into SR for a while, I think it was 2nd edition. I had a lot of fun, but I took over GM'ing when the original GM left the game, and I got sick of running it after a while and never getting to play it.
Was it the motif or the system you didn't like? I thought the skill web was a pretty cool idea.
hahaha. Sorry Chris, DH wasnt the worst game youve ever played. Turned out you liked it. 8p
Know what game I never liked? Shadowrun. Specifically 2 edition. Im sure most of you disagree with me, but it just didnt do anything for me. I would have rather played Ninjas and Superspies or All Flesh Must be Eaten. I actually like both of those games, my only complaint with em, being that it would be hard to run more than a one-shot with em.
Oh, no, we're just arguing about stuff on the internet for no good reason. All in good fun, you know.
Anyway, mind explaining a bit more why you disliked Shadowrun 2e? Don't want to argue about it, just curious.
I am not taking it personally. I could care less that you don’t like the game, but you made a statement of fact that “You suck at everything and you can die tying your shoes.” Which is the statement I am challenging. It is not true, characters in dark heresy are compitant, moreover, they are much better than the vast majority of people in the game setting.
Well, I was exaggerating for effect, but that was the impression I was left with after two experiences with the game.
And I didn't literally mean you can die tying your shoes. I mean you can die tying your shoes IF YOU FUMBLE.
Without knowing exactly which perils of the warp/psychic phomina he roll, and not having either table in front of me, I can’t comment specifically, but it is within the character of the psychic powers In the 40k universe that such a thing might happen yes, and that is a deep-rooted setting element. If you are uncomfortable with the concept that ‘power comes with risk’
I'm OK with the concept. The odds of it happening and the scale of damage that results from it, I found a bit much, and, IMO, a poor execution of the concept. That opinion is based on looking at the tables, quickly guesstimating the odds of reaching particular results on the table, and asking "Does this add value to the gameplay?" It was my estimation that the net gameplay-value of the table was negative, therefore the mechanic was undesirable to me.
But you're at least partly right about my preferences. I don't generally LIKE games that have an ever-declining sanity score or an ever-climbing insanity score. For a one-shot, con game, or short campaign arc, it can be a lot of fun, but I don't like it as an extended campaign concept. It's not that I'm UNCOMFORTABLE with it. I just don't find it fun.
Of the games you've mentioned, I think I've only played Mage. The risks of Mage magic generally involve only the caster himself and can be mitigated by a number of circumstances, such as careful planning or even good roleplaying. There didn't seem to be any other mitigation of the consequences of badly rolled magic dice in DH other than good die-rolling on the follow-up tables.
If WFRP has the same magical disaster tables as DH, then you're probably right - I probably wouldn't like it. But that would just be saying I dislike the same system twice, wouldn't it? I'm unfamiliar with the difference in systems, other than the year.
The Psychic power system does offer really powerful effects to the acolytes, even at low levels, but it comes with risk and forces the PCs to make real choices about their actions.
Here's another way to put my problem with this part of the game: since I can't control what someone else is playing, I shouldn't have to worry that another player's choice of character class is going to have a chance to kill MY character 10% of the time per die he rolls. My only other choice within the game is to not play at the same table with someone who wants to play one of these time bombs. Well, another choice is to have my character shoot his in his sleep because I don't run with psykers. If the player gets upset that I killed his character, really it was just a pre-emptive retaliation. It was only a matter of time before he killed me.
Wait...
and shows their inquisitors rosetta(+30),
Is that something all PCs are supposed to have? Would have been nice to know. Our first challenge in the first game I played: get our weapons through customs. We were sent to this hive planet, and after a brief intro, the the gameplay started in a space port, where the local authorities told us we couldn't bring weapons in. I don't even remember how we finally got through, but I thought "Seriously? Shouldn't someone have taken care of this for us already? We ARE here on official business, after all."
Failure, loose, death, insanity and betrayal can be every bit as enjoyable as victory, loot, and love, in Roleplaying. There is a tright old optimiser line ‘you can’t roleplay if your characters dead’ Actually, sometimes, death is the best thing that can happen to a character.
Hey, I had a 1st edition Paladin frigging EXPLODE because he wouldn't make a deal with Pazuzu when he was at death's door. Death can be a memorable part of RP. I just don't think a game system should take such glee in making it inevitable.
Stop yer bickerin', you two! Everyone knows Pathfinder is the most awful RPG eva. I mean, srsly. How many versions of third edition do we really need?
F.A.T.A.L. and RAHOWA have been mentioned. Therefore, the thread is over and done with.
Although Palladium is pretty bad, and Cyborg Commando just sucks.
I'm shocked that anyone said Shadowrun - I've played several campaigns of that and it's easily my favorite system (not that I don't like Pathfinder a lot, but I prefer skill based as opposed to class based... >_> <_<).
Granted, I never played second edition, only third and fourth...maybe things were a lot different in second?
As far as non-FATALish games, though, my worst is...well, I can't even remember what it's called. I recall it was softcover, near future (when it was published - probably past now), and had transparent overlays you had to position over a generic diagram of targets and roll to see which exact dot on the overlay was where your bullets hit, though, or something along those lines. I remember the transparent overlays...I couldn't believe anyone thought that was a good idea.
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As far as non-FATALish games, though, my worst is...well, I can't even remember what it's called. I recall it was softcover, near future (when it was published - probably past now), and had transparent overlays you had to position over a generic diagram of targets and roll to see which exact dot on the overlay was where your bullets hit, though, or something along those lines. I remember the transparent overlays...I couldn't believe anyone thought that was a good idea.
I'm thinking Millennium's End. I have it packed away, terrible thing was that cunning combat idea got re-used in the Babylon5 RPG (not the awful d20 version). The thing which is most annoying about that is the rest of the B5 RPG is really good and promoted role-playing big time.
S.
PS: Same combat system due to same company... Chameleon Eclectic Entertainment, I have the second edition it would seem.
Why I said Shadowrun? It just didnt do anything for me setting wise. I am usually the DM for the group that I run for, and if I cannot get excited about a setting, then its gonna rub off onto the players. So I guess its the setting I didnt like, not the rules. ( not that I bothered to learn them over-much, seeing as how I didnt like the setting and all.) I think most of my distaste was in the creation myth of how orcs, elves, dwarves, dragons, etc. came to exist. So theyre all mutants? That just happened to breed true into stuff from mythology and Lord of the Rings?
Just my opinion.
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Why I said Shadowrun? It just didnt do anything for me setting wise. I am usually the DM for the group that I run for, and if I cannot get excited about a setting, then its gonna rub off onto the players. So I guess its the setting I didnt like, not the rules. ( not that I bothered to learn them over-much, seeing as how I didnt like the setting and all.) I think most of my distaste was in the creation myth of how orcs, elves, dwarves, dragons, etc. came to exist. So theyre all mutants? That just happened to breed true into stuff from mythology and Lord of the Rings?
Just my opinion.
The mutant explanation is just one - and not the most popular explanation in the SR Universe. Many speak of a "reawakening" of magic as well as the "true forms" of those metahumans (sorry if the vocabulary doesn't match the english 2nd edition, I only know the german translations).
Anyway (and I'm not trying to attack you, just trying to show a pattern in a number of recent posts) I think there is a big difference between an rpg I don't like ffor whatever reasons (especially if the setting is among them) and the "most awful rpg in the world", at least for me.
I'm thinking Millennium's End. I have it packed away, terrible thing was that cunning combat idea got re-used in the Babylon5 RPG (not the awful d20 version). The thing which is most annoying about that is the rest of the B5 RPG is really good and promoted role-playing big time.
That sounds familiar, so I think that's the one. And ew...why would anyone use that once, much less twice? >_<
And Whiteknife, that makes sense. I love the setting, but SR is pretty tied into it. As far as the metahuman origins, it's no so much mutations as dormant genes for thousands of years that need magic to function, so when it came back, it turned the people that had those genes into the metas. Shadowrun is the veeeery far future of Earthdawn, if I recall (only read Earthdawn's book, never got around to playing it), so that's where that comes from...it's like if you took LotR and fastforwarded it several thousand years until it was cyberpunk.
...Aaaand now I've once again given myself the mental image of Agent Elrond Smith...
...Aaaand now I've once again given myself the mental image of Agent Elrond Smith...
"Mr. Gandalf, welcome back. We've missed you." XD
LOL
I am not taking it personally. I could care less that you don’t like the game, but you made a statement of fact that “You suck at everything and you can die tying your shoes.” Which is the statement I am challenging. It is not true, characters in dark heresy are compitant, moreover, they are much better than the vast majority of people in the game setting.Well, I was exaggerating for effect, but that was the impression I was left with after two experiences with the game.
And I didn't literally mean you can die tying your shoes. I mean you can die tying your shoes IF YOU FUMBLE.
** spoiler omitted **
Without knowing exactly which perils of the warp/psychic phomina he roll, and not having either table in front of me, I can’t comment specifically, but it is within the character of the psychic powers In the 40k universe that such a thing might happen yes, and that is a deep-rooted setting element. If you are uncomfortable with the concept that ‘power comes with risk’I'm OK with the concept. The odds of it happening and the scale of damage that results from it, I found a bit much, and, IMO, a poor execution of the concept. That opinion is based on looking at the tables, quickly guesstimating the odds of reaching particular results on the table, and asking "Does this add value to the gameplay?" It was my estimation that the net gameplay-value of the table was negative, therefore the mechanic was undesirable to me.
But you're at least partly right about my preferences. I don't generally LIKE games that have an ever-declining sanity score or an ever-climbing insanity score. For a one-shot, con game, or short campaign arc, it can be a lot of fun, but I don't like it as an extended campaign concept. It's not that I'm UNCOMFORTABLE with it. I just don't find it fun.
Of the games you've mentioned, I think I've only played Mage. The risks of Mage magic generally involve only the caster himself and can be mitigated by...
On of my friends has my copy of dark heresy and the psychic rules are the bit of the rules i know least well, so i won't get into the detail until i have my copy back. But i wanted to deal with one specific thing which was the ability of backlash to effect other players. The simple answer is yes, in mage, your backlash can have a very major effect on your fellow players. You have Quiet, paradox spirits and fortian events triggered by paradox.
You discribed a condition where a group of the players got unlucky lost a few turns. In mage, if the PCs get unluck, it is entirely possible that they could have their fellow, a euthanitos, hunting them down intentionally trying to kill them, thanks to the effects of jhor(?).
I own something conservatively in excess of 1000 various roleplaying products. I deliberately avoided the "known bad" games like Synnibar, Spawn of Fashan, and F.A.T.A.L, but there's definitely some bad ones. Probably the one that made me WTF the most was Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth, a massive two-volume set that was less a game and more someone's Master's Lit thesis.
You don't just make a character, you make cultures and dynasties and whatnot. It's a concept that might be fun with a shorter treatment, but this is two encyclopedia volumes of stuff, 500 wall-of-text pages. It's like "let's roleplay the Silmarillon."
I own something conservatively in excess of 1000 various roleplaying products. I deliberately avoided the "known bad" games like Synnibar, Spawn of Fashan, and F.A.T.A.L, but there's definitely some bad ones. Probably the one that made me WTF the most was Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth, a massive two-volume set that was less a game and more someone's Master's Lit thesis.
You don't just make a character, you make cultures and dynasties and whatnot. It's a concept that might be fun with a shorter treatment, but this is two encyclopedia volumes of stuff, 500 wall-of-text pages. It's like "let's roleplay the Silmarillon."
You have me curious to read Canticle it just to know the fullness of your dread. <G> It's so very easy to create a game without giving any consideration to what a player might want out of the deal.
"Oh yeah. There will be players. Hmm."
Over 1000 RPG products? If I may, how many of those fall outside of D&D, OGL and PF product?
EVERYTHING FROM PALLADIUM BOOKS. To say the Palladium system is broken is a large understatement, it's plain F.U.B.A.R. A level-based system where level progression means jack for about half things, the starting attributes decide just about -everything-. On top of that, Kevin Siembieda is the master of writing about things he knows jack about, his level of documentation on most topics being on the lowest standards of marvel comic's writers: if you read any suposed "real world notes" on his books regarding anything from explosive decompression to physics to firearms, chances are it's all a line of bull... except for his latest books, where does blatant copy/paste jobs from wikipedia.
Yeah, but the setting and races in RIFTS are often amazingly cool. Pity the system stinks to high heaven.
EDIT: And I should have added: worst RPG of all time? FATAL, hands down. Accept No Substitutes.
I will admit to owning a copy of The World of Synnibarr. I bought it just to have a copy because it's that bad it makes for a conversation piece on my bookshelf. Of course now, admittedly, I sometimes worry that it's going to rape my other books in the middle of the night (which is why it's next to the BoED and a P-Chem textbook, because they both deserve it).
I need to find a copy of Senzar just to have another gaming eyesore.
Run off a PDF of FATAL, and it will rape you in the middle of the night. Seriously, that game reads like it was designed in the Abyss and sold to humanity by daemons.
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EVERYTHING FROM PALLADIUM BOOKS. To say the Palladium system is broken is a large understatement, it's plain F.U.B.A.R. A level-based system where level progression means jack for about half things, the starting attributes decide just about -everything-. On top of that, Kevin Siembieda is the master of writing about things he knows jack about, his level of documentation on most topics being on the lowest standards of marvel comic's writers: if you read any suposed "real world notes" on his books regarding anything from explosive decompression to physics to firearms, chances are it's all a line of bull... except for his latest books, where does blatant copy/paste jobs from wikipedia.Yeah, but the setting and races in RIFTS are often amazingly cool. Pity the system stinks to high heaven.
EDIT: And I should have added: worst RPG of all time? FATAL, hands down. Accept No Substitutes.
Don't know about him, but my counting of RPG Products (sans dice, minis, maps and magazines) is about 800, perhaps 1/3 of them non-(A)D&D/D20 products, mostly (German)Cthulhu, Alternity, Rifts/Nightbane (love the setting, use unisystem/MD20 to run),but also Savage Worlds, Unisystem, Dark Heresy, Space 1889, Deadlands, CORPS, Space Gothic, Talislanta, Kult, Gurps, In Nomine etc. Some of the D20 Stuff is pretty far of D&D, like Infernum, Monte Cooks WoD and Babylon 5.
Well, by all accounts, Reinhagen (I use Phonetic Spelling(TM) and that ing splodge is silent) is arrogant and condescending, but at least his game is okay.For years, several of us, in all seriousness, pronounced his name "Rein-dot-Hagen". We figured it was an affectation.
Is he really arrogant?
OT but -- I once spoke about the guy with an associate of mine who used to help with con security at several West Coast gamer/SF cons. He had the displeasure of meeting Mister Rein*Hagen once.
It was when the local con jailbait (this 14 year old girl who looked a LOT older when made up and undressed to the appropriate degree, and who always tried to have sex with any male GoH for a con) was hitting on R*H. He started to walk out with her, telling her that she could "show her appreciation" back up at his room.
At this point Mister Con Security stepped in. He told the girl to get lost, and then informed R*H about her real age.
R*H exploded on him. Basically gave him the whole, "I'm free, white, and 21 so scr*w you, you plebian! And I REINVENTED THE ROLEPLAYING GAME! I can do WHATEVER I WANT! And I'm taking her up to my room!"
"No, you're not."
He told me that Rein*Hagen went so far as to threaten to punch him out... and given that Mister Con Security looks like a shaved gorilla and Mister R*H, well, isn't the most physically intimidating guy, well, it would've been interesting. But Mister Con Security ended it in a much more civilized fashion: "Sir, you were bragging about your desire to have sex with an underage girl in front of a roomful of people. If I were you I'd let it go. RIGHT. NOW."
He said that R*H was pissy for the rest of the weekend but nothing else went wrong. I have to point out, though, I've yet to find anyone else who remembers this (and it sounds like something pretty memorable), so take it for what it's worth.
... Probably the one that made me WTF the most was Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth, a massive two-volume set that was less a game and more someone's Master's Lit thesis.
You don't just make a character, you make cultures and dynasties and whatnot. It's a concept that might be fun with a shorter treatment, but this is two encyclopedia volumes of stuff, 500 wall-of-text pages. It's like "let's roleplay the Silmarillon."
A friend bought the books and lent them to me. The only "usable" part was in book nr.2(?) ,on how to create cultures and histories in the game.
The rest - to unwieldy to actually play with anyone who has(or need) a job:)
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Unless I overlooked it..
There was an obscure RPG called IMMORTAL put out by Precedence Publishing.
I have mixed reactions to it. Some elements of it were really really cool, and some elements were strong White Wolf / Highlander Rip-offs.
Everybody's some kind of immortal shpeshifter, uplifted from ancient animals who got infected with a shard of a god that crashed into Earth after exiling itself from another dimension. These creatures and their adversaries have always been among us.. and so on...
The first edition had this crazy set of mechanics which might have been semi-logical, but the editing in the first edition was all but non-existant. Some cool ideas all through it, but Timecube Editing.
There was a short lived second edition that tried to redo the mechanics, but wasn't supported past the Core, and Precedence went bankrupt.
There's one guy out on the internet, by the name of Rick Don, who valiantly soldiers on to put out a 3rd edition in PDF format only.. I've looked at his work, and it's much more easy to understand. I can't speak to how good the game actually is though. You can find on the internet for free. Good sized too. I just feel bad for him because any existing fan base seems to have blown away over the years of waiting.
Was it so bad that it faded into obscurity?
I think the problem was that it tried perhaps too hard in some areas in presentation and it was perhaps very intimidating to get to.
By the way here is the website for the curent incarnation of the game. The stories and fiction associated with the game were excellent and it had great production values at times. The one print module shipped for the original game had a great CD of companion sound effects to be played at key points of the module.
And it was the one game that proved that Ivanova IS GOD! :)
Over 1000 RPG products? If I may, how many of those fall outside of D&D, OGL and PF product?
Oh, most of them, I escaped the D&D Ghetto long ago.
Let's see, analysis by bookcase feet... One 8' Ikea bookcase full of D&D-ish stuff, and one and a half full of non-D&D stuff. Now the "other" does have some bits of OGL stuff, but as in Spycraft and Mutants & Masterminds. But I've been gaming since the 1980s so there's quite a variety.
Over 1000 RPG products? If I may, how many of those fall outside of D&D, OGL and PF product?
Oh, most of them, I escaped the D&D Ghetto long ago.
Let's see, analysis by bookcase feet... One 8' Ikea bookcase full of D&D-ish stuff, and one and a half full of non-D&D stuff. Now the "other" does have some bits of OGL stuff, but as in Spycraft and Mutants & Masterminds. But I've been gaming since the 1980s so there's quite a variety.
Very cool. The way some people want to see pictures of other people's kids or kittens I want to see snapshots of RPG laden shelves. Almost all of my early play was D&D. It didn't rip into the abundant and diverse fruits of the rest of the gaming world until the last decade.
I'm making up for lost time. ;)
EVERYTHING FROM PALLADIUM BOOKS. To say the Palladium system is broken is a large understatement, it's plain F.U.B.A.R. A level-based system where level progression means jack for about half things, the starting attributes decide just about -everything-. On top of that, Kevin Siembieda is the master of writing about things he knows jack about, his level of documentation on most topics being on the lowest standards of marvel comic's writers: if you read any suposed "real world notes" on his books regarding anything from explosive decompression to physics to firearms, chances are it's all a line of bull... except for his latest books, where does blatant copy/paste jobs from wikipedia.Yeah, but the setting and races in RIFTS are often amazingly cool. Pity the system stinks to high heaven.
That's a bit strong. The Palladium system is better than full blown Rolemaster, IMO.
Kevin Siemieda is a lot better with campaign/setting design than system mechanics. I think he would have done better to license his settings or collaborate on system design rather than basically holding what are effectively his house-rules* as the be-all and end-all of gaming. Of course, if you read some of his "how to run a game" advice, about half of it involves throwing mechanics out the window (or at least making something up on the fly), anyway. Gee, how helpful.
*-you could call it basically a rewrite of OD&D/AD&D (pre-NWP) with a bunch of tacked on components if you wanted to be confrontational
Stop yer bickerin', you two! Everyone knows Pathfinder is the most awful RPG eva. I mean, srsly. How many versions of third edition do we really need?Given the perfection that was 2e AD&D, I would say exactly ZERO.
Stefan - you lost me. I played 2E back in the day but it was a pale imitation of 1E.
Court Fool - I totally agree. I'm surprised you hold such an opinion....
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Stop yer bickerin', you two! Everyone knows Pathfinder is the most awful RPG eva. I mean, srsly. How many versions of third edition do we really need?Given the perfection that was 2e AD&D, I would say exactly ZERO.Stefan - you lost me. I played 2E back in the day but it was a pale imitation of 1E.
..
2nd ed was a tidied up version of 1e. I know many would agree with you entirely but I often wonder how much of that is "but it's 1e" rather than considering the actual game play. 2nd ed add a working initiative system, that I still find elegant to this day. What made 1e good and 2e not so good? I liked Clerical domains (still in play today) and Specialist Mages (still in play today) they allowed quite a variation on a theme.
S.
I think most of my distaste was in the creation myth of how orcs, elves, dwarves, dragons, etc. came to exist. So theyre all mutants? That just happened to breed true into stuff from mythology and Lord of the Rings?
Incorrect. The species are dormant until the cyclical magical levels of Earth rise to a height that is able to support their existence. When this happens, the dormant genes within certain members of the human species trigger and we get orks, trolls, dwarfs, elves, spellcasters, etc. (Dragons merely hibernate or vanish off to a Netherworld while the magic is too low on Earth.) This also happens to animals, and we get things like griffons, kraken, etc., and also diseases, and we get lyncanthropy, vampirism, ghouls, and so on. This is why in SR it's referred to as the "Awakening."
For fans of SR and ED, we (RedBrick LLC, publishers of Earthdawn 3rd Edition, et al) are currently developing a new game called Equinox, which can be seen here. It is the *next* high-magic cycle after Shadowrun (so roughly 10,000 years into the future).
I think most of my distaste was in the creation myth of how orcs, elves, dwarves, dragons, etc. came to exist. So theyre all mutants? That just happened to breed true into stuff from mythology and Lord of the Rings?
Incorrect. When the cyclical magical levels rise to a certain height, the dormant genes within some humans express themselves and we get orks, trolls, dwarfs, elves, spellcasters, and so on (dragons merely hibernate or vanish off to a Netherworld during the low periods). The same thing happens to animals (griffons, manticores, kraken, etc.) and diseases (lyncanthropy, vampires, ghouls, etc.).
For ED and SR fans, we (RedBrick LLC, publishers of Earthdawn 3rd Edition, et al) are currently developing a new game called Equinox, which is a continuation of the timeline (roughly 10,000 years after Shadowrun).
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F.A.T.A.L. has been mentioned multiple times. Why does this thread continue?
Do I seriously have to quote the rules to show just how horrible it is?
Then again, quoting the rules would get this thread locked up, my post deleted, and possibly my account revoked.
You are right. Any game that answers the question burning in every role-players mind about exactly what the circumference of your characters large intestines exit is, deserves the title hands down.
I challenge anyone to beat FATAL in it's useless grossness and awful mechanics! Seriously the words "Ripped Orifice" should never be penned as rules.
I think we need to start on the "2nd worst RPG" if this thread is to continue.
S.
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F.A.T.A.L. has been mentioned multiple times. Why does this thread continue?
Do I seriously have to quote the rules to show just how horrible it is?
Then again, quoting the rules would get this thread locked up, my post deleted, and possibly my account revoked.
You are right. Any game that answers the question burning in every role-players mind about exactly what the circumference of your characters large intestines exit is, deserves the title hands down.
I challenge anyone to beat FATAL in it's useless grossness and awful mechanics! Seriously the words "Ripped Orifice" should never be penned as rules.
You forgot to mention that it is possible, by the rules, to have a negative anal circumference.
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Length: The height (or length) of the character (or creature) in feet is converted directly to inches (6’ = 6”; 5’ 10” = 5.83”). This is the Base Length of his Manhood.
Then roll 10d100, divide the sum by 5, and subtract 1 from the total [(10d100 / 5) - 1]. Consult the table below:
Manhood Roll Size Modifier1
1-6 - 70%
7-12 - 68%
13-18 - 66%
19-24 - 64%
25-30 - 62%
31-36 - 59%
37-42 - 56%
43-48 - 52%
49-54 - 48%
55-60 - 43%
61-66 - 38%
67-72 - 33%
73-78 - 27%
79-84 - 21%
85-90 - 14%
91-96 - 7%
97-102 -
103-108 + 7%
109-114 + 16%
115-120 + 24%
121-126 + 33%
127-132 + 43%
133-138 + 53%
139-144 + 63%
145-150 + 74%
151-156 + 85%
157-162 + 97%
163-168 + 109%
169-174 + 121%
175-180 + 134%
181-186 + 147%
187-192 + 160%
193-199 + 175%The resultant percentage is applied to the Base Length of the character’s Manhood, determining the actual length. For instance, a manhood roll of 115 indicates a Size Modifier of + 28%. If the character were 6’ tall, then the length of his Manhood would now be 7.68 inches (28% of 6 = 1.68; so, 6 + 1.68).
Note that this is the shortest measurable length, taken from the top or belly-button side, not the bottom or testicular side, and constitutes all that a female may take from a missionary position. However, if the female were to mount the Manhood from above while facing her partner and leaning back, she would actually take 1.15 times the Base Length, accounting for the remainder. For instance, with a Base Length of 6 inches, with experimentation, it is possible for the female to enjoy 6.9 inches, depending on the angle.
Circumference: The Base Length of the Manhood is now multiplied by 0.85. This is the Base Circumference of the Manhood in question.
Finally, roll [(10d100 / 5) - 1], observe the Size Modifier on the table above, and apply this modifier to the Base Circumference to determine the actual circumference.
We have a winner! I'd like to point out that there are over 900 pages in this thing. And frankly that's one of the more simple stats to calculate. Not only is it ridiculously offensive and juvenile, the system itself is a horrendously unplayable mess.
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You forgot to mention that it is possible, by the rules, to have a negative anal circumference.F.A.T.A.L. has been mentioned multiple times. Why does this thread continue?
Do I seriously have to quote the rules to show just how horrible it is?
Then again, quoting the rules would get this thread locked up, my post deleted, and possibly my account revoked.
You are right. Any game that answers the question burning in every role-players mind about exactly what the circumference of your characters large intestines exit is, deserves the title hands down.
I challenge anyone to beat FATAL in it's useless grossness and awful mechanics! Seriously the words "Ripped Orifice" should never be penned as rules.
I can't believe I'm about to have this conversation, but...
The "ahem" circumference table has a minimum that is equivalent to '2 fingers' from the same species - negative isn't possible, well at least during character generation.
I can't even imagine what the designers were thinking when they penned such gems as (and I quote) "or never have accommodated sufficient Manhood"
I need to shower now <shudder>. FATAL just plain wins.
S.
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Have we really sunk so low as to have a debate on RAW vs RAI for FATAL?
I keep the PDF just for the sheer LMFAO potential. You can open to any given page, and there's something there that just makes your brain scream in agony, disgust, horror, and revulsion. And yet you can't stop laughing, because some moron thought that this hideous abortion was worth writing, publishing, and presumably PLAYING.
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Have we really sunk so low as to have a debate on RAW vs RAI for FATAL?
I keep the PDF just for the sheer LMFAO potential. You can open to any given page, and there's something there that just makes your brain scream in agony, disgust, horror, and revulsion. And yet you can't stop laughing, because some moron thought that this hideous abortion was worth writing, publishing, and presumably PLAYING.
Anyone doing a PbP FATAL game? Just curious. $10 says it doesn't last the first session - actually doesn't last character generation!