What is your worst roleplaying game?

[raygun goth]

I'd argue that this is more a matter of the term dragon being applied way too broadly, and now it has several distinct definitions which line up with very different mythological entities, plus one large lizard with a disease filled mouth. I certainly wouldn't call anything in Talislanta an elf, particularly when the point of the tagline is that unlike way too many of its contemporaries, it didn't use the standard pseudo-Tolkenien species set.

Of course, by now it's just distancing itself from a fad that's pretty much entirely gone anyways.

I'll call them elves as long as Talislanta's writing also continues to be dismissivley patronizing on top of its self-aggrandizing pretention. Of course, Riddle of Steel is a big offender there, too, where instead of spreading it out among multiple supplements, they included two chapters in the rulebook to telling you how awesome, perfect, realisitic, and easy-to-use their system is. Protip: it is none of these things.

Talislanta advertised a different setting than what was offered - "yeah we're gonna break away from Tolkein" then went ahead and actually included a lot of Tolkein, just the "lesser known" stuff at the time, and almost ripping off the Dreamlands just as badly; now, if the cover had said "strap yourself in for high adventures in a fantasy world based on 1930s and 1940s fantasy lit" and just didn't try to advertise that is just "wasn't D&D" I could give things some more slack - this is the same problem I had with Spelljammer, too. Spelljammer's cover and back copy and liner copy told me it was going to be your standard D&D adventures in space if everything Kepler believed was true. Now, if those notes and back copy said "hey you get ready to be like Baron Munchausen in space except there are dwaaaves and elven princesses and magical rastafarian centipedes" I would be far more interested.

[nyjastul69]

Dnd 3.5 without a doubt. I can't stand to play it. I used to tolerate it, then 5e happened and now I can't even play 3.5 without being constantly irritated and disappointed.

I would suggest to you not trying to play 3.5.

[tensai_oni]

The thing about Shadowrun is, it's not supposed to be realistic. The megacorps are supposed to be blatantly, obviously evil (as opposed to less obvious and more insidious ways of RL evil), and the setting bends over to accomodate that. It's a part of the premise, like magic in DnD.

Off topic but what are good new RPG's in contrast to the bad ones?

FATE + derivative systems (Dresden Files RPG for example)
Mutants and Masterminds 3rd edition
Don't Rest Your Head
Chuubo
Legends of Wulin
Chris Perrin's Mecha RPG

Worst I Own a Digital Copy of
Pathfinder or D&D 3.5 or Legends of the Wulin

What's so bad about Wulin that it's worst for you? The system has flaws but I find it overall very strong anyway.

[Knaight]

I realized that this thread is missing something: Fyxt. It's one of the worst systems I have ever seen, and is chock full about how it is different than "other RPGs", which either means that it's worse or that their new innovative mechanics trace back to something slightly less well known than D&D, maybe.

Then there's the attitude. The title is bad enough, but the writing is basically paragraph after paragraph of "Here's how other RPGs do it wrong. Here's our fix. [Mechanics that suck worse than the "bad" example]. Look how brilliant we are."

[Sith_Happens]

*Googles "Fyxt"*

*browses website*

...Holy crap, it's like some weird mutant lovechild of D&D 4e and M&M with even MORE math.

[Lacco]

I'll call them elves as long as Talislanta's writing also continues to be dismissivley patronizing on top of its self-aggrandizing pretention. Of course, Riddle of Steel is a big offender there, too, where instead of spreading it out among multiple supplements, they included two chapters in the rulebook to telling you how awesome, perfect, realisitic, and easy-to-use their system is. Protip: it is none of these things.

Ah, RoS, my favourite system...

Character generation? Easy-to-use. But with certain learning-curve difficulties.
The combat system? Awesome, realistic, easy-to-use. With lot learning-curve difficulties.
Other parts? ...meh...
Magic system? Horrible, terrible, gaaaaaah!

They had few good ideas. They did great with combat system. And I still love the system, but disallow the magic & fey for it to work

Chuubo

What's Chuubo?

[tensai_oni]

Chuubo's Marvelous Wish Granting Engine

I must admit that I didn't play it in person, I only saw my friends play it. But it's very good if it's your thing.

It's not a typical RPG with quests and fighting monsters though you can actually use it for that purpose too, I suppose. The game has a heavy focus on character development and personal story arcs, and a strange but charming mix of mundane slice of life with supernatural, almost mythological elements.

[Khedrac]

With heavy heart I feel I must put 4th Ed (Marc Miller's) Traveller up for an honorable mention:

Basically it was quite a close re-write of original Traveller (with expansions), and if you stopped at the first few rulebooks it was OK.

The problem was the vehicle and spaceship creation rules.
However, everything had to work by conventional physics except the jump drives - yes, it really did help to be a rocket scientist to understand the equations.

Oh, they added in higher-tech equivalents like thruster plates, but the acceleration produced boiled down to thrust/mass.
Sensors were radar and eyes, no grav detectors, no handwavium of any form not previously published (oh, except 'cold' fusion power sources).

This was poor, but then they produced the formulas rulebook (iirc including things like flight time for ballistic shells, time to orbit for rockets etc.) and there was a glitch between the proofs they saw and the actual printed copies - which messed up multiplication, division and square root symbols.
Yes, they made an errata downloadable, but the book should never have been written - it was all standard physics and far too complex for a rpg.

Shortly afterwards the game sank without a trace - sad, but probably deserved.

I bought everything published for it and have never used any of it.

[Vknight]

The thing about Shadowrun is, it's not supposed to be realistic. The megacorps are supposed to be blatantly, obviously evil (as opposed to less obvious and more insidious ways of RL evil), and the setting bends over to accomodate that. It's a part of the premise, like magic in DnD.

FATE + derivative systems (Dresden Files RPG for example)
Mutants and Masterminds 3rd edition
Don't Rest Your Head
Chuubo
Legends of Wulin
Chris Perrin's Mecha RPG

What's so bad about Wulin that it's worst for you? The system has flaws but I find it overall very strong anyway.

Its a worse version of
Monsters and Other Childish Things/Godlike/Wild Talents when it comes to mechanics.
So worst in that case is looking at a bunch of really good games and which is the worst among them.

My other digital games are, things like, well.
Slasher Flick which is super well designed
Nights Black Agents which is Gumshoe
All the above mentioned One Roll Engine games
Pathfinder
The Dragon Age rpg which is a great little system even if you don't like the setting
Eclipse Phase which is the greatest thing
FATE games from Atomic Robo to Mindjammer and everything in between.
and
Shadowrun
Its comparing diamonds there all fantastic but the worst of the lot is Pathfinder and Wulin

[Lord Torath]

Spelljammer's cover and back copy and liner copy told me it was going to be your standard D&D adventures in space if everything Kepler believed was true. Now, if those notes and back copy said "hey you get ready to be like Baron Munchausen in space except there are dwaaaves and elven princesses and magical rastafarian centipedes" I would be far more interested.

Really? My copy specifically mentions crystal shells bobbing in a turbulent rainbow ocean on the back of the box. No mention of any real-world astronomers at all. And the first words past the credits page are "Everything you know about space is wrong."

Are you sure you mean Kepler? He's the guy, who, working with Tycho Brahe, determined that the orbits of planets were not circles, but ellipses.

[Krazzman]

DSA (Das Schwarze Auge, or the Black Eye):
I don't like it. No clue if it is again because of the DMing style but certainly it is because of the system too.
It is a lower fantasy/magic or whatever system. The PC's are more "mundane" albeit magic is possible the regeneration is awfully slow and blasting is about as useful as a rock in a desert. Yes you might kill something but you give up 1 Mana for each point of Damage minimum and killing someone with direct damage means you have to recharge for 2-5 days depending on build.

Then there is the fact that everything costs points and generating an old character brings just soooooo much more benefits it's crazy not to take it. You have a **** ton of skills that get a penalty for nearly everything.

In the one campaign I was in I was playing a "hotshot" (more like weirdly energetic) scout. Focused on Crossbows and Spears. Believing in some sort of worldwhale that needs your soul after death to gain strength from it. So the "stronger" you are the better. Things that happened: I found 2 Crossbows, lost 1 due to "environmental damage whilst traveling" after firing one shot. We got a "wish" kind of thing from our employer (the thief guild) and since he was basically showcasing different fighting styles we went after... was laughed at my wish to get stronger and learn to fight with a sword properly.

Jeah. Not gonna try that again.

Vampire the Masquerade:
A case of not being really up to date what the system was about. Tried it 4 times. One "stained soul vampire"(albeit in the old world setting not masquerade). Twice as Bruja one time the Toughness Illusionists. I haven't really had fun.
The stained soul had the luck of being dry from vampire generation -> direct frenzy. Bruja's were beefy paranoid muscle dude before transformation and a "slick "enforcer"". The last one was a criminal(think vampire mafia goon) and well... he was kidnapped in the introduction because the DM basically skipped me then told me that my illusion would take too long to create. (Guy tries entering my reinforced door, open window in my bedroom, hide in closet, make illusion of closet not being there was the plan). So basically my character waited 10 minutes and then was overpowered since the guy just paralyzed me.)

Gamma World

Tried to build a concept in my mind. Had to rush because "we want to start to play this year..." due cutting many things from the build. As such concept and backstory made no sense anymore (me bad at improv) and make bonkers backstory out of it. Did basically nothing except rescuing our driver and another player because our mage tried to signal the driver from the back of the wagontrain and well incended his hat.

AFMBE
I like the concept and the system but can't come up with anything worthwhile as a campaign or whatever. Hence I sort of hate it for that

[tensai_oni]

Sounds like the problem lies less in the systems you played and more people you played them with.

[Krazzman]

Sounds like the problem lies less in the systems you played and more people you played them with.

This certainly might be the case. Except for AFMBE... I am just uninspired by what to run there.

[Kurald Galain]

DSA (Das Schwarze Auge, or the Black Eye):
I don't like it. No clue if it is again because of the DMing style but certainly it is because of the system too.
It is a lower fantasy/magic or whatever system. The PC's are more "mundane" albeit magic is possible the regeneration is awfully slow and blasting is about as useful as a rock in a desert. Yes you might kill something but you give up 1 Mana for each point of Damage minimum and killing someone with direct damage means you have to recharge for 2-5 days depending on build.

I have heard DSA went through several editions or rewrites that are widely different. That said, what I've seen from it is uniformly awful, from the doggerel rhymes that the player has to chant whenever his character casts a spell, to the "ability scores" for greed and curiosity, that you had to make frequent tests on to avoid doing something stupid...

[Krazzman]

I have heard DSA went through several editions or rewrites that are widely different. That said, what I've seen from it is uniformly awful, from the doggerel rhymes that the player has to chant whenever his character casts a spell, to the "ability scores" for greed and curiosity, that you had to make frequent tests on to avoid doing something stupid...

More or less. I think it was 4th Edition. Greed and Curiosity are as well as many other similar "drawbacks" basically enforced character traits. Worst combination is Fear of Corpses(decayed) and Curiosity. Means 2 failed rolls = you are out of the "whatever" and most likely blew your groups cover...

[raygun goth]

Really? My copy specifically mentions crystal shells bobbing in a turbulent rainbow ocean on the back of the box. No mention of any real-world astronomers at all. And the first words past the credits page are "Everything you know about space is wrong."

Are you sure you mean Kepler? He's the guy, who, working with Tycho Brahe, determined that the orbits of planets were not circles, but ellipses.

The two most dominating scientific hypotheses of Kepler's time were affixed crystal spheres to which the stars were attached and the phlogiston theory of fire. Spelljammer is actually very accurate in regards to what was believed to be true in regards to the universe during the 17th century - it just doesn't inform you that you're going to be bargaining for giant space hamsters with penguins riding flying pigs.

[Knaight]

Its a worse version of
Monsters and Other Childish Things/Godlike/Wild Talents when it comes to mechanics.
So worst in that case is looking at a bunch of really good games and which is the worst among them.

There's a lot of room to be worse than the One Roll Engine and still really solid. ORE is brilliant, and Greg Stolze is on my short list of designers who's stuff I just assume will be extremely competent, sight unseen.

Have you seen REIGN and Nemesis? Nemesis is the early free one, and has some really cool mechanics that weren't duplicated in the ones listed (mostly those specific to action-horror). REIGN is pretty much my go to example for how to handle interactions between very large groups of people, while still having the PCs matter.

[137beth]

My least favorite game that I've played is probably out-of-the-box Pathfinder. Everything I dislike about D&D 3.5 with none of the things I like about it. Other contenders include AD&D 1e and Paranoia.
Worst game that I've heard about would be the Circle Chief's SUE system. There are a fair number of bad-but-obscure systems I've read but haven't played, though I'm not sure any of them could qualify as "worst."

I also really, strongly dislike the world and fluff of Cthulhu, but I like both the BRP/d100 lite system and d20 (and some, but not all, of the new d20 rules that were added in CoC d20).

[Jolly Steve]

Mouse Guard. The system seemed strangely incapable of resolving the simplest action.

[Knaight]

Mouse Guard. The system seemed strangely incapable of resolving the simplest action.

This sounds like a GM issue. If your complaint was something like it feeling more formulaic due to the GM turn it would make sense, but it has a pretty standard task resolution system. You want to do a thing, it has a difficulty, you roll some dice, you either do the thing or you don't, and failure might cost you a bit.

[Kurald Galain]

My least favorite game that I've played is probably out-of-the-box Pathfinder. Everything I dislike about D&D 3.5 with none of the things I like about it. Other contenders include AD&D 1e and Paranoia.

I'm sorry citizen, this thread is not available at your security clearance.

[hamlet]

I'm sorry citizen, this thread is not available at your security clearance.

Then again, none of us have the clearance to be here. We are all traitors and should immediately report to the nearest extermination booth.

[Sith_Happens]

Most of the text on this forum is pretty clearly IR-level clearance. Now you may report to the nearest extermination booth. :P

[RazorChain]

D&D in general is the worst system I have played. I have played anything from the red box to 3.5, played it for years as a teenager because I didn't know any better, played it again for a short stint when I was 20+, tried it again using the L5R. For me D&D is like McDonalds, it tastes like crap but is everywhere and I don't why people enjoy it. Don't get me wrong there are other probably worse system out there, but for lots of players it is the stepping stone into RPG and is the most popular. It's the VHS of roleplaying.

Now I'm not going to say that I haven't enjoyed myself during many my D&D games but that was more because of the people I played with.
I doubt D&D has gotten better in the recent editions but the rules always offended my sense of realism. I often remember D&D from the things I couldn't do.
Me:"So the necromancer has stoneskin, my barbarian makes an armed grapple and chokes him with the hilt of his long axe. Try to cast a spell now you wicked wizard"
GM: "No you can't do that"
Me:"Why not?, if I don't he's going to blast me to smithereens with his magic"

GM:"The wight drains from you 2 levels"
Me:"What? Who? What do you mean? did I lose my memory? the past 2 months of adventure gone?"
GM: "No he just drains your levels"
Me: "Gee thanks for breaking my immersion...this is stupid"

GM: "You fall 2 miles down the almost bottomless pit and take 20d6 in damage"
Me: "WTF why aint I just dead....splat"

I remember when one of my DM's maintained in some places bartering was used. I took him on his word and tried to pay for my platemail with 15.000 sheep. If gold was so frigging abundant why on earth use it as currency?

[Sith_Happens]

Me:"So the necromancer has stoneskin, my barbarian makes an armed grapple and chokes him with the hilt of his long axe. Try to cast a spell now you wicked wizard"
GM: "No you can't do that"
Me:"Why not?, if I don't he's going to blast me to smithereens with his magic"

Huh, which edition was this in, because in 3rd you can totally do this by spending a second attack to pin him (and if you're low enough level to still have one attack per turn then the Concentration DC to cast in a grapple is high enough to be a crapshoot anyways, not to mention most of the "blast"-y spells automatically fail due to having somatic components).

GM:"The wight drains from you 2 levels"
Me:"What? Who? What do you mean? did I lose my memory? the past 2 months of adventure gone?"
GM: "No he just drains your levels"
Me: "Gee thanks for breaking my immersion...this is stupid"

The description the DM was supposed to use here is that it drained your very life force, though I suppose how that translates to levels rather than hit points is kind of eh.

GM: "You fall 2 miles down the almost bottomless pit and take 20d6 in damage"
Me: "WTF why aint I just dead....splat"

Because terminal velocity is a thing.

I remember when one of my DM's maintained in some places bartering was used. I took him on his word and tried to pay for my platemail with 15.000 sheep. If gold was so frigging abundant why on earth use it as currency?

Wait, are you saying they didn't take the sheep? Why not, that's a great deal.

[Telok]

That's mostly DM issues. I feel that because D&D is so overhyped it gets three things;

1) The new guys. New DMs are fine, as long as they learn from mistakes. Heck, I've been in ths hobby nigh on thirty years now and I still make mistakes (I try to own up to them and learn). But new guys tend to rely on the rules as written a bit more than the experienced folk and that makes them... brittle? There's a word to describe what I'm thinking about, it'll come to me eventually.

2) The lowest common denominator. This is that McDonalds effect. D&D sees more people who learned "gaming" from video games and never quite got past that experience. It sees more people who think "roleplaying" is rolling dice and killing stuff and then taking the loot to a merchant. It sees more people who want to hang with friends and do what the group does but don't care about playing or learning the game. It sees more people with issues that they bring into the game.

3) The people who think that D&D is the start, end, and gold standard of roleplaying games. D&D isn't a good system for a lot of things. What D&D has been designed for, and what it's good for, has changed over the years. Plus, what it's designed for and what it's good at have diverged over the years too. But there are people who think that D&D is the best thing and take every advertisement from the company as gospel.

[Elderand]

3) The people who think that D&D is the start, end, and gold standard of roleplaying games. D&D isn't a good system for a lot of things. What D&D has been designed for, and what it's good for, has changed over the years. Plus, what it's designed for and what it's good at have diverged over the years too. But there are people who think that D&D is the best thing and take every advertisement from the company as gospel.

That's hardly limited to dnd. In fact you can find people who act like that for any given system. This gets worse if the system is in any way shape or form "universal"

[JoeJ]

That's hardly limited to dnd. In fact you can find people who act like that for any given system. This gets worse if the system is in any way shape or form "universal"

________ is the best system ever because you can play absolutely any kind of character you want. (Except _____, of course, but nobody would want to play that kind of character anyway because they're dumb.)

[RazorChain]

Huh, which edition was this in, because in 3rd you can totally do this by spending a second attack to pin him (and if you're low enough level to still have one attack per turn then the Concentration DC to cast in a grapple is high enough to be a crapshoot anyways, not to mention most of the "blast"-y spells automatically fail due to having somatic components).

This was Ad&D 2.ed. it did not have good hand to hand combat rules.

Wait, are you saying they didn't take the sheep? Why not, that's a great deal.

No not really, Plate mail costs 1500 gold and the price of sheep was 1 silver. I went to lot of effort to buy all these sheep. I considered chicken but IIRC the price was really low so I propably would have needed all the chickens in the kingdom. One DM I played with had a business degree and we discussed gaming economy and found out that if D&D gold was like the medieval gold florin which was 3.5 gram of gold you would have needed approx. 12 lbs of gold for a plate mail. Of course heavier coins existed like the English gold florin which was 7 gram....then we are talking approx. 24 lbs of fine gold....for a plate that weighs 50 lbs.

[Cazero]

One DM I played with had a business degree and we discussed gaming economy and found out that if D&D gold was like the medieval gold florin which was 3.5 gram of gold you would have needed approx. 12 lbs of gold for a plate mail. Of course heavier coins existed like the English gold florin which was 7 gram....then we are talking approx. 24 lbs of fine gold....for a plate that weighs 50 lbs.

This only evidence the obvious : gold is used as currency because it's rare enough to be hard to counterfeit and litteraly useless otherwise. Gold only quality (in medieval times) is being a pretty shiny shade of yellow. The craftmanship required to make a proper armor is far more valuable than some useless yellow rocks. I have no problem with that price range.