What is your worst roleplaying game?

[Anonymouswizard]

I recently ran a cyberpunk game. All the players felt like it was the present day.

About five years ago I would have told you that the Culture was the obvious future for humanity.

Now I'm waiting until the countries break apart and mafia pizza companies have '30 minutes or it's free and we shoot the driver'.

Some other amusingly bad RPGs I haven't had the dubious pleasure of playing:

Vampire: Undeath: As you might guess from the name, it's a Vampire: the Masquerade ripoff. The most notable thing about it is the sheer BLATANCY of the ripoff, the writer seems to have literally search-and-replaced some names and terminology.

It's like the version of a fantasy heartbreaker where the closest thing to a good idea is lifted wholesale from another game. In this case 'Vampire the Masquerade but with D&D's class and level system!' sounds like what they were going for.

[BayardSPSR]

but with D&D's class and level system!' sounds like what they were going for.

Why would someone do that. That's not the good part. Why would they do that... Why...

[Grod_The_Giant]

Why would someone do that. That's not the good part. Why would they do that... Why...

I mean, in theory a class/level has a lot of advantages when it comes to simplicity and interparty balance. In theory two characters of the same level should have about equal capabilities, and neither will, say, have ten times the combat power of the other. In theory it means a new player has to make many fewer choices. From what I know of White Wolf style setups, it could work quite well: each Clan/Caste/Whatever is a class, with subclasses/ACFs for various power specializations. In theory it could result in a nice tight game.

D&D has never really matched those theories.

[Anonymouswizard]

I mean, in theory a class/level has a lot of advantages when it comes to simplicity and interparty balance. In theory two characters of the same level should have about equal capabilities, and neither will, say, have ten times the combat power of the other. In theory it means a new player has to make many fewer choices. From what I know of White Wolf style setups, it could work quite well: each Clan/Caste/Whatever is a class, with subclasses/ACFs for various power specializations. In theory it could result in a nice tight game.

Of course, the only reason the game I'm currently designing doesn't have a class/level system is because I don't like them (and in fact, character advancement is designed to avoid it being a simple hack). White Wolf style games generally are a class setup, with your Clan/Tribe/Tradition/Caste/Divine Parent is your class, and your level is approximately equivalent to your power stat. Heck, I think Exalted 3 might even have levels, from what I've seen I've at least drawn the impression that you get a dot of essence every X experience (where X may or may not be constant).

Heck, I've met class/level systems I don't mind (the Warhammer 40000 RPGs spring to mind), but there the classes resonated with the setting. Even with Anima: Beyond Fantasy I could see myself running a 'freelancer only' game (with enemies made from scratch due to the power difference) just to see what the class system adds (I'm guessing it's character specialisation).

D&D has never really matched those theories.

Of course not, that's why I'm writing my own game. Which I'll probably stop writing once I can get a copy of The Dark Eye, because it looks like exactly the fantasy game I want, but it's still a nice exercise.

[Sith_Happens]

Heck, I think Exalted 3 might even have levels, from what I've seen I've at least drawn the impression that you get a dot of essence every X experience (where X may or may not be constant).

Indeed, they changed to that from having buy your Essence up because having to buy your power stat sucks and Essence is significantly more important than any of WoD/CofD's power stats.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Indeed, they changed to that from having buy your Essence up because having to buy your power stat sucks and Essence is significantly more important than any of WoD/CofD's power stats.

Yeah, I think it's definitely a positive change.

[LibraryOgre]

Rifts has an overpowered gonzo mishmash of a sci-fi/fantasy setting with rules that started as someone's AD&D houserules and haven't been cleaned up in over two decades. (There's a Savage Worlds version due out Real Soon Now, which was a huge surprise to me when I heard about it, given the owner's legendary stubbornness about updating the game.)

Already out to KS backers, and I think available to anyone as PDF.

[Flickerdart]

I played a game of Fate Core and found it a very halting experience. It was probably just a playstyle thing - my group and I were used to rules-hard games where you could ask the system "what can I do?" and get back a finite list, then pick the best option. A rules-soft game where you first decide what to do and then pick rules to represent it led the entire group into a stupor.

[Vknight]

I played a game of Fate Core and found it a very halting experience. It was probably just a playstyle thing - my group and I were used to rules-hard games where you could ask the system "what can I do?" and get back a finite list, then pick the best option. A rules-soft game where you first decide what to do and then pick rules to represent it led the entire group into a stupor.

So your bad roleplayers? I jest I jest but that is more a lack of creativity, intrinsic understanding of the game etc. and nothing to do with the game itself.

[caden_varn]

I've just finished my second scenario in Fate, and it has been a tough change to get used to, so I empathise strongly with Flickerdart. None of us have ever played the game before, so we didn't have an expert helping us through. We are getting the mindset sorted out a bit better now, and the final fight ran much better with aspects getting created all over the place instead of people just defaulting to attack actions all the time.

Spending a fair bit of time with one of my players rebuilding his character and making sure to bolt 'proactive' in there, giving some concrete goals with obvious short term priorities helped a lot. I think that was the failing of the first scenario I ran - the players were too reactive.

One thing I do think the Fate: Core book falls down on is the advice that you can spend a part of the first session creating the world and you are all set to go - this might work for experienced groups where the players are happy to add stuff to the world as they go along, but for newbies or players from a more traditional gaming background (D&D, Earthdawn, Traveller etc..), I think a LOT more time than this is needed in the word-building to get a decently immersive game.

BUt long story short, I think it does take time to adjust. If your group is OK with it after the first adventure, try again learning some of the lessons, and make sure your characters get the proactivity bit (drama and competence come more easily IMO).

I'd love a chance to play in an experienced group to see how it flows in that environment. (I'd pretty much just like to play to be honest, need to work on my group to get someone to run a session of that)

[Grod_The_Giant]

I've just finished my second scenario in Fate, and it has been a tough change to get used to, so I empathise strongly with Flickerdart. None of us have ever played the game before, so we didn't have an expert helping us through. We are getting the mindset sorted out a bit better now, and the final fight ran much better with aspects getting created all over the place instead of people just defaulting to attack actions all the time.

Yeah, Fate is very dissimilar to your standard D&D/WoD style RPG. I've played two major campaigns, and both took a while for everyone to really get used to how the game should work. The things 95% of game systems tell you don't really matter in a fight (harassing foes and manipulating the environment) are usually the best things to do in Fate. And I don't know if anyone ever really figured out how to effectively use Aspects in social scenes...

[Anonymouswizard]

I've just finished my second scenario in Fate, and it has been a tough change to get used to, so I empathise strongly with Flickerdart. None of us have ever played the game before, so we didn't have an expert helping us through. We are getting the mindset sorted out a bit better now, and the final fight ran much better with aspects getting created all over the place instead of people just defaulting to attack actions all the time.

I'm in that annoying position where I love Fate and really want to run a whole campaign in it, but it's a pain finding a group willing to give it a go.

One thing I do think the Fate: Core book falls down on is the advice that you can spend a part of the first session creating the world and you are all set to go - this might work for experienced groups where the players are happy to add stuff to the world as they go along, but for newbies or players from a more traditional gaming background (D&D, Earthdawn, Traveller etc..), I think a LOT more time than this is needed in the word-building to get a decently immersive game.

To be fair, Fate doesn't really expect you to play in the game (and character) creation session, although it doesn't forbid it. I actually think that for people coming from other games should continue using the worldbuilding style used there (i.e. let the GM do it) and just skip straight to the Issues they want to appear in the game, while the system should also push the idea of just starting with the very basics and two issues and concentrating on worldbuilding as you go (with any luck you should have a decent world sorted out by the end of character creation anyway, with some organisations tied to character aspects and character goals that imply stuff).

Now I love Fate to pieces, although when I ran it I hadn't quite got my head around the idea of situation aspects (I have now), but to many people what it asks of it's players is just weird.

[kyoryu]

I mean, in theory a class/level has a lot of advantages when it comes to simplicity and interparty balance. In theory two characters of the same level should have about equal capabilities, and neither will, say, have ten times the combat power of the other. In theory it means a new player has to make many fewer choices. From what I know of White Wolf style setups, it could work quite well: each Clan/Caste/Whatever is a class, with subclasses/ACFs for various power specializations. In theory it could result in a nice tight game.

D&D has never really matched those theories.

Old-school D&D was never really about those theories. Since players had a number of characters, and death was a very real thing, keeping balance between characters in the One True Party wasn't really important. Sure, your fighter might be outshined by Bill's wizard *this* week, but *next* week maybe your cleric will outshine Bill's thief.

I played a game of Fate Core and found it a very halting experience. It was probably just a playstyle thing - my group and I were used to rules-hard games where you could ask the system "what can I do?" and get back a finite list, then pick the best option. A rules-soft game where you first decide what to do and then pick rules to represent it led the entire group into a stupor.

This is a fair criticism. Fate's not good for people who like list-based gaming.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Old-school D&D was never really about those theories. Since players had a number of characters, and death was a very real thing, keeping balance between characters in the One True Party wasn't really important. Sure, your fighter might be outshined by Bill's wizard *this* week, but *next* week maybe your cleric will outshine Bill's thief.

Where did I say I was taking about original-flavor D&D?

[Khedrac]

Where did I say I was taking about original-flavor D&D?

That would be when you used the word "never" - this means you are talking about all versions of D&D to date.

D&D has never really matched those theories.

That said, you shouldn't assume that kyoryu is trying to say you are wrong, merely pointing out that your assertions are not universally valid.
Thus forum in particular is usually much more approachable than some of the others. We tend to discuss things bouncing ideas off each other and springing off their posts in not necessarily expected directions.
This particular thread is all about opinion and everyone is expected to hold their own, some of them may surprise some of us (causing us to attempt to defend the games we like - usually a fruitless exercise) it can just get a little sticky when people state opinions as absolute facts. (Note: apart from the "never" I think I agree with all of your post as it relates to 3rd Ed.)

[caden_varn]

Well, back to the original idea of the thread - just sttod in front of my bookcases with all my gaming crap in them and pondered a bit. I don't think any of the games I have I would call bad, but some of them I can't get my head round, and others have a few niggles.

I'll start of with White Wolf - not a lot of experience here as I have only ever been able to run the game, and while I seem to be able to do Werewolf OK, I don't have the mindset for Vampire. Would have liked to have played in most of them. But do they really need to reinvent all the in-game terms for each game? Vampires call their group a coterie. Werewolves have a pack (fair enough there). Mages have a chantry. In Orpheus, they call it a crucible. Really? You are supposed to be working for a firm that wants to be thought of as respectable, and they call their teams crucibles? Every game has to have their own name, and as more games were released, the names got stupider. Then we get to Promethean, where we have a group of characters which hate company, but for some ill-explained reason band together. There is a storng argument that I really should have stopped buying White Wolf stuff a long time ago. I have thrown a stupid amount of money at them over the years.

Then there are games I like in theory, but cannot get my head round to run (There are other people in my circle who run, but it tends to the standard D&D etc. type games). Nephilim, Immortal and Kult look interesting, but I don't really have much idea how to construct adventures for them that will mesh with my player base. I had a bit of fun with Obsidian, but not really good at adventures with that either (not terribly good with SciFi), and you need to understand the system and the sort of game you want to run to filter players into sensible careers.

I think the 'worst' game I played in the last few years was a TMNT game - not sure of the exact title. An old game with just about everything randomly generated. The rest of the group got to have psionic abilities and all sorts of skills - I got to be a wild creature with all but one skill already assigned (mostly stuff like climbing and swimming which would have been more useful if I hadn't a Cardinal bird, with nothing better to spend my points on than full flight. And apparently in this game you cannot buy new skills, only improve the ones you have. It was OK as a one-off, but I would have dropped for a second adventure without a rebuild. I was pretty much useless except for comedy value.

[2D8HP]

Not the worst, but 1981's
Stormbringer game was definitely an early "heartbreaker" in that in most ways it did a better job of portraying the fiction that originally inspired D&D than my beloved 70's Dungeons & Dragons did, but it had a fatal flaw as a game.
The random character creation system while true to the "world" it portrayed, was as likely to generate drooling beggers as mighty sorcerers, making it largely a "hero" and "sidekicks" game.
There was a good "core", but unless you were very lucky when you rolled your PC up, if you strictly followed RAW for character creation, it just wasn't that fun.

[caden_varn]

A lot of the early games had that issue, D&D among them. Too much randomness in character creation leading to the hero and sidekick syndrome you mention. It can be fun for a one-off, but I have never seen it work for longer campaigns.

But this is why back in the 80s we all ended up with a load of houserules, and 'roll 3 characters and pick the one that might win a fight against a squirrel' etc. to combat that & make the games playable

[Vknight]

Yeah, Fate is very dissimilar to your standard D&D/WoD style RPG. I've played two major campaigns, and both took a while for everyone to really get used to how the game should work. The things 95% of game systems tell you don't really matter in a fight (harassing foes and manipulating the environment) are usually the best things to do in Fate. And I don't know if anyone ever really figured out how to effectively use Aspects in social scenes...

So your bad roleplayers? I jest I jest but that is more a lack of creativity, intrinsic understanding of the game etc. and nothing to do with the game itself.

I make jokes but its all about clever word use.

I gave a player the aspect in a social conflict, 'Damaged Lexicon'
Another time a bad guy got these aspects as he only took consequences from the fire attacks of the pyromancers(there were 2 of them), 'Do you smell bacon?', 'Mhmmmm Bacon', 'Extra Crispy Bacon'

[kyoryu]

And I don't know if anyone ever really figured out how to effectively use Aspects in social scenes...

Insult someone to get them *Off Balance*. Bring up the danger to get them *Worried About Their Family*. Promise them riches to get *Greed In Their Eyes*.

[Vknight]

Insult someone to get them *Off Balance*. Bring up the danger to get them *Worried About Their Family*. Promise them riches to get *Greed In Their Eyes*.

Remind them of a painful fact, from a past adventure or from a rumor you heard(rolling well/spending a fate point to make it true), for things like
'The Whirlwind of Lies'
'What Goes Around Comes Around'
'A Favor Owed'
'You hear what s/he did with that goat?'

[Sith_Happens]

Basically, the trick is to think of Create an Advantage as a catch-all for anything you want to do that neither directly harms someone nor immediately solves the problem.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Basically, the trick is to think of Create an Advantage as a catch-all for anything you want to do that neither directly harms someone nor immediately solves the problem.

Oh, I get that, but a lot of the other players never did.

[kyoryu]

Oh, I get that, but a lot of the other players never did.

The best way to introduce new players to Fate is to get them to ignore the rules as much as possible, and instead say what they want to do.

That way, they don't have to think about what's a Create Advantage. They just say "I'm gonna get this guy pissed off so he's not thinking clearly."

[Remmirath]

I haven't had the pleasure/ill luck to play any of the truly horrible gaming systems floating around, so I'll be limiting this to those that are actually all playable and probably do what they're intended to do, even if I don't much care for what they're intended to do.

For me, 4th Edition D&D is the worst; it's very much not my cup of tea in a lot of ways, but the combat and lack of to me meaningful differentiation between the classes is what really dragged it to the ground. I always felt like I was mechanically playing a wizard no matter what class I was playing, and the abilities were so cheesy I couldn't take them seriously. It may not be a bad system ultimately, but it sure isn't what I want out of a roleplaying game.

While I have thus far not succeeded in having a good gaming experience with any World of Darkness game, I don't think the sytem is one I inherently dislike -- I think it's been GM failure more than anything else. I'm not wild about the dice pools, but I'm withholding judgement until I actually have a well-run game that lasts longer than one or two sessions.

[Jay R]

Regardless of the problems with the bad systems, one fact remains constant.

A good DM can salvage a poor system better than a good system can salvage a poor DM.

[BayardSPSR]

Regardless of the problems with the bad systems, one fact remains constant.

A good DM can salvage a poor system better than a good system can salvage a poor DM.

Sure, but isn't that a bit like saying that poor systems aren't problems for good GMs because good GMs won't use them?

[Jay R]

Sure, but isn't that a bit like saying that poor systems aren't problems for good GMs because good GMs won't use them?

No, not really. A good GM will use the system of the game they're playing, but will ignore or modify problematic rules. They're still using 95% of the system.

[2D8HP]

No, not really. A good GM will use the system of the game they're playing, but will ignore or modify problematic rules. They're still using 95% of the system.

Sometime in the early to mid 1980's my players really wanted to play either "Champions" (comic book superheroes), or "Top Secret" (espionage).
I'd GM'd a lot of Dungeons & Dragons, some Traveller, and a little Call of Cthullu, but no Champions or Top Secret. I studied the Champions rules and just got bogged down learning them, and I barely had time to glance at Top Secret.

So what did I do?

I ran a "Top Secret" campaign using about 10% of the Top Secret rules, 70% of the Call of Cthullu rules (my thinking was that the 1920's was close enough to the 1980's), and 20% were rules I made up to hold it together.
It worked great! My players loved it (they loved it too much, I really just wanted to be a D&D player again, the closest I ever got to that was a little Rolemaster, some Runequest, and Shadowrun,. I barely got to play any D&D again until last year).

[Kurald Galain]

Sure, but isn't that a bit like saying that poor systems aren't problems for good GMs because good GMs won't use them?

No, because most players will never notice how much of the rules the GM is actually using.