What is your worst roleplaying game?

[Rakasta]

Sure. PM me if you don't think others will be interested. I've always liked the game, but can see how it wouldn't be someone's favorite.

I will maybe make a post about it there you will know the answer. I must first you know dig deep to find the memories. But thanks that you ask about it see you when that post comes out friend

[Raimun]

The worst RPGs I've played? Hmm, I guess it's a close competition between the following:

1) Call of Cthulhu (Chaosium). I'm kind of fed up with anything related to Cthulhu and somehow the system doesn't do any favors to the game. And I do like other Chaosium games that use a similar system. However, they generally have more interesting settings and more fun things to do.

2) Numenera. People hailed this as revolutionary and innovative but in the end it was a total let down. It's just your basic dungeon crawler rpg, what with its class selection of fighter, rogue and wizard and D&D-style equipment lists, skills, special abilities and... everything. The only difference is that magic is actually technology. And no character can carry more than two or three scrolls/potions.

Basic system is D&D-style D20, except PCs are all incompetent in attacks, ability checks, skills, etc.. If a PC succeeds at anything, except walking across the room, it's always a small miracle. Until that happens people just fall off cliffs, fail to impress NPCs and miss against anything with a pulse and/or capability to move. It's possible to use Effort to improve the chances to succeed but this has a two critical weaknesses which are not that fun. One, using Effort is always effectively out of your "hit points". Two, it doesn't really improve your chances that much.

What this means is that if a frail Nano (ie. wizard) with Might (ie. Str) 4 and a musclebound Glaive (ie. fighter) with Might 20 were to arm wrestle and neither used any Effort, both would have equal chances to succeed. If the Fighter-I mean, Glaive-, used Effort to raise his chances to win, he would later die easily to battle damage. If the wiz-I mean, Nano-, used effort as well, the two would again have equal chances to succeed.

I should mention that without skill training, you just roll D20 and try to beat a DC with the raw roll. Skill training improves your chances as much as using Effort, so not very much. Additionally, if you are trained in three skills, you can consider yourself the party's skill monkey. Starting characters can't be trained in attacking. Having high Ability Scores does nothing to your basic chances of success, they just give you more "hit points" to sacrifice.

In a nutshell, a skill system that's based on total incompetence and sacrificing hit points is not fun.

Meanwhile, all NPCs auto-hit during combat, because the DM doesn't roll any dice in the game. The system just doesn't make any sense to me and the rules feel more arbitrary than those found in most board games.

To be fair, the system does have a few small and nifty ideas but none of them are integral to the basic system and all of them could be replicated and added to any other game system.

3) Mage: The [can't remember]-ing. I ended up making an useless character and I suppose the setting felt rather meh to me. Paradox (ie. "don't do really cool magic"-rule) was no fun and felt arbitrary. Probably made up as a kneejerk reaction to someone finding once a too strong spell combo. I'd still be keen to try out other White Wolf stuff but I'm in no hurry.

The worst RPGs I've heard of? Anything with a jenga tower instead of dice. That's just... I don't even know.
Edit: Oh, and FATAL too but that should go without saying.

[Fumble Jack]

Playing I'd have to say 3.5 D&D, I've never had a good game as a player in that system. As a Dm I had a much better time.

[Raimun]

Playing I'd have to say 3.5 D&D, I've never had a good game as a player in that system. As a Dm I had a much better time.

It can be pretty fun when you are playing a 10+ level full caster. That is, at least for you and any other full casters in the party.

The possibilities are staggering. And there's no way to play a caster like that in video games. Even most spellcasting in films and tv-series pale in comparison. Most magic elsewhere is usually nothing but firebolts and occasional mystic shield.

That said, 3.X is a kind of complex rules set. The only way to remedy that is to know four or more people, who are just as crazy as you and have played the game about as long as you have. That amount of knowledge speeds up the game considerably.

[Digitalelf]

It can be pretty fun when you are playing a 10+ level full caster. That is, at least for you and any other full casters in the party.

The possibilities are staggering.

It was these insane levels of power that eventually turned me away from 3rd edition and PF, and why I returned to playing 2nd edition AD&D (there were other reasons, but the inflated level of power played a HUGE part in that decision).

I get that some people love that style of play; it's just not for me or my groups...

[/Shrug]

[Jay R]

The original Arduin Grimoire was basically original D&D with the serial numbers filed off, and with all its flaws magnified and put center stage.

[Morty]

Of the systems I've actually played, D&D 3e is definitely up there. It's a complete and utter mess that fails at basically everything it sets out to do, and throws arbitrary stumbling blocks the players' way. There are RPGs which are even more dysfunctional, but fortunately I haven't played them - they tend to be rather niche, whereas D&D 3e is anything but.

[Elderand]

Monsterhearts.
We all know every system out there tiptoes around the whole using abilities against other players to influence roleplay, frequently simply saying don't or these rules are for interacting with NPC only and if you want to convince a fellow player you should talk to him rather than roll for diplomacy or such.
Why? Because your character is your character. You decide on personality and actions during the game. And we all get annoyed when a DM simply tell you "your character wouldn't do this".

So why does monsterhearts pisses me off so much? Because in that game a very significant portion of your character is actually decided by other players. And the game punishes you for not going along with what other people want your character to be like. What if I don't want a brooding vampire but another player does? Well I'm screwed, sure I can avoid brooding but if I do I won't get as much XP as other people.

Monsterhearts is peer pressure: the game. And I loath it.

[Fri]

For me it's Exalted, at least 2nd Ed since it's the one I played.

Good premise, really obnoxious and obtuse implementation.

[neonchameleon]

The worst RPG I've played? Werewolf: the Forsaken. Bad Storyteller, no biscuit. You do not saddle the party with three DMPCs - one for each of the three PC's schticks but better. And then deliberately quashing all the PC plans ever so the NPCs could do it all.

The worst I've tried playing - I can't remember its name. But when it takes 20 minutes to resolve where the first bullet goes (right down to how much wall it penetrated to work out if it hit) we abandoned any attempt at a playtest. There are a lot of RPGs out there that are simply non-functional.

The worst I've had fun playing: Middle Earth Role Playing. MERP is a decent gritty swords and sorcery system (it's essentially Rolemaster Lite - something that vastly improves Chartmaster). It's just it has critical tables with results like "Skeleton liquified. Use a spatula." Nothing wrong with that sort of black humour - but it isn't Tolkein.

The worst RPGs I've heard of? Anything with a jenga tower instead of dice. That's just... I don't even know.

That would be Dread - there's a very sub-par game of it on Tabletop, and I strongly recommend it for horror one-shots. It's the tensest horror game I know.

Monsterhearts.
We all know every system out there tiptoes around the whole using abilities against other players to influence roleplay, frequently simply saying don't or these rules are for interacting with NPC only and if you want to convince a fellow player you should talk to him rather than roll for diplomacy or such.
Why? Because your character is your character. You decide on personality and actions during the game. And we all get annoyed when a DM simply tell you "your character wouldn't do this".

So why does monsterhearts pisses me off so much? Because in that game a very significant portion of your character is actually decided by other players. And the game punishes you for not going along with what other people want your character to be like. What if I don't want a brooding vampire but another player does? Well I'm screwed, sure I can avoid brooding but if I do I won't get as much XP as other people.

Monsterhearts is peer pressure: the game. And I loath it.

You loathe a game about playing teenagers that encourages peer pressure to be effective? While being very careful to make sure that you never have to bow to it if you decide not to? To me that sort of stuff makes it much more immediate and immersive and aligns my thought processes far more with the character.

And it really is never "Your character wouldn't do this". It's always "There's a cookie in it for showing the side of you others think is the most interesting or doing what they want". Also not every system avoids using social mechanics against other PCs (I can think of a lot of RPGs with no such hard restriction). It's simply that most RPGs with social mechanics make them god mode abilities that are no fun to be on the receiving end of and then patch the system by saying "We know this makes little sense - so you don't do it to other PCs".

[hamlet]

The original Arduin Grimoire was basically original D&D with the serial numbers filed off, and with all its flaws magnified and put center stage.

Granted, the Grimoire books worked better if you used them as extra rules you could add to a BASIC game rather than a whole game.

However, once you get past the learning curve and just "go with it," the Compleat Arduin (yes, spelled correctly there) was really quite fun. A little badly edited, but good fun at the table. Requires a lot of work by the DM, though.

Can't say great things about Arduin Eternal, though. Not terribly wonderful, but so much unrealized promise.

[Elderand]

You loathe a game about playing teenagers that encourages peer pressure to be effective? While being very careful to make sure that you never have to bow to it if you decide not to? To me that sort of stuff makes it much more immediate and immersive and aligns my thought processes far more with the character.

And it really is never "Your character wouldn't do this". It's always "There's a cookie in it for showing the side of you others think is the most interesting or doing what they want". Also not every system avoids using social mechanics against other PCs (I can think of a lot of RPGs with no such hard restriction). It's simply that most RPGs with social mechanics make them god mode abilities that are no fun to be on the receiving end of and then patch the system by saying "We know this makes little sense - so you don't do it to other PCs".

I loathe a game that use peer pressure on other players. Teenager and peer pressure as element of a story happening in game with the character is one thing. Peer pressure on a real person is not.

But hey, I guess if we came up with a game entirely about sword fighting in an arena between characters, it would be great if the game encouraged you to stab the real person you play with to encourage immersion.

[flond]

I loathe a game that use peer pressure on other players. Teenager and peer pressure as element of a story happening in game with the character is one thing. Peer pressure on a real person is not.

But hey, I guess if we came up with a game entirely about sword fighting in an arena between characters, it would be great if the game encouraged you to stab the real person you play with to encourage immersion.

If it's with a safe foam weapon, sure :D

But more seriously, to be more constructive...I feel like Monsterhearts encourages a little (or rather a LOT) less character identification than some games, which is traded for more ability to influence the character of others. PCs are more a shared resource than they are in some games, and so it's less "peer pressure" and more "everyone is a little bit the group's property." even more so than in DnD's "We already have a thief dude, please don't make a thief."

(But if it's not your bag it's not your bag. And...while some PbTA games might be for you, you may also wanna avoid Apocalypse world, as it uses the same XP mechanics.)

As for my worst game. Probably All Flesh Must Be Eaten. I know everyone else loves it, but for me the system just feels like "We made a flavorless chip! It doesn't fight the dip!"

[Anonymouswizard]

As for my worst game. Probably All Flesh Must Be Eaten. I know everyone else loves it, but for me the system just feels like "We made a flavorless chip! It doesn't fight the dip!"

I think this is the problem of Unisystem, in that it's generic, but it doesn't have any of the distinguishing marks of something like GURPS or Savage Worlds and burdened with an overly specific skill list (on the other hand Cinematic Unisystem feels like Unisystem with a shower and a clear direction). It also hits the worst parts of d20 for me.

But my main annoyance is the horrific amount of combat focus specifically in AFMBE. I took a character who was supposed to be a support dude, selected some interesting drawbacks, and then found I had about 1/10 of the available qualities as suitable to my character concept.

So you aren't alone in disliking AFMBE.

[LordFluffy]

Imagine, sadly.

Imagine had a lot of cool ideas that mirror things they ended up doing in D&D 3x, but many more that just never should have been. Example:

To hit roll which was put on a bullseye chart over a body part to see what body part you actually hit, followed by a damage roll that was then modified by comparing damage type to armor type. Or, you could do a called shot to the neck and kill someone with almost the same chance of success.

Really detailed game master's guide, though.

[Morty]

The worst I've had fun playing: Middle Earth Role Playing. MERP is a decent gritty swords and sorcery system (it's essentially Rolemaster Lite - something that vastly improves Chartmaster). It's just it has critical tables with results like "Skeleton liquified. Use a spatula." Nothing wrong with that sort of black humour - but it isn't Tolkien.

I had some brief contact with the system years back, and I think "decent low-fantasy, bad representation of anything Tolkien wrote" might be a fair summation of it.

[obryn]

I had some brief contact with the system years back, and I think "decent low-fantasy, bad representation of anything Tolkien wrote" might be a fair summation of it.

Yeah, I think that's totally fair. I ran it when it was 'current' and I was probably 12.

Personally, I will always love MERP for the maps, if for nothing else. (I also confess that adult-me really enjoys many of ICE's expansions to the setting to make it more easily gameable. Like expanding the map into complete weirdness, using a basically ignored time period, etc.) They did their homework, they did. And they weren't afraid to go way off-canon.

And much like WEG's Star Wars RPG materials became canon for Star Wars, some of ICE's inventions - most notably the seven other Ringwraiths' names - have worked their way into semi-canon.

I loathe a game that use peer pressure on other players. Teenager and peer pressure as element of a story happening in game with the character is one thing. Peer pressure on a real person is not.

But hey, I guess if we came up with a game entirely about sword fighting in an arena between characters, it would be great if the game encouraged you to stab the real person you play with to encourage immersion.

I think it's a neat exercise in reward systems. I love it when an RPG finds a creative way to reward the player for doing stuff their character would do and/or find rewarding. XP-for-GP is the oldest example I can think of. Fate's Aspects are another good example.

[Elderand]

I think it's a neat exercise in reward systems. I love it when an RPG finds a creative way to reward the player for doing stuff their character would do and/or find rewarding. XP-for-GP is the oldest example I can think of. Fate's Aspects are another good example.

Except it's not a reward for what your character would do. It's a stick forcing you to obey what other people want your character to do. It baffles me that the same people who would be the first to cry foul whenever a story of a DM taking control of the character and say "no your character wouldn't do that" also choose to defend this system. And yes, it's a stick, not a reward. It's not getting a cookie for doing a good job, it's having all food witheld until you break down and do as you're told.

[Raimun]

That would be Dread - there's a very sub-par game of it on Tabletop, and I strongly recommend it for horror one-shots. It's the tensest horror game I know.

"Ooh! Will the tower fall? Or not? The horror!"

That kind of sounds like a cheap gimmick.

... And everyone knows all the good games have dice.

[flond]

Except it's not a reward for what your character would do. It's a stick forcing you to obey what other people want your character to do. It baffles me that the same people who would be the first to cry foul whenever a story of a DM taking control of the character and say "no your character wouldn't do that" also choose to defend this system. And yes, it's a stick, not a reward. It's not getting a cookie for doing a good job, it's having all food witheld until you break down and do as you're told.

Well several things.

1. It's two highlighted stats. While some of this can be gamed, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion you're going to be rolling all of those stats at some point during the game (baring stat substitution weirdness) (Especially as it's a max of one XP per stat/move, per scene. That's a pretty sharp limiter)

2. Experince...isn't that huge a deal in MH. It's nice yes, and you want a fairly solid spread. But this isn't dnd. People will advance at different rates and that's mostly fine.

3. It's equal. It's not just the GM doing things to you. You generally will get a say about someone else's PCs too. You're trading exclusive control over your PC for the ability to influence others.

4. It's upfront and you know (or should know) what you're getting into at start of game. I'm willing to get into all sorts of coercive lose control of your PC shennanigans if I know they're in the game's DNA.

[neonchameleon]

But more seriously, to be more constructive...I feel like Monsterhearts encourages a little (or rather a LOT) less character identification than some games, which is traded for more ability to influence the character of others. PCs are more a shared resource than they are in some games, and so it's less "peer pressure" and more "everyone is a little bit the group's property." even more so than in DnD's "We already have a thief dude, please don't make a thief."

I actually find the complete opposite - that Monsterhearts is one game where I pick up a lot of bleed. I pick up a lot of what my character is feeling coming back through roleplaying to influence me personally in a way it simply doesn't in D&D.

Except it's not a reward for what your character would do. It's a stick forcing you to obey what other people want your character to do.

"If you do something like this in the way you interpret it your character gets a reward. If you don't you don't and there are no negative consequences." Some stick.

[kyoryu]

D&D 3.x/PF: Emphasizes all of the things I like least in roleplaying games. Anything I like that it does well, I can think of another game that does that thing better (for me) while avoiding the things I dislike. It's in many ways my anti-game.

Burning Wheel: It's this game where I like so many bits of it, but every time I've tried it the game has utterly failed to click and end up with an enjoyable experience.

These aren't necessarily bad games, mind you. Just bad games *for me*.

[The_Snark]

It baffles me that the same people who would be the first to cry foul whenever a story of a DM taking control of the character and say "no your character wouldn't do that" also choose to defend this system.

4. It's upfront and you know (or should know) what you're getting into at start of game. I'm willing to get into all sorts of coercive lose control of your PC shennanigans if I know they're in the game's DNA.

This is the key point, I think. Not having full control over your character is part of the genre - you're playing teenage werewolves/vampires/whatever, and the game's deliberately trying to evoke a sense of not being fully in control. Monsterhearts is very up front about the fact that the game is likely to touch on triggery subjects, including but not limited to violence, peer pressure, and teenage sexuality; the players are supposed to go over their comfort zones and preferences before playing. If you strongly object to not having full control over your character, that should probably come up in this discussion.

Most of the time, when a DM takes control of your character they are violating the implied contract of the game: players get to control their characters, GM controls everything else. Monsterhearts explicitly lays out a different contract. If you don't like that, it probably isn't the game for you.

(It isn't my cup of tea, either; I have no desire to play out torrid teenage drama/romance. But I don't think it's a bad game, just that it's designed for people with very different tastes.)

[Pluto!]

Cortex (older versions, anyway) - it's like a variant of Savage Worlds, but with the gimmick that the numbers don't work.

Focused fire and cooperative noncombat actions between players is generally auto-success, and independent action is generally auto-failure, regardless of the action, regardless of character skill

I ran a prolonged time travel campaign with it, and once we as a group picked up on a few of those quirks, we started a long grind of shifting houserules to try to keep the system workable (so many of its basic ideas are so simple and so attractive) and honestly made life much more difficult for ourselves than if we'd just shifted to another familiar ruleset early.

[tensai_oni]

I will throw my hat into the ring. This is only for games I actually played of course.
Though I actually enjoyed my time playing a game using all those systems. But it does not mean I do not see their faults.

#3 - Risus

It's a funny little rules lite thing working on a cute concept. The problem is, it's too rules lite. Gameplay boils down to "always try to use your highest rated cliche somehow" and there is no incentive to use lower rated ones.

Despite being so light, the mechanics feel like they get in the way. I'd rather play freeform.

#2 - Bliss Stage

Another system where the mechanics are working against it. Each mission objective is resolved with only a single dice roll, unless you stall in which case you have to roll again. But the more you roll the more stress and bliss you accumulate, so there is no incentive to do anything on a mission except "make sure I win the objective first, protect everything else as available".

On the other hand split between mission time and "downtime" is a good idea, but there are other RPGs that do it better like Chris Perrin's Mecha RPG, which actually I suggest running with a homebrew setting if you really want a game with Bliss Stage fluff. But that fluff has another problem...

To put things bluntly, it's creepy. "Your giant robot is powered by strength of your relationships" is interesting. "And by relationships we mean underage sex", not so much.

#1 - Exalted

The fluff is an incoherent mess: a mix of actually good ideas, typical White Wolf edge, and fake "anime" flavor that makes you think all contact the writer had with anime was watching Voltron as a kid and reading a crappy late 90s "how to draw manga" textbook. The game is a gigantic bloat, it feels like you need to dig through a dozen splats just to know more or less what you can play and how is the setting and its history like - that's as a player. If you want to be the ST, Unconquered Sun help you. And the less said about the horrible mechanics the better.

Also every edition seems to only make things worse. If it fixes shortcomings in one area, many more appear in others.

[Philistine]

Palladium Rifts is certainly up there - what a mess. And Star Wars d20 (with or without the RCR) was downright painful to play.

But I have to go with D&D 3E for top honors: it may be slightly more playable than the above, but OTOH it's made up of the skin from one game blatantly copy-pasted onto the skeleton from another, completely different game, with reckless disregard for how (or indeed whether) the two would work together. And that degree of arrogant incompetence deserves to be rewarded appropriately. And by "appropriately," I do mean "with public floggings."

[MeeposFire]

Palladium Rifts is certainly up there - what a mess. And Star Wars d20 (with or without the RCR) was downright painful to play.

But I have to go with D&D 3E for top honors: it may be slightly more playable than the above, but OTOH it's made up of the skin from one game blatantly copy-pasted onto the skeleton from another, completely different game, with reckless disregard for how (or indeed whether) the two would work together. And that degree of arrogant incompetence deserves to be rewarded appropriately. And by "appropriately," I do mean "with public floggings."

Honestly Star Wars d20 is really just a variant of 3e D&D so really it seems that you get double billing there.

[unbeliever536]

The worst RPGs I've heard of? Anything with a jenga tower instead of dice. That's just... I don't even know.

Possibly the best rpg I ever played: you are a spy infiltrating the Kremlin. Describe your action, then roll 1d12. Remove that many blocks from the central Jenga tower. If it falls, your action does not succeed.

[Faily]

Never manage to put these in a specific order:

Dogs in the Vineyard - was the first one that came to mind, so I guess it's number 1. Just hated this game and how it forced its set ways down my throat, leaving almost no room for engaging roleplay or interesting developments.

Warhammer Fantasy - while it was amusing to randomly roll starting class and such, I really disliked how it was practically impossible to branch out and learn new things. The system had some interesting tidbits (like the Luck Points), but it would take a lot of convincing to make me play this again.

[BlueBiscuit]

Worst game that I've read: Mage the Ascension, just slightly coming out ahead of Werewolf the Apocalypse, by virtue of it's absolutely ridiculous base premise (consensual reality) and character splats that are yawn-inducing at best (Technocracy and Traditions both).

Worst game I've played: Scion. As others have said the base setting hook is nice, but the mechanics are mostly garbage. It didn't help my attempt at running it the fact that one of the players was actively trying to screw up the campaign. So yeah, worst gaming experience so far.