What is your worst roleplaying game?

[Talakeal]

Not gonna read it again, but I don't remember women mentioned as existing.

IIRC women were the "objective" in RaHoWa; your primary motivation was protecting the white women from the various minorities.

[johnbragg]

IIRC women were the "objective" in RaHoWa; your primary motivation was protecting the white women from the various minorities.

OK. Still not gonna read it again.

[JoeJ]

I don't think you can make the case that FATAL is worse. I mean, yes, it is super offensive, but the people who wrote RaHoWa are violent racists. It's like comparing /pol/ and the KKK. Yes, the screeds that come out of both are horrifying and offensive, but (as far as I know) /pol/ has murdered zero people.

Again, I'm only going on second-hand information, but I don't think you could make a case that racial violence is inherently worse than sexual violence. I find them both to be equally repugnant.

[Cosi]

Again, I'm only going on second-hand information, but I don't think you could make a case that racial violence is inherently worse than sexual violence. I find them both to be equally repugnant.

Sure, the ideologies of the games are both terrible. But (as far as I know), the authors of FATAL haven't gone around raping people, but the authors of RaHoWa (or at least, the same organization) did actually kill people.

[Raimun]

Oh, almost forgot. 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons.

I've played it quite a lot and I'm already bored and tired of the game. It's just so bland and uninspired. So... generic. Cliche, even. And as a whole the rules feel only half-finished.

And D&D retroclones. You can't reinvent the wheel and there's no good reason to try it. At least for umpteen times.

Basically, I like Pathfinder's take on D&D better than the above, because that game isn't shackled to the past but still manages to pay homage to it.

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Wonder: I would suggest that we leave it at "RaHoWa and FATAL are bad", without going further into why they are bad, or which is worse. They're ****ed up. Let's move on.

[Rakasta]

The Mod Wonder: I would suggest that we leave it at "RaHoWa and FATAL are bad", without going further into why they are bad, or which is worse. They're ****ed up. Let's move on.

You have right my friend. I could not say it better.

[Scots Dragon]

D&D 4e. Played it once. It was: At will, per encounter, per day. Even World of Warcraft gives you more options than that. And with better graphics and more content. If I want to play WoW, I'll download it and play it on my computer. I've heard "but 3.5 combats take forever". Which is exactly why PC RPG games exist. That's the gameplay aspect. I also hated 4e because 3.5 had so much unexplored design space and they spit on it, kicked it to the curb, and called the loyal fanbase losers. I protested in my own ways of course, but they're only recently admitting their mistakes.

The hilarious thing is that though this is a valid criticism of D&D 3.5e, it is not actually a valid defence of D&D 4e.

The hit points of monsters and characters go up pretty rapidly in D&D 4e, but damage remains almost entirely static in contrast. Keeping track of round-per-round things like marking and bonuses is a lot more complicated than D&D 3.5e's equivalent to that as well. I'm not sure which edition is worst of the two, but D&D 4e's attempts to streamline itself ultimately made things dozens of times more complicated than they needed to be.

[Knaight]

I've heard "but 3.5 combats take forever". Which is exactly why PC RPG games exist.

Yeah, no. There's no reason to lock the entire design space of games that don't spend 3/4 of their play time on combat every time there's one significant fight in a session to PC RPGs, and 4e is hardly the only game designed to take less combat time then 3.5 (which it barely even does). The vast majority of the games not named D&D at all take vastly less combat time than 3.x, and while there are a couple of major exceptions (GURPS with enough fiddly modifiers, Rolemaster regardless, HERO if people skew defensive), they are hugely outnumbered.

[hamlet]

I also hated 4e because 3.5 had so much unexplored design space and they spit on it, kicked it to the curb, and called the loyal fanbase losers. I protested in my own ways of course, but they're only recently admitting their mistakes.

You know, the folks of us who still like AD&D and BECMI recall the same thing, being told that our favorite version of the game was crap and "unfun" in the advertising materials.

Welcome to the club.

[Scots Dragon]

You know, the folks of us who still like AD&D and BECMI recall the same thing, being told that our favorite version of the game was crap and "unfun" in the advertising materials.

Welcome to the club.

I actually came to AD&D and the whole B/X, BECM and RC mix later on, having gotten on-board with tabletop games just after the beginning of 3.5e, and honestly it was kinda surprising how simple everything was given how many later materials just spent their time literally just doing nothing but insulting the over-complicated nature of everything. From what I can tell, 3rd edition made two improvements to complexity, the replacement of THAC0 and the flat saving throws, and then spent literally the entire rest of the edition over-complicating everything else.

Even having started with 3rd edition, I'd infinitely rather play AD&D over that.

[neonchameleon]

You know, the folks of us who still like AD&D and BECMI recall the same thing, being told that our favorite version of the game was crap and "unfun" in the advertising materials.

Welcome to the club.

I was thinking I could create something from almost every D&D perspective about how the next one sucked badly.

[Telok]

From what I can tell, 3rd edition made two improvements to complexity, the replacement of THAC0 and the flat saving throws

Well, one improvement at least. I'll agree with THAC0 simply because people are intimidated by subtraction but the saves change made people worse at saving throws as they levelled up, which has never quite gone away since then.

[Scots Dragon]

Well, one improvement at least. I'll agree with THAC0 simply because people are intimidated by subtraction but the saves change made people worse at saving throws as they levelled up, which has never quite gone away since then.

Indeed. I thought Castles & Crusades handled that a lot better, actually, but the basic concept of scaling saving throws was something that at least made a wee bit of sense.

I just use the variant tables from Dungeon Master's Option: High-Level Campaigns for AD&D 2e.

[Kurald Galain]

Well, one improvement at least. I'll agree with THAC0 simply because people are intimidated by subtraction but the saves change made people worse at saving throws as they levelled up, which has never quite gone away since then.

I'd say that the improvement in saving throws is not so much the numbers, but the switch from the nebulously-defined categories of Death/Petrification/Wands/Breath/Spell to the easier-to-distinguish Fort/Ref/Will.

As well as getting rid of some oddities like rolling 1d6 for surprise, 1d10 for initiative, 1d100 for bending bars, and 1d20 for most other things

[hamlet]

I was thinking I could create something from almost every D&D perspective about how the next one sucked badly.

Amen. Edition changes hurt us all.

[Sith_Happens]

Amen. Edition changes hurt us all.

And then there's Shadowrun, where (from what I've heard) each edition has its own entirely unique set of things that are awful about it and picking which one to play is generally acknowledged as a matter of which set you personally have the most tolerance for.

[JoeJ]

When a game takes years to complete because of story reasons, are long combats a problem?

If the tactical game is something you really enjoy, long combats are a good thing. If combat is something you have to slog through to get to the stuff you really enjoy, they're a bad thing.

[obryn]

Well, one improvement at least. I'll agree with THAC0 simply because people are intimidated by subtraction but the saves change made people worse at saving throws as they levelled up, which has never quite gone away since then.

It's more than just 'intimidation.' Addition is straight-up, no-foolin' less complicated than subtraction. This is because addition is commutative whereas subtraction is not. That is 5+3 = 3+5, but 5-3 =/= 3-5. This is additional cognitive load and a barrier for inexperienced players no matter how intuitive veterans find it.

This is why, when I'm running RC D&D or AD&D 1e, I flip attack rolls to a Target 20 system. The subtraction gets front-loaded on the character sheet into a simple attack bonus. You add that to your d20 roll, and then the DM adds the monster's (descending) AC to that total. 20+ and it's a hit. (And if you want to maintain AD&D attack matrices' repeating 20's for some reason, you can just call a natural 20 a 25.)

I'd say that the improvement in saving throws is not so much the numbers, but the switch from the nebulously-defined categories of Death/Petrification/Wands/Breath/Spell to the easier-to-distinguish Fort/Ref/Will.

Yeah. The scaling got completely jacked up and the math behind them is terribly wrong in actual practice, but collapsing the categories into three intuitive, non-overlapping groups was a really great move.

When a game takes years to complete because of story reasons, are long combats a problem? I was in a club on campus with 50+ members and we ran 3.5 and the combat length wasn't a problem. So either way really, what 4e gutted to achieve speed left me nauseous.

Man. And we'd been doing so well in this thread avoiding any aggrieved grudges and straight-up talking about systems, too.

[gooddragon1]

Man. And we'd been doing so well in this thread avoiding any aggrieved grudges and straight-up talking about systems, too.

Is there something I should know about?

Edit: removed my posts just in case.

[obryn]

Is there something I should know about?

Edit: removed my posts just in case.

Well, it's a difference between candidly talking about systems as systems and the aspects of systems that are terrible, and talking about (e.g.) feelings of betrayal, etc.

It's one of the things that's pretty well kept this thread pretty much free of edition warring so far.

[Anonymouswizard]

If the tactical game is something you really enjoy, long combats are a good thing. If combat is something you have to slog through to get to the stuff you really enjoy, they're a bad thing.

This is it. I'm fine with my current game being combat light and combats lasting half an hour at most, but some people enjoy applying small-scale tactics for 2-4 hours straight. I have nothing against the latter, I'll just bow out of the group.

I prefer strategic planning myself. If the group can tilt everything so that we have a sure win I'm loving the game. I'm also loving the game where our opponents have attempted the same thing and we have to desperately try and stop them.

It's more than just 'intimidation.' Addition is straight-up, no-foolin' less complicated than subtraction. This is because addition is commutative whereas subtraction is not. That is 5+3 = 3+5, but 5-3 =/= 3-5. This is additional cognitive load and a barrier for inexperienced players no matter how intuitive veterans find it.

This again? I guess nowhere teaches mental maths anymore. I'm finding systems that use subtraction to generally be faster (although partially because we tend to use degrees of success, so it's one calculations against two).

[Knaight]

If the tactical game is something you really enjoy, long combats are a good thing. If combat is something you have to slog through to get to the stuff you really enjoy, they're a bad thing.

I honestly wouldn't agree with this. Long combats are probably disproportionately liked by those who like the tactical side (although there's definitely a contingent that just likes beating the snot out of everything, and the more time they spend snot-beating the better), but even if you like tactics you might like them sort. There's a reason competitive strategy games come with everything from minute long small scale tactics games to that one game that pretty much requires each side to have a straight up command staff.

This again? I guess nowhere teaches mental maths anymore. I'm finding systems that use subtraction to generally be faster (although partially because we tend to use degrees of success, so it's one calculations against two).

This isn't a mental math issue, this is a remembering game formulas issue. With an addition based system you can pretty much just remember that you're summing over this range. With subtraction, you need to know the sign for every term individually. Say you know that you have a system which uses variables A, B, C, D in one case, A, C, E in another case, and A, E, F in a third case. If the system consistently uses addition and only addition, you know that the formulas in question are A+B+C+D, A+C+E, and A+E+F. If you know the system is consistent with which variables are added or subtracted, then there's 64 possible formulas between the three cases, and you have to remember six signs. If that varies, you've got 1024 possible formulas, and you have to remember ten signs.

[Anonymouswizard]

This isn't a mental math issue, this is a remembering game formulas issue. With an addition based system you can pretty much just remember that you're summing over this range. With subtraction, you need to know the sign for every term individually. Say you know that you have a system which uses variables A, B, C, D in one case, A, C, E in another case, and A, E, F in a third case. If the system consistently uses addition and only addition, you know that the formulas in question are A+B+C+D, A+C+E, and A+E+F. If you know the system is consistent with which variables are added or subtracted, then there's 64 possible formulas between the three cases, and you have to remember six signs. If that varies, you've got 1024 possible formulas, and you have to remember ten signs.

I still have never seen it make a difference in game, as long as the system is consistent. If it's all addition or all subtraction it generally seems to be fine. It's varying that makes the problem.

It's not subtraction that it a problem, it's inconsistency.

[Knaight]

I still have never seen it make a difference in game, as long as the system is consistent. If it's all addition or all subtraction it generally seems to be fine. It's varying that makes the problem.

It's not subtraction that it a problem, it's inconsistency.

I've yet to see a system where something isn't added, even if it's just the die roll.

[obryn]

This again? I guess nowhere teaches mental maths anymore. I'm finding systems that use subtraction to generally be faster (although partially because we tend to use degrees of success, so it's one calculations against two).

This isn't about education or what you personally find faster. This is a fundamental aspect of mathematics. Subtraction and division are inherently more complicated due to their lack of commutivity.

It's fine having a personal preference towards subtraction, and it's completely true that many of us are dandy with subtraction, but I'm not actually talking about opinions.

[MeeposFire]

This isn't about education or what you personally find faster. This is a fundamental aspect of mathematics. Subtraction and division are inherently more complicated due to their lack of commutivity.

It's fine having a personal preference towards subtraction, and it's completely true that many of us are dandy with subtraction, but I'm not actually talking about opinions.

This is not even including the fact that in AD&D they were not always consistent on how to write things. I have seen books that had a +3 meaning improve your AC by three points and later in the same book used a -3 to AC also as an improvement. You had to extrapolate from the description that both were supposed to help your AC.

It would be unlikely to have this problem in an addition based system.

That being said AD&D and basic type D&D are among my favorite editions to play and DM and subtraction did not bother me (though I ended up doing all the math for THAC0 for all my players because they could not do it very well and they were all college grads or future college grads).

[Telok]

It's more than just 'intimidation.' Addition is straight-up, no-foolin' less complicated than subtraction. This is because addition is commutative whereas subtraction is not. That is 5+3 = 3+5, but 5-3 =/= 3-5. This is additional cognitive load and a barrier for inexperienced players no matter how intuitive veterans find it.

I dunno, I can't call something that 5 year olds can do pretty well a barrier to entry for high school students. Even more weird, I've seen subtraction done by middle schoolers in games without a single complaint where adults whine about math.

But for me those first couple of characters where I was still learning had a column, 1 to 20, with the AC hit on that die roll. An extra 45 seconds, written next to the equipment list, and all the "problems" disappear.

You know what I really hate in games though? You're reading the book, or someone is teaching you, and you make characters and start playing... And it turns out nobody and nowhere are some of the basic assumptions of the game mentioned. Pendragon is a great game, I can fully recognize that, but I'm forever soured on it by this. Knoghts in shining armor based on Arthuruan legend? Great! But be sure to tell people which set of Arthurian legends you're using. Don't take someone who knows the old Celtic myth cycles and has Old English translations of stuff sitting on the bookshelf and then spring the twice Christianized Victorian Romantic version on him without warning. That and a few instances of "Oh, we forgot to tell you that you have to do X. You'll need to retcon your last hour of RP to fit that." just killed the game. Good system, bad surprises.

[themaque]

This isn't about education or what you personally find faster. This is a fundamental aspect of mathematics. Subtraction and division are inherently more complicated due to their lack of commutivity.

It's fine having a personal preference towards subtraction, and it's completely true that many of us are dandy with subtraction, but I'm not actually talking about opinions.

I'm going to have to agree with Anonymouswizard here

It's not subtraction that it a problem, it's inconsistency.

It's not that Rolling under or rolling and subtracting numbers are that hard. It's when you sometimes roll high, sometimes roll low, sometimes you add, and sometimes you subtract that starts to make things confusing.

That's one of the things that D20 did right. Roll this Die, add your bonus, roll as high as you can in almost every instance. Making good general easy to understand rules, as was mentioned. What does a Save Vs. Wands MEAN? yes you can explain it to me but if you tell me make a WILL save I pretty much instantly understand what is going on both in and out of game.

I wouldn't play 2e again as I like Castles & Crusades better.
I wouldn't play 3.5 again as I like pathfinder better.
I wouldn't play 4e again as It was all right but not that great a system IMHO. YMMV
I would play 5e again as I don't know something that does the same thing that's better.

The only game I've actually played and actively disliked has been Alternity.

[Telwar]

I was thinking I could create something from almost every D&D perspective about how the next one sucked badly.

It is truly an astounding feeling when, after making fun of grognards for previous editions, you realize you've become one for your favorite edition.

All those damn people on my lawn!