What is the worst RPG you enjoy?

[Florian]

David Weber made it an interesting read in his honorverse series.

The "Lost Fleet" series is imho even better at it, also taking the problems with relativistic speed, accelerating and breaking more into account. Good read, as is the Honor Harrington series, but not a mechanic that I can see as functional in an RPG.

I'm not sure... where to go with this one. How would you suggest doing a Transhumanity point buy to make the system work acceptably? Place the build points in separate pools? Only build the personality beforehand, and build the body during the game?

I don´t think that point-buy is actually good for handling this genre, as is handling it on that level of fine granularity. In a sense, same problem with Shadowrun. Ok, I admit that I'm influenced by the Takeshi Kocas series:

Core Personality: Pick some "edges" and "flaws" that the core personality will always be good at, no matter what "sleeve". Ex: "Black Ops Training", "Suppress Sleeve Instincts", "Social Brute".

Sleeves: Come as full character sheets, apply Core Personality like quick template. If it doesn't have "Black Ops" stuff, add it, if it has "Black Ops" stuff, gain a hefty bonus. Done.

[Sinewmire]

Iron Heroes by Monte Cook.

It's based around 3.5, but set in a low-magic universe, so there is one fiendishly complicated magic class, the Arcanist, and the rest are all mundanes. Barbarian, Armiger, Executioner, Zoomer Harrier and so forth.

I liked the idea of a low-magic system with feat-trees, skill groups and skill challenges, and class abilities with pools of action points, but the system is utterly unbalanced and you can do some ridiculous things with it. It needs a medium amount of optimisation - too much and the players are so OP the game is "how many enemies can player x kill, whilst others mop up", too low and you end up with unplayable characters.

[Knaight]

Diana: Warrior Princess. The mechanics are nothing special, and while it's not a bad game I normally require mechanics to be fairly good to be interested. The setting on the other hand is one of the funniest things I've ever read, and for that alone it's a favorite.

[Anonymouswizard]

So, the system lets you spend up to 30% of your build resources on trap options?

More that it encourages you. It's a stupid idea to buy gear or augmentations compared to the blueprints. But getting the actual stuff because you can't use blueprints until you have access to a CM or suitable fabber and for augmentations biomorphs then need to spend time in a healing vat, and blueprints are ten times as expensive as the item. It's a common houserule that buying blueprints also means that the body you're using for the first mission will have a ready to use version of the item or augmentation.

Then the system heavily pushes taking a genetically engineered body or cool tricked out robot shell. But if you take anything better than a Splicer or Synth then you will likely be spending a lot of time in a worse body because that's all that's available. Combat bodies get it especially bad, as the key stat that matters in combat is Speed, and drugs or drug glands can push your speed to 3 for relatively little CP compared to a Fury or Reaper, leaving the main advantage being stat boosts and Durability. Oh sure, they have augs, but those can be slapped on any body. Meanwhile the player who picked a Splicer or Flat had an additional 20-100 points to spend, if they focused that on Rep then they're likely walking around in a very tricked out body when needed by simply calling in favours. Beaming to another hab? The guy who spent an additional 30 points building up their Rep scores can likely call in a lot of help, including arranging to have a nice body waiting for them at the clinic.

I'm not sure... where to go with this one. How would you suggest doing a Transhumanity point buy to make the system work acceptably? Place the build points in separate pools? Only build the personality beforehand, and build the body during the game?

My general rule would be to focus on the mind (Ego as EP calls it), and have the body grant relatively minor benefits. I'd also have bodies and equipment paid for out of a metagame resource rather than an in-game resource, or a very generic 'resources' trait that is used for picking up anything temporary. Resources would be 'invested', you can't have more than your Resources in equipment and bodies at any one time, but you can give things up to gain more resources.

In Transhumanity's Fate skills are considered to be entirely based on the Ego, your body just provides you with a couple of Aspects, your Physical Stress, and maybe some stunts. Some bodies are free, others require you to reduce your Refresh as long as you're in them. It actually works really well.

[Sinewmire]

Oh, and the original Deathwatch!

Space Marine devastator with a Lascannon, a few skills, and suddenly you're relling 10d10 +9 damage, and if you roll a 10 and crit, you roll 10d10 again and add it. If you roll a 10 on any of *those*... and it never ends. If you keep rolling a 10 on one of your ten 10-sided dice, you roll 'em again.

So we're getting silly stuff like 659 damage... most enemies can take about 25 before exploding.

The whole game really wasn't playtested enough, and they made an errata so that you had a higher damage bonus rather than rolling so many dice, and specified it was *just* that one dice that got re-rolled, not all of them. I mean, your sidearm, the bolt pistol, was 2d10+4, and it was Tearing, meaning you could roll an extra dice and discard the lowest of the three. Madness!

[CharonsHelper]

The whole game really wasn't playtested enough...

I will say - stuff like that isn't really a play-testing issue. It's a basic math issue. Crap like that should never make it off the drawing board to even be at the first play-test.

[Lapak]

Of games I have actually played, probably Twilight:2000. The character creation process was amazing but generated completely unbalanced parties, there were mechanics that could completely break your game if used as intended (radiation poisoning was a notable one) and the combat was... not great. We had more than one gunfight devolve into farce as non-lethal limb damage piled up and left everyone involved incapable of winning OR of fleeing the field.

But I did (and do) love it for its world-building, its attention to detail in setting and equipment, and the character creation. (Unbalanced, yes; flavorful and enjoyable, also yes.)

Of games I have not played but love the idea of them, probably Scion. Which has marvelous foundations and then a ruleset which a casual read-through seems to show as ‘Exalted, but not nearly as functional.’

[Thinker]

Yes. The problem is due to the fact that different observers perceive space, time, and simultaneity differently. Regardless of how you get around going faster than light, it causes the same problems. Unless by "without relativistic travel" you mean relativity doesn't hold, in which case it has other physical implications. For one, the speed of light can no longer be determined by universal constants.

(I am happy to continue this discussion--sci-fi and how sci-fi tech interacts with real physics is something I'm very interested in, though not an expert--although I feel we should move to another thread if we're going to. It's off topic for this one.)

I'm no physicist, but I enjoy sci-fi (usually soft sci-fi more than hard sci-fi) so please excuse the question if it is completely ignorant. Would this scenario cause issues with causality? I want to travel from Point A to Point B in 1 day. The normal time for the journey is 10 days at light speed. I transition from normal-space to sub-space, effectively an alternate dimension. From sub-space, I cannot perceive or be affected by objects or actions that take place in normal-space, nor can I send or receive any information from normal space. When I transition back from sub-space to normal-space, it has only been 1 day.

[Max_Killjoy]

I'm no physicist, but I enjoy sci-fi (usually soft sci-fi more than hard sci-fi) so please excuse the question if it is completely ignorant. Would this scenario cause issues with causality? I want to travel from Point A to Point B in 1 day. The normal time for the journey is 10 days at light speed. I transition from normal-space to sub-space, effectively an alternate dimension. From sub-space, I cannot perceive or be affected by objects or actions that take place in normal-space, nor can I send or receive any information from normal space. When I transition back from sub-space to normal-space, it has only been 1 day.

That's pretty much the scenario as it would occur in my setting. Ships traveling FTL cannot communicate with or be perceived by anything in "normal" space, and can only perceive "mass shadows" (to borrow a term) from normal space in certain circumstances.

[PhoenixPhyre]

That's pretty much the scenario as it would occur in my setting. Ships traveling FTL cannot communicate with or be perceived by anything in "normal" space, and can only perceive "mass shadows" (to borrow a term) from normal space in certain circumstances.

I'm no physicist, but I enjoy sci-fi (usually soft sci-fi more than hard sci-fi) so please excuse the question if it is completely ignorant. Would this scenario cause issues with causality? I want to travel from Point A to Point B in 1 day. The normal time for the journey is 10 days at light speed. I transition from normal-space to sub-space, effectively an alternate dimension. From sub-space, I cannot perceive or be affected by objects or actions that take place in normal-space, nor can I send or receive any information from normal space. When I transition back from sub-space to normal-space, it has only been 1 day.

As a physicist, any FTL information transfer (including movement), no matter how it's done, breaks causality and is indistinguishable from time travel. Doesn't matter if you skip the intervening space, doesn't matter if you bend the space. Full stop. Relativity (special here, not even general) is a hard taskmaster.

Which is why only a tiny fraction of "hard" sci-fi actually cares about that.

[CharonsHelper]

As a physicist...

Sorry - but you're actually a physicist?

Cool.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Sorry - but you're actually a physicist?

Cool.

More specifically, I'm a high school teacher who got a PhD in Computational Quantum Chemistry before turning to teaching full time. Non-traditional life paths FTW! My research was more in atomic and molecular scattering (coupling quantum electrons with classical nuclei), but I did my fair share of relativistic mechanics. At this point, I'd rather not do the math, but some things stuck.

Edit: and CQC (no, not that CQC) is actually a physics domain. The chemists call it Computational Chemical Physics. Seems nobody wants to own it

[Max_Killjoy]

As a physicist, any FTL information transfer (including movement), no matter how it's done, breaks causality and is indistinguishable from time travel. Doesn't matter if you skip the intervening space, doesn't matter if you bend the space. Full stop. Relativity (special here, not even general) is a hard taskmaster.

For those who want to understand why this would be the case, please point us to a source that explains it without "it is because it is" presumptions.

[Cluedrew]

I think to get the explanation without any "it is because it is" sections too it would probably take... the full (or close to it) education. I've studied almost as much physics as one can without being a physicist (formally or informally). After numerous attempts at trying to understand it from different sources that I think bad explanations might not be the problem. It might just be a long and complicated answer that can't be understood without the proper background.

[Anonymouswizard]

That's pretty much the scenario as it would occur in my setting. Ships traveling FTL cannot communicate with or be perceived by anything in "normal" space, and can only perceive "mass shadows" (to borrow a term) from normal space in certain circumstances.

Still no. FTL breaks reality, and every system is a handwave.

For story purposes, once you want action happening in multiple systems you need one of the following:

1. The ability to travel Faster Than Light.
2. Inertial dampening or some other method of allowing people to survive insanely high acclerations, and the willingness to abuse time dilation for short passenger-side jumps.
3. Willingness to have time skips of anywhere from tens to thousands of years, depending on drive types.

Note that number one is by far the most common, but numbers two and three can work even in a game. To see number three in a story I highly suggest Revelation Space by Alistair Renoylds, interstellar ships effectively have reactionless drives allowing for constant acceleration, but limitations of the human body mean they don't go above 1g for anything except short bursts. The later stories start to move more and more into number 2, although that one is also much more common with people using various 'NAFAL' drives (the difference between a standard NAFAL ship and a Lighthugger is that the NAFAL ship instantly hits near-c speeds to the point where it consists of a split second accelerating and a split second decelerating, a Lighthugger requires a week to hit low percentages of c and will be accelerating for years).

Note that if you have characters who live for centuries option 2 can become a lot more like a standard space opera, just set over decades to centuries rather than weeks to years. Otherwise every jump into a star system means you're effectively going to a location you've never seen before.

Now trading materials between systems essentially requires FTL unless you have very valuable materials located only in a couple of places, but information trade and even warfare can remain, as could trade of valuable produced goods (sure, we make computers here in GDE-43, but the ones from HYU-98 are smaller and more powerful by two orders of magnitude, even if they cost twenty times the price).

Now bending or breaking one bit of physics doesn't mean we have to do it for everything, it's fine to have both Newtonian movement and FTL travel, but unless we're entirely on the wrong track there are no cheats that make FTL scientifically plausible without causing a lot of headaches and generating causeless effects.

EDIT: no ability to supply sources for stuff like 'FTL breaks causality', but I'd also be happy for more sharing. I understand the basics of the FTL means time travel stuff, thanks to an explanation by a physicist friend, but can't explain it myself.

[Max_Killjoy]

Still no. FTL breaks reality, and every system is a handwave.

Last post on this, because it's off topic for this thread.

We understand that "time is local". We understand how FTL that actually ends up with people arriving back at a place before they left, or otherwise getting information about events back to before the events occurred (locally) breaks causality. That doesn't need to be explained in any way.

The problem is the next part, which asserts that any FTL by any means* risks causality breakdowns -- that assertion is made here and elsewhere whenever FTL comes up, but I have yet to see any explanation anywhere that amounts to more anything more than "because it does" or "trust me".

(* even FTL that removes the vessel entirely from "normal" space and thus from all communication with or observation by anyone not moving FTL, even in settings without "normal" space travel anywhere near the speed of light so that relativistic time dilation is not an issue.)

Don't bother repeating "because it does". Don't bother repeating "it's a rule of nature". If you don't have a link to an actual, non-tautological, non-"it is because it is" explanation, then just move on.

E - See other thread.

[Lord Torath]

For example, Person A sees spaceship B explode Planet C, then transmits this information instantaneously to spaceship D traveling at Speed Ec, enabling someone on the spaceship to prevent the exploding. Assuming the light from the shooting reaches Person A before it reaches spaceship D, of course.

Can someone explain (maybe with some numbers for distance, local time elapsed by each party, etc.) how this can happen if you allow FTL travel (either of information or mass)?

[PhoenixPhyre]

Last post on this, because it's off topic for this thread.

We understand that "time is local". We understand how FTL that actually ends up with people arriving back at a place before they left, or otherwise getting information about events back to before the events occurred (locally) breaks causality. That doesn't need to be explained in any way.

The problem is the next part, which asserts that any FTL by any means* risks causality breakdowns -- that assertion is made here and elsewhere whenever FTL comes up, but I have yet to see any explanation anywhere that amounts to more anything more than "because it does" or "trust me".

(* even FTL that removes the vessel entirely from "normal" space and thus from all communication with or observation by anyone not moving FTL, even in settings without "normal" space travel anywhere near the speed of light so that relativistic time dilation is not an issue.)

Don't bother repeating "because it does". Don't bother repeating "it's a rule of nature". If you don't have a link to an actual, non-tautological, non-"it is because it is" explanation, then just move on.

That's not how it works. There are things that can be simplified for a lay (non-mathematical) audience, and there are things that can't (and retain the important aspects/cover all the edge cases). This is one of the second type. Here's a loose and breezy explanation: http://www.askamathematician.com/201...ate-causality/, but that only covers some of the special aspects.

In general, any space-like curve (including FTL transport or communications, but not only those) causes causality issues. Related searches would involve light cones.

[rs2excelsior]

For those who want to understand why this would be the case, please point us to a source that explains it without "it is because it is" presumptions.

Last post on this, because it's off topic for this thread.

We understand that "time is local". We understand how FTL that actually ends up with people arriving back at a place before they left, or otherwise getting information about events back to before the events occurred (locally) breaks causality. That doesn't need to be explained in any way.

The problem is the next part, which asserts that any FTL by any means* risks causality breakdowns -- that assertion is made here and elsewhere whenever FTL comes up, but I have yet to see any explanation anywhere that amounts to more anything more than "because it does" or "trust me".

(* even FTL that removes the vessel entirely from "normal" space and thus from all communication with or observation by anyone not moving FTL, even in settings without "normal" space travel anywhere near the speed of light so that relativistic time dilation is not an issue.)

Don't bother repeating "because it does". Don't bother repeating "it's a rule of nature". If you don't have a link to an actual, non-tautological, non-"it is because it is" explanation, then just move on.

The link in my last post does exactly that, in layman's terms, in great detail. Not just the intro page I linked, read that and the rest of the site too. Part I and IV particularly--Part I explains how relativity works and how it bends space and time (and explains the tools used to look at relativistic travel effects), and Part IV explains how that applies to FTL and why it WILL violate causality (and some ways you could limit the damage, as well as why they're physically impossible as well, according to our current understanding). II and III are "optional reading" that go a bit more in depth into the concept of relativity but aren't required to understand how it applies to FTL.

It's a long read, but it's a complicated topic. You're either going to get answers along the lines of "because it does" or you're going to buckle in and take some time going through the situation. Not much in between.

Understand that when we say "FTL breaks causality," that doesn't mean any use of FTL will automatically violate causality and send the universe into a spiral of paradoxes, but any use of FTL can result in a situation that violates causality. It's due to the fact that information travelling faster than the speed of light (and people can carry information, if you have FTL travel but not communication) can take advantage of the fact that simultaneous events in one reference frame ARE NOT simultaneous in another. Meaning you can have information about an event before it happens in the local reference frame. Not just before they see it due to speed of light--before it actually, truly happens.

Also my last post on this topic. As I said before, I'd be happy to continue the discussion in another thread if y'all would like.

[Max_Killjoy]

That's not how it works. There are things that can be simplified for a lay (non-mathematical) audience, and there are things that can't (and retain the important aspects/cover all the edge cases). This is one of the second type. Here's a loose and breezy explanation: http://www.askamathematician.com/201...ate-causality/, but that only covers some of the special aspects.

In general, any space-like curve (including FTL transport or communications, but not only those) causes causality issues. Related searches would involve light cones.

We'll see. If past "explanations" offered are any indication, it will once again come down to "getting information to a place before light would get it there is bad because it's bad for information to get there before the light does", which is the "explanation" I keep seeing.

E - See other thread.

[Lord Torath]

Let's move any further discussion of this topic here:
FTL and Violating Causality.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion of RPGs that are bad, but you still enjoy playing.

I had a fun time playing RoleMaster back in 1994 with a buddy. But different armor values automatically assumed particular armor types. Armor 20, for example (IIRC), assumed full plate, and had exceptionally poor performance vs lightning/electricity. Works great for humans. Less so when it's a triceratops in natural armor. The Critical Hit tables were fun, but also sometimes confusing. Still, had a blast!

[BlacKnight]

Last post on this, because it's off topic for this thread.

We understand that "time is local". We understand how FTL that actually ends up with people arriving back at a place before they left, or otherwise getting information about events back to before the events occurred (locally) breaks causality. That doesn't need to be explained in any way.

The problem is the next part, which asserts that any FTL by any means* risks causality breakdowns -- that assertion is made here and elsewhere whenever FTL comes up, but I have yet to see any explanation anywhere that amounts to more anything more than "because it does" or "trust me".

It doesn't seem to me that you have understood why FTL=time travel. It doesn't matter if you go very fast or you are just teleporting instantly to another star system. The moment you do it means there is at least one observer that has seen you going in the past.
But to make it simple: can you explain why FTL=time travel when done with "normal means" (whatever this means). Because I honestly don't understand why you think it's important that the starship can communicate during the FTL trip.

[Florian]

he problem is the next part, which asserts that any FTL by any means* risks causality breakdowns -- that assertion is made here and elsewhere whenever FTL comes up, but I have yet to see any explanation anywhere that amounts to more anything more than "because it does" or "trust me".

Roughly, as I understood it, with two things:

1) We have four dimension. 3 space relative, 1 time relative. Take place A and B, happening at the same relative time in relative space. Now FTL from a to B and you will land in the past of B. Why? Because Time is the constant with which space is measured, you're faster than that, this will also affect the fourth axis, time.

2) Now indent of movie-like straight "zoom!", let's make FTL maneuverable. Start at A, go full force FTL and head straight back to A. You'd be back before you started.

[Steel Mirror]

My favorite horrible system is called Adeptus Evangelion (there are various editions, and I've played a bunch, and they are all awful in their own special ways). It's an RPG based on a Japanese show about giant robots and kids and social dysfunction, originally built on the Dark Heresy rules by a group of fans, and eventually revised into something of its own system.

Chargen is complicated and messy, though not I think to quite the same standard as some other games people have mentioned. But the rulebooks are opaque, I've always hated the dice system (it's hard to get a better than 40ish percent chance to succeed on anything but hurting something in a giant robot), combat is a crawl, and the game tends to actively undermine even the places where it does something well with baffling game design decisions.

The game encourages the PCs to consist of a few giant robot pilot teenagers plus an adult 'Operations Director', who stays behind at the base during battles and basically orders tanks and planes around to help fight off the giant monsters. Since those tanks and planes have about as much effect on the baddies as they do against Godzilla in one of his movies, that means the OD is basically useless during the coolest parts of the game, but is rewarded afterwards by having to do math homework to tally up how much damage the base incurred in the last attack so that they can assign resources to handle the repairs. Some games encourage you not to split the party, AdEva explicitly makes it so one of the characters can't play in the coolest part of the game.

The worst part about the game is the combat. I've probably played in a dozen promising games that flamed out in the first fight scene, because the rules are terribly imbalanced, finicky, and swingy. Since it's based on a show where every (okay most) battle was robot good guys vs a single overpowering badass, every fight is basically a boss fight. But unfortunately the rules undermine that setup by being more suited to squad-type combat against multiple foes (it is based on DH), so battles are prone to either anticlimax where the PCs curb stomp the bad guy with a lucky shot or superior action economy, or the reverse happens and it's a long impossible slog where an invulnerable enemy grinds through PCs one by one without much of a chance to meaningfully fight back.

Now the game has some good points too, largely inherited from DH. The critical hit tables are good and gnarly, as fits the show's emphasis on visceral combat where limbs fly and people die suddenly and unpredictably. Character customization is both broad and satisfying, and it does a pretty good job of letting you craft your own miserable little teenage jerk who feels like they could have been right at home with the show's original cast. And the robot building options are undeniably fun (if very unbalanced).

But despite all that, I've probably played more good sessions of AdEva in the last 10 years than all other games combined. It probably helps that the show itself was about a bunch of deeply flawed individuals in a totally messed up world fighting a losing battle against sheer horror and their own failings. The fact that the rules are fighting against you and the game itself is a bit of a crapshow seems oddly fitting for the show's particular brand of post apocalypse. Probably the main reason I've had so much fun with the game is my group though, several of whom I've played a bunch of different games with over the years, but whom I met through an AdEva game on these forums.

So I'll always have a bit of a soft spot for the game, even if I complain about it relentlessly every time I actually sit down to play it.

[Max_Killjoy]

Roughly, as I understood it, with two things:

1) We have four dimension. 3 space relative, 1 time relative. Take place A and B, happening at the same relative time in relative space. Now FTL from a to B and you will land in the past of B. Why? Because Time is the constant with which space is measured, you're faster than that, this will also affect the fourth axis, time.

2) Now indent of movie-like straight "zoom!", let's make FTL maneuverable. Start at A, go full force FTL and head straight back to A. You'd be back before you started.

See other thread.

[LordEntrails]

David Weber made it an interesting read in his honorverse series.

Agreed.

The "Lost Fleet" series is imho even better at it, also taking the problems with relativistic speed, accelerating and breaking more into account. Good read, as is the Honor Harrington series, but not a mechanic that I can see as functional in an RPG.

And agreed again. Weber and others make reading it interesting and compelling. But as pointed out, how do you make such fun in a RPG mechanic? I've never seen one that does.

[Tanarii]

The "Lost Fleet" series is imho even better at it, also taking the problems with relativistic speed, accelerating and breaking more into account. Good read, as is the Honor Harrington series, but not a mechanic that I can see as functional in an RPG.

Agreed.



And agreed again. Weber and others make reading it interesting and compelling. But as pointed out, how do you make such fun in a RPG mechanic? I've never seen one that does.

For sure, I should have made it clear I was making no claims about RPG playability.

Possibly it might work as a straight up (rather complex) War Game if done right. I wouldnt mind a game, tabletop or PC, along the lines of a Honorverse (with less math) and Star Wars Armada mashup. Or something like the naval battles aspect of Empire Total War, adapted to space.

Edit: also thanks for the tip on Lost Fleet I'll check it out

[Florian]

Somewhat ironical, but I think the Rogue Trader space combat rules would be a good place to start. While the core rules were based on "age of sails in space", the later supplements really build up a nasty space combat engine.

[Tinkerer]

My favorite horrible system is called Adeptus Evangelion (there are various editions, and I've played a bunch, and they are all awful in their own special ways). It's an RPG based on a Japanese show about giant robots and kids and social dysfunction, originally built on the Dark Heresy rules by a group of fans, and eventually revised into something of its own system.

Haha, if I had ever actually gotten to read or play that one I can almost guarantee that it would be on my list.

[Kaptin Keen]

The best truly awful RPG that ever was?

Earthdawn. Hands down. None above, and none beside. It's the most ingenius setting, the best crafted lore, the greatest sum of new ideas I've ever seen in any game - combined with the most ... maimed, broken, limping-along-on-double-crutches-with-no-legs mechanics there ever were. It was like someone set out to deliberately make the previous worst game ever (Shadowrun) even worse.

In it's way, it's glorius.

DnD 4th edition. I think it was a mess (bloated HP, skill system was weird, borked a beloved setting)...But it was trying something.

I wanted to give honorable mentions to this. DnD4 really was trying to reinvent itself better. Good ideas, bad execution.