Games That Required Too Much Buy-In: Forked Thread: Games that didn't survive...

[WayneLigon]

Forked from: Games that didn't survive first contact. . .

Tribe 8 - I'll always love this dark, dark setting, but unless the players are very well read on the core elements of the setting and are interested in a whole lot of grim, cathartic roleplaying, it's just not going to work.

And it didn't.

I think this deserves a special sub-set of responses.

There have been many games I've wanted to play but after reading them I was like 'I love this but how in God's name am I going to explain it to anyone?'. Tribe 8, Nephilim, Mage, Wraith, Providence, anything involving Tekumel, and others -- I felt that unless every player read the entire thing front to back and got 'into' the setting that it would fall flat on it's face.

Anyone else have examples?

 

[Fallen Seraph]

While it isn't as hard as bad as some, Promethean can be a very difficult game to get players into. Though if your lucky it can be the most engrossing game with the right people.

 

[jdrakeh]

While it is hard as bad as some, Promethean can be a very difficult game to get players into. Though if your lucky it can be the most engrossing game with the right people.

Too much buy-in? HERO System. Back in the day, when I wasn't working 40 hours a week and volunteering for various non-profit orgs, it wasn't an issue. Today, creating everything (including such mundane items as handguns and automobiles) from the ground up is a daunting prospect and, so far as I know, the only way around this pitfall is to throw hundreds of dollars at HERO supplements. That said. . .

While I know from past experience that HERO supplements are worth every penny of the asking price in terms of quality, I don't play enough anymore to make the investment worth it in terms of actual use. It's a catch 22, I guess -- I don't have the time to build it all myself, but I don't play often enough to justify buying a bookcase fulll of supplements in order to get the prefab goodness that I need for the RPG genres that I enjoy.

GURPS is only slightly less daunting, as it deals in broad lists of pre-built stuff as a general currency, which means that the basic rulebook gives me access to more stuff out of the box with less trouble than HERO FRed does* -- but for anything that I really want to focus on tightly, it pretty much requires a supplement, or I fall into the same DIY contraints that HERO imposes on my free time.

I suppose that if I was satisfied to use one system for everything until the end of time, then neither of the buy-in factor for either system would not dissuade me from taking the plunge -- but I haven't quite reached that place in my gaming yet (I suppose that if the actual play gets any more sparse, however, I might).

*HERO Fred will actually let me build more things but, as mentioned above, it will take more work/effort/time.

[Edit: I totally misunderstood. It's late. That said, I think that my response is still somewhat relevant, as it specifically addresses issues of time/effort investment (albeit for game prep, as opposed to setting absorption due to the generic nature of said the systems in question).]

 

[Mercule]

Wraith, Aria, the more esoteric styles of Mage: the Ascension.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Too much buy-in?

Yeah it is hard for people to understand what Promethean is all about, and lots of people don't like the whole Disquiet idea.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

jdrakeh, I think your point is quite valid- an immense investment in DM time & $$$ can be just as daunting to starting a new RPG as a gameworld that requires every player to read the equivalent of a novella before playing.

The latter can be somewhat ameliorated by writing a brief synopsis of the campaign world- either as the DM or as the game designer/company.

Your concern is, unfortunately, an almost unavoidable consequence of a flexible, point-based, multi-genre RPG. As the lovechild of D20 and HERO, I wouldn't be surprised if M&M didn't suffer from supplement bloat down the road.

However, there is hope for such games. After a while, you get familiar enough with the system that you can quickly "file the numbers off" of certain constructs- gadgets, NPC archetypes, etc.- and reuse them over and over, regardless of genre.

Of course, that level of familiarity usually only happens after some considerable expense- time, money or both.

But as to the OP's overall point- personally, I can't say I've ever experienced that. I usually find I can get by with a quick skim and a few questions.

 

[WayneLigon]

[Edit: I totally misunderstood. It's late. That said, I think that my response is still somewhat relevant

No, I think it's a perfectly valid point. The degree of system mastery required also put me off several games as aspects of games. Harn, the original Chivalry and Sorcery, vehicle construction in Classic Traveller, vehicle construction of any kind in GURPS, Aftermath (I think that was the game with the page-long flowchart on how to conduct combat), any incarnation of DC Heroes, and probably a few others.

 

[Echohawk]

Anyone else have examples?

The Whispering Vault (1994, Pariah Press), which is, to quote "a strange dream about immortal beings who travel through time to mend the fabric of reality and the nightmarish creatures who oppose them".

Admittedly, the game itself makes it clear that it is intended for experienced gamers, and the flavour and style is excellent. But it requires a lot of buy in from the players to make it work.

 

[Serendipity]

Jorune. I feel your pain. Not the only game in my direct experience that this applies to (directly? Probably Wraith: the Oblivion) but the one that springs to mind the quickest.
I feel your pain.

 

[jdrakeh]

I suppose, what draws me to HERO and GURPS in the first place is that they abstract things less, which I like. Sadly, less abstraction = more work, and that is what drives me crazy. I like more definition in the games that I play, but I don't really have the free time to indulge such detail in generic systems anymore.

This being the case, I tend to stick with stuff like Risus, Story Engine, or Window -- they do get the job done and get it done quickly, I just have to sacrifice the mechanical detail that I would prefer. I guess it's a decent trade off, though, as if I sacrificed free time for detail, I'd never be able to actually play those other games.

Hopefully, as I get older, the chaos will subside and I'll find myself with more free time again.