Systems You Left after One Bad Experience

Joshua Randall · Jun 4, 2019

Savage Worlds: So you can get 'stunned' in combat and miss a turn, and that's a *routine* element of the game? (i.e., not something exceptional that represents a particularly devastating attack)

Nope. I'm out. This isn't UNO where I want to get SKIP'd all the time.

Scottius · Jun 7, 2019

I know Savage Worlds is a pretty popular system but it just does not work for me at all. I played a session or two and soured on it immediately. I especially didn't enjoy the damage system for combat. Felt entirely unfun.

ajevans · Jun 11, 2019

Symbaroum's system was a bit of a dissapointment. There are trad systems with lots of moving parts , or more indie systems that simplify and do some clever stuff. This felt like an untested Trad system in draft with lots of missing parts. It was quite easy to build characters that could be pretty much untouchable by most other inhabitants of the world.

AD&D 1e played RAW. I came to this in recent years on the back of experience with 5e along with experience of B/X and BECMI, and in comparison AD&D 1e just seemed like a hot mess of a system. So finnicky, clunky and seemingly arbitrary, and written dryly in past tense.

Fenris-77 · Jun 11, 2019

Cyberpunk. Started some characters with a regular group and it seemed fine. I rolled up a Solo, because, you know, combat and stuff is fun. We were sitting around talking characters afterward and and I started to get the feeling that things weren't balanced, so we did a little thought experiment. My Solo against the rest of the party. I shot everyone else in the head twice, with a reload of my revolver, before another character even got an action. We looked at each other, quietly put the books away, and went to do something else.

billd91 · Jun 12, 2019

Almost 4e. Played through the demo scenario and was so frustrated by that final encounter that I was about ready to completely pack it in. In the end, we gave it 9 months because 2 of the players really wanted to give it a go. But I never liked it. In the end, once one of those 2 player had gotten fed up with it, we dropped it to go back to 3e.

Several other games were kind of Meh experiences that we only played once and then never seemed to get back to, including:
Recon
Talislanta
Robotech
Mekton
Deliria

pickin_grinnin · Jun 12, 2019

Modiphius 2d20 Conan. I absolutely hated it.

Bagpuss · Jun 12, 2019

Retreater said:
Star Wars: Imperial Assault
We were excited to play the "new Descent" with Star Wars flavor. I bought the expensive starter set, learned the rules, and called up my group to play. We started the first mission, which was a slaughter in the favor of the Imperial player. The group, realizing how poorly designed the opening mission was refused to play the game again. I reboxed it while it was still fresh, and luckily got a good price at resale for it.

It really depends on when you open that door. Make sure it is the first player action of the round and that mission is suddenly a lot easier, but yeah it is designed so the imperial player can win occasionally. We played it right through and found it really tended to favour the rebels (IMHO) but it was close and the Imperials would win on occasions.

SolidPlatonic · Jun 12, 2019

Starfinder does have all the same problems/benefits of Pathfinder, which is too bad. Their background system is pretty neat. It seems about 25% of your power comes from your background. This is probably generous, but it does seem backgrounds in Pathfinder are more powerful than their 5e equivalents. I would love to see D&D charcacters be 60% of their power comes from calsses, 40% from their background...

Bagpuss · Jun 13, 2019

Jacob Lewis said:
One thing to keep in mind is that the Imperial player is not a GM. He/she is, in fact, another player who is actively opposing the others who are playing together as a team.

I highly recommend using the APP that takes over the role of the Imperial player for a more co-op experience, so that you don't feel like a GM being unfair when you shaft the Rebel players, the APP can do that for you and then you can all grown and complain together.

Iron Sky · Jun 13, 2019

Bagpuss said:
I highly recommend using the APP that takes over the role of the Imperial player for a more co-op experience, so that you don't feel like a GM being unfair when you shaft the Rebel players, the APP can do that for you and then you can all grown and complain together.

We tried the app and found it got repetitive and bland. It felt more like a really slow video game instead and killed the game for my family. Haven't been able to coerce them back to it since. :/