Systems You'd Never Play after Reading Them

Aldarc · Jun 13, 2019

Pick a system used for Tekumel. Any system. Nope. If you want to navigate the byzantine culture of the Petal Throne, it seems that you must first navigate the byzantine rules that always seem matched to this setting.

Ovinomancer · Jun 13, 2019

Elfcrusher said:
Bear in mind I didn't (as the title of the thread says) actually play it, and I had to go get it off the shelf and page through it to remember what the turn-offs were. In a nutshell it felt like you couldn't play the game without having a pretty thorough understanding of the setting, but the setting itself required too much work to grok. I paged through it and there's a bewildering array of nationalities, each of which is supposed to have a certain flavor. Honestly it would have been a ton easier if each one just had a real country after it, to help give it context. (E.g., "This is like Greece, ok?")

The genre really appealed to me so I backed the KS, but the book turned me off. You don't even see any rules for dozens of pages (or maybe I missed them), and when I tried to get a sense of "how does this game work?" it doesn't seem like that's in one place.

It may still be a great game: I didn't really give it a chance because it didn't grab me.

Hmm. Are you talking about 7th Sea 2e? That's the one with the kickstarter; 1e was published by AEG 15ish years ago?

If so, I get you. I lurve 7Sea 1e and have kitbashed it and houseruled it for soecial applications. Also played it without knowing the setting much at all. But, 2e? Wasn't impressed and be much more likely to use a 1e bash than 2e.

If you mean 1e, then you are a soulless monster, but I'm okay with that.

Aldarc · Jun 13, 2019

Agreed. 7th Sea 2e felt kinda "meh." My gaming group in Austria loved 7th Sea 1e, but 2e left them feeling flat and uninspired to run it.

GMMichael · Jun 13, 2019

What about after writing them? I wouldn't be too interested in a Modos RPG game without adding some modules - something for psionics, an encumbrance system, maybe steal some ideas from Tome of Magic. A grid-free miniatures rules-module would be cool. I like some gobs of cookie dough tossed in with my vanilla ice cream

innerdude · Jun 13, 2019

-Anything White Wolf --- At least ten or twelve times over the last 15 years, I've wandered into a game store and picked up a White Wolf title (oWoD, Vampire, Mage, Werewolf), and started thumbing through it. At no point in any of those perusals have I felt a desire to play a game based on the presented material, let alone pay money for the privilege of doing so.

-*Special Shout Out to White Wolf, Part 2 - Exalted --- I perused this book one time for about 120 seconds. That's all it took to know that I had less than zero interest in whatever "play experience" it was offering.

-Shadowrun --- I've picked up a Shadowrun core rulebook off the shelf 10 or 12 times over the years, and every time I think there's some really cool stuff in there, but there's just too much "cruft" that I'd have to lift out to even want to try it. If I did try to play it, I'd have to revamp the game world (I've always thought orcs and elves running around with mohawks and laser guns was a bridge too far, even for my geekish tastes). Then I'd have to figure out how the whole thing actually works . . . yeah, just way too much effort. And it's not that I don't love cyberpunk as a genre; Snowcrash is one of my favorite sci-fi novels, and the Deus Ex video games are my all time favorites. I just can't get into Shadowrun's particular flavor.

-RIFTS --- This one is a combo platter of thinking both the rules and the setting are equally obtuse, and not just obtuse, but obtuse in an infuriatingly smug way. This shouldn't surprise me, considering that the game maker's public persona generally comes across in like manner.

*Edit* D&D 5th Edition --- This one technically isn't a "I'd never play that." If someone were to offer to run a D&D 5e campaign with an interesting premise, I'd certainly play it. But in terms of really "connecting" with the rules system when I read it, 5e did almost nothing for me. And as a GM, I can't think of any reason that I'd run a 5e game in lieu of any of five or six other systems that I'd be vastly more excited about.

John R Davis · Jun 13, 2019

LOTFP. Art and book where well laid out; just didnt see what was different as a game.
Numenera. Played at a CON; bought book reading through left my uninterested
The Dark Eye. Like the art and layout; had played the PC games; all just too big to get started with
Dune. Despite liking the source material didn't like the system
Legends of Anglerre. What the fluff was I thinking

Guest 6801328 · Jun 13, 2019

Ovinomancer said:
Hmm. Are you talking about 7th Sea 2e? That's the one with the kickstarter; 1e was published by AEG 15ish years ago?

If so, I get you. I lurve 7Sea 1e and have kitbashed it and houseruled it for soecial applications. Also played it without knowing the setting much at all. But, 2e? Wasn't impressed and be much more likely to use a 1e bash than 2e.

If you mean 1e, then you are a soulless monster, but I'm okay with that.

Aldarc said:
Agreed. 7th Sea 2e felt kinda "meh." My gaming group in Austria loved 7th Sea 1e, but 2e left them feeling flat and uninspired to run it.

Oh, yeah, I meant the 2e KS. My bad.

BronzeDragon · Jun 13, 2019

Greg K said:
Alternity

How dare you speak against greatness?

Greg K said:
Dungeons & Dragons 4e (TSR)

Ok, you're forgiven now...

The Crimson Binome · Jun 13, 2019

Blue said:
I've never read 7th Sea but I see others gushing about it, enough that it's on my list of "want to try" games. I'll take this as a warning though. Any specifics you can share about why it didn't work?

I read through one example, which (IIRC) was about a player spending some sort of resource to make it so an enemy in the next room did not have a weapon on them, and I knew that it wasn't for me. Which is unfortunate, because the setting and core dice mechanics from 1E seemed pretty interesting, so I was looking forward to a straight update of that.

Ovinomancer · Jun 13, 2019

Saelorn said:
I read through one example, which (IIRC) was about a player spending some sort of resource to make it so an enemy in the next room did not have a weapon on them, and I knew that it wasn't for me. Which is unfortunate, because the setting and core dice mechanics from 1E seemed pretty interesting, so I was looking forward to a straight update of that.

Absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Maybe one of the sorcery knacks? Those are powered by drama die, which usually are used as floating extra dice for rolls, or for a heroic effort to ignore the nasty death spiral penalties for a round. Unless it's something I haven't heard, drama dice can't be spent for any narrative control outsude of a few sorcery knacks (which are magic).

I mean, you can not like it (you soulless monster!), but this shouldn't be a reason.