Products That Overwhelmed You

[MGibster]

I'll pick another one. Exalted. Being overwhelmed was probably party based on my state of mind in that I wasn't that interested in the game to begin with and wasn't going to purchase it. But when I tried making a character and was having trouble making heads or tails of the charms I just said "#%#% it!" and decided not to play.

 

[Mannahnin]

The setting being so weird and the rules being built to support the setting made the rules of Jorune indecipherable to me; I couldn't keep track of which names were what.

Folks interested in Jorune might want to check out Ben Laurence (the Through Ultan's Door guy)'s blog Mazirian's Garden. He's been planning out an OD&D hack and expansion for Jorune and his ideas so far look incredible.

Mazirian's Garden

maziriansgarden.blogspot.com

 

[TarionzCousin]

Advanced Squad Leader - Chapter C - particularly Offboard Artillery. There's a secondary product that you can buy that flowcharts it for easier (not easy, just easier) reference.

Ha! My friends and I played Squad Leader first, so "Advanced" Squad Leader was relatively easier: its rules didn't contradict themselves and everything (mostly) was in one book.

 

[Marc Radle]

Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth would be the first that overwhelmed me after my introduction to RPGs, if anyone remembers that system. It was a ridiculous 500+ game where you generated by the mythology of the world, and characters, but also at the same time, Aria Worlds, which was technically a supplement (and another 304 pages) came out, which let you create the world that the mythology and characters existed in. I got both, and good freaking god, I was completely out-of-my-depth, despite trying to understand it all and get it all working. Even looking at some of the paragraphs now, it's like "What the hell is this?!

Like:

"If a persona is within the range of a particular reputation, the persona might be recognized. If he is recognized any interaction or reactions will be colored by the persona's Renown. When in an area where such recognition is possible, a Recognition Trial may be required when the persona interacts with strangers. This Trial is slightly different from most Trials; its Base is Half of the observer's Intelligence, and its Rank is equal to the Renown Value of the Trial's object. The Mythguide should apply any additional difficulty modifiers that he deems appropriate."

And that's one of the clearer bits. There's paragraph after paragraph after paragraph of this sort of thing. Can you work it out? Sure. Is it worth working out? Absolutely not. There are zillions of traits and systems and so on. And that's the game. Creating a world and myth was absolutely no joke either. Or a huge joke depending on how you look at it. Certainly it could take you a staggering amount of time.

Today I can really see how much of a disaster of RPG design the RPG bit of it was, but at the time I sort of wondered if I was just dumb.

Aria was definitely NOT for the faint of heart, that’s for sure! I’m sure I’m a bit biased, but I think in many ways it was a little ahead of its time really. Many of the concepts would work quite well in mondern games in fact. Heck, one could argue that Aria had one of the earliest concept of Feats (they weren’t called that of course)

It was very well reviewed at the time and was even nominated for Best New Game at Origins the year it came out.

This is making me want to go pull my Aria books of my shelf now and give them a read

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Aria was definitely NOT for the faint of heart, that’s for sure! I’m sure I’m a bit biased, but I think in many ways it was a little ahead of its time really. Many of the concepts would work quite well in mondern games in fact. Heck, one could argue that Aria had one of the earliest concept of Feats (they weren’t called that of course)

It was very well reviewed at the time and was even nominated for Best New Game at Origins the year it came out.

This is making me want to go pull my Aria books of my shelf now and give them a read

I definitely agree that it was ahead of its time, but a lot of the rules were poorly-considered and poorly-drafted as a result, as well as needlessly numerous and complex. I have it out now and it's a mixture of some brilliant ideas but whole sea of mediocre implementation. The combat is close to incomprehensible.

 

[Maxperson]

Star Fleet Battles in the 1980's.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Star Fleet Battles in the 1980's.

I'm still amazed that I was basically okay with SFB. I got like the whole damn thing in the early 1990s, and it was initially kind of extreme but we didn't take long to get used to it and played it quite a lot. IIRC it has some rules to "ease you in" or something.

 

[MGibster]

When I look at older games I used to play and run, I'm surprised by my tolerance for crunchy, complicated rules when I was younger.

I used to really love games like Car Wars, Starfleet Battles, Battletech, etc., etc. but I'd seriously have to think twice about sitting down to play any of those games these days. I played Battletech around Christmas 2019 and about 3/4 of the way through remembered why I stopped playing it. And I feel the same way about a lot of RPGs I used to play. You couldn't drag me to a game of Champions or anything by Palladium. And I tend to favor rules light/medium games these days.

 

[Retreater]

I'm finding that I am getting overwhelmed more frequently these days. I wonder what the difference is now?
I don't have the free time I had in my youth to pour over rulebooks?
I have less patience for convoluted mechanics after seeing numerous systems over the years?
COVID/Pandemic exhaustion making me hesitant to learn new stuff?
I have a lot of games to read and study (and play) and I get things mixed up easily?
I place higher importance on using all of the rules/setting material and playing a game "correctly" than I did when I was younger?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Hm. Never thought of myself as “pro-complexity”, but the list of games people are mentioning as too crunchy contains so many of my faves!

On topic: the only time I got legitimately overwhelmed by a product was when I ran M&M before I really understood the system, relying too much on its evolution from D20 to enable me to handle it.