Played a lot of Palladium back in the day and loved the idea of RIFTS but that was a step too far.
The Street Fighter RPG from White Wolf was not only playable, was not only enjoyable, but supported a massive shared universe ongoing campaign among me and several of my friends and their groups.
Calling any RPG bad is literally throwing shade at other people's preferences.
When we first saw it at the game store we laughed, "Ha ha ha! What a stupid idea for an RPG!"The Street Fighter RPG is a phenomenal martial arts RPG that was unfortunately called the Street Fighter RPG.
(I can't believe I'm going to defend Palladium or Kevin Seimbieda's game design choices here...)I really wanted to like Heroes Unlimited. I kept going back to the book, fascinated by the random character generation. But, the different categories of hero just aren't balanced against each other. I ended up rolling up lots and lots of character ideas to port to Champions.
When we first saw it at the game store we laughed, "Ha ha ha! What a stupid idea for an RPG!"
When my roommate bought it we teased him, "You bought that? Ha ha ha! You are so stupid for buying that!"
When we made fighters and had some fights, we were suddenly, "Hey, this is interesting and I enjoy this!"
When we created a huge shared campaign world with literally hundreds of fighters and ongoing storylines, we began saying, "This is epic! I'm having so much fun with this!"
Thirty years later, we now say, "You know what I miss? I miss our Street Fighter campaigns! We should really play that again! Why aren't we playing Street Fighter?"
Really? What objective measures are you talking about? Sales is about the only objective measure. Everything else is subjective.Not really? Although preference does factor strongly in it, there are also objective measures of game design.
And those are all still subjective things. Poorly written isn't an objective standard. Layout isn't objective, it's preference. Vision certainly is preferences. Poorly written and badly designed games sell gangbusters. Immaculately written games that are wonderfully designed disappear without notice.Saying something like "dice pools are bad" or "a fantasy post apocalypse is bad" or "roll under systems are terrible" or "this is based on a comic I dislike" is a different thing from saying "this is poorly written", "the layout is a mess", or "this lacks any kind of cohesive design principle or conceptual vision".
The former is throwing shade on a preference. The latter isn't about preference at all, it's commenting on bad game writing or design.
"But no, see, I only like things that are good. If it were good, then I would like it. Since I don't like it, everything about it must be bad. Why is that so hard for you?" -the InternetSaying something like "dice pools are bad" or "a fantasy post apocalypse is bad" or "roll under systems are terrible" or "this is based on a comic I dislike" is a different thing from saying "this is poorly written", "the layout is a mess", or "this lacks any kind of cohesive design principle or conceptual vision".
The former is throwing shade on a preference. The latter isn't about preference at all, it's commenting on bad game writing or design.
One can make a game that is poorly written or designed and it still be fabulous!
Played a lot of Palladium back in the day and loved the idea of RIFTS but that was a step too far.