What is, in your opinion, the single WORST RPG ever made, and why is it so bad?

[Sockfuzz]

I can think of several ways to alter that crap rule, without having the chuck the whole game. But, if that's just one example of many crap rules, I have to agree with your players!

The issue with throwing out that mechanic, unfortunately, is that it's basically the core of the system! It's sort of the equivalent of deciding that Advantage in 5e sucks and that you're just going to play without it - like, at that point, what are you even playing the game for?

The whole experience made me way more conscious of how a game feels to play in practice, which is probably the best thing that I could've gotten out of the whole ordeal.

 

[Gradine]

For what it's worth, Elder Scrolls games before Skyrim did have something of a class system; it was mostly build-your-own class but they had a bunch of defaults to pick from also.

 

[Thomas Shey]

For what it's worth, Elder Scrolls games before Skyrim did have something of a class system; it was mostly build-your-own class but they had a bunch of defaults to pick from also.

Build-a-class is an interesting hybrid approach that you don't see very often in either TT or CRPGs; the only specific case I can remember in the former was the optional system for True20, but seems like I'd seen one or two others somewhere.

I suspect its a case where trying to make it work right is harder than either a normal class model, or a point or skill based model.

 

[Gradine]

At least in Morrowind and Oblivion your class determined how and when you level up and how well your stats increase when you level up and the implementation was wonky as all hell, but folx I know loved breaking that system into its smallest components so eh.

I do believe the MMORPG also has a class system, but I'm not as familiar with that one.

 

[zarionofarabel]

The various editions of Dungeons & Dragons.

 

[niklinna]

The issue with throwing out that mechanic, unfortunately, is that it's basically the core of the system! It's sort of the equivalent of deciding that Advantage in 5e sucks and that you're just going to play without it - like, at that point, what are you even playing the game for?

The whole experience made me way more conscious of how a game feels to play in practice, which is probably the best thing that I could've gotten out of the whole ordeal.

Oh I wouldn't throw it out. But, for example, a simple first change would be to say you can spend your points after the roll, so you can decide whether you need and want to expend some amount of that limited resource, but if you do, you know it'll work. Various refinements are possible. Not knowing more about the other uses of that resource, however, I do not know how practical that is.

 

[niklinna]

Well, my feeling is that making class based design simple also tends to make it more rigid and I'm not a fan. By the time you've got a class based system that gives a reasonable amount of variation, I've not seen one that seemed any simpler than just buying individual components and throwing in some caps.

I really like the playbook approach, where you start with a solid basic concept, but then on advancement, you can take a new move or whatever from any playbook and customize out freely. Subject to the usual social niceties of course. My Whisper in Blades in the Dark wound up with quite a few advances from other playbooks, including the Hound's Ghost Hunter after he incidentally reuinited a ghost with its body (a husk) during a solo score.

 

[Vael]

The one that broke me was Blood Of Heroes, an attempted reprint of a DC superhero system.

First, I've decided that any point buy system that practically requires a spreadsheet is a problem. Second, you shouldn't actually spend all your character points as they are also a metagame currency to boost your attack or defense rolls. Third, while trying to create a version of Ursula, I ended up with tentacles that could reach an insane (like beyond visual range) reach.

Overall, I barely scraped through char gen, and said I was done after a single sample combat.

 

[Autumnal]

Build-a-class is an interesting hybrid approach that you don't see very often in either TT or CRPGs; the only specific case I can remember in the former was the optional system for True20, but seems like I'd seen one or two others somewhere.

Class Warfare, a supplement for Dungeon World, does it beautifully. The author is establishes some class skeletons and a zillion partial class. A finished character ready to play is a base class and two partial classes, and each combo comes out with really different vibes.

 

[Kannik]

Cortex is a different beast, I think. There it's a) easier to adjust difficulty b) harder to bypass difficulty adjustment.

Approaches, in my opinion, just don't really mesh with how Fate works, but yeah I love them outside of Fate. In my fates+blades hybrid I use approaches, in the second best game I ever made there are approaches too.

I think most versions of Cortex are a different beast here, because it (generally) assumes one of the different approaches will be involved in every die pool, its just a question of which, and often which is pretty obvious.

Again, very interesting! I've played in a pair of FATE Core campaigns (including one we're now running in Cortex Prime and using approaches) but never in Accelerated so never saw how they wouldn't mesh well within the FATE framework. While trying to not derail this thread too much, how was it in FATE that which approach to use was more flummoxing to the players?

It should be noted that by the standards of modern players (and this board in particular) I'm pretty far up the "not only tolerates complex systems, often actively wants them" scale, and I bounced right off Phoenix Command.

Heh, same here. Several decades ago when I got the game I was very much into a "the crunchier and more complex and more granular and more specific, the better!" mode of thinking -- so much so that I bought a whack tonne of the Phoenix Command books all at once. And then it managed to not pique my interest to play with it at all.