Games That Required Too Much Buy-In: Forked Thread: Games that didn't survive...

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Combat system? Wait. M&M is basically d20. All the maneuvers and stuff are similar to D&D. I could understand there being an "unlearning curve" but not unfamiliarity.

My own experience was that M&M combat was easy and quite similar to d20 except damage and healing. I played about 5 sessions before the game broke down (due mainly to plot issues, eg lack thereof) and never wrapped my brain around that.

The DM actually had two campaigns going simultaneously (with crossovers). My second character wore an alien techno-organic suit that absorbed energy (giving him health) and had a vampiric claw attack. Despite this, he was so rarely injured (and when he was, it usually stunned him) that he had little opportunity to benefit from the healing.

And yes, we had PCs who could move ridiculously fast, but it rarely caused any problem.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

I have a freind who sees things in a very black/white way. I talked about Call of Cthulhu, and he got frustrated with the idea because "You can't kill that monster, so what's the point?" He missed the idea that you can succeed on a different scale: You just stopped the Mi-Go from opening up a portal to summon an Outer God, congrats! You just rescued a whole family from being sacrificed, congrats! etc..
All he'll see is: the game has Cthulhu in the name, therefor he is the end-boss of the whole game. We can't beat him and therefor there is no way to win.

Yeah, I had a friend who refused to play in my D&D game because I used the Forgotten Realms. He is such a powergamer that he can't stand the idea of a power NPC somewhere out there even if Elminster has never appeared in any of my games. I use powerful PCs as talking heads and I try not to have them go along with the party (comes from too many DMs with the hypercompetent NPC who is the only one who can save the day). I have used villian NPCs, but I usually make up my own stats based on the official ones.

He believes in attacking head on, even when he's being sneaky its just so he can get the bonus damage from Sneak attack. Whereas, the friend of mine who loves FR usually outsmarts or outthinks the NPC (i.e. me) outside the rules system.

And I'll add Dark Sun as a game with too much buy in. Unfortunately when I tried to run it for my old group, they had a DM who used Athas as an arbitrary punishment for his Dragonlance PCs and that flavor caused problems. The second time I tried to run it, I ran into the problem of an old school player who believes fantasy should be run in one manner and one manner only and that's traditional D&D by the book.

 

[Vocenoctum]

If Unknown Armies isn't about violence and greed, I think you're doing it wrong.

My one quick game of UA, I was a random mage (whatever it's called) and played russian roulette for some magic. Shot myself, barely survived, then reached for the revolver to get the magic to heal me...

The GM said I was doing something wrong or something...

Iron Kingdoms adventures: not a railroad? You mean like where the bad guy paralyzes the entire party with Hold Person (somehow, despite the fact that it can't hit multiple people) in a cutscene, then takes the MacGuffin? That's a classic railroad.

Somewhat different, a "railroad" to me is a very linear path, where as this game just assumed things would happen in their style. I don't recall the Hold Person offhand, but my main memory is the adventure just assuming the players would never get suspicious of the person before it was Revealed.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

Iron Kingdoms. I found that people weren't willing to get past the mechs and guns and see the brillance of the setting

Oh, those weren't the issue for me. Those were cool, even if the firearms as presented would bankrupt all the nations.

No, it's the player-hating "you can't be healed too much or the cleric dies" rules, as well as the pastepot magic items. Those killed it for me.

Brad

 

[WanderingMonster]

Continuum. It's a brilliant game about time travel. BUT, it required some major buy-in and bookkeeping on the part of the players. To play, you had to have a reasonable grasp of causality, logic, and temporal fallacies. Your worst enemy was yourself if you couldn't keep track of all the places and times you've been, all the places and times you will be, and then you had to worry about your friends. Fun to think about, but we never got past the character creation.

 

[jmucchiello]

I understand that the two combat systems have several shared aspects, but they also have several aspects that are entirely different.

And thus my confusion as to why someone would say the combat system was unfamiliar. Perhaps our definitions of unfamiliar differ.

On a related note, it seems so far (please correct me if I'm wrong) that you've posted on this thread only to contradict the assertions of others with regard to perceived 'high buy-in' for their groups.

In my first post (#32) I mentioned In Nomine as a high buy-in setting: one I would love to actually see get past making up characters. And I reiterated my stance about it in #37. So, no I didn't just come here to thread crap. But thank you for playing moderator with me.

 

[GrimGent]

I love Nobilis, but it has exactly this problem. You kind of have to filter out players who can't think abstractly enough to understand the setting.

That sounds like a cue for the usual "but you have to read it all literally" comment...

That is, in the setting night is a dark stranger that you might meet for early breakfast before sunrise, rain could at any time turn into silver needles according to its master's wishes, and the Pit of Hell is a physical place which can be reached by any traveller who knows the proper roads to walk. Everything in the universe as mortals understand it emanates from immortal incarnations known as Imperators (all true gods, angels, devils, and many stranger things), so that in a very real sense the Imperator of Pride and Persuasion is all pride and persuasion, and without him no one could ever feel pride or be persuaded by arguments; but while he still lives those lesser creatures chosen to be his champions, the titular Nobles, may bestow or transmute or withdraw the pride in a man's head or heart as they will, just as they are obligated to defend pride in specific and reality in general against the hordes of nothingness from beyond the edge of existence. Everything is alive, and that's not a metaphor. Everything is someone.

The overarching cosmology is rather simple, actually, once the players get their heads around some of its basic concepts.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I never liked the CoC "everyone dies" mentality, which I really only saw on the internet. In our games we had very few deaths, though sure we had an asylum visit here or there, that never took away from the plot.

That's interesting. In my experience the characters are so fragile that death (or insanity) is a very real possibility (my character once accidentally killed an NPC in one hit with a pair of brass knuckles!). Especially in the face of the supernatural things that you encounter. Although maybe it was how we created our characters, because we used storebought module or our insatiable curiosity.

CoC is easier to understand & get behind, IMO, because you're trying to preserve the world as it is, rather than Midnight's already defeated stance.

That's very true, CoC still gives you the chance to save the world. That promising aspect is probably why my friend liked it over Midnight.

 

[Vocenoctum]

That's interesting. In my experience the characters are so fragile that death (or insanity) is a very real possibility (my character once accidentally killed an NPC in one hit with a pair of brass knuckles!). Especially in the face of the supernatural things that you encounter. Although maybe it was how we created our characters, because we used storebought module or our insatiable curiosity.

Death and insanity are a very real possibility., sure. We had a few deaths, a few near deaths, a bit of insanity and always the threat of same. Players were concerned that if they made a wrong move they would die, but they couldn't be too cautious or they'd fail and some ancient evil would ruin the building, town, city or world.

What we didn't have were the constant deaths that people online seem to expect. The one adventure (I forget the name, either trail of tsathogua or another) where the characters globe hop and it assumes lots of character deaths (telling how to integrate new characters in deep africa for instance), was a huge anamoly for my group and we didn't finish it.

I mean, expecting a meatgrinder for PC's, it sort of minimizes the horror if there's no real attachment, IMO.

So anyway, CoC in my experience had the constant threat of death, but not the constant dying.

 

[sckeener]

We also adopted the troupe-style, each of us would select a certain theme for our adventures, i.e. one concentrated on the nearby faerie forest, one on a rival covenant, etc.

troupe style didn't work for me. My normal gaming group was never all that interested in Ars Magica and the one shoots never lived long enough to become something more than a one shot.


I still love the system and frequently mine it for my D&D games.