Games you thought you'd like and hated and games you thought you'd hate and liked

[DrunkonDuty]

I must echo earlier sentiments on Twilight 2000. I loved reading the books. The detail was fantastic, the map of Poland in box set. Everything looked so good and so well researched and a real post apocolyptic game (no nuclear mutants here.) But it was just unplayable. The mechanics just too complex for easy play. Hate is too strong a word but I just can't play it. Which is a shame actually.

Thought I'd hate HERO. Got nagged into playing it. Now I love it. Yeah it's complex (which I know is an accusation I just levelled against Twilight) but eventually I got used to the the mechanics. It's the best game for supers out there, bar none. Does pretty good fantasy too but a bit complex when something as simple and well known as DnD is out there already.

Gotta give love to the old Marvel game (FASERIP and all that). Very rules light but loads of fun.

 

[McBard]

Thought I would love, but ended up hating: Iron Heroes. Tokens, random armor reduction, and especially Stunts (the stunt system actually--ironically--made for slow and tedious combat).

Thought I was in love with, but ended up hating: D&D 3.X. After ~7 years, a half dozen campaigns, shelves of books, hundreds of painted pewter miniatures, and notebooks of houserules, I've got a huge fork sporting a d20 logo stuck in me. Done. 4E's announcement was about 2 years too late, but I'll nonetheless probably give it a go.

 

[Betote]

Games I thought I'd love, but ended disliking:

Iron Heroes: After having enjoyed The Book of Iron Might so much, I planned to give its big brother a try. One would think that taking the most complicated and complication-spawning part of D&D (magic) would make the game simpler, but noooooooo. Tokens, mastery trees, aspects, crunchy bit after crunchy bit that makes impossible to think in character because you have to be always aware of the tiny little rule bits.

Hackmaster: Excellent reading material, makes you eager to play it. Played it once, died on the first combat. Played again, same result. DMed, the exact same thing. I want challenges, not constant bloodsheds and piles of character sheets in the bin.

Games I thought I'd hate, but ended loving:

D&D 3.5: Disliked AD&D2 with a passion, hated 3.0 with a fury, fell in love with 3.5. It takes what I liked from RuneQuest and RoleMaster and turn it up to 11. And I almost always DM, which I hear is suppossed to be a PITA

Mutants & Masterminds: "D&D Superheroes? Meh!" I couldn't be more wrong. Great character customization, a very simple and streamlined rulesystem that lets you wing anything up, as any Superhero RPG should be able to do if it wants to be any close to the comic book genre.

Star Wars d6: KISS principle applied to rules design. I'd love it if it was just a tad deadlier, but it's an excellent system for the genre it simulates.

Games I loved at first sight and still love:

Call of Cthulhu: A very simple, rules-light system that doesn't get on the way and a lot of evocative fluff. Also, it has the best city/site sourcebook (Arkham Unveiled) and the best adventures ever written, period. Whenever I introduce anyone to roleplaying, it's CoC the game I choose. And I've never missed a target

 

[Mort]

I have to Echo the chorus for GURPS.

Great time reading through the books - everything seemed to flow and really fit well together.

Then when it came down to playing - well the experience was underwhelming enough that we quit after 1 session and never looked back.

 

[Wormwood]

[Addendum]

Thought I'd hate, ended up with Freaky Love:
Marvel Universe RPG
You know...the one with glass beads instead of dice.
Yep. That one.

Initially I was was derisive, then merely skeptical, and finally cautiously optimistic.

By the time the campaign ended, MURPG had completely and forever changed my approach to role-playing games. I finally grokked how a game can provide a framework for collaborative storytelling.

It's my favorite game.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Interesting thread.

Game I want to love but needs work is M&M. I hate the Toughness Save mechanic. When 4e comes out, I'm going to write my own M&M 2.5 that uses a lot of 4e tropes. Saves as defenses, bring back HP. Change the PL progression to go 1-30 instead of 1-20, etc.

Game that I thought I'd hate but had a blast was V:tM. Although I was kicked out of the group for not playing the game "right". I wanted to play less Interview with a Vampire, and more Underworld/Blade. I made a vampire assassin that single-handedly annihilated an entire SWAT team in order to protect the Masquerade! Gotta love celerity and endless blood points by draining all the SWAT guys dry!

The rest of the group wanted to role-play up all their angst and spent several HOURS of real time role-playing using their vampire powers to dominate chicks in a bar. It was pathetic. And these people made fun of me for being a D&D player. :\

I never played again. The GM, who thought my playstyle added a lot of excitement to the game was thoroughly disgusted by his players attitudes. So much so that he quit running V:tM shortly after.

LoL. I guess that was a scenario of "Gamer Stereotypes Colliding". A D&D Buttkicker meets a WoD Thespian... That just can't work out

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

I loved the old Traveller 2300 (later 2300AD) background. I really wanted to like the game, but no matter what I did, the rules just got in the way of the fun. An awful, truly awful, system. The same system (I think) was used in Twilight 2000 (a background I hated – so I’m not cetain).

Similarly, I really wanted to like Hero Wars/HeroQuest the new rules system for adventures on Glorantha. I’m an old time RuneQuest player and the new system was promised to be the best thing ever for role-playing in Glorantha. A friend of mine refereed it twice. None of us (and we’d all had over 15 years gaming experience when the game came out) could figure out how the game was supposed to work. Much too ‘woolly’ for me. Subsequently I’ve player intermittently with glorantha, but only using the RQ3 rules.

On the other side, it took a lot of persuading for me to roll up an EarthDawn character. I’ve always been wary of ‘archetype’ based games. The game mechanics – I’ve improved my archery talent from d10+d6 to d10+d8, seemed crazy! But I had a huge amount of fun with that game.

 

[Jhaelen]

Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth: Again, great idea -- you get to play an entire culture, zooming in to the level of an individual hero, or zooming out to focus on the development of the culture as a whole.

I never tried actually playing that, but I sure am glad, I managed to get a copy. It's definitely good reading before embarking on the daunting task of Worldbuilding.

Regarding the OPs topic, I cannot think of any rpg I actually hated after an initial period of excitement.
I _was_ pretty disappointed about my first play experience with 'Call of Cthulhu', but I think that was mainly the DM's fault. It reminded me more of a Paranoia session than anything else...

 

[rkwoodard]

mine

Hi,
Thought I would love but didn't:
Werewolf (the old wod). Love werewolves, hated the fluff of the setting.


Thought I would not like, but did:

Space: 1889. The genre (at that time) was not my cup of tea, but the GM was great (an actual rocket Scientist). And the game was a blast.


An aside. GURPS. You know I can't GM it to save my life, it has all the flaws everyone here points out. But a good GM (like my rocket scientist friend) can make GURPS a really good (focused and differentiated) game.

RK

 

[Will]

Oh, and in a 'love/hate' category, Call of Cthulhu.
Love running the game, adore it, love many elements of the game, but large sections of the rules are horrible, terribly clunky... gah.
For 10 years I ran it, off and on, and struggled.

If I get to run it again, I'm thinking of using M&M with a dash of CoC D20.