Games you were turned off of and why

[pogre]

All of the Palladium games - I met KS once.

All Supers games - just not my genre.

Vampire, Werewolf, etc - Not into horror much, at least not that style.

 

[smilinggm]

Amber - No Dice - The GM has way too much power over the player, and did I say No DICE!!

Time Lords - The GM I played under made us use the Play Yourself rules that are built into the game. IMHO any game that has rules to play yourself built into its core can rot on the game store book shelf.

WoD's Wraith - kind of a neat concept but was a true nightmare to play.

 

[Gundark]

Don't mean to take it off topic and you are entitled to your views and opinions, but .

There is always a big BUT. Anyhow There is some games in this thread that I have felt the need to defend, but I understand that everyone has their opinion.

 

[Rockwolf66]

Rifts: Well it just got way to Munchtastic for me. the Last time I GM'ed the whole party wiped because one of the members decided to interrogate the town drunk in public with a neural mace.


FATAL: the less said the better.

 

[Hussar]

All of the Palladium games - I met KS once.

All Supers games - just not my genre.

Vampire, Werewolf, etc - Not into horror much, at least not that style.

Ditto. Seems like there's a pretty recurring thread.

I'm sorry for this, but I also gotta put 2e Adnd in the pile as well. There is no way I'll go back to playing 2e after seeing d20. Having umpteen supplements that contradict other supplements and the base rules and then spending far too many hours around the gaming table trying to plow my way through is something I'll pass on thanks. That and the 2e players I know that play now are not my cup of tea. Amateur thespian hour is not my idea of a fun night. Sorry, I wanna play that iron thewed barbarian crushing my enemies in front of me and listening to the lamentation of the women.

Tried Traveller once. After three hours of character generation, not going to do it again. Actually, I have to add any SF game into this mix. Like the superhero genre, SF just doesn't work for me. To me, SF has always been about very strong realism and most SF games just don't do it. Sorry, the idea that I can drive a fifty ton robot that fires particle cannons but doesn't come with fire and forget missiles just doesn't do it for me.

 

[Coplen]

FATAL: the less said the better.

Ouch. You just had to mention the worst game ever, well, Synabbar comes close.

 

[LostSoul]

D6 is clunky not due to complexity, but due to mathematical probabilities and how it runs in play.

Ah ha! You dislike d6 Star Wars for the same reason I dislike d20 Star Wars: we approached the system with goals than ran counter to the rules.

 

[jdrakeh]

Why? Because, for all his numerous faults, Kevin Siembeda has great ideas, and he knows how to write. He comes up with great stuff, and he presents it well.

I think that is all very open to debate

He also understands the male adolescent mind. It's all about wish fulfillment fantasies, and Rifts gives them the illusion of control, and that suffices to make them happy.

This is why I don't understand why Rifts succeeds where games like World of Synnibarr and SenZar fail - in this respect, they're nearly identical (no joke). I mean, all three games are gonzo, wish fulfillment, sci-fi with little or no internal consistency and everything (jncluding the kitchen sink) thrown into the settings just for the hell of it. All three game sport similar qualities of writing and presentation. All three games could be, for all intents and purposes, supplements for one another and you'd never know it if the covers were torn off... but...

Only one of these games is wildly popular, while the other two are widely maligned. What's even more bizarre is that one of these games actually has internally consistent mechanics that make sense (both conceptually and mathematically) - but it isn't the one that's wildly popular. So it isn't internally consistent mechanics that make Rifts what it is, nor is it the lack thereof. And it isn't the setting itself. So what is it? Does it really come down to brand recognition?

I'm almost convinced that it must, but I admit that there may be some other factor I'm missing. Heck if I know what it is, though.

 

[Particle_Man]

I tried In Nomine at a con, and learned that I really don't want to play the "we each have our own agenda and work to screw each other over" style games (which leaves out Vampire, Werewolf, etc.). Except for Paranoia, where you can play that style in parodic form.

I guess I learned I like more "Teamwork-oriented, shiny happy" games.

 

[Samnell]

I'm going to get in trouble for this one...

All versions of pre-d20 D&D. Yes, I got started on it and it was the most amazing thing in the universe. Woohoo!

Then I started discovering RPGs where the rules made sense and had some kind of internal consistency. Core mechanics, etc. To put this in context I discovered role-playing at age 12, 1993. Once I got beyond the munchkin and kill everything phases and discovered other RPGs, I could neither run nor play in a D&D game for any length of time. Lots of wonderful setting material with the worst mechanical sludge I could imagine. I discovered RIFTS some years after all of this and was shocked to discover a game put together worse that A) got published and B) apparently made enough money to stay around.

I'm not so in love with d20 that I can't play and enjoy other games (my friends get to hear semi-regular pining about my inability to score the sort of game I want to play in system X or setting Y) but for my tastes, pre-d20 D&D only has lingering usefulness in the historical sense of inventing the RPG and eventually inspiring d20.

You don't have to agree. You don't have to like my opinion. I'm not claiming it's the laws of physics (for RPG taste) or any of that. Just the workings of the mind of a nobody from nowhere.