Games you won't play

[Starglim]

Each time I come up with something, I recall a time that I have, in fact, played such a game. Maybe the only possible answer is something that I've never heard of or considered, or was so awful I've blocked it from memory.

I'll say, provisionally, anything that requires me to stat myself as a PC.

 

[Darrin Drader]

There's a very short list for me.

Vampire/Werewolf. A decade or so ago a friend of mine talked my ear off trying to get me interested in these games. Despite his efforts, the more he described them, the less interested I became. I've looked at the books and read some campaign writeups and nope! No interest.

Superheroes. I understand that there's at least one very well constructed supers game out there that is one of the flagship products of a publisher I like. I'm glad someone is doing it well and I wish them all the success in the world, but I've always thought the entire superhero concept is lame. I think superheroes is some sort of cultural outgrowth from Greek Mythology. The problem is that it was cool when it was Greek but not so cool once they started wearing tights. In my opinion, the superhero genre strips the accomplishments of these characters because they always had some special power that nobody else has to fall back on.

 

[Aus_Snow]

In my opinion, the superhero genre strips the accomplishments of these characters because they always had some special power that nobody else has to fall back on

. . ., like Wizards and Clerics in D&D, Adepts in True20. . .

Or yeah, most PCs in most RPGs. . .

 

[Darrin Drader]

. . ., like Wizards and Clerics in D&D, Adepts in True20. . .

Or yeah, most PCs in most RPGs. . .

Sure, but everyone can become any of those things. How many normal people can be Superman or Wolverine?

Another difference - you don't often see D&D characters throwing each other through concrete walls.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Sure, but everyone can become any of those things. How many normal people can be Superman or Wolverine?

To the first: not really, or not any more than normal people becoming supers in a supers game; take your pick. To the second: any number, or however many the GM determines is right or reasonable for the supers setting/campaign; take your pick.

Another difference - you don't often see D&D characters throwing each other through concrete walls.

Maybe not - depends on particular rulesets, levels of play, the planes one visits / lives on, descriptions of actions and consequences, spells, magic items, powers and DM fiat, I suppose. In no particular order. Also: even if not, you sure do see them stopping time, teleporting vast distances in seconds or less, skipping across the very planes of existence, one-shotting demons or maybe even demon lords. . . or even deities(!), granting / using / being granted virtually open slather wishes, killing with a mere word, flying as if it were entirely mundane, blasting each other left and right with vaguely elemental energy from [may as well be] nowhere, summoning otherworldly entities to aid them, casually and reliably bringing the dead back to life, changing their own / others' / objects' forms with a flick of the wrist or purely will. . . and so on.

D&D is very much like superheroes, trappings or no. And that's even without such specatacles as epic spellcasting, etc.

 

[Treebore]

I know I will never LARP.

I thought I would never play Westerns, but Go fer Yer Gun and Aces and Eights showed me I was wrong about that.

I thought I would never play Supers, but Mutants and Masterminds showed me I was wrong there.

I thought I would never play anything resembling steam punk, but Iron Kingdoms proved there is a version/style I can have fun with.

I like RIFTS and Synnibar, and I don't get why people knock it. Neither are so broken that they can't be fixed, and they are a heck of a lot of fun.

Now I like Rolemaster/MERPS, etc..., but all that table referencing does get tedious after a while.

I do not play anything by White Wolf, unless they do technically own Engel or Word of Warcraft or Ravenloft, but as I understand it WW was pretty much just the publisher. Now I can see me playing their Werewolf and Vampire games, but not with their "world" assumptions. I could play them using Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter as the premise. Without the heavy emphasis on sex.

I don't think I could be convinced to play TOON, unless I was drunk.

I didn't see anything else listed that I wouldn't play. I like a lot of what others said they wouldn't play. I have yet to even read through FATAL, but considering I like Aftermath and Synnibar, maybe I would like it too.

Oh, there is an edition of Traveller I won't play. I think it is considered 4E. Not sure, I really don't worry too much about the editions of Traveller, I hodgepodge it all together anyways, even the edition I don't like gets used by me. I'm certainly not a purist about Traveller, thats for sure. Oh, and I won't do D20 Traveller, class levels in Traveller is just very wrong. Seriously, it bugged me so much it felt like something on a fundamental level.

So thats about all I can think about right now.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Also: even if not, you sure do see them stopping time, teleporting vast distances in seconds or less, skipping across the very planes of existence, one-shotting demons or maybe even demon lords. . . or even deities(!), granting / using / being granted virtually open slather wishes, killing with a mere word, flying as if it were entirely mundane, blasting each other left and right with vaguely elemental energy from [may as well be] nowhere, summoning otherworldly entities to aid them, casually and reliably bringing the dead back to life, changing their own / others' / objects' forms with a flick of the wrist or purely will. . . and so on

Yes, but these powers are accessible to everyone, depending on their class and magical gear, so despite the trappings, they're still humans harnessing the natural forces that exist within that world. OK, so you can throw fireballs. It's magic that allows you to do that. It's also magic that can protect you from them. It's also magic that allows you to travel the planes. Sure, you can play a sorcerer, where magic is something you're born with, but that gives you no advantage over the guy who was born a normal human and studied magic until he became good at it.

Superheroes assumes a mundane world that exists alongside the heroic world where the only way to have powers is to be born to them (or get bit by a special radioactive gecko, or get accidentally bombarded by Doofus rays, or what have you). In other words, a normal person generally won't stand a chance of becoming one unless the GM is engaging in some necessary deux ex machina, or stand a chance against them. To me, this demeans the relevancy of ordinary humans. In D&D the assumption might be that PCs are a cut above the average person, but that usually means that they're in the top percentages of strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, etc. but it does not mean that they have something that is clearly far and away superior to any other person.

The one thing that irks me about D&D is that high level PCs can jump off a mountain, not employ any magic whatsoever, dust themselves off, and get back to the fight. Of course that's just an issue of applying hit points in ways that aren't consistent with the notion that they represent the character's ability to take a hit. A hardass DM would say, Hey, you just fell off a mountain. You're dead. No save. Roll up a new character.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Yes, but these powers are accessible to everyone, depending on their class and magical gear

'Class' = package of superpowers (i.e., powers that are not accessible to 'normal people' at all); 'magical gear' = devices / gadgets / thingies that grant or enhance mundane abilities and/or superpowers. Many 'supers' happen to have been normal humans anyway, if not for very similar 'boosts', as it so happens. fwiw.

, so despite the trappings, they're still humans harnessing the natural forces that exist within that world. OK, so you can throw fireballs. It's magic that allows you to do that. It's also magic that can protect you from them. It's also magic that allows you to travel the planes. Sure, you can play a sorcerer, where magic is something you're born with, but that gives you no advantage over the guy who was born a normal human and studied magic until he became good at it.

So, in other words, just as is the case with superpowers, those can come from birth onwards, or from another source, with specialised - and very much out of the ordinary - training being just one of these. Replace the word 'magic' with 'superpowers' (in fact, they're exactly the same thing anyway) and it's all clear as can be.

Superheroes assumes a mundane world that exists alongside the heroic world where the only way to have powers is to be born to them (or get bit by a special radioactive gecko, or get accidentally bombarded by Doofus rays, or what have you).

That depends entirely on ruleset, campaign style, comic [or comic-like] influences (if any), setting, characters made, etc.

In other words, a normal person generally won't stand a chance of becoming one unless the GM is engaging in some necessary deux ex machina, or stand a chance against them. To me, this demeans the relevancy of ordinary humans. In D&D the assumption might be that PCs are a cut above the average person, but that usually means that they're in the top percentages of strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, etc. but it does not mean that they have something that is clearly far and away superior to any other person.

Um, except that they do. How many D&D settings are truly chock full of Wizards, Clerics, Druids, etc. - as the norm, I mean. . .? What's up with how that conflicts with nearly every single D&D (or related) setting I've come across, and even rulesets themselves (e.g., minions, Action Points, Conviction, normal humans / normal men, NPC classes or roles, totally unstatted 'normal' NPCs all over the place, descriptions of typical demographics. . .?

For instance, in 3e-based settings, every single NPC with average stats could be a Sorcerer, let's say. And every second one could fling Magic Missiles around (f'rex). How would it be if (for example) every second human in a given setting did just that (i.e., lobbed three Magic Missiles a day around). . .?

D&D characters are, regardless of edition, *extremely* different from normal folk. The books themselves, even without setting material brought in, make this abundantly clear, over and over. Edition after edition.

 

[Deepfire]

No D&D 4e, no Shadowrun, definitely no Das Schwarze Auge (Dark Eye) for me

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Dangerous Journeys. Never again.

It's not that I mind crunchy rules as such, but I abhor pointless crunch. And that game had it in spades.