Products That Overwhelmed You

[Henry]

See, Battletech I took to very easily. Maybe it was just the different styles of writing.

For me, each ship was like a hundred ton mech with the little boxes, the allocations for energy, speed, firing arcs, etc, - energy allocation was like heat management in reverse for me - in SFB you had to plan what systems to use each turn: in BT, you COULD nova, but you were screwed for a turn or two afterwards.

the only difference between BT and SFB is: I’d PLAY Battletech again,

 

[Undrave]

For Palladium, the one saving grace is that the rules are pretty damned light. Almost no feat-like abilities. Char Gen is dead simple. (time consuming, but simple.) The majority of the rules complexity is a simplistic combat system that has a lot of "A: Hit! B: Dodged!".

That simplicity resulted in most Palladium players playing the rules close to written by most groups.

I only ever had 1 Palladium book and it was their superhero game. I loved to use the random tables to just generate a random superhero with a grab bag of powers and then try to come up with a name and origin and stuff... Playing it on the other? I don't even remember any of it, but I think trying to hit someone was a weird arbitrary thing like you want to roll and then add those modifiers and then beat 12 or something? I have no idea. It's somewhere in storage. I tried to run the game once but it mostly resulted in fun comedic moment than any concrete memory of the system itself. One of my player had rolled a RIDICULOUSLY OP mix of power... I think he called 'Golden Beast'. He was basically a golden Hulk that got dumber as he got stronger but also would turn into diamond at half HP or something... like a crazy mix of Hulk and Emma Frost.

Those random tables man.

 

[John R Davis]

I bought Paladin, which is a beautiful and enormous book. At my age I don't think I have the energy to go though it all.

 

[ccs]

Dungeon Crawl Classics #51 Castle Whiterock.
I got this 700+ page, color-coded multi-book boxed monstrosity ages ago at GenCon dirt cheap in an auction lot.
I've browsed through it a bit a few times but never even tried to run it. I just don't feel like reading 700+ pages of stuff...

 

[ccs]

Honestly, I don't think it's an issue of intelligence. I look at that iteration of WFRP and just think that I could have more fun with a different system, or even just WFRP 2e, and not have to shoulder that burden. It's smarter to know what you want to run, what you can run, than to try to work with a system that just doesn't work for you. Either of us could run WFRP 4e, but is the complexity worth the payoff?

That's what I've run into over the years. Complexity vs payoff.
I need a system that does fantasy well (enough).
I need a system that does Sci-Fi well (enough).
I suppose there might be room on my shelf for some kind of Superhero game, some sort of horror, & some sort of near modern.
Whatever those are they have to also be something those I play with will actually read.
(do you have any idea how hard it is to play Ars Magica - with people who'll neither read the books, follow the rules, or learn anything about the history/setting it's built upon?? Let me tell you, it doesn't work. And then they, including the guy running it {not me}, complained that the game sucked.)
I do not need 3271.5 systems for each, each reliant upon unique rules gimmicks to sell a "setting".
And I certainly don't need some complex pile-o-mush like Gurps/Hero/etc that tries to be all things at once.....

What I'd find most useful? Setting books that aren't rules dependent.

 

[Emerikol]

For me, each ship was like a hundred ton mech with the little boxes, the allocations for energy, speed, firing arcs, etc, - energy allocation was like heat management in reverse for me - in SFB you had to plan what systems to use each turn: in BT, you COULD nova, but you were screwed for a turn or two afterwards.

the only difference between BT and SFB is: I’d PLAY Battletech again,

I like Battletech but I love Star Fleet Battles. It's a wargame though and not a roleplaying game of course. It was definitely a case of exceptions base game design though. They had certain overarching concepts that were universal and then the exceptions based ship abilities expressed their effects in terms of those universal concepts. I thought it was pretty consistent but maybe I started with the commander's edition.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I'm not sure I'd call the rules light, but the repetition across different games made it easy to understand. If you knew TMNT you could figure out Beyond the Supernatural easily enough.

For Palladium, the one saving grace is that the rules are pretty damned light. Almost no feat-like abilities. Char Gen is dead simple. (time consuming, but simple.) The majority of the rules complexity is a simplistic combat system that has a lot of "A: Hit! B: Dodged!".

That simplicity resulted in most Palladium players playing the rules close to written by most groups.

Some groups are okay with high complexity games. When I go to cons, there are people that I only ever see playing Shadowrun - clearly that game works for them. Me, I find I have less interest in having to to learn a complicated system to play a new game the older I get. At this point, if you're going to try to sell me on a fantasy RPG, it needs to be rules light AND do something that I can't get out of D&D, DCC RPG, OSE, etc. Mork Borg and Troika, for example, hit both requirements out of the park. The flavor and attitude of those two games makes them stand out, and the rules are easy enough for me to learn and to teach.

That's what I've run into over the years. Complexity vs payoff.
I need a system that does fantasy well (enough).
I need a system that does Sci-Fi well (enough).
I suppose there might be room on my shelf for some kind of Superhero game, some sort of horror, & some sort of near modern.
Whatever those are they have to also be something those I play with will actually read.
(do you have any idea how hard it is to play Ars Magica - with people who'll neither read the books, follow the rules, or learn anything about the history/setting it's built upon?? Let me tell you, it doesn't work. And then they, including the guy running it {not me}, complained that the game sucked.)
I do not need 3271.5 systems for each, each reliant upon unique rules gimmicks to sell a "setting".
And I certainly don't need some complex pile-o-mush like Gurps/Hero/etc that tries to be all things at once.....

What I'd find most useful? Setting books that aren't rules dependent.

 

[aramis erak]

I like Battletech but I love Star Fleet Battles. It's a wargame though and not a roleplaying game of course. It was definitely a case of exceptions base game design though. They had certain overarching concepts that were universal and then the exceptions based ship abilities expressed their effects in terms of those universal concepts. I thought it was pretty consistent but maybe I started with the commander's edition.

Designers to Commanders was more about reorganizing the rules; the andros got completely revised, and somewhat severely nerfed. A number of other small changes, but still, the same basic approach. If you know one, the other's going to be mostly autopilot. Big difference? Designer's was plotted movement as the default. No partial overloads.

You can get the PDF of Designer's if you really want to know the differences. A much less overtaken game.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

As noted in another thread, Dangerous Journeys overwhelmed me when it started reading it. It had tons of cool ideas, but to actually play it I just couldn’t wrap my mind around how to implement it without getting half the rules wrong.

Another was GURPS, the first time I read it. The detailed combat system just read too cumbersome for me. I did grok it later, but it’s still not a system I run by choice.

I played Dangerous Journeys for about 3 years straight. I knew the rules so well that I started homebrewing stuff, like the grappling tables, to make them a bit more interesting and balanced. I'm not sure how I learned the rules - I'm fairly certain I learned through a friend and then just gradually read up on the bits I was interested in when making a character. I was in university and had more time on my hands.

Fast Forward 20-some years.

My son found the books and begged me to run a game for him. He made a Necromancer. I tried to read through the rules to help him. His 5 page character was finished and I needed to run an adventure for him. I couldn't remember all the intricacies of the rules and I just couldn't find the energy to read through the book, much less make NPCs to challenge my son's character. His adventure never happened.

 

[Scott Christian]

I think there are quite a few, where if I had run as stated, I would have been overwhelmed. Fortunately, I always cut back when needed.

It leads to a very good GM lesson: If you are ever confused by characters or motives, then your players are confused even more.

I always think a GM has about 3 to 4 times the exposure to NPC than the players. So the term keep it simple is clutch.