Products That Overwhelmed You

[Retreater]

The latest edition of Warhammer Fantasy RPG. It was just too much. I thought about having to know the game well enough to run it, well enough to teach other people how to play it, and didn't even finish reading the book. Shame, as it's a gorgeous-looking one.

Yeah. That's a head scratcher for me too. On top of it, trying to get the Enemy Within Campaign to run well. Like I'm trying to present a mystery, full of intricate and complex motivated NPCs, across a lived-in campaign world, and I also have to understand all of these rules?

Again, maybe I'm not smart enough. I've been gaming for 40 years, run several games weekly, but I just can't do it? Maybe the problem is that I'm trying to do too much? Like if the only game I was trying to run was Warhammer Fantasy, with the single campaign of Enemy Within, putting all of my hobby time into doing it - I think "maybe" I could do it justice.

Same thing with Orient Express. But at least the rules of Call of Cthulhu aren't actively working against me.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

You're describing the exact issue I have with most adventures, notably the official 5E adventures. It's massive book with tons of NPCs and places. Most of the content is pretty flavourless and there's just too much of it. There's very little place to improvise without taking what's already there, replacing or removing it, and then adding your own.

For me, it's always more work to play an official adventure.

 

[DemoMonkey]

Anything that requires a detailed knowledge of Forgotten Realms lore.

Ain't nobody got time for that.

 

[billd91]

Advanced Squad Leader - Chapter C - particularly Offboard Artillery. There's a secondary product that you can buy that flowcharts it for easier (not easy, just easier) reference.

 

[darjr]

GURPS 4th edition. I kept feeling like I needed to know it better and read the core books, as one can, but I never could make it through them. Also I was at a VERY busy time in my life and there were really no adventures I could just run and the prospect of creating GURPS content or printing other content was also competing for that dwindling free time. Eventually I just gave up.

 

[payn]

I saw the Anima RPG books for clearance discount at FFG. I picked them up thinking maybe some day. Pretty complex looking mechanics that im sure go easy once you grok it, but man it looked like a lot to grok.

 

[MGibster]

Enforcers was a superhero game set in the future that was released in 1987. I swear I can remember something on the back of the book proclaiming that it was mathematically easy but you had to use various formulas to create your character. I remember having to calculate status by coming up with square roots before I just decided to hell with it and tossed the game aside. There were instructions for how to create your character using a Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet.

Blue Planet 2nd edition isn't overwhelming because of the setting or the rules. It's overwhelming because the authors' didn't give the GM or players good suggestions for what kind of campaign they could run. And there's so many good ideas for campaigns that it was difficult trying to figure out what to do. The only campaign I ever planned for Blue Planet fell part because of an obstinate player.

 

[R_J_K75]

Empires of the Shining Sea from 1998 was pretty unusable just for the simple fact that the culture and caste was so different from anywhere else in the Realms. The Calimshan portion of the book was well written and extremely detailed but trying to convey that to the players as a DM seemed an exercise in futility. Theres no way to explain all nuances of its society to a player wanted to play a character from the area and any outsider were pretty much doomed from the start. I ran one adventure in Calimshan and it lasted maybe 30 minutes before the players were executed. To a lesser degree Amn was somewhat the same as the culture was although different and interesting just didnt lend itself to running a campaign in the area.

 

[aramis erak]

I've seldom been overwhelmed by mechanics. I've oft been overwhelmed by settings.
The games the mechanics left me going "Huh?" were

• Chivalry & Sorcery 1E (too many pages of way too small optically typeset rules. And they were pretty rigid and table driven.)
• Rolemaster and Spacemaster. Not overwhelming due to complexity, but due to WAY too many optional rules in the core. A 3 page checklist, 2 col. Core mechanics simple and flexible. Understanding how the various options will affect the game is problematic.
• Space Opera. Simply put, I never understood why Phil and Ed would make this bastard hybrid of trek, Traveller, and a variety of other sci-fi sources so annoyingly complex. I've run a couple one-shots. Ship combat feels like Trek. Everything else feels like CT on PCP.
• Skyrealms of Jorune. Just too bleeding odd.
• Mechanical Dream: the edition I have has a totally lousy English translation; I found it hinting at something cool, but just out of my ability to extract the original ideas from the English version of the Quebecois original. And while I know one French-Canadian Ex-pat, she's not a gamer...

More common is the "I don't think this is fun" reaction... usually I can see why some would like it... but not always.

 

[Arilyn]

Yes, the tiny tiny print of C&S. That was fun to try and read! C&S was actually the first game I ran, but the second edition boxed set.

Tried Jorune, but yes, it was odd. Still have it kicking around, but haven't looked at in years!