The worst Roleplaying game ever!!!

[aurin777]

Rifts. I don't think we've ever made it past character creation.
~~Brandon

 

[Dagger75]

Re: Star Frontiers

I would say that star frontiers is the worst game ever, but I have never played F A T A L.

How could you say such things about Star Frontiers


I Read through FATAL, and Synnibar and they are both pretty bad.

Hybrid is pretty bad to. It made no sense to me. I still think its a joke game.

Rifts I used the first rule book, all the other players made juicers and dragons. I had no fun.

 

[Olive]

Hmm. After hearing everyone rag on FATAL, I'm torn. On the one hand, it's being bashed for political incorrectness (daring to suggest that in an underdeveloped feudal culture enlightened concepts like sexual equality and racial tolerance hasn't taken root),

dude, it's more than just suggesting that there's societal sexual in equality, gender imbalance is hard wired into the system (women are ok at talking but, boy, math is hard).

Heaps of people work society's inequality of gender and race into their games, but this game suggests that its true!!!

 

[Olive]

Oh, and a distant fourth choice? Anything with prestige classes in it (AFAIK, only D&D). I think the concept is broken.

what about WFRP's advanced classes? to me, PrCs are like that... do you think the WFRP classes are broken too?

 

[Henry]

Any game where you need an ice-cream pail to hold the dice you have to roll to attack with needs a serious makeover.

No lie: My Oldest and Greatest Gaming Group once created a huge expansion to Axis and Allies (Called creatively enough 'Big Map') on a sheet of mylar that displayed a 4 foot by 8 foot map of the world divided into hundreds of territories A & A-style. They kept the "one d6 per troop" roll, and used hundreds of build points for dozens of new unit types (well, new as of 1970's or so).

We used actual plastic ice chests to roll attacks in, because we didn't want all the dice getting away from us. Anything less than 20 dice in an attack was considered a small attack.

To me, the game had an intriguing concept but was hideously boring if you had more than 2 players, because turns were about 30 to 45 minutes apiece. But they loved it, and still drag it out on special "get-together" weekends.

 

[King_Stannis]

My vote goes to Traveller: 4th Edition (I think that's the one - black books with a red-framed cover).

Not that it was truly awful, but pretty damned uninspiring. It made me feel like Traveller was just one of those things you either get or you don't. Either you played with the original min-books and loved it, or you just will never get it.

All's I know is that I tried to make it work. I gave the game a fair shake and it never clicked.

Of course, it didn't help that there were typos by the bushel in the main rulebook. Including, if I recall correctly, the omission of a table that was crucial either to combat or character creation.

I think there should also be a FATAL exclusion in threads like these. I'm more interested in hearing what games folks tried to play and just hated, rather than those who simply read the "vaginal circumference" rule in FATAL and guffawed over it. I'd also be inclined to give an exclusion to Synnibar, but it seems at least a few people have honestly tried to play that game.

 

[Goobermunch]

I really hate to put this one out, because the first time I played I had a great time . . . but then I bought the book.

TriTac Systems did a game called Fringeworthy. It had a pretty cool concept. Sorta like Stargate* meets Aliens. The basic premise was dimensional and intergalactic travel for the elite few.

The first time we played, the GM was using a rulebook that looked like a spiral bound notebook. It was a blast.

A few years later, I saw a softboud book at my FLGS and picked it up. It was incomprehensible. Literally. Sentences didn't make sense, there was no logic, no index. The combat section was a nightmare. I was utterly bummed.

Somehow, the author had managed to take my fond memories of a good gaming experience and mangle them to the point where I could not share the game with my friends. That, to my mind, makes Fringeworthy the worst game ever.

--G



*It came out before Stargate.

 

[maddman75]

Hmm. After hearing everyone rag on FATAL, I'm torn. On the one hand, it's being bashed for political incorrectness (daring to suggest that in an underdeveloped feudal culture enlightened concepts like sexual equality and racial tolerance hasn't taken root), while OTOH it's being accused of the worst of all crimes--poor game mechanics. I guess I just gotta take a look.

You misunderstand FATAL. I do not rag on it because it dares to be politically incorrect. It is called misogynistic because there are only two roles women could possibly fill in 900 pages of rules. Whore and rape victim. There are no nuns, mothers, craftswomen, and from what I saw certainly no adventurers.

And the presence of racism in a medieval culture in no way makes up for magical items like 'Armor of Jewwy Jewbacca', or magical misfire tables that read "Two gay ogres appear and start [removed for Eric's Grandma] 30 feet from the character".

I can deal with elemants such as racial prejudice and gender bias in a game setting. I can't deal with it being presented as if Beavis and Butthead got huffed up on paint fumes and started giggling about it. Need I go into 'Retard Strength', which the author claims is realistic because "A friend of mine worked in a home and said them retards was real strong".

It isn't that it's politically incorrect. Its that its morally and ethically repugnant, and frankly, just plain stupid.

 

[nsruf]

I fold. I'm downloading FATAL right now. I should charge you for the 'net time I'm wasting

Good luck I did that earlier today after learning that it is available free from this thread and gues what - it's already gone from my harddrive again. Not only is it mechanically awful (roll d100 eighty times just to get all your ability scores), but an "anatomically correct" RPG is really the last thing I need. *shudders*

As for the worst RPG I have played, can't say wether it was Rolemaster (lot's of tables and still not "realistic") or Shadowrun (tons of dice and rules which were partially useless or contradictory). I actually played the latter for quite a while but eventually gave up in disgust.

 

[maddman75]

To anyone thinking to download it - don't! Think of it like someone telling you not to go looking around for goatse or tubgirl. If you know what's good for your sanity and stomach don't be looking at them. (and don't go looking for these things either if you don't know what they are.)

Your time would be better spent doing just about anything else than reading FATAL. Trust me, and don't blame me if you feel the need to look anyway.