Weekend Nonsense: Favorite Bad RPG

[Geekrampage]

"But no, see, I only like things that are good. If it were good, then I would like it. Since I don't like it, everything about it must be bad. Why is that so hard for you?" -the Internet

I hope I'm not saying that at all.

There are games that I think are badly designed, poorly written, with terrible layout, and may indeed be unplayable that I absolutely love love love!

I hope what I am saying is that preference, appreciation, and enjoyment are not the same as quality of product.

 

[CleverNickName]

I hope I'm not saying that at all.

Nope, that was not a critique of anyone in particular, just an observation about how opinions get conflated here in Ye Olde Internet.

 

[overgeeked]

I'm saying that there are different subjective criteria - that a game can be subjectively described as "good" or "bad" based on certain criteria that are not based on preference but are instead based on more technical criteria such as spelling, presentation, and the ability to communicate the idea through language.

If something is derived from subjective criteria, it is subjective. If something is derived from objective criteria, it is objective.

Humans are not objective. We are painfully subjective in every regard.

Even spelling and grammar are largely subjective. And I say that as someone who's been an editor. Things like intentionally spelling things in non-standard ways to reflect the speaker's dialect. Or intentionally making grammatical mistakes to reflect the speaker's education level. Or word choice to mirror audience. Etc.

And then there's perfectly grammatical sentences that don't really communicate anything and are nonsensical and/or self-contradictory. Like Noam Chomsky's famous line: "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."

And communication is a weird one. It's entirely subjective. Even the best written books, games, and rules will still be interpreted differently by different people. There's basically no way to perfectly impart information via text from one brain to another.

Yes, these are still subjective criteria, but its one thing to say "This game is bad because I don't like games that use a lot of made up jargon and terminology." vs. "this game is bad because, as written, I can't figure out how the game is played."

Right. But that's not a bad game. There are any one of a dozen factors in play re: the reader's ability to figure out how to play the game. Like Fate and Powered by the Apocalypse games. A lot of long-time gamers simply cannot comprehend those games and how they're played. That doesn't make those games bad.

"But no, see, I only like things that are good. If it were good, then I would like it. Since I don't like it, everything about it must be bad. Why is that so hard for you?" -the Internet

Exactly.

I hope I'm not saying that at all.

I don't think you are.

There are games that I think are badly designed, poorly written, with terrible layout, and may indeed be unplayable that I absolutely love love love!

I hope what I am saying is that preference, appreciation, and enjoyment are not the same as quality of product.

Agreed.

 

[Jer]

Same. Rifts was the exact point at which I stepped away from Palladium's games.

The idea of Rifts was really attractive to me, but the implementation was not what I wanted at the time. We played it a bit but compared to TMNT it just didn't take.

We latched onto Torg instead - which gave me the kitchen sink approach I love but also had rules that were fairly clear and consistent instead of all over the place. For some I'd bet it would show up in this thread as a "bad game" due to its dice mechanic and its chart heavy system, but for teenage me was a revelation both in game design ideas and in how scenarios could be run.

 

[James Gasik]

Game balance is, an elusive beast, there's no getting around it. You're never going to perfectly balance the different player characters against each other, unless you do away with player choice and random elements like ability scores.

But from a GM standpoint, it becomes very difficult to handle a party with wildly disparate strengths and weaknesses. A lot of systems devote time and energy to try and keep things on a relatively even keel. Others do not.

So while I loved the idea of Palladium games, for example, in every game I played, there was always one guy left at the bottom of the curve, struggling to keep up with the relative demigods he found himself adventuring with.

Like I said, the player in me goes "wow, look at all these toys!", but the GM in me goes "but somebody is going to end up being a sidekick".

Now some people might enjoy that role, but I've not encountered many.

As this thread is about opinions, things we love but know are flawed, I'm ok with calling them bad. Even if others disagree- I mean, a few posters here bought Street Fighter and loved it.

I bought it and while the combats were exciting and tactical, the out of combat part of the game felt lacking. There wasn't any particular reason to not specialize in Physical Attributes or those Abilities that made you a better fighter.

The rules sort of fell apart if you had to fight multiple opponents, as they were clearly made with the idea that everyone gets one action a turn. A few special moves could hit multiple foes, but these weren't common.

In the end, my group abandoned the game, and those books never saw the light of day again (I actually have no idea where they all got to!).

So, based on my experience, I could call the game bad. Maybe a better way to phrase things would be "favorite flawed games"?

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

In our case it didn't help that the GM running Rifts wasn't great - he was frequently more concerned with showing how awesome his DMPCs were than anything else. He didn't know how to do that when my brother was playing a Glitter Boy, so just about every adventure caught him without having a chance to put on his power suit.

Torg was wild, that's for sure. I remember playing a character mostly based on Guile from Streetfighter 2, while my brother played a werewolf and someone else a ninja. There was something in the water around 1990 that you saw all these radical genre mash-up RPGs coming out.

The idea of Rifts was really attractive to me, but the implementation was not what I wanted at the time. We played it a bit but compared to TMNT it just didn't take.

We latched onto Torg instead - which gave me the kitchen sink approach I love but also had rules that were fairly clear and consistent instead of all over the place. For some I'd bet it would show up in this thread as a "bad game" due to its dice mechanic and its chart heavy system, but for teenage me was a revelation both in game design ideas and in how scenarios could be run.

 

[Jer]

Torg was wild, that's for sure. I remember playing a character mostly based on Guile from Streetfighter 2, while my brother played a werewolf and someone else a ninja. There was something in the water around 1990 that you saw all these radical genre mash-up RPGs coming out.

My regular group had a ninja, a dinosaur man, an ex-astronaut, an ex-solider who could have stepped right out of Predator, and a cyberpunk savant. All made from templates that came from the core boxed set - it's not even like anyone was reaching for a character idea.

My current group would love the setting but they bounced off the rules. We tried a few sessions with the new Torg Eternity release and while things are a lot simpler with it than the original they just keep bouncing off the dice mechanic. I've been toying with some different dice systems to try to get something that would remove the table lookup but not change the rules so much that I have to rewrite the whole game - at some point we'll try again I think.

 

[Retreater]

There was something in the water around 1990 that you saw all these radical genre mash-up RPGs coming out.

Yeah. The d20 system and OGL made D&D bigger - but it certainly shrank the hobby's focus to "D&D." I think as a result, it's more mainstream but also less creative.
And yes, there is a thriving indie scene, but for the life of me I can't think of something that would be like a bonkers major release from a company in the past decade or more.
You have generic systems like Savage Worlds. You have tried-and-true rehashes like Warhammer Fantasy and Shadowrun. You have accepted genres in predictable settings like Traveler and Forbidden Lands. You have Numenera - which is pretty vanilla science fantasy. There's repackaged nostalgia products like Old School Essentials.
And then there are some very out there games that have an extremely specific genre - I guess stuff like Thirsty Sword Lesbians.

 

[Reynard]

Really? What objective measures are you talking about? Sales is about the only objective measure. Everything else is subjective.

If a game design does not do what it intends or claims to do, it is a bad design. If a game is confusing or difficult to read or otherwise inaccessible, it is badly written and/or laid out. These are real metrics. They have degrees in game design for a reason.

 

[aramis erak]

The Street Fighter RPG is a phenomenal martial arts RPG that was unfortunately called the Street Fighter RPG.

I will admit to having run it... a 3 month campaign, and a 4 month one. I only remember one of the characters well, from the second run...
Dr. Vacation. A dentist trained in Haiti, who acquired the HTLV-III (aka HIV) virus from dirty needles on a beach in NYC... He's mentally broken by the diagnosis of HIV... and so, when not in the ring, carries a four shot percossion revolver derringer loaded with beach-collected nastiness, such as drug user needles, pieces of crack-pipe, used condom bits... was build as a capoerista.

It's really fun, it's got a great tactical combat on hexgrid, it manages to provide a framework that fits the videogame (but not the movies... oh, god, the movies are so bad they're great...)
I'd love to see it rereleased.