What is, in your opinion, the single WORST RPG ever made, and why is it so bad?

[niklinna]

Little moreso than claiming that they can have any specific numerical value, when their actual value will vary depending upon how well they synergise with options that you or other players have already taken.

Wait what you mean context matters?!

Cue joke about spherical cows.

 

[Thomas Shey]

one thing I hate is when the cost is supposed to reflect rarity rather than usefulness / power. That to me is bad design

That's usually an attempt to bake in commonality in a setting, and I kind of agree its, at best, a fool's errand.

 

[GMMichael]

Oh, I don't know. @GMMichael and I seem to be crapping on our own games more than anything else Can't speak for them, but I'm using this thread to highlight lessons learned and to give advice to other creators so they don't make the same mistakes I've made.

Nah, I headed out when Fate started taking shots. I've played so little that I shan't comment on it. But what I would like to weigh in on...

For the uninitiated, your characters stats in Cypher are a pool of points that you can spend out of to, among other things, reduce the target number of a roll. One of my players was making a really important roll, so she spent like half of her pool to reduce the TN down to a ridiculously low number, then rolled her die and got an 18. Instead of cheering that she made it, she deflated, and went: "Oh. Well I guess I just wasted all those points."

Is that this is too bad. I have the first edition of Numenera, and I have my nitpicks, but I think it's a really smart game. I have no idea how a well-earned success can be "wasted." A failure, sure, that sounds like a waste of Effort, but the value is in the telling: how did the character try harder accomplish the feat, and what happened when the important roll went awry? Or succeeded?

Alls I know is that Cypher makes interesting use of health-as-effort (like, gasp, Dark Souls), and the Numenera book does a good job of delving into the Ninth World and encouraging GMs to do the same. I have to guess that a full-on mutiny was due to factors beyond the game's control.

 

[The Soloist]

Nah, I headed out when Fate started taking shots. I've played so little that I shan't comment on it. But what I would like to weigh in on...


Is that this is too bad. I have the first edition of Numenera, and I have my nitpicks, but I think it's a really smart game. I have no idea how a well-earned success can be "wasted." A failure, sure, that sounds like a waste of Effort, but the value is in the telling: how did the character try harder accomplish the feat, and what happened when the important roll went awry? Or succeeded?

Alls I know is that Cypher makes interesting use of health-as-effort (like, gasp, Dark Souls), and the Numenera book does a good job of delving into the Ninth World and encouraging GMs to do the same. I have to guess that a full-on mutiny was due to factors beyond the game's control.

I fully endorse the above post.

Numenera is fine as it is. We played it when it came out, and did lots of exploration mixed with official scenarios. No need for D&D-derived hex crawl mechanics.

 

[J.Quondam]

one thing I hate is when the cost is supposed to reflect rarity rather than usefulness / power. That to me is bad design

According to a mad oracle rescued from a cellar full of rats, "The most priceless object in all the multiverse is the fabled Ever-wet Doorknob, a magical item so stupid that only one was ever made, and that one was immediately cast into the Abyss of Oblivion, hopefully to be lost forever. But if you could find it, you could raise a hundred worlds of armies! Build a thousand armadas of star-faring galleons! Purchase any and every dark secret imaginable! Even bribe the gods themselves! That way lies your destiny, young adventurers...."

 

[Thomas Shey]

According to a mad oracle rescued from a cellar full of rats, "The most priceless object in all the multiverse is the fabled Ever-wet Doorknob, a magical item so stupid that only one was ever made, and that one was immediately cast into the Abyss of Oblivion, hopefully to be lost forever. But if you could find it, you could raise a hundred worlds of armies! Build a thousand armadas of star-faring galleons! Purchase any and every dark secret imaginable! Even bribe the gods themselves! That way lies your destiny, young adventurers...."

You know, the worst part is that, in a society advanced enough to support it, while not to that extreme, the stupid thing would probably be a collectors item worth some money...

 

[mamba]

You know, the worst part is that, in a society advanced enough to support it, while not to that extreme, the stupid thing would probably be a collectors item worth some money...

I was talking about skill buy, you do not have to look far for rare = valuable for items, art (at least from artists like Picasso, Dali, Rembrandt, …), Gold, Diamonds…

 

[Laurefindel]

one thing I hate is when the cost is supposed to reflect rarity rather than usefulness / power. That to me is bad design

But sometimes the question useful to whom, or powerful in the hand of who? An economy solely based on setting is bad system design, but economy solely based on the needs of adventurers is bad world design.

 

[Deset Gled]

Scarcity. The term you'ns is looking for is scarcity. When the demand is high relative to the availability. Something can be scarce if it is very, very useful even if it's not too uncommon, or can be unscarce even if it's really rare and no one wants it.

 

[mamba]

But sometimes the question useful to whom, or powerful in the hand of who? An economy solely based on setting is bad system design, but economy solely based on the needs of adventurers is bad world design.

this was in the context of skill buy, there is no economy to consider