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

[Jahydin]

The amount of posts about Rifts made me smile.

I just bought a hardback copy of the 30th Anniversary Edition because most of the games I own now are balanced, streamlined, and sensical; sometimes it's great just to throw all that out the window and get weird for a while.

 

[MGibster]

That backstory definitely encourages me to feel more sympathetically towards the game designers, but unfortunately it's still a very bad system in its original iteration.

I found it very difficult to understand the 2d20 system based on my reading of Conan. After reading the rules to Fallout, I understand Conan a lot better. I don't know if its the worst RPG out there, but the rules as written are difficult to grasp and Modiphius stumbled there. I do think they learned some lessons and have improved since then as Fallout was much easier to understand.

 

[MGibster]

I’m going to echo too some of the frustrations of Amber Diceless. It might not objectively be the worst rpg ever made but I’ve only had bad, game group ending experiences with it. I think the GM has to really be truly in tune with the game to run it fairly and interestingly.

I participated in a campaign more than twenty years ago. For those who don't know, you have four basic statistics, Warfare, Strength, Endurance, and Psyche (I think) and you receive a certain number of points to divide amongst them. Here's the kicker, you're actually bidding against the other players to see who has the highest, 2nd, 3rd, etc., etc. of any given stat. In the group I played in, everyone but me wanted to have the highest psyche. So my character ended up with the highest Strength, Endurance, and Warfare. The campaign didn't last very long. I think it was just too much for us at the time. Too different.

 

[delericho]

The only really bad experience I've had was with Shadowrun 4th Ed. However, I'm far from convinced that that's the fault of the system.

 

[aramis erak]

Bad mechanics?
For bad due playability issues, every 90's Tri-Tac game and most of Leading Edge Games' efforts (Phoenix Command, Rhand).

For bad due to system fit to setting, d20 Star Wars comes to mind. Mongoose's Judge Dredd (both), and Bab-5 d20,,,


Bad/careless design/layout/editing: Mongoose RuneQuest 1e... Black on 70% gray... Unreachable entries on some tables....

 

[The Soloist]

D&D Original Edition:

• d20 rollover for attacks
• d100 for thief skills
• 2d6 for turning undead
• 1d6 for adventuring skills
• 1d6 for initiative
• Attack Matrix
• Saving Throw Matrix
• Descending Armor Classes are better.
• Humanoid races are classes but humans choose a class.

It's all over the place! They did everything they could to make it hard to understand and learn. But it was the first RPG, so we forgave them.

 

[loverdrive]

Mages: the Ascension for all the innumerable issues Storyteller system has, but, most importantly, completely unplayable setting that has so much stuff going on that I have no goddamn clue how to make it work even after fifteen years of regularly trying.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

D&D Original Edition:

 

[not-so-newguy]

 

[The Soloist]

It's amusing to me how this thread shits on other games but I get this reaction when talk about OD&D's in a non-faltering way.

I'm not intimidated btw, you rolled a 1.