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

[pemerton]

In my experience, using VTT for PbtA games is quite rare because, like, what would you need a VTT for? Any app that allows for a voicecall is more than enough.

I've played Cortex+ Heroic, Classic Traveller, Burning Wheel, Prince Valiant,. Torchbearer 2e, Agon 2e and The Green Knight remotely, all via Zoom. I think the only time we used a dice roll app, as opposed to the honour system, was for Cortex+ Heroic, which has big dice pools.

I don't see how Apocalypse World, or any similar game, would need anything more elaborate than that!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

In my experience, using VTT for PbtA games is quite rare because, like, what would you need a VTT for? Any app that allows for a voicecall is more than enough.

Yup exactly. We played a couple of PtbA games online a fair bit in the pandemic, and in no case did we use any kind of VTT, because why would you? We just used which chat app was working best at the time (mostly Zoom because one of the players had a special licence for it). Whereas for 5E, we tried various methods, but the only one that worked well did involve a VTT (Roll20 with a browser extension linking it to Beyond).

Re: bad RPGs, I think there's a very strong correlation between RPGs which are aiming at a specific, merchandised IP, and bad RPGs.

And that's because, in most cases, either the system is just inherently low quality (i.e. just badly designed or rushed and incoherent) and relying on the IP to sell despite that, and/or the system is largely or even entirely inappropriate for the IP. I think an awful lot of these have been mentioned in this thread, and whilst I will avoid naming specific recent ones because they're definitely not the "worst ever", I'd say this still goes on, that we still see a lot of quite low-quality merchandised IP TT RPGs. Okay I'll name one - the new Marvel RPG. It's sad because Marvel, historically, has a long track record of pretty good RPGs based on it - FASERIP, MSHAG and Marvel Heroic were all excellent, but Multiverse? Oof.

The other big "bad RPGs" trap is similar/related which is where you have an extremely well-conceived (or at least interesting/fun/insane) world/setting that's original to that RPG, but the rules completely fail it. RIFTS being the best example here for my money. The setting is unique and bizarre, but the rules are generic crap which doesn't fit the setting. At least the Savage Worlds version kind of rescues it.

The final one is when you just have rules which are badly designed and hard to make work, even though they fit the setting, and this is kind of the saddest. The worst RPG I played significantly in the last decade is probably Shadowrun 5E, which fit into this category.

 

[Celebrim]

What "ubiquitous sacred cows" are you thinking about?

Hit points, for example. Classes. Levels. Separate attack rolls for hit and damage where damage is a bounded random number.

 

[Umbran]

Well, I think that replying to someone and then blocking them is against the board rules, as is calling someone a clown and telling them that they’re embarrassing themselves when what they were responding to was way more out of line… but so be it.

Mod Note:
This reads like, "I ignore the board policies about reporting posts, and prefer to get into personal confrontations instead."

… gimme a break.

As you have requested, you are getting a break from this discussion.

 

[Autumnal]

Re: bad RPGs, I think there's a very strong correlation between RPGs which are aiming at a specific, merchandised IP, and bad RPGs.

I don’t. I think that licensed RPGs are often just part of determinedly mediocre. None of seriously, horribly, impressively failures in the RPG world are licensed. Games like Spawn of Fashan, SenZar, World of Synibarr, and deadEarth never get close to licensing.

 

[billd91]

In my experience, using VTT for PbtA games is quite rare because, like, what would you need a VTT for? Any app that allows for a voicecall is more than enough.

If you had a number of handouts or pictures to show as part of the game to help set the tone or scene, then I could see using one - particularly if you already have access to it and wanted to make use of some of its value. But we certainly got by playing Masks with just a Discord server. We had voice, we had video, we had a dice roller bot, and we had the ability to share graphics. We never really needed a map, though in a case or two, particularly the confrontation with the villain The Maestro at the Wonder Kidz boy band concert, one could have been useful just to help visualize where the action was (between animated tubas, the collapsing stage, and the crashing heroes at the sound mixing board).

 

[loverdrive]

Hit points, for example. Classes. Levels. Separate attack rolls for hit and damage where damage is a bounded random number.

Hit points, sure. Wouldn't say it's entirely correct to attribute them to D&D, though.

Classes are far from being ubiquitous in videogames, especially RPGs where a la carte menu of options is the norm. Even if a game even features a word "class", chances are, it means something entirely different from how classes work in D&D, old or modern.

D&D-style levels with a predefined progression table are just completely non-existent. The only examples I can think of are unit veterancy in Comman&Conquer and to some extent heroes in Warcraft 3. Unless you are willing to argue that any kind of progression where you get a resource that can be spent on advancement when you hit an arbitrary threshold D&D-ism, no.

 

[loverdrive]

If you had a number of handouts or pictures to show as part of the game to help set the tone or scene, then I could see using one - particularly if you already have access to it and wanted to make use of some of its value. But we certainly got by playing Masks with just a Discord server. We had voice, we had video, we had a dice roller bot, and we had the ability to share graphics. We never really needed a map, though in a case or two, particularly the confrontation with the villain The Maestro at the Wonder Kidz boy band concert, one could have been useful just to help visualize where the action was (between animated tubas, the collapsing stage, and the crashing heroes at the sound mixing board).

Even if you do use a VTT for a PbtA game, there's a decent chance you will end up in "general" or "other" or whatever statistic because the only thing you need is, well, a virtual table to drop pictures onto.

 

[Celebrim]

Hit points, sure. Wouldn't say it's entirely correct to attribute them to D&D, though.

D&D style ones? Absolutely. Even say World of Tanks uses the hit point much more like D&D than not. What is really interesting about that is I spent the whole 1980s and half the 1990s with literally everyone you talked to claiming how D&D was bad game because it used hit points and hit points weren't realistic. Yet, find how many video games use cRPG alternatives like wound tracks or wound tables.

Classes are far from being ubiquitous in videogames, especially RPGs where a la carte menu of options is the norm.

Diablo and so basically every Diablo clone. Dark Souls and so every Souls-like. War of Warcraft and so basically every MMO. Mass Effect. Team Fortress. Darkest Dungeon. Hell Let Loose has classes. On and on and on.

Even if a game even features a word "class", chances are, it means something entirely different from how classes work in D&D, old or modern.

Minor variations. A few will use class to set your starting bonuses and then have similar rewards on obtaining a level no matter which class you started with, but this is still leveling. What the expectation should be for those that say OD&D sucks is that classes should have completely disappeared as a concept. Again, I spent the whole of the 1980s and 1990s listening to every 20 something theorist tell me how classes sucked because they weren't realistic.

Turns out "realistic" isn't the standard a game is judged by, or for that matter that alternative systems aren't realistic either.

D&D-style levels with a predefined progression table are just completely non-existent.

OK. Sure. How many games are out there where you have some sort of XP and a table which says that for a given amount of XP your level increases and then you get new rewards? I mean even something like Vampire Survivors works that way. Star Dew Valley works that way.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Every thread that goes on long enough ... eventually becomes a debate about D&D.