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

[Sockfuzz]

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?

I think their feeling at the time was that, with an 18, they were basically guaranteed to succeed even if they spent no points from their pool; therefore, they points they did spend were "wasted" because they didn't have an actual mechanical effect on whether they succeeded or not.

Which like, yeah, that's not how dice work at all, and they didn't know they were going to succeed when they spent those points - but I'm not sure there was any amount of logical explaining that would've made it feel less bad to them. It was purely an emotional reaction, and their whole experience with the system was soured over it.

I like to think that Current Me would've handled the situation a lot better than Me From 2017, but I haven't had such a strong negative reaction to a mechanic either before or since.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

I know which one is more likely to be a game breaker, though.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I like to think that Current Me would've handled the situation a lot better than Me From 2017, but I haven't had such a strong negative reaction to a mechanic either before or since.

It may be they'd already had some negative feelings about the system for other reasons, and that just was the straw.

 

[heks]

this thread has reminded me that my single best and worst gaming experiences were with the same game, 'wraith: the oblivion,' and how each was as good/bad as it was because of the rules, themselves, more than just the players.

 

[MNblockhead]

I can't remember the name (and I think it may have been an unpublished game designed by the guy running it) but I joined an online session of a survival TTRPG campaign. It was like someone took the US Army FM 3-05.70 survival manual and a bunch of crafting manuals and added lots of dice mechanics and roll tables. I swear I could have done the few activities my character did in the game faster if I did them myself in real life.

 

[nerfherder]

As for "worst" RPGs, I would add to the list Phoenix Command: purportedly an RPG though really it's a ballistic resolution system where the detail is dialed up to 11 (including one supplement that denotes 63 hit locations), with scant support for anything other than shooting.

To be fair, the Small Arms Combat System (which I presume you are referring to) does describe itself as "a stand-alone game or as a combat system for any other game", rather than as a RPG.

For those not familiar with the Phoenix Command line, they did also produce some RPGs (e.g. Aliens, and Living Steel) based on simplified versions of their Small Arms Combat System. I did once bolt on the SACS with the Living Steel weapons and powered armour supplements to a game of Traveller, but only ever ran it once - it was just too slow in play.

Ironically, they designed and produced an Aliens boardgame, using an even more cut-down version of the SACS, and it worked really, really well. It was fast and exciting, with important decisions to make every turn, e.g. trying to judge whether to use all your actions to have a good chance of hitting an alien, but risk being left behind, or take an action to move and an action to shoot with a much lower chance of hitting.

 

[Celebrim]

this thread has reminded me that my single best and worst gaming experiences were with the same game, 'wraith: the oblivion,' and how each was as good/bad as it was because of the rules, themselves, more than just the players.

Considering you could reasonably nominate "Wraith: The Oblivion" for both all-time best rules and all-time worst rules in tabletop RPG history that doesn't really surprise me. Also, I'm interested to hear your best gaming experience in short story form because I've always been curious whether anyone ever had a successful social game of Wraith: The Oblivion that adhered to its original vision for the game.

 

[Skytheen]

Its not the worst, but I irrationally dislike the Essence20 System. It makes me angry that we finally got an RPG for one of my favorite things (G.I. Joe) and I found it terrible. Oh well.

 

[SteveC]

Its not the worst, but I irrationally dislike the Essence20 System. It makes me angry that we finally got an RPG for one of my favorite things (G.I. Joe) and I found it terrible. Oh well.

I have been scratching my head to think of recent games that were just bad and not just something I didn't like/wasn't interested in. I played demos of GI Joe and Transformers, thinking they might be fun to try for something different and they were just a mess. The GM was very good but didn't have a lot to work with. I don't own them but I think they are a victim of poor design. I'm not trying to yuck anyone's yum so if there are fans of the Essence20 system, I'd love to hear from them. I think this might be a rare example of a 'modern' game that's fits the bill.

 

[GMMichael]

Its not the worst, but I irrationally dislike the Essence20 System. It makes me angry that we finally got an RPG for one of my favorite things (G.I. Joe) and I found it terrible. Oh well.

Given how the Snake Eyes movie turned out, I'd expect this.