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

[Composer99]

I had and played the ET Atari game. It wasn't badly designed; it was badly implemented. I had no problem with the gameplay as such, but I can still recall after all these years how dang fiddly it was with the levitating out of the pits. You had to be in the exact right spot to begin, and if you weren't or if you drifted too soon then plop you'd go back in the pit, over and over. It was maddening. But the general loop of play was no worse than the Superman or Adventure games of the same time, and I played those for hours upon hours.

I will defer to your experience and revise my post accordingly!

 

[RuinousPowers]

I don't know if the system is bad or really bad, but the writing style of SenZar ("Wow! Gee whizz! Isnt this the greatest thing ever?!") is so annoying that I would never run it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Since Shatner came from the theatre, isn't his acting very likely in fact Shakespearian? But maybe theatre acting isn't what you expect on TV (anymore)...

 

[Composer99]

Oh, I dunno about that. While criticizing the attitude and premise isn't the same as the OP's looking for worst mechanics, I think they can definitely contribute to the "worst (in their experience)" rpg. And certainly some PbtA games have toxic attitude (largely toward other games in the industry) incorporated into them that can be significantly off-putting.

And not being able to create your own heroes in Marvel Heroic Role Playing would be a deal-breaker to a lot of potential players, myself included. I've owned games like DC Adventures (M&M3) and TSR's Marvel Super Heroes. But I've never particularly wanted to play a canonical character as much as I've wanted to play my own hero alongside them in their setting.

It's my understanding that both OSR and storygames arose as a strong reaction to the predominant strains of play in the 1990s and early 2000s, so it doesn't surprise me that products from both styles of game sometimes come across as having something to prove and, however deliberately or inadvertently, come across as crossing from trying to contrast themselves from mainstream games over to belittling mainstream gameplay. (I'm taking your word for it in the case of PbtA games, while I have seen that kind of attitude on display in OSR games and blogs; the lack of such talk is one of the things I really appreciate about, say, the writing in Kevin Crawford's [X] Without Number games.)

I agree that some of the examples in post 292 are on point in terms of bad designs/mechanics, and I feel that the text "in at least some examples" in my post 306 was an attempt to acknowledge that - that might not have come out clearly?

 

[niklinna]

Apocalypse World (and games 'powered by' including 'forged in the dark'): Utter TRASH.

• Why do people make fun of Uncle Gary's "High-Gygaxian" but no one points out Baker's uber-pretentious tone in AW? 'Play to see what happens!" Really? No sh*t. Like everytime anyone anywhere has ever played a game we were ALWAYS playing to see what happened. Baker even out-peacocked White Wolf's narcissistic narrative style

There were things about the prose that annoyed me, and I've spoken freely about them, but annoying prose does not a bad game make. As for "play to find out what happens", the text is pretty clear about what that means, and given the dominant playstyle of the times, it needed to be said.

• The "Let's become BFFLs in a post-apocalyptic hellscape" makes zero sense

I don't recall seeing that language in the game text, and the game is pretty clear that relationships are about what you can get from someone for now, and things are changing all the time so be on your toes.

• Moves. Tabletop rpgs are really fun because we can play any kind of character in any kind of setting and do just about anything we want as that character. They're simultaneously insane and therapeutic. 'Moves' change how we RP by saying "OK in this situation you can do X or Y or maybe Z but that's it. No you can't do things the other characters can do because your class playbook limits you to X, Y and maybe Z. The spotlight is now on your character! Everyone is watching! Aaaaaand ACTION!" This is "The Theater Kids RPG". You just read the pre-written lines explained in your Moves and you now get to pretend you're roleplaying. The whole scheme of how the game is designed makes me nauseous.

Well this is just flat out incorrect. You can do anything you want that makes sense in the fiction. But, if what you want to do fits the conditions for a move applying, then the move applies and you must resolve it.

Given your incorrect takes on the game, I can see why you hated it.

FATE (all of it): this one's already been jabbed at above and is trash in all its forms. Sure, it's an rpg but the rules lack real definition. This game. If someone told me they had a set of house-rules for playing Risus, I would immediately think "FATE".

I've had great fun with Fate but it does take a savvy GM to make it sing. So yeah that game has some failings. Nowhere near enough to put it at the bottom of my list though.

Burning Wheel: IF tabletop role-playing is all about the exploration of character depth rather than combat and dice why do you need SIX-HUNDRED PAGES to explain what roleplaying is? Wait I know: you need room to explain how the d6 dice pools provide notes on my acting. Yeah I get it.

I haven't played or read Burning Wheel, but I have played Torchbearer 2, which uses the same general game engine, and which I consider a pretty amazingly-designed game system—for a very limited audience. It too has a large page count, but it also has very large type. I had a few minor quibbles about the rules, and several serious quibbles about the organization of the text and difficulty of finding rules when needed, but I thought the game engine was amazing for its stated purposes. All of the crunch was there for good reason, and part of my enjoyment of the game was starting with a low understanding of how it worked, but how beautifully that became clear through play. If my GM proposed Mouse Guard or Burning Wheel I'd definitely be interested.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's my understanding that both OSR and storygames arose as a strong reaction to the predominant strains of play in the 1990s and early 2000s, so it doesn't surprise me that products from both styles of game sometimes come across as having something to prove and, however deliberately or inadvertently, come across as crossing from trying to contrast themselves from mainstream games over to belittling mainstream gameplay. (I'm taking your word for it in the case of PbtA games, while I have seen that kind of attitude on display in OSR games and blogs; the lack of such talk is one of the things I really appreciate about, say, the writing in Kevin Crawford's [X] Without Number games.)

Honestly, a lot of games in that period pushed themselves by badmouthing either specific classes of games or pretty much everything of a different style at all. Like you say, I blame it on a lot of designers and the players they were aiming at being super-reactive to the common styles of the time.

 

[niklinna]

Apparently my mother stacked the deck so I would never go backwards.

That seems to fit well with the designer's intent! The game was created to keep children in the polio ward occupied and to get their minds off their illness. Why should they have to suffer a setback in a board game too?

 

[Aldarc]

It's my understanding that both OSR and storygames arose as a strong reaction to the predominant strains of play in the 1990s and early 2000s, so it doesn't surprise me that products from both styles of game sometimes come across as having something to prove and, however deliberately or inadvertently, come across as crossing from trying to contrast themselves from mainstream games over to belittling mainstream gameplay. (I'm taking your word for it in the case of PbtA games, while I have seen that kind of attitude on display in OSR games and blogs; the lack of such talk is one of the things I really appreciate about, say, the writing in Kevin Crawford's [X] Without Number games.)

I agree that some of the examples in post 292 are on point in terms of bad designs/mechanics, and I feel that the text "in at least some examples" in my post 306 was an attempt to acknowledge that - that might not have come out clearly?

Agreed. "Play to see what happens" is not just a phrase that appears in indie story games; it has also been taken up by a number of OSR games. You will also see "emergent story" as well. The phrase exists, in part, as a principle or point of order to avoid GM as storyteller, author, and railroad conductor: i.e., "traditional play." GM as author/storyteller is probably the most prevalent in the hobby: see D&D 5e. So it's little to no surprise that authors often have to almost "unteach" this assumption when approaching their games.

Honestly, a lot of games in that period pushed themselves by badmouthing either specific classes of games or pretty much everything of a different style at all. Like you say, I blame it on a lot of designers and the players they were aiming at being super-reactive to the common styles of the time.

The prose for at least Apocalypse World seems more in the vein of Mörk Borg, where it's mostly there for tongue-in-cheek stylistic purpose. But it's not as if Apocalypse World was really designed for mass consumption or even for the people who normally play D&D. It was a small time indie game on the margins. It just happened to spark a bunch of spin-off games, including now the largest TTRPG Kickstarter: Avatar Legends.

 

[innerdude]

That Star Wars game that is all (proprietary) funky dice has stuck with me as having the most off-putting dice resolution system I have ever heard of. It's really the only thing I know about it. Once I saw that, I just wanted to run away and never look back.

Whereas I GM'd a 6 month Star Wars campaign using the exact system you're decrying (FFG Narrative Dice), and had some of the best roleplaying of my gaming career.

It's a fantastic system that's not meant to be approached in strictly "trad fashion". If you get what it's trying to do and why, it's one of the best systems on the market.

If you're a "trad," "My Precious Living World" GM, you'll hate it.

After playing and grokking Ironsworn before coming to FFG Star Wars, it totally made sense what it was trying to do. Go play a 3 hour solo session of Ironsworn, then apply the mindset from that experience to FFG, and it sings.

 

[Aldarc]

Whereas I GM'd a 6 month Star Wars campaign using the exact system you're decrying (FFG Narrative Dice), and had some of the best roleplaying of my gaming career.

It's a fantastic system that's not meant to be approached in strictly "trad fashion". If you get what it's trying to do and why, it's one of the best systems on the market.

If you're a "trad," "My Precious Living World" GM, you'll hate it.

After playing and grokking Ironsworn before coming to FFG Star Wars, it totally made sense what it was trying to do. Go play a 3 hour solo session of Ironsworn, then apply the mindset from that experience to FFG, and it sings.

I heard that L5R uses a modified version of this system and that it rocks pretty heavily.