Why Do You Hate An RPG System?

[hawkeyefan]

A game we found incredibly frustrating was the Marvel Supers game that Marvel themselves put out. It relied heavily on the characters using energy for everything they did, but it was pretty easy to run out of energy fast. I accidentally made my character OP because one of his main powers was draining energy. He actually looked a little weak on paper but in play he could just keep going while sucking out that valuable energy from the villians. We had a really interesting group of players and the GM kept the game going for a while but it just got so frustrating, even with the rule changes the GM implemented.

Comercially, the game didn't last long. Not surprising, as it really did have broken rules.

I don't even know if I'm familiar with this version of the game.....when did this come out?

I played the TSR one a ton as a kid, and the Margaret Weis one a bit a few years ago.

 

[billd91]

I don't even know if I'm familiar with this version of the game.....when did this come out?

I played the TSR one a ton as a kid, and the Margaret Weis one a bit a few years ago.

It came out between the two - early 2000s, I believe.

 

[Arilyn]

I don't even know if I'm familiar with this version of the game.....when did this come out?

I played the TSR one a ton as a kid, and the Margaret Weis one a bit a few years ago.

It came out in 2003. Actually sold well at first because it sounded good and system seemed innovative. Marvel dropped it because they claimed they were looking for similar sales figures to D&D, which was pretty laughable. Anyway the initial positive response to game turned to heavy criticism, I believe.

Yeah, I had a lot of fun with that old TSR version too. Have the Weis one but haven't played it yet... Too many games.

 

[Undrave]

A game we found incredibly frustrating was the Marvel Supers game that Marvel themselves put out. It relied heavily on the characters using energy for everything they did, but it was pretty easy to run out of energy fast. I accidentally made my character OP because one of his main powers was draining energy. He actually looked a little weak on paper but in play he could just keep going while sucking out that valuable energy from the villians. We had a really interesting group of players and the GM kept the game going for a while but it just got so frustrating, even with the rule changes the GM implemented.

Comercially, the game didn't last long. Not surprising, as it really did have broken rules.

Was it the one with like stones and no dice?

The one where one of the power you could take was basically "Be Spider-man"?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Now I recall it....I think we picked it up and didn't stick with it.....just didn't stack up to the old one.

 

[Arilyn]

Was it the one with like stones and no dice?

The one where one of the power you could take was basically "Be Spider-man"?

Yep, dice less and energy stones. You regained energy if you could grab a quiet moment to rest. I remember our practice session. I tried out Gambit and I was throwing cards, resting, throwing cards, resting. Yeah that emulated the genre.

 

[Undrave]

Yep, dice less and energy stones. You regained energy if you could grab a quiet moment to rest. I remember our practice session. I tried out Gambit and I was throwing cards, resting, throwing cards, resting. Yeah that emulated the genre.

This reminds me of certain Boardgames that have 'Play to play more' mechanics (as I call 'em). Basically where you HAVE to waste a turn not advancing your victory condition, but just so you have ressources to keep playing. It's really annoying because it basically means you have to skip a turn every so often.

Not a fan of those type of mechanics. I prefer just having a resource generation phase.

 

[innerdude]

I tend to agree with those who have said previously that it's pretty hard to "hate" a system. I forget who said it, but there would have to be an element of "forced engagement" with a system I didn't enjoy over an extended period of time for the emotion to go from simply not caring for a particular system to outright hatred.

Even as ridiculously tedious and uninspiring I find GURPS most of the time, I've still managed to find snippets of fun here and there as a player in our current campaign.

As to the reasons anyone would "hate" an RPG system, to me it always comes down to mismatched expectations, which is certainly the case between me and GURPS.

That mismatch can operate at a number of levels, and in multiple combinations:

1. Mechanical realism/verisimilitude: the mechanics may be intuitive and easy to grasp, but don't output plausible outcomes relative to the in-fiction reality.
2. Mechanical over-complexity: the mechanics may output plausible in-fiction outcomes, but the inputs required to reach the output is too mentally taxing or time-consuming to maintain an effective pace of play.
3. Mechanical under-complexity: Conversely, if the mechanics are not complex enough, the produced results may feel too generic or overly broad to the situation.
4. Genre adherence: Even if the mechanics produce plausible outcomes at a desired level of complexity, the outputs may not create the right "feel" for the assumed fiction.
5. Tone: This is somewhat related to genre, but not always. It's more about how the rules influence what is seen as relevant to the central tenets if play--Grim/gritty vs. heroic, magic as an unstable, malevolent force vs. whimsical fairy magic, etc. If you're wanting to play a game of "big damn heroes fighting evil", do you really need detailed rules about pestilence and disease that force the players to constantly make health checks to avoid getting the plague?
6. Fictional stance (actor / author (pawn) / director): The rules either encourage or discourage certain player inputs relative to the fiction, or allow or disallow player control over areas of the fiction outside the GM's authority.

There might be other ways a system might mismatch a player's expectations, but these were the ones I came up with off the top of my head.

For me personally, GURPS is an overwhelming mismatch for #2. For the particular campaign I'm in right now (supers), it's also a very strong mismatch for #4 and #5.

 

[Arilyn]

Had fun with GURPS back in the day, but even then there were things about the system that drove us nuts. It cost a huge amount of points to buy "unusual background," even though those investment of points got you nothing, but the privilege of buying something that might not fit the genre. And to add salt to the silliness of this, the example was a character who was raised by travelling merchants and knows several languages, which are bought separately. Huh? This is unusual? Then they kept the unusual background for the first GURPS supers. What counts as an unusual background in a super game??!! Related to this is the long lived or immortal background. Gets you absolutely nothing mechanical, except being able to say, you've been around for a thousand years. Put in place, apparently to stop every player from being immortal.

Also disliked the cost of skill points being based on how easy the skill is supposed to be to learn in real world. That's nuts, as the adventuring skills tend to be fairly easy, but watch out for the maths and sciences. One player wanted to make his super hero also be a doctor and all those medical skills ate up a big chunk of his points. Also, you can't split up skills by how hard they are. For some people, math is a breeze, but maybe riding a bike is hard.

Having made these complaints we did play GURPS a lot. Had fun. Don't hate the system, but even the newest version doesn't go far enough in fixing the flaws we found in the game. Love GURPS source books. They ate cool.

 

[Arilyn]

Source books are cool, didn't eat cool.