Worst campaign setting concepts you've ever played
- Thread starter Desdichado
- Start date
Remathilis
Legend
diaglo said:
You forgot to mention how half the BBEG can't really be killed, and they ususally just come back and try and kill you, and you can't escape and all your divinations don't work and casting necromancy spells turn you evil...
Man, I love that game!
DreamChaser
Explorer
The worst game I've ever run was an Alternity game, heavily modfied.
It was a Star*Drive game (why the heck did they think they needed the asterisk?) with several sci-fi rip offs (from Farscape, Star Trek, etc.) The characters were the crew of a ship but there were only 5 of them.
A trill, who if she had a job on the ship, I don't remember it...I think she was a diplomat. The woman who played her had some issues that leaked into the game.
A giant lizard warrior who wanted to learn to pilot the ship.
A human pilot who guarded her piloting skills jealously.
A small lizard engineer who really wanted to be a chef but had been reprogrammed by her society to be an engineer after she was convicted of murder.
A mechalus (cyborg) psion who really just wanted to have sex with everything she came in contact with.
The common bond of these 5 were that they were some of the only survivors of a star liner that had been hijacked in Jump Space (which is theoretically impossible) and all of them had seen something being stolen by the creepy looking hijakers. They were on a quest to find out what was up.
They ended up in a fight with each other (caused mostly by the issues of the trill's player) and the warrior tried to pilot the ship while the pilot was using her latent psionic power to try to plot a course through a difficult area. The warrior messed up...horribly...and got the ship lodged in Jump Space.
Due to some technobabble reason (another problem with the game), they were stuck there. The trill, trying to be "helpful" removed all the control chips (several hundred of them) from the engineering computer to force it to shut down so a new jump could be attempted but unfortunately that rendered the entire ship useless since no one (except the engineer who had gone off her medication and was locked in the galley cooking) could repare it.
I ended up getting them out of there by having an uber alien intervene.
The core problem with the game was the periods of time in space. It didn't make sense to skip them every time but there was nothing much that could happen in Jump Space. The difficulties outsided the game also chose that moment to come to a head. Everything unraveled horribly.
DC
It was a Star*Drive game (why the heck did they think they needed the asterisk?) with several sci-fi rip offs (from Farscape, Star Trek, etc.) The characters were the crew of a ship but there were only 5 of them.
A trill, who if she had a job on the ship, I don't remember it...I think she was a diplomat. The woman who played her had some issues that leaked into the game.
A giant lizard warrior who wanted to learn to pilot the ship.
A human pilot who guarded her piloting skills jealously.
A small lizard engineer who really wanted to be a chef but had been reprogrammed by her society to be an engineer after she was convicted of murder.
A mechalus (cyborg) psion who really just wanted to have sex with everything she came in contact with.
The common bond of these 5 were that they were some of the only survivors of a star liner that had been hijacked in Jump Space (which is theoretically impossible) and all of them had seen something being stolen by the creepy looking hijakers. They were on a quest to find out what was up.
They ended up in a fight with each other (caused mostly by the issues of the trill's player) and the warrior tried to pilot the ship while the pilot was using her latent psionic power to try to plot a course through a difficult area. The warrior messed up...horribly...and got the ship lodged in Jump Space.
Due to some technobabble reason (another problem with the game), they were stuck there. The trill, trying to be "helpful" removed all the control chips (several hundred of them) from the engineering computer to force it to shut down so a new jump could be attempted but unfortunately that rendered the entire ship useless since no one (except the engineer who had gone off her medication and was locked in the galley cooking) could repare it.
I ended up getting them out of there by having an uber alien intervene.
The core problem with the game was the periods of time in space. It didn't make sense to skip them every time but there was nothing much that could happen in Jump Space. The difficulties outsided the game also chose that moment to come to a head. Everything unraveled horribly.
DC
MojoGM
First Post
A Matter of Perspective
I guess what this thread is kind of showing is that "bad concepts" is really a matter of taste.
It all depends on what you like. And more often the person running the game.
I can see Dragonlance or Ravenloft being good. I've never played in either, though I've run both (only briefly). Ok, this was a long time ago and MY games may have not been great (I was still learning), but I think I could do them some justice now.
Some of what I've read here has made me go "yikes, sounds miserable", but some others I've said "hey! I LIKE that setting", so I guess I can't be as harsh on the ones that sound bad to me.
Well, actually that one where the DM killed multiple characters each game and one spent 6 hours just trying to find their way in a city sounded dreadful (I think we can ALL agree on that).
~Mojo
I guess what this thread is kind of showing is that "bad concepts" is really a matter of taste.
It all depends on what you like. And more often the person running the game.
I can see Dragonlance or Ravenloft being good. I've never played in either, though I've run both (only briefly). Ok, this was a long time ago and MY games may have not been great (I was still learning), but I think I could do them some justice now.
Some of what I've read here has made me go "yikes, sounds miserable", but some others I've said "hey! I LIKE that setting", so I guess I can't be as harsh on the ones that sound bad to me.
Well, actually that one where the DM killed multiple characters each game and one spent 6 hours just trying to find their way in a city sounded dreadful (I think we can ALL agree on that).
~Mojo
GravyFingerz
Gravymancer
Some of the worst games I've been in where ran by a specific person who is no longer part of our group because no one can stand him.
He was prone to handing out unearned treasure and minor artifacts just because. We had two or three adventures where we would go in a cave, fight 20-50 goblinoids, and find a 1 million gp diamond or something else. We carry it out, sell it, end of adventure.
Another game, I had the misfortune to want to get healed, and instead of getting healed, I was mind controlled and teleported to the mayors office and forced upon the job. No save on the teleport, and even though I had spell resistance, he rolled it, failed it, and said "He makes it!" He gave me this frustrated and annoyed look.
It gets worse.
So we all meet in this tavern, and when the female players have their female characters walk in, the bartender says no wenches in the bar and points to this sign saying "No Wenches". Wtf?! This is the kicker - when the females leave, the bartender leaves, a new one takes his place, and takes the sign down.
We all eventually go to this abandoned temple, in part because of me (I was mind controlled), and when we entered, there was a trap. Well, some made it and some failed. But I was playing a drow assassin (just don't ask) and I had amazing saves but I failed, so the DM rubbed it in my face. One player and the DM argued for an HOUR because the player pointed out that the trap could never work mechanically and the DM couldn't justify it because his explanations were weak.
This next event requires a little explaining. One of my friends had a sentient hammer. Jokingly, he asked the DM if it could fly and pull him around like Thor's Hammer does in the comics. The DM says no. Fair enough.
After the trap, the two female characters decided this sucked, and they would rather be somewhere else. So they try to leave. The DM calls for a save from my friend with the hammer. He fails. The DM says the Hammer starts flying and pulls him along. The Hammer pulls him in front of the path of the two female characters and forces my friend to threaten them to stay in the Dungeon or die. Obviously my friend doesn't want to do it, but the DM forces him to through the hammer.
Eventually we get to the center of this temple, and there is one person in here, the last worshipper of some gem god. We kill him and take the treasure, which sure enough, is over 1 million GP in gems.
Needless to say, that game left a bad taste in our mouths.
EDIT: Ah yes, I forgot to mention this little gem. After the game, he asked us how it was. Since we were friends with him at the time, we didn't want to hurt him so we said it was okay. He looks at me and says, "Yeah, I like to use plot in my games." I don't know whether he meant that as a scathing remark to imply I didn't use plot, or whether he was deluded. I have never wanted to punch anyone in the face as much as I wanted to punch him right then.
But I don't think he has the Intelligence necessary to be able to make up subtext.
He was prone to handing out unearned treasure and minor artifacts just because. We had two or three adventures where we would go in a cave, fight 20-50 goblinoids, and find a 1 million gp diamond or something else. We carry it out, sell it, end of adventure.
Another game, I had the misfortune to want to get healed, and instead of getting healed, I was mind controlled and teleported to the mayors office and forced upon the job. No save on the teleport, and even though I had spell resistance, he rolled it, failed it, and said "He makes it!" He gave me this frustrated and annoyed look.
It gets worse.
So we all meet in this tavern, and when the female players have their female characters walk in, the bartender says no wenches in the bar and points to this sign saying "No Wenches". Wtf?! This is the kicker - when the females leave, the bartender leaves, a new one takes his place, and takes the sign down.
We all eventually go to this abandoned temple, in part because of me (I was mind controlled), and when we entered, there was a trap. Well, some made it and some failed. But I was playing a drow assassin (just don't ask) and I had amazing saves but I failed, so the DM rubbed it in my face. One player and the DM argued for an HOUR because the player pointed out that the trap could never work mechanically and the DM couldn't justify it because his explanations were weak.
This next event requires a little explaining. One of my friends had a sentient hammer. Jokingly, he asked the DM if it could fly and pull him around like Thor's Hammer does in the comics. The DM says no. Fair enough.
After the trap, the two female characters decided this sucked, and they would rather be somewhere else. So they try to leave. The DM calls for a save from my friend with the hammer. He fails. The DM says the Hammer starts flying and pulls him along. The Hammer pulls him in front of the path of the two female characters and forces my friend to threaten them to stay in the Dungeon or die. Obviously my friend doesn't want to do it, but the DM forces him to through the hammer.
Eventually we get to the center of this temple, and there is one person in here, the last worshipper of some gem god. We kill him and take the treasure, which sure enough, is over 1 million GP in gems.
Needless to say, that game left a bad taste in our mouths.
EDIT: Ah yes, I forgot to mention this little gem. After the game, he asked us how it was. Since we were friends with him at the time, we didn't want to hurt him so we said it was okay. He looks at me and says, "Yeah, I like to use plot in my games." I don't know whether he meant that as a scathing remark to imply I didn't use plot, or whether he was deluded. I have never wanted to punch anyone in the face as much as I wanted to punch him right then.
But I don't think he has the Intelligence necessary to be able to make up subtext.
Last edited:
shadow
First Post
Hmmm...Back in high school I used to play and DM quite a bit, some of them good, some of them not so good.
Once we were really wanting to play a Darksun game. The DM informed us that he hadn't had time to make up an adventure. We pressed him to play anyway and finally he complied. We ended up wandering the wastelands of Athas fighting monsters from the Darksun monstrous compendium in alphabetical order. Needless to say that adventure lasted only about an hour.
I'm ashamed to admit it but I actually ran a real stinker in high school. We were playing GURPS cyberpunk and I decided to throw in psionics. This was cool, and original, but soon I started ripping things off Final Fantasy 7 (The main villian was a Sephiroth ripoff, complete with the black trenchcoat and katana), Parasite Eve, and Akira. I got to the point where I was completely railroading everything, and players had no choice. Now using movies and video games for inspiration is one thing, but completely ripping them off (down to actual quotes) is quite another. Plus the railroading got so bad that by the time the campaign ended, half of the original players had dropped.
Once we were really wanting to play a Darksun game. The DM informed us that he hadn't had time to make up an adventure. We pressed him to play anyway and finally he complied. We ended up wandering the wastelands of Athas fighting monsters from the Darksun monstrous compendium in alphabetical order. Needless to say that adventure lasted only about an hour.
I'm ashamed to admit it but I actually ran a real stinker in high school. We were playing GURPS cyberpunk and I decided to throw in psionics. This was cool, and original, but soon I started ripping things off Final Fantasy 7 (The main villian was a Sephiroth ripoff, complete with the black trenchcoat and katana), Parasite Eve, and Akira. I got to the point where I was completely railroading everything, and players had no choice. Now using movies and video games for inspiration is one thing, but completely ripping them off (down to actual quotes) is quite another. Plus the railroading got so bad that by the time the campaign ended, half of the original players had dropped.
diaglo
Adventurer
the worst concept involves all of these elements from this short list:
- magic shops or easy availability of magic items
gaining a lvl every 13 encounters
ability score progression with lvl
over abundancy and dependency on skills and feats
Epic lvls
training as an optional rule instead of core
harm, haste, hold person, telekinesis with shurikens, polymorph
prestige classes
front loaded ranger
cheesy bard
new core class sorceror
Dextolen
Community Supporter
Worst game I've ever DMed...
I was stuck for an idea for our weekly game so I had the characters enter a portal which
1) put them in my bedroom
2) made them 4 inches tall
They had to move from my bed to a shelf above my desk and fight various stuffed animals, action figures, our cat and navigate traps such as my turntable.
We always played in my bedroom and it was sort of fun to actually move our minis around the room and dice everything out. - still INCREDIBLY LAME!!!
I was stuck for an idea for our weekly game so I had the characters enter a portal which
1) put them in my bedroom
2) made them 4 inches tall
They had to move from my bed to a shelf above my desk and fight various stuffed animals, action figures, our cat and navigate traps such as my turntable.
We always played in my bedroom and it was sort of fun to actually move our minis around the room and dice everything out. - still INCREDIBLY LAME!!!
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