Worst RPG Ever?

Worst sytems I've ever bought or played.

Recon
Traveller:2300
Star Ace
Champions
AD&D 2E
Middle Earth Role Playing Game(ICE)
Ghostbusters RPG
Pendragon

Best:
AD&D 1E
Chill
DC Heros
Star Wars (WEG)
 

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sineater said:
Worst RPG game I ever tried was an old game called BOOTHILL. A western game where if you got into a gun fight you were pretty much goin to die or be severly wounded and end up dying. It was impossible to live.

I would put Boot Hill as my all time favorite game. It was so simple that in HS I had every table memorized and we did not even have to carry the book to play. We made charts for drinking contests and brawling. It was the shootenist, tootenist game ever. Thin plot lines and characters dropped by a single shot. My favorite character was Yip Lip Ding the last chineese cowboy. He was 6'5" tall and ordered milk at saloons. A fight was sure to break out. We had Tequila TeCarlo our alcoholic comrad that would pass out drunk before every heist. He enjoyed role playing the saloons and his character so much that he almost never made it to the gun fights. Good Times. How dare you insult such mastery.
 

I forgot to vote. I hated CAR WARS. I just could never get into it. I didn't care about the dynamics of how it worked. Twightlight 2000 is a close second. I so wanted to like that game. First version, too deadly, second version it was over corrected.
 

Flexor the Mighty! said:
Worst sytems I've ever bought or played.

Recon
Traveller:2300
Star Ace
Champions
AD&D 2E
Middle Earth Role Playing Game(ICE)
Ghostbusters RPG
Pendragon

Best:
AD&D 1E
Chill
DC Heros
Star Wars (WEG)

I like the way you do your answers Flexor. Here is my highly subjective list

Worse:
Hero Wars (mechanics not the Glorantha game world)
RIFTS (Munchkin bait)
Stalking the Night Fantastic (too complex)
Champions (chargen is too complex and min max oriented)
Twillight 2000 (broken rules set, cool background though, well at least in 1986)
Aftermath (complexity fetish at it gain)
AD&D1e (sorry I know its blaspehemy but...)
Blue Book D&D

Best:
GURPS (with the rules tuned down though....)
Unisystem (All Flesh Must Be eaten, Buffy etc great light rules)
Rolemaster (the rules suck but the people and games have been awesome)
D6 Star Wars (form follows function, too bad I don't like Star Wars for a gaming enviroment)
 

ColonelHardisson said:


Boot Hill is a classic. The whole point was that gunfighting is dangerous - just like in real life. If you stayed away from fights which involved you against more than one, you had a good chance of living. If the odds were greater than that, you'd better be the Man With No Name.

Anyone know if it's possible to get hold of Boot Hill other than through eBay? My only info on it is the conversion pages in the 1e DMG, but from the description it sounds great - a lot like the improvised rules I used in a Western PBEM, 'Quickdraw'. which was a lot of fun - one player got through maybe a dozen PCs, he couldn't help but try to be Clint and always got a bullet in the lung, stomach, skull, etc...
 

heh - Boothill rocks!! I love the game. One of my favortie RPG recollections was the time I adapted a "Predator" alien for the setting and threw it at the cowboys. :D

As for worst.

F.A.T.A.L. all the way.

World of Synnibar which I am still trying to wade through has to be in there as well.

For sheer depressing reading, Wraith makes the list as well.

I have never played these three, but then I am niether a Masochist nor a Sadist.
 

Cowboy Up!!

I also loved Boot Hill. It was fast, fun, and deliciously deadly. Sure you went through a lot of characters if you had gunfights every session, but that was part of the fun of the thing. And the rules were fairly in depth for how simple they were.

Of course, I also liked Star Frontiers and the Advanced Marvel Super Heroes (non Saga) a lot, but I can't really remember how the rules works.

Damn, I used to have all three of those games, I wonder if I could dig them up somewhere?

Back on Topic: My RPG experience is pretty limited, having only played 8-10 different systems. The worst were Palladium Fantasy, Rifts, and WEG's Star Wars. While I like the setting, the bucket o dice mechanic of Shadowrun was also annoying.

I of course must also bow down to Fatal, but luckily have had no exposure to it.
 
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To echo what some of the other folks have said, I am baffled at seeing Champions on this page? It blows me away. I have looked to see if there was some commonality and it seems to me that many of the folks who mention Champions as the worst system, have frequently mentioned a love of fast and loose systems (WEG, BESM, Storyteller). Most of us who love Champions (or GURPs or RM) seemed more likely to list the loose systems as our least favorite. Mine being WEG.

Some of the comments just do not hold much water. My first battle in D&D ran several hours, mainly cause we did not understand the rules. Many of us diehard champions fans can say with a strait face that combat takes roughly the same amount of time as 3E. When you know the rules it flows smoothly.

Not defending the complexity - that is what makes the system good. I think if those same people who complain about making characters up had tried to make up a Fiendish-lycanthrope-wizard-archmage-chosen of mystra-nightsong enchanter-half dragon as their 1st 3E character, they would have found that experience to also be disheartening.

The first point seems the most telling - some like their games loose, some prefer them to be geared for exact calculation of ability. Niether way is better. It was just shocking to see Champions taking it on the nose.

All of this of course IMO, YMMV, and any other appendige to indicate we are all entitled to an opionion. Which BTW, I can say are not like some parts of the anatomy. I have seen with my own eyes folks who did not have said part of anatomy, or whos anatomy had been surgically removed. SO, opinions are even more common that specific parts of anotomy, at least on the net.
 

i guess i'd have to say the last edition of traveller - the one with the black covers trimmed in red. it's not so much that it was bad, but it just never clicked with me and my group. i so wanted to like it, but it ended up being pretty boring.
 

Worst games I've seen: FATAL, followed closely by that White Warriors/RAHOWA thing.

Worst game I paid money for: Lords of Creation.
 

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