Worst RPG System You Ever Palyed?

[dagger]

Rifts World, cool...

Rifts System, bad...

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Can I ask why you say this?

Considering that RM and D&D3.5/d20 use almost identical mechanics for resolution, I find this to be an odd comment to say the least.

Is it because of the tables? Tables do not make a bad game (even though they may not be for everybody).

mcrow - the next question is for you as well.

Have you actually played RM before?

Let me tell you a story. A story of an intrepid band of adventurers, consisting of a warrior with skill at spellcraft, a hardened knight in hardened armour, and a healer of compassion and dignity, who set out into a ruined city to seek their fortune. These brave adventurers explored several buildings and killed a few rats and centipedes before coming across their most formidable challenge: some feral women with sharpened fingernails. These women were frightening and cunning, for while we were armed with long sharp steel devices used to stab and hack at soft meaty bits, and armour to protect from the same, the might of their sharpened fingernails turned out to be too much for us.

In other words, they kept rolling "stun for x rounds" on their damage table. They'd hit us, do little or no damage, and stun us. Then they'd do it again on the next round. And again, and again. They ended up killing us all. We should have just been able to stab them and move on, but no, the tables said that stupid, unbelievable things should happen, so happen they did.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Synnibarr is pain.

 

[wingsandsword]

The Worst I've Ever Played:

Palladium. As many have said, it's a train wreck of balance attached to a cement overshoes of writing and documentation.

Synnibar. Now, we didn't get to actually play this much. We sat down with the book and started creating characters on a lark, wondering if the game was really that bad (yes). We finally had our characters (sadly), and one of us tried to GM a game with it, but it stalled, crashed and burned in the sort of fashion that normally requires an NTSB investigation.

The Babylon Project. (the 1997 RPG, not the current d20 game) I am a big fan of the show, and I got some other fans together and we tried our best to play this game. A book that was written clearly as mud, with no options for playing rangers and very little for telepaths, and no rules for starship combat, and absolutely no stats for any of the main characters (even a legalese disclaimer that no characters from the TV show were in no way depicted in the book), and the mechanics were so poorly explained that we muddled, poorly though one session and never went back.

 

[Rasyr]

But my more general point in that post was that *any* designer of *any* RPG probably should not post in this thread for purely pragmatic reasons.

Any RPG that someone criticizes is bound to be liked by some other poster (and, well, AD&D is still liked by huge numbers of people even today). It cannot help any designer to antagonize potential customers.

Akrasia, I think that you were just reading a little too much into what I said there. Let's take a closer look at it...

AD&D (1e) - I hate limitations on my characters. I can only be a Monk if I randomly roll really high stats? Sheesh! (Never played 2e, so cannot comment on it). Actual play was not too bad, IMO, so long as you were not playing a magic user.

Please note that I did take care to mention that *I* hate limitations on my characters (that was a general statement that can apply to ANY rpg. Then I gave an example of one such from 1e that I disliked (being required to roll specific stats just to play a certain type of character). And then I complimented the system by saying that actual play was "not too bad". Before you take that the wrong way, please remember that I describe HARP, the game I wrote as "pretty good" (which is also how I describe D&D 3.x), and finally I give an exception (playing a magic using character). Considering that I have never liked fire-n-forget systems of magic, that opinion is, and I did say it was just an opinion, is understandable.

Shoot! It is a lot less volatile than some of the things said about RM in this thread... hehe

 

[HellHound]

But my more general point in that post was that *any* designer of *any* RPG probably should not post in this thread for purely pragmatic reasons.

Any RPG that someone criticizes is bound to be liked by some other poster (and, well, AD&D is still liked by huge numbers of people even today). It cannot help any designer to antagonize potential customers.

Alrighty.

You find me someone who thinks that K.A.B.A.L. is the shizznit, and I'll appologize for my earlier post to this thread.

That said, I don't think you will be finding any of my potential customers who really have a love-on for that ancient RPG.

 

[Impeesa]

Aftermath.

A ruleset so bizarre and poorly put together that it pretty much quashed my interest in what I considered my favortie genre (Post APocalypse) for years.

A different rulesystem for everything, an entire book of gun stats without the names or descritions of the guns included, Mutations so miniscule and weak as to be pointless.

Just a huge, idiotic mess from beginning to end.

Haha. I still have a well-thumbed old issue of InQuest with an article about crappy games of all kinds. In with Synnibarr, Campaign for North Africa, and others was Aftermath. Their opinion: "It ain't gonna be nuclear radiation that kills the survivors of World War III, they're gonna bore themselves to death."

Also mentioned was the RPG based on Dallas (yes, the TV series). Haven't played any of these though, so I can't nominate them here.

Palladium is not all that bad. Another one that is reallly bad is Rolemaster, it's nickname "chartmaster" says it all.

Eh, I've played both, and while Rolemaster is fairly dense, it's a hell of a lot better thought-out than Palladium. In fact, while I quite enjoyed the last (and only) long-term Palladium game I played (a lengthy Robotech campaign), I must say the rules truly are some of the worst I've ever played with.

--Impeesa--

 

[fusangite]

A game written by lawyers, to be played by accountants. Rollmaster makes me sad

You see, what struck me about MERP, it's sad, pathetic collision with Tolkien was not the quantitative nature of the system but the fact that the attributes were D% with no bell curve, the spell list had nothing to do with the setting and if you fell out a window that was high enough up, thereby suffering a critical hit, you could learn a new language as a result (the mere use of a critical table was to be rewarded under all conditions) as a consequence of leveling.

 

[francisca]

When I was in middle school, we decided to branch out and try other games. The only non-D&D products you could find around town were the other TSR games. I already had Gamma World 1e, other guys picked up Top Secret, Star Frontiers, and Gang Busters. I have to say, I enjoyed Gang Busters the least.

Recently I had a look at some of the old ICE RM stuff, like the early Arms Law, et al. And it all clicked. The guy who was DMing our group in the mid-80s was using Arms and Claw Law. That <pick your favorite explitive> junk played a big part in driving me out of gaming in 86/87. So, the award for worst game I have played goes to Rolemaster.

I'm sure there are worse, but I'm a "take you word for it" kind of guy. I'm not going near Synibarr or FATAL for love or money.

 

[fusangite]

Also mentioned was the RPG based on Dallas (yes, the TV series). Haven't played any of these though, so I can't nominate them here.

Have you seen the rules? Is there anything you can tell us about Dallas? I'm intrigued.