Worst RPG System You Ever Palyed?

[Qualidar]

Lords of Creation... suffered from a common fault: good setting ideas, horrible game system.

Lords of Creation had a setting idea? Must have been in a supplement. The only thing I remember about the setting was us laughing at how off-the-wall pointless it was (but then again, we were just 14). The other thing I remember was the artwork: bodies pulled out of weightlifting magazines with animal heads popped on....really; there were bear-men flexing for the camera.

~Qualidar~

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

As for "getting used to the horror", well, the Ruinous Powers are Lovecraftian; fundamentally poisonous to the reality in which your characters belong. You can't get used to them just like you can't get used to toxic waste.

Actually, as in the Cthulhu Mythos, it is humanity that represents the aberration - Chaos is the "true reality", and in fact humans derive most of what makes them special - their drive, ambition, and flexibility - from Chaos. They are just in a state of denial.

As for the worst RPG I ever played, it'd have to be Shadowrun. Don't get me wrong, I dig the setting- it makes no sense, but in a kind of goofy, Hey-it-was-the-80's way, it's just the system...can't wrap my head around it to this day. Much too clunky for my tastes.

Well, you might be glad to hear that there is a new edition coming up this summer with different and streamlined mechanics...

 

[Psychic Warrior]

Two way tie for me

Rolemaster and GURPS.

Actually I think GURPS might win out in the end.

Hated Amber too.

 

[Stormborn]

MERPS - let me just say that I HATE tables. Any RPG that requires the players to frequently consult tables isn't worth playing - and why i feel the need to add IMO I don't know.


I have never played Feng Shui, but i have read over the mechanics. Not much and not in detail, but enough to see why the previous poster hated them. Like much of Stolze stuff (UA for example) the free form style isn't for every group. In fact if you have even 1 of the wrong type of player I can see it beign a miserable experiance for all. I love Stolze's setting material in everything of his I have read, BTW, but have found that his mechanics leave a lot to the players' imagination, which can be great for some and terrible for others.

I guess I can see why someone would say GURPS too, but I disagree on that score.

 

[Tinner]

"Everway"
I'm quite sure I never actually played the game, but I won it as a prize at a Magic the Gatheirng tournament, so I at least owned it...

Wow. I thought Everway was a brilliant rules light system.
I ran a few campaigns of it, and once you got the hang of it, it was a blast!
I have found that "old-school gamers" had a much harder time handling Everway than those players new to roleplaying.
I used Everway as an instructional tool in a creative thinking class I taught for a group of 13-16 year olds, and they took to it with ease!

 

[Rafael Ceurdepyr]

Empire of the Petal Throne.

I played this back around 1983 when my (now ex-)husband [the same one who once played a phraint in a MERP game] was obsessed with it. Actually I don't remember anything about it except maybe unpronounceable names. It just leaves a bad taste in my mind.

I confess to loving the tables in RM. How can you not love a result of "split in twain" on a crit table. Doesn't mean I think it's a great system, though. I thought I liked it, based on playing it in the late 70s, until I resurrected a campaign of MERP recently. Ugh. If I ever suggest it again, my players will lynch me. GREAT maps though in the MERP supplements.

 

[Thunderfoot]

<SNIP>the company I work for <SNIP>

Well, that explains a lot. (Also, I've been lurking for about 5 years here on and off. So I'm an old new person. )

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

I still own a game called Universe, character creation is a nightmare and I never understood the rules, it remains unplayed and IMO unplayable.

I’ve never liked Traveller 2300 aka 2300AD. Love the background, hate the rules.

FASA’s Star Trek shows why percentage skill based systems don’t always work. “Standard orbit Mr Sulu” [roll] “Er, I’ve failed Captain.”

HeroWars/HeroQuest by Issaries. I love Glorantha, I want to love this game, I want to play this game, I can’t. Why? [That’s a genuine question btw, lots of people think it’s great, but I can’t cope with it. Perhaps I’m too simulationist.]

DnD 3.0+ Sorry but it’s much too complicated for me!

And, the worst (though I’ve never played it) must be FATAL. The website says ‘F.A.T.A.L. is a role-playing game like no other.’ I’d certainly agree with that statement. Unfortunately, it goes on to say ‘It is the goal of Fatal Games to astound and thrill those who seek a role-playing game based on historical and mythological accuracy, realism, and detail.’ This frankly is bollocks, this is a mean minded nasty sexist game with no basis in history, myth, accuracy, realism or detail. I once read a review which said (IIRC) ‘Their tagline is ‘FATAL GAMES, where the dice never lies’ I didn’t know that you could buy dice with ‘this game sucks’ written on every face.’

Finally, I’m a Dr. Who fan (of the series, not the game) I don’t remember FASA’s Dr. Who game (it sounds a bit like their Star Trek game). Dr Who Time Lord was much better. But if the game is structured like the TV series, then what’s wrong? I loved the James Bond game, because it worked if you acted like Bond, go with the flow, let yourself be captured by the bad guys! I know lots of people who couldn’t cope.

 

[swrushing]

Well, frankly, every game i have ever played in saw the GM having as much of an impact as the rules on how well the rules worked, for a variety of reasons. An average system where the Gm doesn't havdle it well can seem very poorly done.

But, the most objective "system sucks" kind of assessment for me comes down on rolemaster.

The most memorable scene that highlights my distatse saw out party of six or so against something like an ogre. The fight took over 90 minutes, which was basically use swinging away in a slugfest waiting until eventually someone rolled open ended well enough to drop the thing. For over 90 minutes, the only results were us rolling and either missing or doing inconsequential bashing damage and it swinging, mostly missing, but the few hits it scored taking someone down. Eventually, one of the second tier fighter types did what the rest had failed to do, including the three pure fighter types, open ended in a big way and got the critical that felled the beast.

After the fight, the two guys who died leveled up (death gave you butt loads of xp), the two surviving fighters got a lot of Xp as their small crits over and over added to Xp, the guy who felled the beast got the next amount and the mage got next to nil since his few spells did little.

Now we get into more or less GM issues almost fully...

Then, the Gm realized how far the damage and wounds outstripped the healing capacity and so in order to not have this "intro encounter" disrupt the campaign we started finding tons of healing items since the designated full healer type was just not going to get the job done. he needed LEVELS before he could mend bones and such.

Distant memories now, over 2 decades, and i am sure the game has gotten better since then, but that run and the few that followed kept me from ever giving it a chance again.

Well, that and hearing the ICE guys at a con ~91 laughing at their buyers for RM describing how "all we have to do is throw in a new crit chart or two and they will buy anything. we thought we may have gone too far with the midwifing birth critical chart, but it turned out to be popular!"

 

[TerraDave]

"Honorable" mention goes to another obscure '80s game called Fantasy Wargaming. Horrible mechanics, but it had some decent information about feudalism, and it is the only game I have seen which has game statistics for both God (as in, the Christian God) and The Devil. It also had a system for determining what happens to your character's soul after they died! That is, whether they go to Heaven or Hell or spend some time in Purgatory! Those things give it some points for audacity, if nothing else.

I was wondering when this would come up. But did you play it? Did anyone (on earth)?

I did like it as a reference back in day, before I knew better (and I hate to say it, but there is some common elements between its main premise and TerraV: using RL myth, legend, and history as a more explicit basis for your fantasy RPG. But then again, a lot of things have that premise)

One thing I haven't seen mentioned:
Buck Rogers...