Worst RPG System You Ever Palyed?

[mcrow]

Out of the games I've actually played the worst would ahve to be Rifts or WEG D6. Rifts is too clunky, too unbalanced, too everything. The idea of the setting is cool and the setting itself is very good in places, but in others it's just boring. D6 system or "Buckets o' Dice" wasn't too terrible at lower power levels, but when you have to start rolling 6-10 d6's minimum, it just gets out of hand fast.

Rolemaster ranks right up there as well.

I've seen Synnibar and FATAL as well as a few others, but I never played them. Those looked FAR worse that anything else.

Kane

I can understand why people don't like the palladium system, it's not the easiest system to grok and even when you do it *can* be clunky. I happen to like it. I have never heard anyone list WEG D6 on their worst systems before. Judging by your avatar maybe you played the WEG Star Wars. I'm not sure if there is any difference between the current version of D6 and SW d6 since I have never played or seen the SW version. I don't think d6 is all that great of a system but it playable and works OK.

 

[Rasyr]

Hmm...

I would say that it is a toss up between three different game.

Heroes Unlimited (IIRC, this was a Palladium game - but it has been years and years since we tried 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.

WEG Star Wars - but not so much as the game itself but because you HAD to play one of the pregenerated template or else you just sucked at every. Player created templates always seemed to be much weaker than the ones provided by the game. That made it much less enjoyable to me.

In short, I just happen to like games that give me the freedom to design the character that I want, rather than having to follow predefined templates.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Played - Well I'd give the nod to...Heroes Unlimited 1e

DM'ed - Flame away, but it was 3.0e. I know there are probably worse systems out there to DM but I found this one the least fun of any game I DM'ed. Of course I haven't DM'ed every system by a long shot.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Seconded. How many hit locations on the human body does one need exactly?

Apparently--according to aftermath--about 40, which was odd considering that hit locations in Aftermath made no difference whatsoever to the damage inflicted.

It did allow you to purchase armore "per location" which let you create your own pieces (A jacket covered say locations 2,7,11,14-17, 21, and 31), but seeing as the different locations meant nothing to damage, it statistically made about as much sense to wear a steel helmet as it did to wear a steel Knee Guard.

Both stopped the same damage the same amount of time.

 

[The_Gneech]

I made a character for (the original) Bunnies and Burrows, but never got to play him.

The worst game I ever played was Fantasy HERO under a thoroughly awful GM, but that wasn't the game system's fault.

The worst system I can remember playing was somebody's homebrew game based on d30. (d30 are really bad dice to use in practice ... they never stop rolling!) It didn't help that he was no great shakes as a GM either.

-The Gneech

 

[DaveMage]

Feng Shui.

Awful.

So bad that my group threatens each other with it when we get out of line.

However, in fairness, the GM later told us that he didn't think he ran it 100% correctly.

That was the last non-D&D game I tried.

 

[mcrow]

Hmm...

I would say that it is a toss up between three different game.

Heroes Unlimited (IIRC, this was a Palladium game - but it has been years and years since we tried 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.

WEG Star Wars - but not so much as the game itself but because you HAD to play one of the pregenerated template or else you just sucked at every. Player created templates always seemed to be much weaker than the ones provided by the game. That made it much less enjoyable to me.

In short, I just happen to like games that give me the freedom to design the character that I want, rather than having to follow predefined templates.

I'm a palladium fan and even I don't like Heros Unlimited. It was mostly because generating a character seemed like it took us a full days work before we could play.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I played WEG Star Wars for a while. I hated it. I hated rolling up all those dice. I hated the way Jedi were handled. I hated the templates that never seemed to be on par with anything any players made that wasn't outright munchkin. It's the one campaign of Star Wars I've played in which I can say that I didn't have much fun at all.

Those two are just out of the systems I've actually played. Like I said, I've seen worse, but not having actually played them I can't really list them. Rifts and D6 were the worst two systems I've ran (though I actually had some fun with Rifts) out of the 10 - 12 systems I've played/ran.

Kane

 

[IcyCool]

Feng Shui.

Awful.

So bad that my group threatens each other with it when we get out of line.

However, in fairness, the GM later told us that he didn't think he ran it 100% correctly.

That was the last non-D&D game I tried.

You know Dave, I gotta say that playing Feng Shui is alot like making love. If you aren't having a good time, you're doing it wrong.

Edit - Forgot the smiley

 

[Rasyr]

Rolemaster ranks right up there as well.

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?