Worst RPG System You Ever Palyed?

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maggot said:
The system I enjoyed the least is GURPS. Whether it's a bad system or not, I don't know, but it does not fit what I want out of role-playing.

It's not that bad. The core mechanics, as condensed in GURPS Lite, are actually pretty simple (and since the whole thing is only 32 pages long, it better had be).

The problem is that with the full rule set, you can do pretty much anything. And inexperienced GURPS GMs will promptly attempt to do everything with it. Couple that with inexperienced GURPS players, and you have a recipe for disaster.

My standard advice for starting with GURPS is the following:

Pick a relatively simple campaign world for starting out with GURPS - and with "simple", I mean relatively low-powered characters from a limited number of backgrounds with only a limited number of "special powers". Generic low-powered fantasy works well. So does a modern-day setting.

Start with GURPS Lite, and give a copy each to your players. Then comb through the GURPS 4E Basic Set and copy the parts that you need for your campaign - and only the parts that you need. Ignore all those other advantages and disadvantages and skills, no matter how cool they might seem. The same goes for any optional combat and environment rules. Remember:

All of these rules are optional!

Not just "optional" in the sense of "you can simply ignore any rules in the rule books", because that's standard for all RPGs. They are "optional" in the sense that the rule system works just fine without them.

Now start the campaign, and you and your players should be able to learn and become comfortable with the system in no time. And then you can introduce all the other stuff - hit locations, new combat maneuvers, cool new powers, and so on. But don't try it before that point because it will just overwhelm everyone - both the players and the GM.

And I am speaking from experience here. I tried to introduce my group to GURPS once, and brought a half-dozen books to character creation. It only ended up confusing everyone and caused several players to develop a lasting dislike of the system.

But several years later, I managed to convince my group to try out GURPS again, this time for a Warhammer campaign. This time, I prepared and resisted the temptation to introduce all those cool additional rules except for the absolute minimum neccessary for starting the campaign. And lo! and behold! It worked like a charm! Everyone became used to the system and started to like it, even those who disliked it the last time. And though I have since moved away from them, they have started new GURPS campaigns of their own...

To sum it up: Even if you have had bad experiences with GURPS in the past, it might be worth it to give the system another look...
 

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Triskaidekafile said:
Worst of the worst would be Enforcers - this teeny tiny microprint supers game that stole VAST chunks out of Superhero 2044 and then glommed the worst parts of HERO, Villains and Vigilantes into this unweildy beast of a "game system" - and the setting was pure hokum.
We destroyed that thing.
Runners up would include:
all LARPS,
GURPS,
Third Ed. Gamma World (just.....ewwww)
most anything put out by TSR *except* D&D for that matter (post, say 1981)
The FASA Star Trek RPG
.... surely there are more.

I looked at Enforcers at one point and debated buying it. Guess I'm glad that I didn't.

I'm not a fan of LARPS either. But I realize that they fill a role in some peoples lives. I just write them off as not my cup of tea. Of course I was active in the SCA at one time... :)

I still have very found memories of 3rd Edition Gamma World. I ran a three year campaign using that set of rules. Though I did tack on the TMNT character creation system for making mutant animals. As I said earlier, the new After The Bomb game is rather nice. Even if it does use Palladiums rules... :)
 

I have to put in another vote for the old Marvel super heroes RPG. The stats were not numbers, they were adjetives.

STR: Amazing DEX: Incredible. is Amazing better then incredible?
 


Ourph said:
Wow! Just......wow!

I had a rather witty and biting reply I was going to post in response to your comments .... but I think this pretty much says it all.

Thanks, you saved me a lot of typing. :)

Biting? Probably. Witty? I would have been surprised. So, since I didn't feel the need to read your whole post, now you get a idea of why I find your opinion laughable for giving it an hour of head scratching to figure it out. Playtested it? If you playtested it with the same amount of effort you gave to reading it, I'm still not impressed. BTW, I did read your whole post, how do you think I know how you went off if I didn't.

You get all uppity when you think your whole opinion isn't read and attempted to be understood, but you can't even give a game system the same amount of consideration, just condemn it without a fair shake.


I know C&C isn't for everyone, but I don't like people condeming a game when it might keep other people from giving it a look see, when that opinion they might follow is so poorly thought out and tested.

C&C is a game to try if you are "tired" of the complexity of 3.5. If you aren't tired of 3.5, then there is no reason to go play C&C. C&C is only of use to you if you want a system than is lighter in the rules that you can still base a roleplaying game around and have based in a fanatasy setting. If you like 3.5 there is absolutely no reason to use or try anything else that is so similar.

But to bad mouth it without giving it a "real" try out? Plus to have no real need or desire to try something other than 3.5? You don't even understand why people would try other systems.


Now, back to the original purpose of this thread.

GURPS. I have long bought the supplements, because they are great fluff and are useful for other genres, especially Traveller, in my case. I only recently sat down and tried out their new edition. The GM was very knowledgeable and had lots of experience with GURPS, and I have to say I enjoyed the system as well as the game/campaign. I saw lots of similarities to D&D 3.5 and realized that WOTC ripped a lot of ideas from GURPS, just like I always have for my games. I do prefer the d20 mechanic over the GURPS mechanic, but the GURPS mechanic does work, and it works well.

So if I was invited to play GURPS I would, if I felt the GM was a good one.
 

I can see how some people might be aggravated by the Marvel Super Heroes RPG. However, it was a fairly simple game. While the stats were adjectives, there were numerical values associated with them as well. I, myself, never had a problem with it.

I think some of the powers are a lot better than others(ex. body armor). Anybody that had a body armor of remarkable (30) or better didn't have to worry about being hurt by anyone that didn't have superhuman strength. Also, you needed to assign your stats yourself rather than follow their system of rolling up each one and keeping your roll. Who wants to keep a character with a bad strength score?!

As far as it being just as easy to hit spider-man as the hulk, you could use evasion. However, the evasion rules are clunky.

-Jamie
 
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Never made it out of character creation in MERP. I don't mind the detail, but this was getting ridiculous. If it's flexible, it should have character points. Quit rolling on tables.

The Palladium system. I've played RIFTS, TMNT, Robotech, Ninjas and Superspies. It was very chic to run TMNT in my gaming group for awhile, and had some good times, but those were in spite of the system. Good game worlds, though someone once reminded me that part of the fun was the munchkin rules set (this was after he tried getting his gaming group to run GURPS Rifts, and they shot it down because it was a consistent, non-munchkin rules set).

Shadowrun 1e. The combat was so bad for that, we had to use Palladium rules or, when enough of us picked up the game, GURPS. Another great setting, however.

Vampire the Masquerade 1e. They've improved the rules, but this has to be the most wanker setting of all time. Whining about being condemned to darkness does not a good game make. Later versions have the rules set Shadowrun should be using now, or at least a variation of it -- the basics are similar.

I'll refrain from dumping on AD&D 1e and 2e, since I did have some good times with those and it took awhile for the rules to really become creaky -- it was mostly the add ons that did it. Still, I had to give up AD&D 2e when I started writing Active Defense rules -- I figured if I wanted D&D to be like GURPS, I was better off running GURPS. So I ran GURPS.
 

This would actually be extremely easy -- just give the thief a charisma 'prime'.
He did. He had dexterity and charisma as his primes (I honestly forget the third one his thief had, but I don't think it came up in play). The problem was that the mage (who did not have charisma as a prime) had charisma as a great charisma score, so even with the two characters having different primes, the mage's charisma score was consistantly high enough to make it just almost as easy for him to meet the same tasks as the thief without even having charisma as a prime.
More generally, I agree with Turjan's comment
I do to a point as well myself, but here's the thing of it: I hadn't seen this guy get so tripped up with a system before this! This is someone who had pulled an old edition of Traveler out of his uncle's basement, thumbed through the book on his car ride back, and ran a month-long game in it with no problem. This is someone who borrowed the Blue Rose book from me for an hour at work and then ran us through a one-off high-seas adventure. This session of C&C was uncharacteristic for him, and according to him, it was the applications of the SEIGE engine that made it difficult for him. It wasn't just unclear: it was downright vague. In standard d20 he has a set of relatively pre-defined skills to fall back on and say, "Oh you want to do grab the tapestry and run along the wall? Make a climb check." In C&C you have to sit back and say, "Is it more strength or dexterity? Climb is pretty strength-based, but what about scambering along the wall like this? What kind of number should the check be? Is it easier or harder than the standard 12/18? Should I allow any modifies because it fits the character's specialties?" Since C&C does not specify a character's talents, it forces the CK to make assumptions on what he believes the character can and cannot do, and when the CK's view clashes with the player's view and there are no clear rules to adjudicate the matter, there's tension. Should the CK's view of the character be supreme because he's the CK, or should the player's, since he's the one who created and plays the character to begin with? There must've been some fundamental problem with the game itself which would've thrown him off like this.
It is clear that the CK in question simply does not understand the whole point of C&C.
Apparently not. I bought the game and encouraged him to run it based on what I had heard: that it was rules-lite d20, that it would streamline much of gameplay and let us get more into our sessions. It soon became clear that we had been incorrect in our assumption that it was rules-lite d20: it was more like pared-down d20 with AD&Disms thrown in for nostalgia purposes. The CK and I were the only two members of the group who had played a significant amount of 2E, and we were also the only ones who ever played a Rules Cyclopedia Campaign. We were quite familiar with the nostalgic bits thrown in, but we were anything but happy to see that sort of stuff. We didn't care that TLG had remembered initiative on a d10: we cared about TLG giving us rules-lite d20, plain and simple. And they almost did. I just can't fathom why they decided AD&Dism were "rules-lite".
No game system can guarantee good GM'ing.
:cool:
Truth be told. However, this is the second system I've ever played which seems to encourage bad GM'ing (Palladium still blows C&C out of the water in this regard), and I know that a few other people in my group who occassionally GM games wouldn't have a prayer with C&C. They can manage 3E fairly well, but they're not the type who could come up with making rulings on their feet. It should've been a great game for the CK, but for some reason it definitely wasn't. Knowing the guy, I really can't blame him for it (though since those out there in Internet-Land aren't as familiar with the guy as I am, I can understand the natural reaction to assume I'm off my rocker and blame him anyway). So the only variable left unaccounted for is the system, leaving me to blame the system.

And note that bad GM'ing in this instance was only half the problem. The other problem was a definite lack of player options (both during character creation and during gameplay), and just comparing the same character I made in Blue Rose to the character sheet from C&C, I can tell that my Expert is much closer to what I imagined my character to be than my custom Assassin.

However, I've derailed this discussion enough, and appologize for doing so. I normally don't like to rant about games I dislike so much since it causes reactions like this from folks who do enjoy the game. So again, my appologies for dragging this so far off-track.
 

fafhrd said:
Bring on the Synnibar!

First response--impressive!

But "Fantasy Wargaming" by Bruce Galloway is the worst ever. I quote from the first page of Character Creation:

Bruce Galloway said:
Those wishing to give their character authentic medieval attributes may then wish to modify these variable characteristics to take account of astrological influences. (emphasis added)
:rollseyes:
 

Zelligars Apprentice said:
"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.


Hey, now that I'm wading through this thread, I see someone else mentioned "Fantasy Wargaming," too.

We should get together and run a game at the next EN Gameday! ;)
 

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