Worst RPG System You Ever Palyed?

[Akrasia]

...
I realize that logic and reason and reality aren't really important once the Crusader Inquisition gets their hooks into me, but I think the facts at least deserve a fair airing before I'm flayed alive for my heresies...

Well, I get paid to teach logic ... and I like C&C.

I know you're irritated with Treebore. But I think it is unfair to assume that all gamers who like C&C don't care about 'logic and reason'. I've defended the game many times on these boards, and have always endeavoured to present reasons for my position.

It's not a perfect game, and I can certainly understand why it would not appeal to everyone. But I think it accomplishes its design goals very well.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I'll probably sound like a broken record, but I've found that most games, even the 'bad ones' can be great fun with the right GM.

Some hate Rifts because of the M.D.C. or the hit above 4 rule. I've played it on and off for years. It wasn't the game system that turned me off Rifts, it was the way the company progressed with Rifts about the time of the Siege on Tolkieen.

I'm not saying a bad game system isn't harder to GM than a good one, but it's all apples and oranges as people have different taste and different games tend to handle different genres better. For example, given the choice between Hero and Gurps for a Super Hero campaign, I'd pick Hero (then when no one was looking switch to Mutants & Masterminds...)

 

[Akrasia]

I'm not going to rag on any in-print systems in this discussion, because I know that it will only make me enemies (or at least make me less loved), but I will step forward and say that I really fell in love with WHFRP2.

REALLY...

Same here. I think WFRP is amazing.

I really hope I can find a group to run it with after I move to Dublin.

 

[strockrodan]

I guess I've been lucky (or unlucky maybe) as I haven't really played any bad systems. Then again I've only played about 5 different ones.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

The most unattractive aspect of C&C is, well, you've probably read all of it by now.



One of the WORST gaming experiences my group ever had was Mutants and Masterminds. It was absolutely horrible. Players left the table with very hard feelings toward the system, vowing never to play "that (explitive explitive explitive)" again, etc. I'll say that part of it was my fault, as the GM, for not understanding how things would quite work with one another, how situations would play out, which created many situations that turned the players off and left some imbalances. The balance and ease-of-approach of M&M is something the designers have said they wanted to work on, and have tried to change for the next edition. Because it was a common problem.

Later I figured out the system a little better, and we tried it again, loved it, and have used it as one of our major systems from that point out. I'm just glad that the M&M fans weren't interested in lambasting me, my players, my ability, or my intelligence ... probably would have never picked up the system again.

--fje

 

[Treebore]

Ourph,

You seem to be an OK guy, baited a bit easily, but kept your composure and made some good responses. I think i would enjoy talking to you face to face. I still think you should give C&C a better look if you really are looking for something else. Using your experiences with 3.5 you can definitely add some house rules to C&C and make it into something you would enjoy better than 3.5. Which is part of why C&C is designed the way it is, they want you to able to import ideas from other systems as easily as possible.

If you get down to it, I don't like C&C as written, but with about a page of house rules I like it a lot. Some of my house rules are pulled from 3.5, a couple from L5R, and a couple from older editions of D&D, and one from Shadowrun. Plus Akrasia, Mythusmage, and others have developed other house rules that they have shared to cover other rules issues people may have.

Another thing I like about C&C, I get to feel much more like I helped make the game what it is, or can be. I don't have to follow a bunch of rules that so many 3.5 players expect you to.



Joe G.

I feel the same way about RIFTS. IT has problems, BIG problems, but it is a very fun game to play if you do take the time to make it work (IE house rules) for you and your group, just like most games out there. Heck, even Aftermath could be a great game with some decent tweaking, just never felt the need to take the time.

 

[Akrasia]

... I'm just glad that the M&M fans weren't interested in lambasting me, my players, my ability, or my intelligence ... probably would have never picked up the system again.

--fje

It's always a mistake to make a judgement about a game's quality based on the behaviour of a few vocal fans.

I've never understood why the behaviour of people one doesn't play with (and who are not the game's designers or producers) should affect one's judgement of the game itself.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

I'll probably sound like a broken record, but I've found that most games, even the 'bad ones' can be great fun with the right GM.

Exactly. Synnibarr is fun when MattyHelms runs it at a Chicago Gameday. I've played it twice in that setting and don't know if I'd ever play it in any other setting. The scary thing about Matt is that not only did he know all of the rules pretty much by heart, he also knew the back-story justifications of everything. He did not just read Synnibarr--he memorized it. Truly frightening. And a lot of fun for a four-hour game. Of which, two hours is spent creating characters!

 

[shadow]

Imagine Roleplaying

Really, I'm rather fond of the system. Granted that it's rules intensive and combat is convoluted. However, I like the large variety of classes and races as well as the fact that all classes are essentially skill packages.

My worst game systems are:

Hunter: the Reckoning I really wanted to like this system, but I couldn't. The fact is that even powerful hunters were still able to get their a***s kicked by the lowliest vampires gave the game too much of a nihilistic feel, rather than a pulp action/horror feel that I was looking for.
Moreover, it seemed that any points spent on background traits were completely wasted; whatever the background, all characters essentially always ended up in the same situation. I decided to play a professor of the occult, rather than a straight combat gunslinger. After becoming imbued, he found himself on the run, losing all ties to colleagues and the university. The Storyteller then had the nerve to tell me all the points that I spent on the occultism skill didn't matter since my character had only researched legends, and didn't know anything about how real occultism worked. So, despite my character concept and background, my character ended up being another gunslinging fighter.

WEG Star Wars: I loved the setting. I loved the games that my old group played using the system, but I hated the rules. Essentially, the bucket o' dice system guaranteed that after a certain level of skill, the number of dice you rolled got absurd (especially if you added in the extra dice for force points). I remember combats where Jedi characters using the force would be rolling 12 or 13 dice at a time. Also all skills defaulted to the base attributes which lended itself well to the pulpy feel of the setting (where characters could do just about anything), but led to absurd situations, such as a kid with a high dex being a better shot with a blaster than my hardened mercenary character.

 

[Jackelope King]

What I *do* object to you is your spurious claim that there is something 'fundamentally wrong' with the rules simply because your GM didn't know how to run it.

And I object to you saying my GM isn't even a decent GM, that we don't have any understanding of the game, and that I'm making sweeping generalizations.

Let me reitterate what I've been trying to say: my group has found C&C to be a poor game because we feel it has a ruleset which is poorly suited to playing rules-lite d20 fantasy. Our GM found the lack of guidance provided by the rules to be extremely inadequate, and this is the first time he's ever had such a problem (after a year-long game of FUDGE, I sincerely doubt it's a problem with rules-lite games in general). We players found the incredibly small set of player options to be a major turnoff. We all agreed that the appeals to nostalgia were a turn-off for us. Other people will certainly disagree, and that's fine. If it's the game for you, there's another book out there for you to get someone in your group, and I hope you have a long, successful run with it, since it clearly appeals to you and is adequate for your game, but my group found the game to have an inadequate ruleset for running rules-lite d20. I am not saying that everyone under the sun will hate it, but I am saying that my group found enough problems with it for our game that it wasn't worth playing.