Let's look first at a review of World of Synnibarr, a runner-up to the top three here. In Synnibarr, neither the setting nor the rules make sense, it's geared for characters that make Superman look weak, and
McCracken duplicates a mistake made in the earliest days of role-playing by confusing race with character class - you can be a gnome who's a Ninja, or a gnome who's actually been trained in the Gnome character class.
Keep in mind that [character creation] is just as difficult for me to understand as it is to explain. McCracken doesn't split this up into seperate sections, or create a useful flow-chart of exceptions, or do anything but spool out endless gray text broken up with charts and charts and CHARTS AND CHARTS AND THEY'RE EATING MY F[---]ING EYES
I imagine some people sitting down to play D&D for the first time without ever reading the rulebooks. The dungeon master makes up an answer for each question the players have. And thus, Hybrid is born.
In certain rules, the creator of Hybridseems like a genius (see Rule 550.0194). In other rules, the creator shares his/her biased (read demented?) view of the world (see Rule 550.0189).
This game, Hybrid, has left me feeling strange indeed... as if I am gazing upon the awesome, yet terrible, creation of a being I will never completely understand.
Yes, "they" and "them" are plural. That is, they're plural now. But languages evolve, and there's no reason "they" and "them" can't change to be more like "you," which can be singular or plural depending on context.
Heroes Unlimited / anything Palladium
Seriously, four hours into creation you start to get bored. Not only that but you need fourhundred freaking books to make a character. Not a fan, not a fan at all.
GURPS
General RPing my ... Anywho, it is far too unwieldy and the rules are shakey at best. Not only that, but what is the point of having anything over an 18? Something about how one can be better at something than another even if they have the same bonus and roll because something about a negative? ...what?
The Marvel Roleplaying Game
No dice, eh? Well could you at least include the rules? Seriously, effort is fine and dandy, but could you include the rule? Two guidebooks with umteen pages dedicated to characters in the Marvelverse that no one even knows and you can't bother including the rest of the rules? Awesome.
I completely agree with "they" and "them." They were accepted from about the 1300's until they were forbidden by the same 19th century grammar fascists who told us to never split infinitives (for no better reason than it's not possible in Latin) and that ending sentences with prepositions is something we shouldn't put up with.
Yes, "they" and "them" are plural. That is, they're plural now. But languages evolve, and there's no reason "they" and "them" can't change to be more like "you," which can be singular or plural depending on context.
Actually we used to use 'man' as the gender neutral pronoun, not 'they'. 'They' has always been the plural third person.
GURPS
General RPing my ... Anywho, it is far too unwieldy and the rules are shakey at best. Not only that, but what is the point of having anything over an 18? Something about how one can be better at something than another even if they have the same bonus and roll because something about a negative? ...what?
GURPS is the most rules-stable RPG I have ever personally played, and most people who've had the time to play through it with any depth will agree with me. GURPS is not necessarily the most enjoyable system ever created; my personal "fun" system has been and always will be D&D 2e, so do not mistake my opinion of GURPS for a biased one. If you are comparing the rules coherency and internal balance/consistency of GURPS to D&D specifically, you ought to read through the GURPS core set more thoroughly; GURPS (specifically 4e) has strived to be as internally balanced as any RPG to date, with the help of a universal system-wide point-buy system that's been played, perfected, and tweaked to the point of excessiveness. Also, it's setting-general, not roleplaying-general. The idea is that you can apply the GURPS system to any setting you want to play in, thereby making the system a "generic" one and letting you roleplay specifically according to the world and the characters you intend to play in/with.
On a side note, one reason to have "anything" over an 18 is so that you can negate the COUNTLESS situation-specific negative skill modifiers that permeate the GURPS system. Even in a rules-lite campaign you are likely to be faced with a -2 to a -6 penalty on any given skill, commonly! Another reason might be because scores higher than 18 raise secondary abilities, such as Dodge, HP, and your Default Skill level with techniques like Neck Snap!
FYI, one person with a skill of 24 and another with a skill of 18 are not the "same good" at a given skill. Against a task that has no negative modifiers, they DO have the same percentile chance, HOWEVER: skills of contest (ex.: one person trying to shove open a door, one trying to stop him), are solved by the margin of success, or HOW MUCH you win by. Similarly, these skills of 24 and 18 would shoot and hit a neutral target with equal ease, but the skill of 24 would hit with a lot more bullets, possibly while sprinting over rocky ground and being shot at the same time!
I'd also like to point out that with a "mere" skill of 18 in GURPS, the chance of success is 98.1%... whereas in D&D, due to the 1 in 20 chance of a critical failure no matter what level or skill/attack being used, your chances of success are always and without exception limited to 95%, unless for some reason critical failures are being omitted. So strictly technically speaking, GURPS characters will always be more skilled than D&D characters! Hmm!
Just because you don't have the experience with a system to understand some of the subtler mechanics doesn't mean it's a bad system; after all, GURPS is fairly popular, so it can't be all that bad can it?
Food for thought.
GURPS is the most rules-stable RPG I have ever personally played, and most people who've had the time to play through it with any depth will agree with me. ...
Well, it isn't one of the most rules-stable I've played, and I've met not a single person who has actually liked it. I have had time to play through it. Several campaigns actually, and I find it to be less than crunchy.
On a side note, one reason to have "anything" over an 18 is so that you can negate the COUNTLESS situation-specific negative skill modifiers that permeate the GURPS system. ...
That was another gripe, the COUNTLESS situationa-specific negatives. It isn't that realistic in the slightest. Not that most RPGs go for realism.
I'd also like to point out that with a "mere" skill of 18 in GURPS, the chance of success is 98.1%... whereas in D&D, due to the 1 in 20 chance of a critical failure no matter what level or skill/attack being used, your chances of success are always and without exception limited to 95%, unless for some reason critical failures are being omitted. So strictly technically speaking, GURPS characters will always be more skilled than D&D characters! Hmm!
Because more skilled equals teh awezomms!
Just because you don't have the experience with a system to understand some of the subtler mechanics doesn't mean it's a bad system; after all, GURPS is fairly popular, so it can't be all that bad can it?
You assume that I haven't the experience, which I have pointed out above that I have played more than a few campaigns. And if the system is poorly made then there is no reason to want to continue with it. And I think that fairly popular is a relative term. In this area people don't play it at all. When my friend bought it from the gaming store the store owner was surprized that anyone was actually going to buy it and gave him a huge discount for taking it out of the store. Several years later, they haven't even bothered reordering.
Food for thought.
No, I think the real food for thought is the fact that you gave a long winded responce to a short comment on how one person doesn't like a system, yet you failed to stay on topic and share your opinion of what are the (Top Three) Worst RPGs. Congradulations, you've failed the thread.
> Please explain what you consider rules-stable, and maybe an example of a system that you would consider to be moreso stable? GURPS is balanced very well, especially considering it is intended for essentially a limitless list of genres. Some abilities, of course, have to be priced upwardly or downwardly if your campaign does not make the same assumptions that the GURPS core books do, like any other game system (e.g.: magic users are not common). This is not a system-based flaw.
That was another gripe, the COUNTLESS situationa-specific negatives. It isn't that realistic in the slightest. Not that most RPGs go for realism.
> So then you don't like the system, that doesn't mean that it's bad, and it certainly does not make it one of the worst RPGs. Also, I never argued that it was realistic; GURPS is not a realistic system by any reach, and neither is any other game system. But it's pretty gritty as compared to D&D, and a lot of people like that.
Because more skilled equals teh awezomms!
> No, they don't, you're right. I was making the point that an 18 in GURPS terms may seem low by D&D standards, but percentile-wise, they are in fact not.
You assume that I haven't the experience, which I have pointed out above that I have played more than a few campaigns. And if the system is poorly made then there is no reason to want to continue with it. And I think that fairly popular is a relative term. In this area people don't play it at all. When my friend bought it from the gaming store the store owner was surprized that anyone was actually going to buy it and gave him a huge discount for taking it out of the store. Several years later, they haven't even bothered reordering.
> Please provide examples of the system being poorly made. If you have played through several campaigns like you say, and you had an awful experience with it, perhaps your GM was a poor one. Or perhaps you are not used to systems based on non-tier based play, ones which are not built specifically on combat functionality as the sole factor of game balance?
I am not arguing that you and the players in your game area do not like GURPS; in fact, I believe it is that way almost everywhere, since GURPS has an almost invisible chunk of the proverbial pie as compared to D&D. But in my area, MANY people play GURPS because they enjoy it, they find it well-balanced, and it is adaptable to everybody's campaigns. I also think that if you go to the SJ Games site, you will find many avid GURPS lovers who will explain to you (in great depth and long breaths) how the system is internally balanced and why they like it so much!
Additionally, it might help things along if I mentioned that 4th edition is the most stable version of GURPS; like earlier editions of D&D, earlier editions of GURPS definitely had balance/comprehension issues... some of which survived to GURPS 4E. Unfortunately it is not a perfect system, and probably never will be.
No, I think the real food for thought is the fact that you gave a long winded responce to a short comment on how one person doesn't like a system, yet you failed to stay on topic and share your opinion of what are the (Top Three) Worst RPGs. Congradulations, you've failed the thread.
> I am not arguing with you, I was merely under the impression that you had played one game of GURPS and said "poo-poo" on it before dashing out the door! However, since you have played many campaigns in GURPS, would you care to elaborate on why you think the system is a bad one? I ask this because I partially believe your heated response to be a thinly veiled attempt to save your petty thrashing on a system that has been in the works from near the beginning of roleplaying games as a hobby, right along with D&D.
Like I said, I like D&D more than GURPS, and I definitely play it more. I just think it's silly to trash on a system that, like I said before, you have a poor understanding of. Which I still believe, in fact.
Posting a comment that is relevant to one or more posts and by association the thread itself is hardly a failure, in my humble view.
If you'd like to take this out of the thread to messages, I would be happy to.
: )
1st worst, most personally offensive system I have sofar seen: F.A.T.A.L.
It's one thing to have it described to you, another thing entirely to read the rules on how far a given creature's sphinctor "can be stretched until it breaks and they bleed to death".
2nd worst, most convoluted rules I have read to date: Hybrid. Indeed, the reading material is right up there with Timecube, but Timecube is perhaps more interesting.
3rd worst, most unplayable setting ever ripped from a series of novels: Wraeththu. Not many people ever played or, indeed, have ever even heard of this game. It might be best that way.
Then, I seem fortunate, because I never actually played a bad RPG. D&D, Inquisitor, Dark Heresy, both versions of the WW Storyteller System, Necromunda... all have their flaws, sure, but none of them I would consider downright bad.
Anyhow, just reading through them, my list is this:
1) FATAL: true, it might not be that racist, but then, its sexism borders on the ridiculous; furthermore, its claims to "historical-mythological accuracy" quench the last bits of pity I had within me under a wave of misanthropic cynicism.
2) RaHoWa: There we go. An epic monument to the worthlessness of the human race, both as moral, sentient beings and as game designers.
3) Raven Star: Enough said, methinks.
I didn't list Hybrid. That is because it's like Postmodernism: It's either too smart for me, or it is a farce, and in either case it is more than successful.
Also, could someone please post a link to the FATAL ruleswork? There's a link on Middle Finger Evolution, but it doesn't work. And since my Insanity points have been stagnating since reading through Timecube... well... all help would be appreciated.
-Cherubaddon
P.S.:
Wow... they didn't have a page for FATAL on wikipedia...
That's probably because even a review of it would offend the terms of use. Probably better that way.
Also, could someone please post a link to the FATAL ruleswork? There's a link on Middle Finger Evolution, but it doesn't work. And since my Insanity points have been stagnating since reading through Timecube... well... all help would be appreciated.
-Cherubaddon
By ruleswork, did you mean the actual pdf?
http://web.archive.org/web/20030420125511/http://www.hyperbooks.com/fatal/fatal.pdf
On the internet, nothing ever truly dies...
-Cherubaddon
Number 1: Rifts, I've spent a lot of time playing Rifts, I've had a lot of fun with Rifts. However, it gets my slot as worst because it's such an awesome concept with such a great deal of interesting things to play as that fails so miserably as a game. The flaws are numerous, and to fix them, I'd have to make a new game entirely, which I just don't wish to do.
Number 2: Dark Heresy. Aside from the fact that it's the Warhammer 40k game that includes stats for almost nothing from the actual tabletop game and completely denies you the feel of the game's battles (personally, if I were designing a 40k RPG, I'd make it so the player's perspective on the game was a lot like being one of the special characters from the Imperial Guard, not Joe Acolyte), it's also a game that's pretty much designed to kill characters. You're guaranteed to end up dead from your low skill percentages or end up corrupted.
Number 3: Phoenix Command, although not exactly an RPG as it was meant as a combat system to drop into other games, I'll still put it in here. It's not actually a bad game, it does what it promises very, very well. The combat is realistic, the firearm's stats accurate, and stupidity is very harshly punished. However, the amount of time it takes to actually resolve combat is ludicrous, the amount of math immense, to a level that makes Rifts seem pretty god damn fast.
Number 2: Dark Heresy. Aside from the fact that it's the Warhammer 40k game that includes stats for almost nothing from the actual tabletop game and completely denies you the feel of the game's battles (personally, if I were designing a 40k RPG, I'd make it so the player's perspective on the game was a lot like being one of the special characters from the Imperial Guard, not Joe Acolyte), it's also a game that's pretty much designed to kill characters. You're guaranteed to end up dead from your low skill percentages or end up corrupted.
Is it not that what makes it great, though? The fact that you eventually will die, and that whatever you do is but the tiniest flame in a universe of darkness?
Oh, and just to get that straight: I understand your disappointment with the lack of focus on combat, but that is intentional. The game's focus was meant to be on Investigation; basically, not like 40k D&D, and rather like 40k World of Darkness. They are bringing out Rogue Trader (Exploration) and, I believe, Ordo Xenos or Deathwatch or something, the focus of which shall be on "Annihilation", as they put it; you might want to wait for that one to come out.
I'm not saying that Dark Heresy is flawless, far from it: among other things, it suffers from a miserable lack of playtesting (Close Combat, anyone?), but rating it as the second worst game seems a bit harsh to me.
-Cherubaddon
Is it not that what makes it great, though? The fact that you eventually will die, and that whatever you do is but the tiniest flame in a universe of darkness?
No, not really. IT just makes every session a spin of the revolver's cylinder to see if you're allowed to continue having some degree of personality and makes fleshing out your characters an exercise in wasted energy
Oh, and just to get that straight: I understand your disappointment with the lack of focus on combat, but that is intentional. The game's focus was meant to be on Investigation; basically, not like 40k D&D, and rather like 40k World of Darkness. They are bringing out Rogue Trader (Exploration) and, I believe, Ordo Xenos or Deathwatch or something, the focus of which shall be on "Annihilation", as they put it; you might want to wait for that one to come out.
The company that made Dark Heresy went **** up, the company that bought the rights has mentioned plans to continue with Rogue Trader, but no mentions of Deathwatch. Personally, I don't want 40k D&D, where the main focus would be killing things for treasure, I want 40k 40k where the focus is killing things for the sake of a war that humanity is slowly losing. I can get D&D in D&D and I can get WoD in WoD.
I'm not saying that Dark Heresy is flawless, far from it: among other things, it suffers from a miserable lack of playtesting (Close Combat, anyone?), but rating it as the second worst game seems a bit harsh to me.
Second worst game to me. It was a raging disappointment and a slap in the face to anyone who expected a game that had the feel of the Warhammer 40k tabletop game.
It was a raging disappointment and a slap in the face to anyone who expected a game that had the feel of the Warhammer 40k tabletop game.
Possible. I suppose we experienced it differently because I never expected it to be that, but rather a low-end version of Inquisitor. Whatever, didn't mean to criticize your opinion, it just struck me. When you read a thread about the worst RPGs in existence and see one of your favourites standing in line with games such as FATAL, that does seem... weird;) .
Oh, and still wondering if somebody knows why my computer won't download the rulebook.
-Cherubaddon
Possible. I suppose we experienced it differently because I never expected it to be that, but rather a low-end version of Inquisitor. Whatever, didn't mean to criticize your opinion, it just struck me. When you read a thread about the worst RPGs in existence and see one of your favourites standing in line with games such as FATAL, that does seem... weird;)
Well, I went with what I had personal experience with. I've never actually tried to play FATAL or World of Synnibar. So, I went with the 3 that have caused me the most annoyance.
If you know where I can host a 901-page pdf, I'd be glad to save it to my hard drive and upload it for you.
If you know where I can host a 901-page pdf, I'd be glad to save it to my hard drive and upload it for you.
Hmm... You don't have LimeWire, do you? Because it does support file sizes of up to 1 Tb, I believe.
GURPS is the most rules-stable RPG I have ever personally played, and most people who've had the time to play through it with any depth will agree with me. GURPS is not necessarily the most enjoyable system ever created; my personal "fun" system has been and always will be D&D 2e, so do not mistake my opinion of GURPS for a biased one. If you are comparing the rules coherency and internal balance/consistency of GURPS to D&D specifically, you ought to read through the GURPS core set more thoroughly; GURPS (specifically 4e) has strived to be as internally balanced as any RPG to date, with the help of a universal system-wide point-buy system that's been played, perfected, and tweaked to the point of excessiveness. Also, it's setting-general, not roleplaying-general. The idea is that you can apply the GURPS system to any setting you want to play in, thereby making the system a "generic" one and letting you roleplay specifically according to the world and the characters you intend to play in/with.
On a side note, one reason to have "anything" over an 18 is so that you can negate the COUNTLESS situation-specific negative skill modifiers that permeate the GURPS system. Even in a rules-lite campaign you are likely to be faced with a -2 to a -6 penalty on any given skill, commonly! Another reason might be because scores higher than 18 raise secondary abilities, such as Dodge, HP, and your Default Skill level with techniques like Neck Snap!
FYI, one person with a skill of 24 and another with a skill of 18 are not the "same good" at a given skill. Against a task that has no negative modifiers, they DO have the same percentile chance, HOWEVER: skills of contest (ex.: one person trying to shove open a door, one trying to stop him), are solved by the margin of success, or HOW MUCH you win by. Similarly, these skills of 24 and 18 would shoot and hit a neutral target with equal ease, but the skill of 24 would hit with a lot more bullets, possibly while sprinting over rocky ground and being shot at the same time!
I'd also like to point out that with a "mere" skill of 18 in GURPS, the chance of success is 98.1%... whereas in D&D, due to the 1 in 20 chance of a critical failure no matter what level or skill/attack being used, your chances of success are always and without exception limited to 95%, unless for some reason critical failures are being omitted. So strictly technically speaking, GURPS characters will always be more skilled than D&D characters! Hmm!
Just because you don't have the experience with a system to understand some of the subtler mechanics doesn't mean it's a bad system; after all, GURPS is fairly popular, so it can't be all that bad can it?
Food for thought.
Gurps is awful had a couple gms try to push on me for years and I had already hated it since man to man, the system is broken and its entirely to easy to make characters within the rules that can break a campaign plus the amount of things you can do in time frame can be insane, I could go on about how bad gurps is but the more I think about it the more I want to put my fist through the puter screen.
4th Reich: Not really an RPG, although some character creation was available at a minimal level. You were playing the "pure" human race while using any means necessary to beat back the mutant hordes, some of which had thinly disguised Stars of David worked into their design. When I pointed this out to the owner of the Game Gallery, he pulled every copy of the game.
Nexus: The Infinite City: It just attempted way too much. It tried to fit every genre in, but the internal system was too shaky and didn't explain well-enough for my tastes why a pistol wouldn't work if you ported back to a medieval setting. You were supposed to just accept that it wouldn't.
and the worst:
Aria: A convoluted mess of rules and tables that all require you to have completed at least one other step before you could complete the one you were working on. The problem was that that other step required you to complete another step first. THAT step required you to complete some other step, and so on ad nauseum. There was no real "Start Here" point. It all looped back in on itself.
You might be asking why I didn't put "4th Reich" as the worst on my list. The reason is because it was playable.
1. 4E for killing a great system
2. Gurps use to be number one until 4E
3. Chiviarly and Sorcery way to much math and other thing to keep track of.
3) Mage the Awakening: I really tried to like it, but no matter how hard I did I couldn't. I hate the back story, the mechanics ruin an elegant system, and the societies are redundant and unbelievable. Bleh. Every fan i know screams about how good the supplements are, and how they 'fix' the initial problems, but why would i buy supplements for a game I hate?
2) Laws of the Resurrection: The Mummy the Resurrection LARP. The designers never played Minds Eye theater, nor read any of it i assume, as much of the book is cut and paste from the table top book, unfortunately this makes as much sense as cutting and pasting Vampire the masquerade rules into AD&D; the two systems are not compatible. As a result the average mummy is slightly weaker then an infant, his cool powers don't work, and there is no actual rules for resurrection (which lead to an argument that destroyed the only game I played.)
1) Mechawarrior 3rd Ed / battle Tech RPG: Semi-Randomly rolled back history with game effects are a bad idea. You wanted to play a Mechwarrior? Sorry, you can't, your PCs arm was caught in a thresher when he was a five, too bad; now your a blue collar laborer. Don't worry you are not the only player who didn't get the concept they wanted; Sahara's character is the highest ranking Yakuza on the entire planet, and she wanted to be a mechanic
2. Rifts. Actually most things by Palladium are pretty bad game mechanics wise. Pretty neat idea though but clunky and unbalanced.
3. the SAGA system that TSR played around with for Dragonlance and Marvel Superheroes. UGH...
First, Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition (If I wanted to play an MMORGP I would have subscribed to one thanks)
A close second is Rifts I can't even comment on how irritating that system is needless to say I didn't like it.
The first Neverwinter Nights for the computer.... the game was awesome and solid.... the communities made it horrific... Most people who played on Forgotten Realms servers were Lesbian Moon Elf Necromancers who worshipped Velsharoon and cybered..... all..... day..... long.... After trying to find a decent place to play for months I gave up and got back onto the table. A community can make a world of difference in a game.
Middle Finger Evolution has opened my eyes to how bad RPGs can get.
I'm going to buck convention by starting with what I consider to be the worst game first. Each of them is hideous, and it's easier to explain why I ordered them the way I did (and contrary to the way Middle Finger Evolution did) by constrasting them against the first and worst.
So without further ado:
First place goes to Racial Holy War. .
Second place goes to Fantasy Adventure to Adult Lechery (FATAL). .
And finally, third place goes to Hybrid.
I did some research on these RPG's, I'd reverse the order of these games. While racial Holy war is bad, it's playable by a racist of course, but it still has playability. Hybrid is not playable. Fatal is better than Racial Holy War barely. All three of them seem to be racist and sexist. When rating I'd think that you'd want playability to be the number one decider. Hybrid has no rules that make sense, racial Holy war has rules that you can follow even if you disagree with them, Fatal rules are ...well bad, but they exist.
As far as bad RPG's I give it to Vegas After Midnight, a to be released game based off someone's GURPS setting. Already it should sound bad to those of you who played GURPS. It's thematically similar to the book the Stand and the movie the Warriors combined. You are a member of a group of rival gangs who are stuck in Vegas. vegas is completely cut off from the rest of the world. you don't know if the world is dead, you are dead, or if the world decided it could do without Vegas. it's a post apocalyptic B movie waiting to happen starring an eighties wrestling star.
While I like the game there is a game where you get to play a slave that was released a couple of years ago. The game was good and interesting, but if you have fun playing it you feel guilty. I like RPG's to be fun not social constructivism.
I'm hoping for that one, although I do think God is punishing me for some reason (I've had a bit of a...bad week. My car broke down, I'm randomly in debt $2000, etc.).
Sorry to hear azrael hope things get better. Maybe that is the impetus for the next worst RPG. Bad Day the RPG.
I did some research on these RPG's, I'd reverse the order of these games. While racial Holy war is bad, it's playable by a racist of course, but it still has playability. Hybrid is not playable. Fatal is better than Racial Holy War barely. All three of them seem to be racist and sexist. When rating I'd think that you'd want playability to be the number one decider. Hybrid has no rules that make sense, racial Holy war has rules that you can follow even if you disagree with them, Fatal rules are ...well bad, but they exist.
Disagreed. Check out the rules of RaHoWa (I think they have a link on Wikipedia, remember seeing it somewhere): The rules for combat are incomplete. You get a bunch of modifiers thrown at you, but don't know your base chance. In other words, the game is not playable.
-Cherubaddon