# Systems You'd Never Play after Reading Them



## Gradine (Jun 11, 2019)

I see this is as a sister thread to the "Systems You Left after One Bad Experience" thread. Whereas that thread asks you what games you abandoned after the play left a bad taste in your mouth, this thread asks you what games you abandoned before you even started; the reading of the game just appealed so little to you.

I mean, other than the obvious examples (your F.A.T.A.L.s and what have you).

So, I love Dungeons & Dragons. I also love the base concepts of Powered by the Apocalypse. I thought _Dungeon World _would then be the perfect fit for me; two great tastes that taste great together, right? Wrong. This wasn't Reese's style peanut butter & chocolate; it was separated peanut oil and pure bitter cacao. It felt like the absolute wrong approach to PbtA D&D by keeping only the things that PbtA doesn't do nearly as well as D&D. I get that it has a dedicated fan base, but I also don't get it, you know?

 What other RPG books have you read and thought to yourself "who could possibly what to play this?"


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## Celebrim (Jun 11, 2019)

"Space: 1889"

While the basic concept of a game set in the world of HG Wells, Jules Verne, and Edgar Rice Burroughs is sound, the fact that it both creates a unique setting which is inferior to the material that inspired it in conception, and that it also has such a bare bones rules light but also procedural system that it couldn't even really explain what to do with the numbers in ordinary scenarios of play much less offer good math for your fortune tests, meant that I simply had no interest in playing it.   Where it I to play it, I'd end up using a different system AND a reimagined setting, meaning that the books were offering me basically nothing.

My understand is that most people who played the game kept the setting and used a different system to run it.

"Wraith: The Oblivion"

I could probably add all the X:TheY games to this list to one extent or the other.   Wraith shared in my opinion a trait with Vampire: The Masquerade in that as written and described by the books, it was a non-social RPG which probably could only be gamed as described with a single GM and a single player.   Of the two, I thought Wraith was the more interesting mechanics as written offering the opportunity to explore deeply emotional content, but it was even more extreme in being an unsocial private game.  The solutions players seemed to find to both VtM and WtO was to ignore the core described game and develop a political intrigue game which ultimately amounted to a Supers game with some GrimDark gloss, and might as well be a CW DC universe show for all it played out.   The core idea of inner exploration of character and the tensions around having lost some essential aspects of your humanity, where never really touched on in any play I participated in (V:tM) or observed.  To further the problem, WW's systems tended to subtly undermine their examples of play, and often the provided material seemed to just sigh and let customers play their twinkish political intrigue games undisturbed by the games original intentions.  As such, while I have a huge admiration for many elements of W:tO, it's a game I'd just never play.

MechWarrior

I enjoyed Btech immensely back in the day.  But upon reading the RPG, I immediately was struck by the fact that a game based on a futuristic wargame that gave basically no plot armor to the participants was likely to not have a survival rate that would make it much worth playing as a story game.


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## Satyrn (Jun 11, 2019)

4e 




Just kidding!


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## Guest 6801328 (Jun 11, 2019)

7th Sea

Modiphius Conan


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## Tonguez (Jun 11, 2019)

Castle Falkenstein and Deadlands were two systems I read but never got the chance to play

Agree re Space: 1889, nice concept but I couldnt get the system


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## MechaPilot (Jun 11, 2019)

Celebrim said:


> MechWarrior
> 
> I enjoyed Btech immensely back in the day.  But upon reading the RPG, I immediately was struck by the fact that a game based on a futuristic wargame that gave basically no plot armor to the participants was likely to not have a survival rate that would make it much worth playing as a story game.




I also love Battletech.

The Mechwarrior RPG is a mess.  I run the Mechwarrior RPG by replacing the entire system with the ruleset from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG.  The character to wargame conversion table for piloting and gunnery skills even matches up nicely with skill levels from BtVS.


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## ccs (Jun 12, 2019)

Twilight 2000.
When I got it way back in 198whatever I simply didn't have the RL xp & knowledge to run/play near future modern military in Europe well.  And the mechanics weren't any fun either.
I've re-read it a few times in the decades since & I could run it nowdays.  But the mechanics are still un-fun, so why bother?

R.Talsorians Cyberpunk.
Again with the mechanics.  It had all this cool equipment, especially weapons/ways to bring the destruction.  But if you thought MechWarrior was bad for PC survivability don't start shooting in this game....
Wich put a real damper on anyones willingness to play it in my circles of the time.


MechWarrior.
I love the BT minis game (especially pre-clans)  There's certainly enough there story wise to support an RPG.  But.... 
*1e: *My God, what a mess rules wise.  I knew I'd never run it.
That said, I did _play_ in a MW1e campaign.  Wich only re-enforced my opinion of its rules.
*2e: *Rules wise = blech.  And being set after the Clans had arrived sapped the rest of the interest.

Most of the World of Darkness titles.
I can do V:TM - as long as we _aren't_ doing "Super-Friends with Fangs".
Interest is low, but I _might_ be able to do Hunter.
But Werewolf, Changeling, Wraith, & Mage?  No.  I've zero interest in even reading them, let alone playing them. 

4e
I wish I'd dropped this upon reading it.  Unfortunately I spent almost two years giving it its fair shot as both DM & player.


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## Aldarc (Jun 12, 2019)

Shadow of the Demon Lord: No matter how awesome the rules may be, I can't get past its pessimistic, bleak, grimdark setting.


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## pemerton (Jun 12, 2019)

Man, Myth & Magic
Immortals D&D
PF
5e D&D
DragonQuest


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## TarionzCousin (Jun 12, 2019)

Human Occupied Landfill, aka HoL. 

"Although HoL is playable, it was meant as a satire of RPGs. The pages of the books are written by hand, and the authors freely take stabs at other popular role-playing games, particularly Vampire: The Masquerade and Dungeons & Dragons, and those who play them." --Wikipedia


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## billd91 (Jun 12, 2019)

Traveller: New Era - If you thought Classic Traveller and MegaTraveller were too militarized, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Traveller 5 - the big black tome - don't... just don't. Total waste of $75 for the worst organized, most propeller-headed RPG book I've ever seen
Dogs in the Vineyard - totally put off by the game's inherent milieu
Vampire - largely the same as DitV


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## Sepulchrave II (Jun 12, 2019)

DnD: 2E, 4E, 5E, PF. Yuk.

Traveller: MT, TNE, T4, T5, GURPS, T20, Traveller 2300, 2320, MgT. The mechanics are all fiddly as hell, or inferior to - or just ported from - Classic Traveller, although there are plenty of ideas to mine.

CT is the most awesome game ever, however, so there would be no point in playing any other version.

I am also opinionated.


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## Iron Sky (Jun 12, 2019)

Burning Wheel - some of the concepts are brilliant and inspired, but hearing GMs who have run several campaigns in it say "I still have a hard time with combat" or "I don't even touch Duel of Wits" makes me pretty leery of giving it a go.


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## Scottius (Jun 12, 2019)

TarionzCousin said:


> Human Occupied Landfill, aka HoL.
> 
> "Although HoL is playable, it was meant as a satire of RPGs. The pages of the books are written by hand, and the authors freely take stabs at other popular role-playing games, particularly Vampire: The Masquerade and Dungeons & Dragons, and those who play them." --Wikipedia





My copy of HOL still sits proudly on one of my dedicated rpg bookshelves. I actually did run a one off with it one time several years back. My players really gelled with the style of humor that game presented.


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## Staffan (Jun 12, 2019)

Changeling: the Dreaming was this for me. Well, not in the sense of "who could possibly want to play this?", but more in the sense of "This is a game with a lot of cool ideas that I have no idea what to do with." I remember buying a copy at Lincon 1996 (convention in Linköping), and selling it at the auction at Sydcon a week later.

Also, Exalted 3e. It has many cool things in it, and looks like it fixes a lot of the problems with older versions. But the main problem originates in the fact that older editions had a really strong focus on combat charms (charms are basically magical powers you can use that let you use your skills in superhuman ways), simply because combat had detailed rules so there was lots of design space for combat charms, and not so much design space for "running a merchant empire" charms. In 3e, they fixed that by having detailed rules for *everything*, so they could make lots of charms for all the skills. But as a result, the game becomes extremely rules-heavy, and not for me.


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## Celebrim (Jun 12, 2019)

billd91 said:


> Dogs in the Vineyard - totally put off by the game's inherent milieu




I nearly put DitV on my list as well, but I didn't because the OP specifically said "systems you'd never play".   And the thing is, I can think of some games I might want to play where I'd use the system, even though I am, as you are, inherently turned off by the game's built in setting.   For example, I would definitely consider running a Star Trek game with DitV's rule set or something close to it, or really any sort of game where the primary conflict was conversational, and fisticuffs, and combat were upping the stakes.   DitV is one of the few Indy games that seems to me to be well designed.

And I'm going to stop there, because there are a ton of games I could add to my list, but I was afraid I would start a firestorm of controversy by writing negative reviews of them.


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## Guest 6801328 (Jun 12, 2019)

TarionzCousin said:


> Human Occupied Landfill, aka HoL.
> 
> "Although HoL is playable, it was meant as a satire of RPGs. The pages of the books are written by hand, and the authors freely take stabs at other popular role-playing games, particularly Vampire: The Masquerade and Dungeons & Dragons, and those who play them." --Wikipedia




HERETIC!!!

Ok, so I never actually played it, either. But it was one of the few treasured tomes I kept when I thought I was quitting RPGs (ha!) and gave away almost my whole library.


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## Gladius Legis (Jun 12, 2019)

PF2. Easy answer.


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## Arilyn (Jun 12, 2019)

Numenera. There is nothing wrong with the system, perfectly servicable, but I just can't get excited about the player character generation system. I'm also not fond of fantasy that is littered with ancient tech. It's usually not executed well, and I'm afraid Numenera falls into this category.


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## 5ekyu (Jun 12, 2019)

There are do many because I enjoy reading different rpg systems and stealing the bits that seem cool.

But a few notables

Mage:The Ascension - I was z huge VtM mark and even incorporated WtA but Mage went too far into what I saw as unplayable for me.

Cypher/Numrnera: Saw dedicated stream plsy snd bought and read and nope, huh uh, not gonna. Too much of a sense of negotiation at table resolution for me to get into playing it.

STA Mophi 2d20 whatever - similar exposure to Cypher in that there was a lot of streaming, then reading and nope not for me. When the players are more excited (frequently) about the acquisition of the meta-currency than the actual "oh our characters won" then thsts not a game that has the in-character vs table-side division of focus I want. I mean, pretty sure the word momentum was actually used more than any other word - including the character or ship names. 

That's just a few - and only ones I had hoped to run but then gave up on reading. There are still the ones I bought, wanted to run but never got the group who did too at the same time.


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## DrunkonDuty (Jun 12, 2019)

Exalted. Just way too complicated.

Numenera. Just didn't like the setting or the system.

DnD 4 & 5. Neither appeal. 5e in particular is just leaves me going "meh."

Cyberpunk 2020. I dunno, liked the setting. Well, I like cyberpunk in general. But the system was just a bit too flavourless. 

Shadowrun. Not strictly true, in that I ran a multi year campaign with Shadowrun 1e. And we had fun. But the system is a mess. I don't know how we put up with it for as long as we did. If I ever dig out my old Seattle source books again I'll run it in HERO system.


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 12, 2019)

This describes every book I've read in the past few years: Arcanis, Blood Dawn, Robotech (Shadow Chronicles), Traveller (Mongoose), Kromore, Shadowrun 5E, FATE, Savage Worlds, Starfinder... probably a few others that I don't remember.

It seems that every game either goes heavy into unsustainable complexity, or it turns to meta-game narrative control mechanics, or both. Playable games are few and far between.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 12, 2019)

I have to say I am one of those people who ran a Space:1889 campaign in a different system...HERO.  But the major reason for that is I used the setting as a backdrop for a supers game.

For the most part, D&D 5Ed lost me in the playtest reports stage, coupled with Adventurer League threads here on ENWorld.  When I finally got my hands on the books in a store?  Well, that was the final nail in the coffin.  4Ed appealed to me as a player, but not as a DM.  I thought it had enough good stuff for PCs for me to enjoy playing it. 5Ed didn’t even grab me that way.


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## pickin_grinnin (Jun 12, 2019)

Every PbtA system I have read.
The new Unknown Armies (love the old one).
The new Kult (love the old one).
FATE.
Monsterhearts.


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## DammitVictor (Jun 12, 2019)

Still something of an open wound for me, but _Gamma World_ d20.

_Shadowrun_ 5e. I never used 4e for an actual _Shadowrun_ game, but I've never used 5e for anything.


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## TarionzCousin (Jun 12, 2019)

Gladius Legis said:


> PF2. Easy answer.



Ouch. 



Saelorn said:


> This describes every book I've read in the past few years: Arcanis, Blood Dawn, Robotech (Shadow Chronicles), Traveller (Mongoose), Kromore, Shadowrun 5E, FATE, Savage Worlds, Starfinder... probably a few others that I don't remember.
> 
> It seems that every game either goes heavy into unsustainable complexity, or it turns to meta-game narrative control mechanics, or both. Playable games are few and far between.



What game(s) are playable, in your opinion? Because I am interested in games that aren't too complex or that involve narrative control. Retro Clones?


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## Gradine (Jun 12, 2019)

Celebrim said:


> And I'm going to stop there, because there are a ton of games I could add to my list, but I was afraid I would start a firestorm of controversy by writing negative reviews of them.




That's the entire point of this thread!

I'll bring up another one: basically anything related to OSR.

Ya'll realize how much better we've gotten at game design in the past four decades, right?

I'll acknowledge that part of it is, for me at least, guilt by association (though I'm sure there are plenty of fine people who play or even produce OSR), but the much bigger part of it is... we really have gotten way better at game design. I once read through _LofFP _to see what all the hub-bub was about and was basically left with the impression "this is just OD&D but better organized, which, I mean, talk about a low bar."


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## Celebrim (Jun 12, 2019)

Gradine said:


> That's the entire point of this thread!




Then it will be closed.   I mean, I could post my honest opinion of certain game systems right now and get it closed if that's what you wanted.



> Ya'll realize how much better we've gotten at game design in the past four decades, right?




Well if you mean we are better, then "No", I don't think we are.   We've gotten a little better informed so that we are a little bit better at matching mechanics to their intention, but as far as clearing the hurdle and actually designing something that is elegant and playable, I don't think we are much better.  Pendragon, for example?  Basic RPG and WEG D6 are still some of the better designed systems of all time, and for all the problems D&D had, many of its choices - hit points, classes, spell slots, etc. - are still defensible and have not been improved on.

Nor do I think we have necessarily excelled some of the classic examples of play (by which I mean modules, adventures, scenarios, campaigns) presented 3-4 decades ago.


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## Gradine (Jun 12, 2019)

Celebrim said:


> Then it will be closed.   I mean, I could post my honest opinion of certain game systems right now and get it closed if that's what you wanted.




I mean, if your honest opinion would run afoul of the board's stated rules on inclusion, for example, then by all means keep that to yourself.

Edit: I will add that a statement such as, for example, "the explicit sexual themes in systems like V:tM, Monsterhearts or Apocalypse World is a huge turnoff for me" is a very different statement than one laced with judgment at the people who make/play said games. 




> Well if you mean we are better, then "No", I don't think we are.   We've gotten a little better informed so that we are a little bit better at matching mechanics to their intention, but as far as clearing the hurdle and actually designing something that is elegant and playable, I don't think we are much better.




Clearly I disagree. We've gotten _significantly _better at matching mechanics to their intention, which is to say, _we're actually doing that at some level_. There are a lot of smaller indie games that, while not nearly as ambitious in its goals as _Dungeons & Dragons _(which has been stated as being "all things to all people" which it... mostly? succeeds at, more in spite of itself really), have very clear intentions and hit their mark beautifully. They're much more niche as a result, but still much better designed.



> Pendragon, for example?  Basic RPG and WEG D6 are still some of the better designed systems of all time, and for all the problems D&D had, many of its choices - hit points, classes, spell slots, etc. - are still defensible and have not been improved on.




Don't get me wrong, I look back fondly on my experiences with WEG D6, but character creation doesn't need to be that cumbersome. And while HP, classes and... well, HP and classes are certainly still defensible, there have been many alternate interpretations of represent those ideas (character health and archetype/abilities, respectively) that work much better within their own systems. YMMV, of course. 

Hell, D&D itself does HP, classes, and spell slots better _now_ than it did in any iteration that OSR cribs off of. 



> Nor do I think we have necessarily excelled some of the classic examples of play (by which I mean modules, adventures, scenarios, campaigns) presented 3-4 decades ago.




I said we do _game design _much better. _Adventure _design has, yeah, sadly become a bit of a lost art, but that's because the broadest swath of examples we have are required to fit into very different molds than classic one-off adventures of old (either really short pick-up and play adventures, a la Adventuer's League, or long, necessarily constrained mini-campaigns, as typified by Adventure Paths). That said, I'd still hold something like Zeitgeist up against any of the old classics (quite a few of which haven't aged nearly as well as some folks would like to believe they have)


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## GrahamWills (Jun 12, 2019)

Sepulchrave II said:


> DnD: 2E, 4E, 5E, PF. Yuk




You certainly seem to be a glutton for self-punishment. You've carefully read through 4 versions of D&D, most of them three rulebooks+ each, and disliked each one. That seems a bit odd -- I'm curious about why you even bother? Why did your read the 5E books when you knew you'd dislike them?


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## Celebrim (Jun 12, 2019)

Gradine said:


> I mean, if your honest opinion would run afoul of the board's stated rules on inclusion, for example, then by all means keep that to yourself.




It's not the board rules on what is a defensible political position that would get me in trouble.  Heck, I'm playing in a Paizo adventure path right now, so if blatant attempts to be inclusive were a turnoff for me, I'd be a total hypocrite.  I will risk that in the last session we all had a good laugh at how despite these often ham-fisted attempts, one of the encounters was probably the most sexist thing we'd ever encountered in gaming go that we all gotten briefly taken out of character and out of the game just to boggle at it, but that's a whole different story.

No, what would get me in trouble is disparaging the talent of a game designer.  One of the half-dozen or so times I got a temporary ban here was suggesting that the design a of supplement was so amateur, that the designer probably shouldn't plan a full time career in the industry - without realizing that the designer was in the thread.   

That would be gentle compared to some things I could say.  You handwaved certain things away from discussion as "obvious" at the beginning of the thread, and I certainly agree with the sort of examples you are thinking of.   But for me, they aren't the only ones that fall in the "obvious" end.



> I will add that a statement such as, for example, "the explicit sexual themes in systems like V:tM, Monsterhearts or Apocalypse World is a huge turnoff for me" is a very different statement than one laced with judgment at the people who make/play said games.




While some of the presentation of violence or sex or violent sexuality and sexualized violence in those games do turn me off, none of those games rise to the example of things where I think the presentation is such that I'd condemn the entire game as immoral beyond redemption.  In fact, the real morality problem I have with V:tM is the rules system in practice allows violence without real consequence (compare how humanity in theory is lost in the game to the acquisition of 'Dark Side' points in D6 Star Wars) combined with the fact that the games reward system works contrary to its stated purpose of play.   

There are said games however where for me it does go beyond the pale into "obvious".



> Clearly I disagree. We've gotten _significantly _better at matching mechanics to their intention, which is to say, _we're actually doing that at some level_.




I think I half-agree with you.   We have gotten better, but unlike you don't believe we've gotten so much better that we are actually consistently doing it.   And in the case of something like D&D, I'd argue that we've got there by the same sort of evolutionary processes (trial and error) that so well informed the early design of the game.  We are getting better incrementally, but in a system that already had strong core ideas.



> That said, I'd still hold something like Zeitgeist up against any of the old classics (quite a few of which haven't aged nearly as well as some folks would like to believe they have)




I have heard good things about 'Zeitgeist' and 'War of the Burning Sky'.  I keep meaning to pick up a pdf to read them.


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## GrahamWills (Jun 12, 2019)

I'm not sure there is any system I absolutely would never play. But may of them are just not as good for what I like as other systems -- it's rare a system is offensive or bad enough to make it unplayable. It's just I prefer other systems.

I have nothing against two pieces of bread with a piece of american cheese between them. I'm not saying I'd never eat it, or that I wouldn't enjoy it sometimes. It's just that there are a lot of better sandwiches I can make. I still play PF occasionally, despite the fact there are probably a dozen other fantasy systems I'd prefer to play, but I can still have fun with it.


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## pogre (Jun 12, 2019)

Dangerous Journeys
Living Steel
Nobilis
Rifts
Sorcerer


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## billd91 (Jun 12, 2019)

Celebrim said:


> No, what would get me in trouble is disparaging the talent of a game designer.  One of the half-dozen or so times I got a temporary ban here was suggesting that the design a of supplement was so amateur, that the designer probably shouldn't plan a full time career in the industry - without realizing that the designer was in the thread.




Well, yeah, you veer into making evaluations of the person involved, you go past critiquing the game and into the personal sphere that's against the rules around here. Keep it away from that and things should be fine.


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 12, 2019)

TarionzCousin said:


> What game(s) are playable, in your opinion? Because I am interested in games that aren't too complex or that involve narrative control. Retro Clones?



Retro clones are generally inoffensive. Pathfinder is surprisingly playable, as long as you keep it to the first book. The AGE system isn't too bad on either count. White Wolf can get pretty narrative-y in places, but I think you can play Street Fighter without too many problems.

I'm sure that there are plenty more, but they're increasingly difficult to find amongst all of the others.


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## Lanefan (Jun 12, 2019)

Games I've read and-or own but would decline to play based solely on that reading: 4e D&D.  Pathfinder.  Various d20 knockoffs.  Late-era 2e D&D with all the splat.

3e and 3.5e D&D are games I've played so thus don't qualify for this list, though I'm not sure I'd ever want to play either again.


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## lowkey13 (Jun 12, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 12, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> LIVING STEEL.
> 
> I'd love to hear from someone who actually did run it. Because I was a glutton for punishment back then, and even I was like, "Eh, no thank you."



I don't know anyone who actually played it, but System Mastery did a review of it, which you might find entertaining:

https://systemmastery.files.wordpress.com/2017/09/system-mastery-104-living-steel.mp3


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## Fenris-77 (Jun 12, 2019)

HoL is surprisingly playable. Satire it might be, but the system itself is pretty flexible and robust. I use(d) the mechanics to do a bunch of other stuff.

Things I read and immediately decided not to play. Rolemaster, Wraith, GURPS (dunno why, just felt icky about it), Ars Magica (as much as I actually love it conceptually), Talislanta, 4E D&D, Conan ... it's a long list.


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## Gradine (Jun 12, 2019)

Fenris-77 said:


> HoL is surprisingly playable. Satire it might be, but the system itself is pretty flexible and robust. I use(d) the mechanics to do a bunch of other stuff.




How does it fare on a scale between Hackmaster 4e and Hackmaster 5e?


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## Fenris-77 (Jun 12, 2019)

Gradine said:


> How does it fare on a scale between Hackmaster 4e and Hackmaster 5e?



I never got the chance to get more than passingly familiar with Hackmaster, sadly. I just wasn't in groups with the right people at the right time.


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## Blue (Jun 13, 2019)

MechaPilot said:


> I also love Battletech.
> 
> The Mechwarrior RPG is a mess.  I run the Mechwarrior RPG by replacing the entire system with the ruleset from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG.  The character to wargame conversion table for piloting and gunnery skills even matches up nicely with skill levels from BtVS.




I'm with both you and  [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] on MechWarrior.  Unfortunately it was nt just on read, but after we started the campaign.  It turns out two of the players (myself and one other) made well rounded characters that would have interesting things to do in or out of a mech, and because of the priority system were decent mech pilots in starter mechs.  And the other three players built characters to be superb mech pilots with good mechs and not much else.

Which ever way the GM ran it, mech heavy or balanced, would have half the table unhappy.

EDIT:  If I recall, I took a Panther, a light mech with a PPC because then I could snipe at range and not die in such a light mech then most of the group.  However, I hadn't read the rules about skills advancement at the time.  If I recall, it had to do with rolling a 12 or something.  Which means that mechs with lots of tiny weapons like machine guns would find their MW advancing in gunnery a heck of a lot faster than a mech with one big powerful weapon.


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## Blue (Jun 13, 2019)

Elfcrusher said:


> 7th Sea




I've never read 7th Sea but I see others gushing about it, enough that it's on my list of "want to try" games.  I'll take this as a warning though.  Any specifics you can share about why it didn't work?


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## TarionzCousin (Jun 13, 2019)

Fenris-77 said:


> I never got the chance to get more than passingly familiar with Hackmaster, sadly. I just wasn't in groups with the right people at the right time.



Hackmaster 4E was AD&D 1E with stuff from the comic added. 5E was an entirely new system after Kenzerco lost the license to 1E. It was significantly different.

/not really helpful but I felt compelled to respond.


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## Fenris-77 (Jun 13, 2019)

It's been _many_ moons since I use the HoL mechanics for anything. Basically it's exploding 2d6 for everything - plus stat and (maybe) skill with difficulties set by the DM. After I scraped off the satire I found it to be a very compact and useful base mechanic that i use to run smaller adventures that didn't fit into our groups usual games. Some Lovecraftian horror and modern stuff mostly. My write up of the 'rules' was maybe two pages long (no more than four...) if I remember correctly, and that kind of portability can be useful.


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## Guest 6801328 (Jun 13, 2019)

Blue said:


> I've never read 7th Sea but I see others gushing about it, enough that it's on my list of "want to try" games.  I'll take this as a warning though.  Any specifics you can share about why it didn't work?




Bear in mind I didn't (as the title of the thread says) actually play it, and I had to go get it off the shelf and page through it to remember what the turn-offs were.  In a nutshell it felt like you couldn't play the game without having a pretty thorough understanding of the setting, but the setting itself required too much work to grok. I paged through it and there's a bewildering array of nationalities, each of which is supposed to have a certain flavor.  Honestly it would have been a ton easier if each one just had a real country after it, to help give it context.  (E.g., "This is like Greece, ok?")

The genre really appealed to me so I backed the KS, but the book turned me off.  You don't even see any rules for dozens of pages (or maybe I missed them), and when I tried to get a sense of "how does this game work?" it doesn't seem like that's in one place.

It may still be a great game: I didn't really give it a chance because it didn't grab me.


----------



## Greg K (Jun 13, 2019)

These are off the top of my head and I may add more tomorrow.  There are actually a few games on this list that I admire, but they are not for me. One system of games may have been interesting, but the formatting was too much of a chore to read through.  Many of the games were just plain terrible, imo with some being returned to the local game store within 24hrs. Then, there were a few that either just did not did not impress me or were just not "my cup of tea".

d6 Adventure, Fantasy, Space (WEG)
The Adventures of Indiana Jones (TSR)
Alternity 
DC Universe RPG (WEG)
Dungeons & Dragons 4e (TSR)
Dungeon World
Enforcers (21st Century Games)
Fate (Evil Hat)
Fiasco
Gamma World: 3e, 4e, 5e .6e. 7e
Heroes & Heroines (Excel Marketing)
Heroes Unlimited: Revised (Palladium Games)
Marvel Universe RPG (QED/Marvel)
Mercenaries, Spies, & Private Eyes (Flying Buffalo)
Pathfinder (Paizo)
SFX Roleplaying (Joshua Macy)
Tunnels & Trolls (Flying Buffalo)
Valiant Universe (Catalyst Games)
Villains  & Vigilantes 1e


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 13, 2019)

Now that you mention it, DC Universe RPG and Marvel Universe RPG are also both non-starters for me.


----------



## ccs (Jun 13, 2019)

Fenris-77 said:


> GURPS (dunno why, just felt icky about it),




Probably because in the back of your mind you're thinking:
""_GURPs_  You know, I'm playing a game named after the sound of a puking cat...."


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## Blue (Jun 13, 2019)

Greg K said:


> Heroes Unlimited: Revised (Palladium Games)




Oh geeze, I had blocked out the Palladium games.  I had a bunch of them, from Robotech to TMNT as well as more traditional settings.  The settings were interesting, but the percentile mechanics just did not look playable.



Greg K said:


> The Adventures of Indiana Jones (TSR)




The burnt remains of a cover, destroyed after the IP license was lost, is what inspired the Diana Jones Award IIRC.



Greg K said:


> Mercenaries, Spies, & Private Eyes (Flying Buffalo)




I want to say I played this and it was decent, but I can't actually pull up any memories of actual play.


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## Aldarc (Jun 13, 2019)

Pick a system used for Tekumel. Any system. Nope. If you want to navigate the byzantine culture of the Petal Throne, it seems that you must first navigate the byzantine rules that always seem matched to this setting.


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## Ovinomancer (Jun 13, 2019)

Elfcrusher said:


> Bear in mind I didn't (as the title of the thread says) actually play it, and I had to go get it off the shelf and page through it to remember what the turn-offs were.  In a nutshell it felt like you couldn't play the game without having a pretty thorough understanding of the setting, but the setting itself required too much work to grok. I paged through it and there's a bewildering array of nationalities, each of which is supposed to have a certain flavor.  Honestly it would have been a ton easier if each one just had a real country after it, to help give it context.  (E.g., "This is like Greece, ok?")
> 
> The genre really appealed to me so I backed the KS, but the book turned me off.  You don't even see any rules for dozens of pages (or maybe I missed them), and when I tried to get a sense of "how does this game work?" it doesn't seem like that's in one place.
> 
> It may still be a great game: I didn't really give it a chance because it didn't grab me.



Hmm.  Are you talking about 7th Sea 2e?  That's the one with the kickstarter; 1e was published by AEG 15ish years ago?

If so, I get you.  I lurve 7Sea 1e and have kitbashed it and houseruled it for soecial applications.  Also played it without knowing the setting much at all.  But, 2e?  Wasn't impressed and be much more likely to use a 1e bash than 2e.

If you mean 1e, then you are a soulless monster, but I'm okay with that.


----------



## Aldarc (Jun 13, 2019)

Agreed. 7th Sea 2e felt kinda "meh." My gaming group in Austria loved 7th Sea 1e, but 2e left them feeling flat and uninspired to run it.


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## GMMichael (Jun 13, 2019)

What about after _writing_ them?  I wouldn't be too interested in a Modos RPG game without adding some modules - something for psionics, an encumbrance system, maybe steal some ideas from Tome of Magic.  A grid-free miniatures rules-module would be cool.  I like some gobs of cookie dough tossed in with my vanilla ice cream


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## innerdude (Jun 13, 2019)

-Anything White Wolf --- At least ten or twelve times over the last 15 years, I've wandered into a game store and picked up a White Wolf title (oWoD, Vampire, Mage, Werewolf), and started thumbing through it. At no point in any of those perusals have I felt a desire to play a game based on the presented material, let alone pay money for the privilege of doing so. 

-*Special Shout Out to White Wolf,  Part 2 - Exalted --- I perused this book one time for about 120 seconds. That's all it took to know that I had less than zero interest in whatever "play experience" it was offering. 

-Shadowrun --- I've picked up a Shadowrun core rulebook off the shelf 10 or 12 times over the years, and every time I think there's some really cool stuff in there, but there's just too much "cruft" that I'd have to lift out to even want to try it. If I did try to play it, I'd have to revamp the game world (I've always thought orcs and elves running around with mohawks and laser guns was a bridge too far, even for my geekish tastes). Then I'd have to figure out how the whole thing actually works . . . yeah, just way too much effort. And it's not that I don't love cyberpunk as a genre; _Snowcrash _is one of my favorite sci-fi novels, and the _Deus Ex _video games are my all time favorites. I just can't get into Shadowrun's particular flavor. 

-RIFTS --- This one is a combo platter of thinking both the rules and the setting are equally obtuse, and not just obtuse, but obtuse in an infuriatingly smug way. This shouldn't surprise me, considering that the game maker's public persona generally comes across in like manner.

*Edit* D&D 5th Edition --- This one technically isn't a "I'd never play that." If someone were to offer to run a D&D 5e campaign with an interesting premise, I'd certainly play it. But in terms of really "connecting" with the rules system when I read it, 5e did almost nothing for me. And as a GM, I can't think of any reason that I'd run a 5e game in lieu of any of five or six other systems that I'd be vastly more excited about.


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## John R Davis (Jun 13, 2019)

LOTFP. Art and book where well laid out; just didnt see what was different as a game.
Numenera. Played at a CON; bought book reading through left my uninterested
The Dark Eye. Like the art and layout; had played the PC games; all just too big to get started with
Dune. Despite liking the source material didn't like the system
Legends of Anglerre. What the fluff was I thinking


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## Guest 6801328 (Jun 13, 2019)

Ovinomancer said:


> Hmm.  Are you talking about 7th Sea 2e?  That's the one with the kickstarter; 1e was published by AEG 15ish years ago?
> 
> If so, I get you.  I lurve 7Sea 1e and have kitbashed it and houseruled it for soecial applications.  Also played it without knowing the setting much at all.  But, 2e?  Wasn't impressed and be much more likely to use a 1e bash than 2e.
> 
> If you mean 1e, then you are a soulless monster, but I'm okay with that.






Aldarc said:


> Agreed. 7th Sea 2e felt kinda "meh." My gaming group in Austria loved 7th Sea 1e, but 2e left them feeling flat and uninspired to run it.




Oh, yeah, I meant the 2e KS.  My bad.


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## BronzeDragon (Jun 13, 2019)

Greg K said:


> Alternity




How dare you speak against greatness?



Greg K said:


> Dungeons & Dragons 4e (TSR)




Ok, you're forgiven now...


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Jun 13, 2019)

Blue said:


> I've never read 7th Sea but I see others gushing about it, enough that it's on my list of "want to try" games.  I'll take this as a warning though.  Any specifics you can share about why it didn't work?



I read through one example, which (IIRC) was about a player spending some sort of resource to make it so an enemy in the next room did not have a weapon on them, and I knew that it wasn't for me. Which is unfortunate, because the setting and core dice mechanics from 1E seemed pretty interesting, so I was looking forward to a straight update of that.


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## Ovinomancer (Jun 13, 2019)

Saelorn said:


> I read through one example, which (IIRC) was about a player spending some sort of resource to make it so an enemy in the next room did not have a weapon on them, and I knew that it wasn't for me. Which is unfortunate, because the setting and core dice mechanics from 1E seemed pretty interesting, so I was looking forward to a straight update of that.



Absolutely no idea what you're talking about.  Maybe one of the sorcery knacks?  Those are powered by drama die, which usually are used as floating extra dice for rolls, or for a heroic effort to ignore the nasty death spiral penalties for a round.  Unless it's something I haven't heard, drama dice can't be spent for any narrative control outsude of a few sorcery knacks (which are magic).

I mean, you can not like it (you soulless monster!), but this shouldn't be a reason.


----------



## The Crimson Binome (Jun 13, 2019)

Ovinomancer said:


> Absolutely no idea what you're talking about.  Maybe one of the sorcery knacks?  Those are powered by drama die, which usually are used as floating extra dice for rolls, or for a heroic effort to ignore the nasty death spiral penalties for a round.  Unless it's something I haven't heard, drama dice can't be spent for any narrative control outsude of a few sorcery knacks (which are magic).
> 
> I mean, you can not like it (you soulless monster!), but this shouldn't be a reason.



That's good to hear, then. Perhaps I was misinformed. I should look further into it.

Edit: It may have been an example of spending a Raise in order to create an Opportunity.


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## Ovinomancer (Jun 13, 2019)

Saelorn said:


> That's good to hear, then. Perhaps I was misinformed. I should look further into it.



Given what I know of your preferences, you probably still won't like it.  Damage is very abstract, in the form of dramatic wounds that aren't necessarily wounds and PCs can't die unless they've expressly risked death themselves.  Those two alone make me think you'd be disinclined.


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## Greg K (Jun 13, 2019)

Celebrim said:


> We've gotten a little better informed so that we are a little bit better at matching mechanics to their intention, but as far as clearing the hurdle and actually designing something that is elegant and playable, I don't think we are much better.  Pendragon, for example?  Basic RPG and WEG D6 are still some of the better designed systems of all time.




Agreed. There are several older games that are still examples of elegant and playable games including Bond 007, DC Heroes (Mayfair Games), Elric/Stormbringer (Chaosium), Ghostbusters (WEG),  Pendragon, and Toon are all great games that still hold up well, (imho). I also still consider Hero and GURPS  to be great games despite preferring Savage Worlds over both Hero or GURPS. In fact,  I am debating as to whether I want to keep tailoring 5e with house rules for my next fantasy campaign or use Hero System (4e or 5e).


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## DrunkonDuty (Jun 14, 2019)

Greg K said:


> Agreed. There are several older games that are still examples of elegant and playable games including Bond 007, DC Heroes (Mayfair Games), Elric/Stormbringer (Chaosium), Ghostbusters (WEG),  Pendragon, and Toon are all great games that still hold up well, (imho). I also still consider Hero and GURPS  to be great games despite preferring Savage Worlds over both Hero or GURPS. In fact,  I am debating as to whether I want to keep tailoring 5e with house rules for my next fantasy campaign or use Hero System (4e or 5e).




<emerges out of shadows; whispers> "Use HERO system." <smiles, creepily; fades back into the shadows.>

Sorry. I think I may be a tad too invested in HERO System. This is because I have been stuck running 3 Pathfinder games for years. (Well, I only started running the 3rd one 6 months ago.) And as a result I am looking longingly at other systems. Any other system but mostly HERO.


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## pickin_grinnin (Jun 14, 2019)

Celebrim said:


> We've gotten a little better informed so that we are a little bit better at matching mechanics to their intention, but as far as clearing the hurdle and actually designing something that is elegant and playable, I don't think we are much better.  Pendragon, for example?  Basic RPG and WEG D6 are still some of the better designed systems of all time, and for all the problems D&D had, many of its choices - hit points, classes, spell slots, etc. - are still defensible and have not been improved on.




I agree.  These days I find myself using WEG D6 (or OpenD6) and BRP anytime I don't need to use a specific system.  I default to Savage Worlds with the Super Powers supplement for superhero games, and right now I'm running a 5e campaign (because that's what the players wanted), but the types of games I run work well in D6 and BRP.  D6 in particular is built to be a toolkit that is easy to modify, so I do a lot of that.

I spent the last couple of days cataloging all of my rpg books.  I have 579 of them, not counting PDFs or photocopies, and only 20 or so are adventures.  The rest are primary system books and supplements going back into the late 1970s.  I flipped through them and paid close attention to which ones I am interested in running these days.  There were only a handful of ones that wouldn't fit well into D6, BRP, or one of the OSR systems (again, given the types of campaigns I run).  The rest are things that I enjoy reading, but don't really offer any mechanics that I am interested in using.  In the past I used a wide variety of systems for my games, but today it would be difficult to find players for most of them, at least enough for an ongoing campaign (ex. I have been trying to pull together a Call of Cthulhu group for a decade now).


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## Eltab (Jun 17, 2019)

The Truenaming rules from 3e.  The concept of Truenaming is aweome, but putting several additional layers of die rolls in between you and the desired result, meant it was not going to work very often.


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## ssvegeta555 (Jun 18, 2019)

Numenera: Character creation felt flat and spending your very limited hp to be competent left a bad taste in my mouth. Just not my style. 

Mummy the Curse: you're at your most powerful at the start of the campaign, and as the campaign progresses you get weaker... That is deeply unsatisfying for me as a player.

Agone: uhh.... that's some clunky complicated rules you got there.

Eclipse Phase: love the setting, but not enough to dredge through the rules. EP saw the mess with polymorph spells and wildshape in 3.5 and said "hold my beer"

Eoris Essence: That character sheet is a thing of nightmares! Nope!


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## Ralif Redhammer (Jun 18, 2019)

Read the D&D 4e books, swore I wouldn’t play it. Ended up playing it, then DMing a campaign that lasted years. I still stand by my original assessment, but hey, it’s what my friends wanted to play. 



Satyrn said:


> 4e
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Somewhere I have HoL. I couldn't even read the scrawled text!



TarionzCousin said:


> Human Occupied Landfill, aka HoL.


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## Gradine (Jun 18, 2019)

Eltab said:


> The Truenaming rules from 3e.  The concept of Truenaming is aweome, but putting several additional layers of die rolls in between you and the desired result, meant it was not going to work very often.




I played a Truenamer in 3.5 once. The system is utterly broken (in a bad way) but it was still really awesome in concept.


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## Derren (Jun 18, 2019)

7th Sea after getting to the "lets throw random german words we don't know the meaning of into the names to make them sound more exotic" part.


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## Zhaleskra (Jun 18, 2019)

BTRC's TimeLords 2E (1990)

Conceptually, it's nice, does a fair explanation of paradox free time-travel (all time travel is by definition _also_ probability travel so you don't end up in the same place when the Earth isn't in that place and so on). Playing as yourself with various tests to get your stats is interesting as well.

The problem is that the RAW tries to model reality too well, leading to what to me is an inherently unplayable system.

While I do have the searchable PDF of CORPS, and it might be a good substitute for the actual TimeLords system, IMO there are much better time travel RPGs available.


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## ClaytonStine (Jun 18, 2019)

*Numenera. *The game opens with its manifesto about being story-focused and streamlined with the rules disappearing. Then, page by page, every rule – seen to be quite the opposite in other systems – made an appearance. A d20 system made "simpler" by having players and GM convert each roll into a new number that must be compared against your stats. But only after you modified that new difficulty class with other numbers. Then, sometimes you had to re-convert them back to a "rolled" number by multiplying it by 3. It's true, the rules will disappear but only after that clunky conversion becomes second nature. 

I just couldn't play it after reading that and the item rules. I'm familiar with the designers and have loved their games. But not without a great deal of pain like when they made similar promises with D&D 3e; feats that let you do anything, balance between magic and martial classes, customization options that feel exciting and fun, combat that feels narratively quick and fun. They have great writing, but their mechanics don't do what they say they do. I can't endorse a game that I felt was disingenuous after the last one spawned the "Ivory Tower" design trend.

*Apocalypse World. *I love Powered by the Apocalypse but I can't bring a game to the table with a sex mechanic for my particular game group. So much of the game emulates fiction I'm familiar with and love. Mad Max being a huge example. But I don't remember that or any other apocalypse movies and books I enjoyed having themes about sex. That, mixed with the strong authorial voice of the book using words like "barf" and "", made the setting a poor match for my friends. I could ignore those rules, but with the strong singular voice, it feels wrong not to play it as written. Something I didn't feel I could do justice. 

Of course, I think these two games can be great! But I don't think they're great for me. So I will never play them.


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## generic (Jun 18, 2019)

1. LOTFP: The rules an setting, along with the art, just don't grab my attention.  It seems altogether too infantile to be playable, and the OSR-style rules are like OSR rules, but with worse wording and implementation.

2. The World of Synnibar: "Roll thirty dice for a 50% chance to do something".

3. Shadowrun: I'm sorry, I know people love this system, and the rules and setting are great, but I just don't see the point of playing a Shadowrun game.

4. Conan: An Age Undreamed Of: Good art, nice theme, weak and shapeless rules.


----------



## LordEntrails (Jun 18, 2019)

ElfQuest
Rules were similar to RuneQuest/BRP, but the setting was just missing so much... like starting equipment. Did you just pick what you wanted or only what the GM gave you? Of course, there were no guidelines for the GM to use to decide what to give you. It was written for fans of the comic book, so they could re-live the adventures of the comic book characters. It was not a stand-alone game or setting.

Twilight 2000
Always loved the concept, but, back when it came out just never had enough meat to actually use.

Wheel of Time
Another one of those written for fans of the books and not for gamers. No balance what so ever around character generation. Again, if you wanted to retell a story you had already read, it would do the job well, but for new stories? Just no reason to use it.


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## innerdude (Jun 19, 2019)

LordEntrails said:


> Wheel of Time
> Another one of those written for fans of the books and not for gamers. No balance what so ever around character generation. Again, if you wanted to retell a story you had already read, it would do the job well, but for new stories? Just no reason to use it.




Oh man, the d20 Wheel of Time system was a hot, flaming mess on a poopstick. We actually tried playing one session of it, and even the player who was a die-hard Wheel of Time fan basically agreed it was garbage.


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## LordEntrails (Jun 19, 2019)

innerdude said:


> Oh man, the d20 Wheel of Time system was a hot, flaming mess on a poopstick. We actually tried playing one session of it, and even the player who was a die-hard Wheel of Time fan basically agreed it was garbage.



I could never make heads or tales of it. It seemed like their was a lot of unspoken player self balancing and house rules required. Glad to hear my opinion shared some other views.


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## The Crimson Binome (Jun 19, 2019)

Aebir-Toril said:


> 3. Shadowrun: I'm sorry, I know people love this system, and the rules and setting are great, but I just don't see the point of playing a Shadowrun game.



That's an interesting critique. Would you mind expanding on that?


----------



## ParanoydStyle (Jun 19, 2019)

(I absolutely loathe PbtA. I think my loathing for it is (perhaps excessively) well documented over the history of the internet. Nothing personal against D. Vincent Baker, Ron Edwards lassoed him to help playtest my game one time, which was surreal in a kind of wonderful way, I just think that the PbtA system is terrible and has done terrible things to the hobby. I think its legacy of "success with a complication" or "fail forward" is a poison pill for the progress of game design in the long term. I think its popularity ruined or wasted practically a whole generation of game designers, who (understandably) used it because it was popular and trending, they templated off of it rather than making their own unique games.) Anyway all of these conclusions were reached just by reading the text and observing the market. I have never actually played *World, nor would I unless it was the absolute only form of gaming available and the people playing it were people whose company I enjoyed.)

That's not my answer, though. 

I wanted so badly to like _*Dungeon Crawl Classics*_ because I love just about every adventure Goodman Games has ever published and even the world of Aereth they're set in. But when I saw that the game MANDATED the use of ANOTHER SEVEN KINDS of ever-more-obscure polyhedral dice, that alone was such a terrible design decision that I NOPED the heck out almost on principle in spite of having just bought the DCC corebook. I mean, I'm not ashamed to admit that yes, I owned the silly irregular dice. But a game actually *requiring* their *use*? That was a bridge too far. Also to me it's a red flag when a DM starts producing extensive critical fumble tables and a flip through the rulebook made it look like it was mostly a DM's critical fumble tables (albeit mainly for magic, not swinging a sword) so that kind of made me want to put it down immediately.

To whoever said they were turned away by the sex mechanics in Apocalypse World my GOD I get you, but whoever said they were turned away by the sexual themes of VtM, I don't get you AT ALL. And yes, I realize it might be the same person. See, I'm not inherently repelled by sex or sexual mechanics in games, but to me sex had absolutely no place in the mechanics (and it was very blatantly in the mechanics, as in "you bang someone and XYZ mechanical stuff happens") of a game called APOCALYPSE WORLD about malnourished illiterate starving filthy possibly mutant post-apocalyptic murder hobos. It was incredibly off-putting.

The sexualization of vampires is a cultural phenomenon I've accepted since I first read Anne Rice. To me, sexiness in Vampire inherently makes sense. Rules for screwing in a post-apocalyptic context are very offputting to me because that is a REALLY unsexy context.

Whoever said Eclipse Phase is dead on the money. When I tried to play that game from the book as written it failed miserably. When we sat down to play at a convention with a GM who was familiar enough with it to IGNORE HALF THE RULES, it happened to run smooth as butter. Go figure. 

Oh, and I think it's probably more interesting than any system I'd never play after reading it that I DID play (GM, actually) RIFTS after reading it. I saw how terrible it was on paper, but there was a huge amount of narm charm and honestly I really liked the idea of the setting. Eventually I wound up, as some guy keeps suggesting  CONVERTING IT TO HERO SYSTEM and also modifying what I thought were dumber parts of the setting by melding with a homebrew post-apocalyptic setting of my own.




Saelorn said:


> That's an interesting critique. Would you mind expanding on that?




+1 to this. There are at this point MANY editions of _Shadowrun_. Most of them are playable to one degree or another. Is it the setting you dislike? I mean, William Gibson hates Shadowrun (I think his exact commentary included the phrase "gag me with a spoon") and William Gibson is to Shadowrun as Howard, Moorcock, Lieber and Tolkien are collectively to D&D, so you wouldn't be alone there.

(Half-expecting to see one of my own games mentioned in here. Unsure if want or not want. It's nice to see people have heard of your stuff, but it does suck to have someone read it and leave it unplayed. I wouldn't have been as blunt about the above two if I thought D. Vincent Baker and other *World profiteers weren't comforted by the relatively large (for this industry) piles of money they presumably sleep on at night, or if I thought Goodman Games was in a position where it cared about my approval. In other words I wouldn't have been as blunt if I was talking smaller companies or less visible games.)


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## generic (Jun 19, 2019)

Saelorn said:


> That's an interesting critique. Would you mind expanding on that?




Of course not.  To me, at least, Shadowrun seems like a slightly weaker version of D&D with a better setting, it always has.  If someone could convince me that Shadowrun had a better rule or ruleset in a certain area, I might play it, but that has not happened so far.


----------



## GMMichael (Jun 19, 2019)

Eltab said:


> The Truenaming rules from 3e.  The concept of  Truenaming is aweome, but putting several additional layers of die rolls  in between you and the desired result, meant it was not going to work  very often.



I feel obligated to defend Truenaming since I mentioned using Tome of Magic earlier...
Not  sure where you're getting the "additional layers of die rolls," unless  you're referring to the requirement to make a Truespeak roll, which  isn't any different from a fighter making an attack roll.  The tricky  part about Truenaming was the DC increasing by twice your opponent's  CR.  As far as I could tell, that required your truenamer to be  min-maxed in order to be effective against any higher-level opponents.



Gradine said:


> I  played a Truenamer in 3.5 once. The system is utterly broken (in a bad  way) but it was still really awesome in concept.



Ugh.  Do we need a new thread for this?



ParanoydStyle said:


> I  just think that the PbtA system is terrible and has done terrible  things to the hobby. I think its legacy of "success with a complication"  or "fail forward" is a poison pill for the progress of game design in  the long term. I think its popularity ruined or wasted practically a  whole generation of game designers, who (understandably) used it because  it was popular and trending, they templated off of it rather than  making their own unique games.) . . .
> 
> That's not my answer, though.



Well don't hold back   Ever heard, "what doesn't kill you, makes you  stronger?"  Same thing with PbtA.  It's pretty radical to me, which is a  good thing for the hobby.  I've read it, would play it, haven't  though.


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## Derren (Jun 20, 2019)

Aebir-Toril said:


> Of course not.  To me, at least, Shadowrun seems like a slightly weaker version of D&D with a better setting, it always has.  If someone could convince me that Shadowrun had a better rule or ruleset in a certain area, I might play it, but that has not happened so far.




Its not level based. That alone makes it a thousand times better than D&D and allows for much more character concepts than in D&D where non-combat skills are always tied to your ability to murder stuff. Not to mention that Skills are a lot more important in SR than in D&D.


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## generic (Jun 20, 2019)

Derren said:


> Its not level based. That alone makes it a thousand times better than D&D and allows for much more character concepts than in D&D where non-combat skills are always tied to your ability to murder stuff. Not to mention that Skills are a lot more important in SR than in D&D.




Really?, I haven't looked over Shadowrun rules in a while, and not in great detail.  However, now that you say this, I remember a sort of level-less system.  I will have to read the rules again sometime.


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## Scott Christian (Jun 20, 2019)

Witcher TTRPG. 
I cannot believe this is not the number one choice on this board. 

Well, with the exception of 4e, which people seem to dislike - a lot.


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## Scott Christian (Jun 20, 2019)

Aw... Dangerous Journeys. 
I remember character creation being very broken (especially for assassins; something about order of operations being out of whack). I also remember AEarth setting - terrible. But, the rest seemed okay to us. Of course we were young and had only played D&D and MERP, so our perspective was not very broad. I think we weaved the rules into the D&D campaign, Thunder Roift.


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## lowkey13 (Jun 20, 2019)

*Deleted by user*


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## Xaelvaen (Jun 20, 2019)

Arilyn said:


> Numenera. There is nothing wrong with the system, perfectly servicable, but I just can't get excited about the player character generation system. I'm also not fond of fantasy that is littered with ancient tech. It's usually not executed well, and I'm afraid Numenera falls into this category.




I'll admit, the system is minimal - the character creation is fairly limited in its final iteration.  However, the setting was done marvelously, thanks to the Cypher system itself, mostly.


----------



## Xaelvaen (Jun 20, 2019)

Gradine said:


> What other RPG books have you read and thought to yourself "who could possibly what to play this?"




I guess I'll count *Savage Worlds* - we got so far as to make characters, but as we practiced rolling and understanding the game (before playing), we didn't enjoy the very 'swingy' feel of the mechanics at all.  So technically it's not 'read' and saying nope, but rather, we had to see what was read to understand the nope.  Some didn't like using d6/d8/d10 etc as conflict resolution - some didn't like the 'tier' requirement for certain abilities.  Personally, I wasn't fond of the extreme brutality feel of it.  Felt a bit worse than classic WFRPG.  I've wanted to try for a long time to give it a 'fair' shot - but every time I try, it just never comes to fruition.

*13th Age* never really flew with us either; seemed a bit like 3.5 meets 4e, and just never got from the book to the table.


----------



## innerdude (Jun 20, 2019)

Just thought of one more --- Warhammer 40k, whatever version (Dark Heresy, Trader, etc.)

This is one where I'm not even sure I've picked the book off the shelf to read it. The cover art alone is enough for me to give it a big, fat "nope."  


I have to admit, I'm also very surprised at how often Savage Worlds is being mentioned in this thread. Maybe it's just where I was at the time when I first picked it up (sometime in 2011), but I was very open-minded about it, and found it to be EXACTLY what I was looking for.

But if it had been 6 years earlier in 2005, there was absolutely zero chance I would have considered playing/running anything but 3.5; it was the first, last, and only thing in my RPG universe. 

I wonder how much of our reactions to certain things like this is related to how "open" we are to it at the time we're first exposed to it. Are we looking at a new system because, "Eh, maybe something else might be fun," but aren't really committed to the idea? Or are we really openly looking for something new and fresh, and really want to dig in and see where it leads?


----------



## Eltab (Jun 21, 2019)

Something else I did not want to play when I looked it over:
- the Gamma World edition that adjudicated _everything_ with The One Comprehensive (Rainbow-Colored) Chart.  How excessively comprehensive - and bland
- Gamma World Alternity.  GW is supposed to be fun and over-the-top.  Alternity combat is gritty and "realistic".  Opposites do not attract in this case.
But I like GW as a game concept and background world.  I hope 5e can eventually support another GW edition.


----------



## Arilyn (Jun 21, 2019)

Xaelvaen said:


> I'll admit, the system is minimal - the character creation is fairly limited in its final iteration.  However, the setting was done marvelously, thanks to the Cypher system itself, mostly.




The Strange interests me more.Have you played it?


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## Xaelvaen (Jun 21, 2019)

Arilyn said:


> The Strange interests me more.Have you played it?




Played it, no, but I've read through it.  I got the book as part of the Torment: Tides of Numenera kickstarter.  I like the character shifting as you change worlds, and it has a lot of neat supplements, but the system is mostly the same down to its fundamentals (which isn't a bad thing for me).  One of the races / world that supports the race, is quite unique, and they have a spellcaster that reminds me a lot of "Sourcerers" from the Divinity: Original Sin series.


----------



## Tony Vargas (Jun 21, 2019)

Eltab said:


> Something else I did not want to play when I looked it over:
> - the Gamma World edition that adjudicated _everything_ with The One Comprehensive (Rainbow-Colored) Chart.  How excessively comprehensive - and bland



That was the FASE-RIP system RIPped off from the first Marvel Superheroes.


> - Gamma World Alternity.  GW is supposed to be fun and over-the-top.  Alternity combat is gritty and "realistic".  Opposites do not attract in this case.



 Thanks for the reminder.  I can add those to my list, too.  ;(



> But I like GW as a game concept and background world.  I hope 5e can eventually support another GW edition.



I'm a huge GW fan, and the most-D&D-ish editions, the 1st, 2nd, 4th, Omega World, and the last (7th, by my count, which said "D&D" right on the box, and had clear 4e DNA) were generally the best, most fun & over the top.  

Hopefully, any 5e-based GW would avoid the pitfalls that the d20 Modern version fell into.


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## JacktheRabbit (Jun 22, 2019)

The LOTR game that was released when the movies came out. The rules books were just tons of glossy pictures from the movies and then bad rules that included advice to DMs like "see how the heroes in the movie don't really get that hurt, copy that".


----------



## AriochQ (Jun 22, 2019)

lowkey13 said:


> O.
> 
> LIVING STEEL.
> 
> I'd love to hear from someone who actually did run it. Because I was a glutton for punishment back then, and even I was like, "Eh, no thank you."




Living Steel:  I didn't run, but did play in a short campaign in the late 80's.  Not even sure why our GM wanted to run it, she rarely strayed from D&D.  We had fun playing with the power armor, but it isn't a game we ended up playing long term.  It was very number crunchy, an aspect I actually enjoyed back then.  I am still an unapologetic min/maxxer.

Dangerous Journey's:  Another game we had fun with for a while.  I actually liked that Aerth drew heavily from actual history/mythology for each given geographical area.  It gave GM and players a common base of knowledge.  I am also a sucker for skill based systems.

Twilight 2000:  We played a ton of this, but it has not aged well.  I view it as a niche rpg.  If people are really into military based stuff, it is a blast, but for general rpg'ers, I can see it being a snore fest.  It did sort of suck that healing took so long.  We would generally role up squads of characters and alternate playing them if they got injured.  Often we had to dredge our memories to figure out what farmhouse we left a certain PC at months ago.

MechWarrior:  This game was a hot mess.  Both because the rules weren't very good and that you really wanted characters to be specialized, which means they sucked when doing anything else. (The same holds true for GURPS Autoduel)


----------



## DammitVictor (Jun 26, 2019)

Xaelvaen said:


> I guess I'll count *Savage Worlds* - we got so far as to make characters, but as we practiced rolling and understanding the game (before playing), we didn't enjoy the very 'swingy' feel of the mechanics at all.




I am also right there with you. I obviously can't say that it's a _bad game_, but it just rubbed me wrong from cover to cover.


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## aramis erak (Jun 28, 2019)

The ones that won't see the light of day, and why: 

Fatal - probably needs no explanation
Road Rebels - Almost indecipherable text
Gamma World - I just cannot bring myself to embrace the gonzo there.
Mongoose Judge Dredd d20 - Not a fan of D20... and looked clunky as hell.
Mongoose Judge Dredd Traveller - got so far as generating a few characters, before I realized that the conversion team really did not grasp the mechanics they were working with.
Cyborg Commando - poorly written, poorly edited.
Lejendary Adventures - not quite as bad as Cyborg Commando, but close
Everway - WTF? made no sense
Warriors Adventure Game - non-random, point pusher mechanics
Marvel Universe - non-random

A few I'm unlikely to run, and won't suggest, but players asking might get me to...

Savage Worlds - too random
Time Lords - system is too clunky. not big on time travel
SpaceTime - same system as Time Lords. Not space opera.
Dragon Raid - christian fantasy. weird.
Barbarians of Lemuria


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## GMMichael (Jun 28, 2019)

aramis erak said:


> Warriors Adventure Game - non-random, point pusher mechanics
> Marvel Universe - non-random




 

Is non-random a bad thing?  Sounds like it has potential.


aramis erak said:


> Dragon Raid - christian fantasy. weird.



Also, potential.  Of a very different kind.  I wonder if this would be like D&D, but the players actually believe in Pelor?


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## aramis erak (Jun 28, 2019)

DMMike said:


> Is non-random a bad thing?  Sounds like it has potential.




Lacking random is, for me, a fatal flaw of a system. It's worse than too much random.

Rock-paper-scissors is as non-random as I will tolerate. (That said, I've enjoyed the Vampire LARP rules as a TT game.)



DMMike said:


> Also, potential.  Of a very different kind.  I wonder if this would be like D&D, but the players actually believe in Pelor?




Dragon Raid borrows a bit from Narnia. System isn't horrible as a read, but the magic system requires the player to quote suitable scripture from memory. Given that most of my players are agnostic, pagan, or preachily atheistic...


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## Eltab (Jun 29, 2019)

aramis erak said:


> Dragon Raid borrows a bit from Narnia. System isn't horrible as a read, but the magic system requires the player to quote suitable scripture from memory. Given that most of my players are agnostic, pagan, or preachily atheistic...



… they will get to experience - both in-game and IRL - the study needed to obtain access to higher-level spells*.  Or pick a non-spellcasting class.

Now I'm going to have to find a copy of Dragon Raid and look it over.  I liked the *Testament* 3e setting book (Biblical D&D), there could be more neat things to adapt into my own campaign world.

* I miss the icon on the old WotC boards that could be used for 'a college graduate / teach (or learn) / deliver a lecture / be (or get) smart'.


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## aramis erak (Jun 29, 2019)

Eltab said:


> … they will get to experience - both in-game and IRL - the study needed to obtain access to higher-level spells*.  Or pick a non-spellcasting class.
> 
> Now I'm going to have to find a copy of Dragon Raid and look it over.  I liked the *Testament* 3e setting book (Biblical D&D), there could be more neat things to adapt into my own campaign world.
> 
> * I miss the icon on the old WotC boards that could be used for 'a college graduate / teach (or learn) / deliver a lecture / be (or get) smart'.




The website (dragonraid.net) seems to have gone dark in the last 4 months.

Archive.org has the 2E HTML draft version.


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## Retreater (Jun 29, 2019)

FATE
The narrative end of the game, the attempt to codify when a GM can introduce plots and complications, it's just not my thing.

DCC and MCC
Get those weird dice, nonsensical charts, and character funnels out of here. Checks all the boxes for what I'd never want to play.

Valiant and Shadowrun Anarchy
They're Catalyst, so you know they're bad. Passing GM duties from scene-to-scene is a gimmick I don't see working in any group I've ever played with.

Dragon Age
Hate the setting. I picked up Fantasy Age and realized I don't like the rules either.

Mutants & Masterminds
I don't know which edition I picked up, but the charts for comparing size to distance to height to weight to power of a laser blast befuddled me. Also, the GURPS-like selection of powers and hindrances weren't appealing.

Shadow of the Demon Lord
Was gonna play it, but I got Warhammer Fantasy 4e before I had the chance. So why?

Starfinder
Let's add more complications of technology and confusing starship combat on top one of the most obtuse current game engines (not including Shadowrun). Hard pass.

Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, et al OSR Games
I played them back when they were D&D. We've moved on. Thanks.

Palladium Fantasy, After the Bomb, Ninjas & Superspies, Beyond the Supernatural, Rifts, et al
They're Palladium. They're bad, poorly organized games that confuse me mostly in how they still have a following despite 1987 production values, old school design, and some of the worst game mechanics.


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## 5ekyu (Jun 29, 2019)

Oh, yeah, Millenium's End.


----------



## DammitVictor (Jun 30, 2019)

Retreater said:


> Palladium Fantasy, After the Bomb, Ninjas & Superspies, Beyond the Supernatural, Rifts, et al
> They're Palladium. They're bad, poorly organized games that confuse me mostly in how they still have a following despite 1987 production values, old school design, and some of the worst game mechanics.




Despite agreeing with everything you've just said, I've tried and tried to run this system and I know that soon I will try again. I _desperately_ want these games to work for me.

Bet that has something to do with why they still have that rabid fanbase.


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## MGibster (Jun 30, 2019)

Shadowrun 5th edition.  I really love the setting and I want to run the game but I cannot abide by the rules.


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## Doc_Klueless (Jun 30, 2019)

MGibster said:


> Shadowrun 5th edition.  I really love the setting and I want to run the game but I cannot abide by the rules.



6th Edition, which is coming up, is reportedly much streamlined, so maybe there's a chance for ya?


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## MGibster (Jun 30, 2019)

Doc_Klueless said:


> 6th Edition, which is coming up, is reportedly much streamlined, so maybe there's a chance for ya?




Maybe.  The binding on my 5th edition book also started falling apart the very first time I opened it.  All attempts to contact Catalyst Games was met with stony silence.  I'm not sure I'm keen on giving them more money.


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## Doc_Klueless (Jun 30, 2019)

That seems entirely appropriate, MGibster.

Cheers!


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## Aldarc (Jun 30, 2019)

Der Schwarze Auge / The Dark Eye 

Eclipse Phase


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## thegoodsoldier0 (Jun 30, 2019)

Shadowrun.  I already play one overcomplicated RPG


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## steenan (Jul 1, 2019)

Exalted. I fell in love with the setting, but the system was awful - overwhelmingly complicated and completely unbalanced. I tried several different rulesets instead. Ended up running a very satisfying campaign with a Fate-based system.

Cthulhutech. The concept is inspiring, but both the rules and the setting details are bad. I'm still looking for a game that would give me the kind of experience Cthulhutech promised but couldn't deliver.

Kult. Setting was fine, but the system looked like it had nothing to do with the themes of the game. I hoped the new edition would fix it, but while they improved the game somewhat, it's still, in my eyes, not worth the effort.


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## Manbearcat (Jul 2, 2019)

Any game that encourages the GM (myself) to covertly or overtly subordinate player decision-points or action resolution mechanics (and through it the integrity of player decision points) to their personal conception of what play trajectory should look like. So much of late 80s through mid 90s TTRPG design.

I’ve run many of these games or sat in on them, so it’s probably too late for that.


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## GMMichael (Jul 2, 2019)

Retreater said:


> FATE
> The narrative end of the game, the attempt to codify when a GM can introduce plots and complications, it's just not my thing.
> 
> DCC and MCC
> ...



Give it to Mikey.  He reads everything!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYEXzx-TINc

I thought I'd add Microlite20 to my list.  Not because of the super-elegant monster stat blocks:
[Hill Giant
HD 12d8+48 (102 hp) AC 20 Greatclub +16
(2d8+10) or rock +8 (2d6+7)]
Not due to the typeface and art, which actually do evoke some "what's this D&D thing?" wonder.  Not because it gets rid of the who-wins-on-a-tie ambiguity.  And definitely not because of the super-accessible homepage and hoop-free downloads.  (That cave-ladder banner is oddly creepy.)

Mostly because I already know how to play full-blown d20, and I wrote a different lite-game towards which I'm biased.  Also, casters pay for spells in hit points?  Ouch!


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## pming (Jul 21, 2019)

Hiya!

_Eclipse Phase_. Man...jumped on the boat back when it was just a PDF. Read this and that, always found the idea and setting fascinating...but a bit..."disjointed". Then got the hardback, screen, and a couple other books. Tried to make a character. Tried being the operative word. It's not that it was 'hard', it's just that I hate skill systems that have skills that modify abilities which modify skills which give you a bonus skills which modifies a skill you had which increases which gives you another +1 to some other skill you already had...it's like a freaking spiderweb of interconnected bonuses! Made my head spin. I want to make a PC. I don't care how "accurate" it is...I just want it to work with the system.

_HERO System_. VERY interested in playing this one day! I "over-splurged" months and months ago and dropped about $1100 on a swack ton of printed books (thick buggers!...shipping to the Yukon was...uh..."expensive"...). Picked up pretty much 'everything' and multiple core books (I think x4 of every one of them; 6e, but some 5e stuff like the Fantasy HERO and whatnot). My imagination starts working overtime on all the cool settings and campaigns I could run! But, like Eclipse Phase, the points can get cumbersome. Not too bad...but honestly? A very little thing just bugs the crap outta me! ...seeing the points cost on the character/npc/monster sheet or write-up!  I'm slowly creating my own sheets, but man...I have so much STUFF for it! May have bit off more than I can chew with this system...

_Arcana Evolved_. Yeah, that one by that Monte guy.  Absolutely LOVE the the classes, the races, and many of the rules adjustments. Alas...it's 3.e base...and, seriously, ick.  All the freaking bonuses and penalties and numbers escalating to the point that rolling a d20 is just a formality. Rolling d20 to beat a DC 27 when you have +38 is, well, pointless...and making an attack when you have a +18 bonus...but your opponent has AC 40 and 600hp...wtf is the point? It's all the flaws of the d20 system, but turned up to 11. If I ever do run a game of this...pretty sure I'm going to use either 5e or BECMI. Or maybe some game that has nothing, or virtually nothing, to do with the "D&D" systems (like, say, Masterbook, Dominion Rules, or Rolemaster).

I would put _Pathfinder 2_ on that list...but it's not going to grace/foul my bookshelves! (Don't ask...It's just, well...just no).

^_^

Paul L. Ming


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## Crusadius (Jul 21, 2019)

Castle Falkenstein. Loved the setting, hated using cards for the system.


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## John Dallman (Jul 21, 2019)

_Victoriana_, first edition. The combination of confusion and bad research made reading it an exercise in disbelief. I donated it to an auction shortly thereafter. 

I have never managed to read _Aria_, but have kept it because it has grand ambitions, and someday I might get somewhere with it.


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## TarionzCousin (Jul 21, 2019)

Crusadius said:


> Castle Falkenstein. Loved the setting, hated using cards for the system.



I played a couple six month campaigns of Castle Falkenstein and a few one shots. Our GM used cards but modified the system heavily. It made a significant difference.


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## aramis erak (Jul 21, 2019)

Iron Sky said:


> Burning Wheel - some of the concepts are brilliant and inspired, but hearing GMs who have run several campaigns in it say "I still have a hard time with combat" or "I don't even touch Duel of Wits" makes me pretty leery of giving it a go.




I've run a few campaigns of BW. It works. Fight and Duel of Wits are, functionally, options, but I've had no problems using them other than session length.



Blue said:


> I've never read 7th Sea but I see others gushing about it, enough that it's on my list of "want to try" games.  I'll take this as a warning though.  Any specifics you can share about why it didn't work?




2e fails on many levels - the most obvious of which is the dice handling time. John desperately needs a translator - his more recent writings need to be migrated to intelligible english. He also used a hard to read font. 

Spending successes, especially as few as you get, across a scene doesn't appeal to me.

1E fails on a different set. The mechanics are essentially the same as L5R, but getting rid of 4 of the 9 attributes. The character gen is poorly worded, and the setting has one huge issue that made for a less than fun bit of explanations to my friends... "No St. Paul. The Gnostics won at Nicea." This results in the improbable hierarchical Gnostic Christian church... 

For my agnostic and athiest friends, too religious a game.
For my religious friends, an offensive religion.
Most of my pagan friends found it to historical in tone.
Many of all three categories found it too ahistorical.

In other words, setting wise




LordEntrails said:


> ElfQuest
> Rules were similar to RuneQuest/BRP, but the setting was just missing so much... like starting equipment. Did you just pick what you wanted or only what the GM gave you? Of course, there were no guidelines for the GM to use to decide what to give you. It was written for fans of the comic book, so they could re-live the adventures of the comic book characters. It was not a stand-alone game or setting.




I found it immanently playable. 1 weapon of each type skilled in. one reasonable item. Make or find the rest in play. Same as with most ‎BRP games. It lead be to the comics, not the comics to it.



LordEntrails said:


> Twilight 2000
> Always loved the concept, but, back when it came out just never had enough meat to actually use.




I found all three editions playable. Now, 2013? total dog. 

Plenty of material in both the 1.0 and 2.0 cores to run. 2.2 was, except for the task mechanic, the same game.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 21, 2019)

pming said:


> _HERO System_. VERY interested in playing this one day! I "over-splurged" months and months ago and dropped about $1100 on a swack ton of printed books (thick buggers!...shipping to the Yukon was...uh..."expensive"...). Picked up pretty much 'everything' and multiple core books (I think x4 of every one of them; 6e, but some 5e stuff like the Fantasy HERO and whatnot). My imagination starts working overtime on all the cool settings and campaigns I could run! But, like Eclipse Phase, the points can get cumbersome. Not too bad...but honestly? A very little thing just bugs the crap outta me! ...seeing the points cost on the character/npc/monster sheet or write-up!  I'm slowly creating my own sheets, but man...I have so much STUFF for it! May have bit off more than I can chew with this system...
> 
> ^_^
> 
> Paul L. Ming




As a megafan and frequent* HERO player, I eventually made a spreadsheet for making characters.  Much like PC creation itself, it was time consuming to set up, but once created, was a breeze.  Definitely a time saver when calculating build point costs.  I designed mine to show the costs, which is helpful but not necessary.

Alas, the program I used stopped being supported by Microsoft a decade + ago, and no longer runs on any Mac post-OS9.

One of these days, I’ll replicate my efforts...



* well, at one point in my life


----------



## Aldarc (Jul 21, 2019)

aramis erak said:


> and the setting has one huge issue that made for a less than fun bit of explanations to my friends... "No St. Paul. The Gnostics won at Nicea." This results in the improbable hierarchical Gnostic Christian church...
> 
> For my agnostic and athiest friends, too religious a game.
> For my religious friends, an offensive religion.
> ...



In other words, the 7th Sea setting falls into the Uncanny Valley of Earth-based settings.


----------



## aramis erak (Jul 21, 2019)

Aldarc said:


> In other words, the 7th Sea setting falls into the Uncanny Valley of Earth-based settings.




Good way of putting it. 

Yep. It's what has prevented me from using it for anything other than the rare Gaijin NPC.


----------



## pming (Jul 25, 2019)

Hiya!



Dannyalcatraz said:


> As a megafan and frequent* HERO player, I eventually made a spreadsheet for making characters.  Much like PC creation itself, it was time consuming to set up, but once created, was a breeze.  Definitely a time saver when calculating build point costs.  I designed mine to show the costs, which is helpful but not necessary.
> 
> Alas, the program I used stopped being supported by Microsoft a decade + ago, and no longer runs on any Mac post-OS9.
> 
> ...




They have a full-blown java app called "HERO Designer" that lets you do that as well as add various books, options, 'packages', etc and print it/save it as a PDF. It's really a life saver as far as time to create. But that's not the biggest 'problem' with making a HERO character for me. The biggest hurdle is just the sheer *amount* of potential choices and modifiers. I just wish there was a book for "Basic HERO" so to say. Where all the CP costs were done "for you and in the background" and you just chose a race, profession/class, and upbringing/background with all the 'stuff' being done. Then, as you played the game you could start customizing your PC as they explore and survive the campaign. I don't know. I think it's just a HUGE hurdle for new players to get over. Love the system...I think...at least on paper.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 26, 2019)

pming said:


> Hiya!
> 
> 
> 
> They have a full-blown java app called "HERO Designer" that lets you do that as well as add various books, options, 'packages', etc and print it/save it as a PDF. It's really a life saver as far as time to create. But that's not the biggest 'problem' with making a HERO character for me. The biggest hurdle is just the sheer *amount* of potential choices and modifiers.



I don’t know if it’s the same one, but the _first _HERO character design program didn’t work on Apple products.  Is it safe to assume that this is different?



> I just wish there was a book for "Basic HERO" so to say. Where all the CP costs were done "for you and in the background" and you just chose a race, profession/class, and upbringing/background with all the 'stuff' being done.




Well...there sort of is.  In almost every sourcebook, like FantasyHERO, StarHERO, and the like, the main races are stayted out with what is called a “package deal”.  That will show the average stat mods and additional abilities for an adult of that species that varies from the human norm (the all 10s on the basic sheet).  So an elf might have minuses to Str and Con, physical defense, but bonuses to Int, perception rolls with eyesight and hearing, silent movement, ranged combat, and maybe even some minor innate magic.  They might also have vulnerabilities.  More “fey” elves might take damage from weapons made of certain materials.

In addition, you can also find NPCs for “scientist”, “thug”, “cop” and so forth, which are supposed to be modern norms, and the villain/organization/ sourcebooks & adventures will stat out all kinds of agents, minions and foes that you can easily use as-is, reskin, or tweak. 

(Of course, checking the math is always a good idea, because typos DO occur.)

Since the game is classless, you won’t find classes per se, but you can easily make package deals for those as well*.  That’s what I did when I designed a D&D HERO campaign.  A “space marine” might get skill points in zero-g combat, piloting, and some armed & unarmed martial arts.  A “wizard” might know a variety of languages, alchemy, and have a certain bonus to his proficiency manipulating magical forces.

And the same goes for gear.  A lot of HERO sourcebooks give you lists of already statted-out gear...and will do so with transparency.  So you won’t only know that a 2 handed sword does 2d6 HKA and costs 7 points to buy, you’ll know exactly WHY (obvious accessible focus, etc.) so tweaking or DIY-from-scratch is easier.


* Actually, there may be some professional package deals in the sourcebooks.  I haven’t looked in a while.


----------



## John Dallman (Jul 26, 2019)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I don’t know if it’s the same one, but the _first _HERO character design program didn’t work on Apple products.  Is it safe to assume that this is different?



The first one, in Champions 4e days, was an MS-DOS program and thus definitely incompatible with Macs. One written in Java should work on macOS, but the Java support software isn't available on iOS (by Apple's choice, AFAIK).


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 26, 2019)

John Dallman said:


> The first one, in Champions 4e days, was an MS-DOS program and thus definitely incompatible with Macs. One written in Java should work on macOS, but the Java support software isn't available on iOS (by Apple's choice, AFAIK).




_AAAAAARGH!!!!!_

I mostly use my desktop machine for business _only._. 99% of my fun stuff is on mobile devices.

Thanks for the info, though.


----------



## John Dallman (Jul 26, 2019)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> 99% of my fun stuff is on mobile devices.



Doing a bit more research, there are ways to get Java programs running on iOS, but this doesn't look like something an end-user can sensibly do. The developer of the Java program has to build an iOS app out of the Java program, via something like Oracle ADF Mobile, or Gluon. The resulting app then has to be distributed via Apple's app store. 

https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/adf-mobile/overview/index.html

Apple have shown themselves unwilling to distribute anything via the app store which would allow users to acquire and run software from anywhere else. A Java run-time package would definitely allow that.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 27, 2019)

C’est la vie.


----------



## pming (Jul 27, 2019)

Hiya!

Oh yeah, packages and whatnot...yeah. I know about all that. I guess I didn't explain it right. Hmmm...

Remember when Basic D&D was 're-done' by Mentzer? When it became "BECMI" and not "B/X"? In the Basic Set 1, there was a Players Book and a Dungeon Masters Book. The Players book started off as just that...a book. No rules or what have you other than some very rudimentary concepts. You, the reader, just "started reading" where it says "Start Here". And you read a story. After the basics are laid down dealing with RPG concepts, your Fighter encounters a Snake with 3hp. It tells you what that means, how damage is handled, how hitting it in the first place is decided, etc. Anyway, about 20 pages or so, the reader now knows what "Strength 17" means, what "8 HP's" is, what "Damage 1d6" indicates, what a Fighter is, etc. The player then reads up at his/her leisure about Clerics, Magic-Uers, Elves, etc. The point of that type of intro is to easy someone who has no idea about what they are getting into and make them want to explore more of the game.

HERO is _not _a game for "beginners".  I don't expect it to have the same approach as Basic D&D, that's for sure! What I'd like to see is something that "pushes all the Character Points and Costs" math stuff much farther down in the book. So the front part of the book could basically do what Mentzer did; "Here is your PC. Lets say you area a Fighter. You need to be able to fight well and strike your opponents more effectively than other, less combat-oriented characters. Everyone has an OCV and DCV, for "Offensive Combat Value" and "Defensive Combat Value". When you try to strike your opponent, you subtract their DCV from your OCV and that gives you a modifier for whatever skill you are using...lets say a sword. ... ... ...". Then it could go into brief explanations of what skills to use where, how Killing versus Stun damage works, etc.

After that brief intro it could have, basically, the same type of "four core" archtypes of fantasy RPG's: Warrior, Wizard, Priest, Rogue. No points mentioned at all other than in basic passing at the very beginning. (e.g., "_To 'build' your own character the game uses a Character Points concept where various abilities cost points, and drawbacks give points. But don't worry about that now. That's for later when you feel ready to start tweaking or creating your own fantasy spells, races, classes, towers, dungeons, etc!_" ). After ALL that is said and done, the player "gets it" and has some idea of how the system works and what 'flow' they can expect.

TL;DR = "It'd be nice to be shown pre-built everything without even mentioning points until the Players and DM want to start creating/modifying their own stuff".

Wow. Totally derailed this thread, didn't I? ...sorry...  HERO is just one of those systems I've always WANTED to love and get into...but I just find it so frustratingly, well, "spread-sheet oriented". Like the game puts a focus on the POINTS and not on what those points represent for playing a RPG. I hear HERO gamers talking about their games, and most of the time it's all about how many points they spent on X, Y or Z, what drawbacks they took, what boosts/advantages/perks/whatevertheyrecalled, etc...and not about what their actual character is like in the game. Like getting a computer to tell you what it sees when looking at the Mona Lisa; it's going to tell you all the technical stuff that makes up the painting, but it's not going to tell you "It makes me sad".


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jul 27, 2019)

> TL;DR = "It'd be nice to be shown pre-built everything without even mentioning points until the Players and DM want to start creating/modifying their own stuff".




To be fair, they _do_ include prebuilt stuff in almost every book- NPCs and their gear.  It’s just not at the beginning, nor is it flagged “start here”.

Also, since the game was born out of the superhero genre, the NPCs in the core rulebooks are all modern mundanes, agents, superheroes and supervillains.  But for some magical-style NPCs, you wouldn’t see the Fantasy characters until the release of FantasyHERO.

As for it being a _beginner_ RPG, I can’t really speak to that.  My first RPG was AD&D, followed by Traveller and In the Labyrinth/The Fantasy Trip.  Number 4 was Champions, which eventually became HERO.  Between Traveller and Champions, there were all kinds of board games from Task Force, Metagames, Avalon Hill and others.  Champions just didn’t seem any more complex to me than what I started with.


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## Frankie1969 (Jul 27, 2019)

Celebrim said:


> "Space: 1889"
> While the basic concept of a game set in the world of HG Wells, Jules Verne, and Edgar Rice Burroughs is sound, . . .   Where it I to play it, I'd end up using a different system AND a reimagined setting, meaning that the books were offering me basically nothing.






ccs said:


> Twilight 2000.
> When I got it way back in 198whatever I simply didn't have the RL xp  & knowledge to run/play near future modern military in Europe well.   And the mechanics weren't any fun either.
> I've re-read it a few times in the decades since & I could run it  nowdays.  But the mechanics are still un-fun, so why bother?




There are a lot of RPGs out there with settings that sound super cool. I wonder, do the developers really believe in the rules they write (and play full campaigns using them) or are they tacking on rules because a combined book with a new setting + a new system sells better than a sourcebook that's either setting-only or setting using an existing system? 

Personally I'd prefer setting books that focus on world content and how to set the right atmosphere at the table, offering sidebars with example stats to implement the world in a few suggested rule systems.


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## DrunkonDuty (Jul 29, 2019)

pming said:


> Hiya!
> 
> 
> TL;DR = "It'd be nice to be shown pre-built everything without even mentioning points until the Players and DM want to start creating/modifying their own stuff".




LOL. Yeah this is a constant debating point on the HERO forums. So many old grognards saying "the way it has always been is good enough!" Including, alas, the publishers.

I'm thoroughly in the "make it simple up front, stop spending a coupla hundred pages going into the nitty-gritty of character design" camp. 

So in an an effort to put money where my mouth is I put together a simplified house rules version for a fantasy game. I've popped a PDF onto the HERO site in their downloads section. It's a free download (it isn't good enough to charge for!)

If you're curious, here's a link: https://www.herogames.com/files/file/479-fantasy-hero-basic/

Some caveats: 
It's my house rules. By necessity I've had to interpret stuff to make it simpler. And frankly, HERO system is bit too much system in some places, it needs some pruning. So I did some pruning. What I have pruned may not be what yo would prune.

For character design I've tried to split the difference between the typical HERO style free for all and a class based system. What I have gone with is simple templates like "Tough" and "Smart" that give a few bonuses in the appropriate stats, that can be mixed and matched with some typical profession and race templates (an idea I lifted from ... I want to say D20 Modern.) The idea being flexibility but also a solid starting point for new players.

It's meant to be playable "as-is." It includes a simple, generic magic system and equipment charts. Also a couple of chapters on running combat complete with a simple but detailed fight, action by action. It doesn't include, but could do with, some sample characters and a starting adventure.


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## DrunkonDuty (Jul 29, 2019)

Oh, by the way, regarding character sheets for HERO.

There are many HERO Designer compatible export templates that have been designed and put into the HERO downloads section.

Most keep to the overly complex style but some are simplified. If you browse through them you might find some you like.

Also, count me as also not liking having points costs on character sheets. Costs are part of character design. Have a separate sheet for that. Certainly beginners don't need to know it.


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## pming (Aug 1, 2019)

Hiya!

I'll have to dig deeper into the Downloads section (I'm also 'pming' on those Forums...surprise!  ).

I did get about 75% of the way through making my own "character point-less" Fantasy Hero sheet...but only have a slightly older PDF version of it; can't find the original OpenOffice file. No worries though. I'm getting better with Affinity Publisher and plan on making a real nice one soon. Same with a "character building sheet" where you can write down all your choices, changes and whatnot of the use of the CP's used to build the PC.

Maybe once I get more familiar with the system I'll have my own "Fantasy Hero Primer" for my own campaign and choices/rules. Something I LOVE doing anyway...writing stuff for RPG's/Campaigns/Characters/etc. 

I'm off to check out your PDF now! Thanks!

^_^

Paul L. Ming


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## 5ekyu (Aug 1, 2019)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I don’t know if it’s the same one, but the _first _HERO character design program didn’t work on Apple products.  Is it safe to assume that this is different?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I remember my last FH campaign. I created "school for magic" which were literally different ways to tame magic - 
One group used formulaic gestures, incantations, sympathetic components. 
Another used carefully crafted focusing tools.
A third just tended to burn through it with higher costs and a growing taint
Etc.

Similar types of arms training ftom a variety of orders. 

These helped go from "giant sacks of whatever" to "tied down to this world" definitions. 

But it was a lot of custom up- front work for the GM to give the players a way to see a foundation to build from.


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## DrunkonDuty (Aug 1, 2019)

5ekyu said:


> I remember my last FH campaign. I created "school for magic" which were literally different ways to tame magic -
> One group used formulaic gestures, incantations, sympathetic components.
> Another used carefully crafted focusing tools.
> A third just tended to burn through it with higher costs and a growing taint
> ...




That sounds like a very cool setting.

Yes, unfortunately HERO requires a lot of up-front work by the GM. Unless you buy a pre-written setting, of which there quite a few. I own 2 of them, Turakian Age and Valdorian Age. Trouble is neither is quite suited my to preferred game style. And Turakian Age doesn't include a workable magic system. It give guidelines for building one. That is not my idea of a campaign setting. The Valdorian Age has a cool magic system, but doesn't include all that many actual spells.

Luckily for me I enjoy making my own settings, even if very few of them see actual light of play.


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## DrunkonDuty (Aug 1, 2019)

pming said:


> Hiya!
> 
> I'll have to dig deeper into the Downloads section (I'm also 'pming' on those Forums...surprise!  ).
> 
> ...




Glad to be of help. I hope the PDF is of some use.


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