TOP 3 Badly designed games: Shadowrun and... ?

[silva]

Well, I cant remember a single game with a sub-system so central to its themes thats so broken, and continue being broken after 5 editions.

[name_here]

I know what the first two are, but what is Synnabar? Can someone give me a quick rundown, or link me to somewhere that explains it?

http://www.somethingawful.com/dungeons- ... cracken/1/

Its a multigenre RPG set on a spaceship made out of a hollowed-out Mars 50,000 years in the future. Uses d100 roll under mostly for mechanics, stats are rolled on d20 (minimum 8) and go up to between 25 and 1100 depending on the stat and how many god levels you have. Classes include android, aquaman, giant, psionic elf, ninja with lightsaber, winged guy, dwarf, superhero (mutant) and shapeshifting dragon that hates gay people, as well as having a point-based GURPS option (the best choice if you want bionics since those cost skill points).

Ugh. That looks like shit.

But... does it have an entire sub-system thats central to its premise and do not work at all, like Shadowrun Matrix ?

Character creation.

[silva]

Ok. You win.

[nockermensch]

By this point, I hope you guys are missing the time when I was the silly brazilian on board.

[Josh_Kablack]

4. Palladium's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles first edition. I'd call chargen a war crime, but that would be unduly harsh to many infamous war criminals.

I'd love to hear you talk sometimes about RPGs everyone has heard about but nobody actually has but old-timers, like that,.

Just finished a check of my attic and basement, my copy is long gone. If you're really curious you could Sort through the used copies from etailers.

So this is from memory and a brief google refresh on a few things, but here goes:

Basically, it's the 1985 ancestor of the system which would be streamlined into RIFTS.

Chargen had multiple steps, first you picked rolled randomly on a table several tables to determine a base animal, which started out as literally a normal version of that animal. Each animal species received an amount of BIO-E from zero to 95(?) to spend on becoming larger, more humanlike, buying animal abilities (like claws, scent, skunk spray, turtle shell armor, gills, etc) and psionic powers. There was a 20-step size scale, and larger animals could (were expected to) trade in size steps for enough BIO-E to do things. Then the game had none, partial, and full tracks for Bipedalism, Hands, Speech and appearance. So to have a character who can stand upright, talk in complete sentences and use a screwdriver cost you 30 points - which was a pretty big chunk of the only chargen resource you got that let you buy nifty animal powers and psychic abilities. Since it was the TMNT game, Turtles got more BIO-E than anybody, but no matter what you were, you couldn't afford both full human functionality and anything approaching actual human size. Let alone getting appearance and/or speshul powers on top of that.

Then you rolled on some more nested charts to determine how you were mutated, and how you were educated. The education results varied from roughly "self-taught, survived in the woods, illiterate with a few bonuses to outdoor skills" to roughly "purposefully uplifted in science lab and accepted as member of advanced research team, has PhD." Now obviously, the latter got a craptonne more skill points, but you went through your education almost year by year, so your PhD lab rat would have to decide which skill bonuses he choose from the middle school list, then the high school list, then the undergrad list, then the masters' degree list then the doctoral list, each in order. Except this is Palladium, so just like Rifts, many skill choices modified the bonuses for other skills and a number modified things like basic attributes and Boxing gave an extra melee attack. So at each step you'd first pick your skill choices and then go back and modify each other skill, and then go back and modify attributes and combat numbers and then have to remodify skills and combat numbers based on new attributes.

You could also get free levels at character start equal to the number of players who all decided to be the same type of mutant animal, mutated and educated the same way. This was a neat attempt at a bonus for being a cohesive team, and Palladium levels don't mean anywhere near what levels do in any other game, so it was slightly less stupid than it sounds, but only slightly. It rewarded playgroups for being repetitive and not diverse, and even worse, each levelup was more skill choices and improvements to be figured. Remember that 1985 was the year Microsoft Excel was just being released, laptops were 13 lbs and cost $2,000 (in 85 dollars), so it's not like any group of gamers had digital aids to work through any of this.

There was also a random insanity table. I seem to recall that some of the mutations and education table results could make you roll on it during chargen. I recall with absolute clarity that my copy had a sticker overtop where they had errata'd the types of Insanity to other types of Insanity - because that was obviously the highest priority part of the system to need an improvement.

or whatever one about aliens stealing cheerleaders (were there multiple?)

I think you're referring to my love of Teenagers From Outer Space - a game I never actually played, but whose writing, tone and inclusion of cartoon-episode style plot seeds was perhaps more helpful to my own games than any other resource. Also it came with awesome micro d6s.

[rasmuswagner]

Well, I cant remember a single game with a sub-system so central to its themes thats so broken, and continue being broken after 5 editions.

That's probably because, by your own admission, you don't know anything about RPGs. But here's a freebie for you: Call of Ctulhu sanity rules.

[silva]

here's a freebie for you: Call of Ctulhu sanity rules.

Not by a mile as unplayable as Shadowrun matrix. Try harder.

snip

What about "Macho Girls with Guns" ? This game always looked cool to me, but I have no idea how its rules works.

[fbmf]

What about "Macho Girls with Guns" ? This game always looked cool to me, but I have no idea how its rules works.

Surely you mean the old school version, not the d20 hack?

Game On,
fbmf

[silva]

Yup, Fbmf. THis one here:

[Red_Rob]

I recall with absolute clarity that my copy had a sticker overtop where they had errata'd the types of Insanity to other types of Insanity - because that was obviously the highest priority part of the system to need an improvement.

Oh, you have no idea.

When your insanity table lists being gay as a mental illness amongst a list of "sexual deviancies", and any given character is only one traumatic event away from becoming a paedophile getting that shit changed is pretty high priority. At least when we say the rest of the system was offensive we only mean to your game design sensibilities, not your sense of human decency.

[OgreBattle]

Palladium's TMNT was awesome, I never played it but just looking at the chargen rules was an afternoon of entertainment.

I imagine an optimized party would be something like a psychic quadriplegic being carried by a hulking imbecile.

[Koumei]

After RIFTS (TM), I just never read the insanity rules in a Palladium (TM) game. I realised the game could only be improved by pure ignorance of that section. Granted, that could apply to many sections, rapidly approaching "the rules, all of them".

I imagine an optimized party would be something like a psychic quadriplegic being carried by a hulking imbecile.

Wrong. The optimised party would be 4-6 PHD ninja wolverines that are psychic, lava warlocks, or psychic lava warlocks and that pilot mecha. From the moon. They're all more or less the same except for individual numbers here and there, but given each of them specialises in "Doing everything", that doesn't matter too much.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

I know that without incorporating Rifts stuff one could make a massively shrunk dinosaur Time Lord/Druid which piloted a mecha from the moon (from that rifts/tmnt split book). I don't remember if any of the Dreamtime stuff was immediately useful. Levitating mutant humans with stunted limbs also worked pretty well as psychic wizard pilots.

Edit: I flipped through some pdfs. Assuming one wanted to go with full hands/biped/speech/looks then a dolphin out of Road Hogs looks like the most bang for one's buck.

[fbmf]

Yup, Fbmf. THis one here:

This week is going to blow and suck simultaneously in terms of free time, but I'll make an effort to dig up the information I have on it.

If anybody beats me to it, so much the better.

Game On,
fbmf

[Neurosis]

I know Shadowrun is an obvious contender here, but what else ? Ive heard Rifts is specially bad too, as is FATAL, but dont know the details. AD&D and Rolemaster ? Cyborg Commando ? That Gygax rpg with weird name ? So, what would the rank of top 3 worst games ever designed look like ?

EDIT: please, lets try to keep the personal insults out this time.

First of all, fuck you and the barrel of cocks you rolled in on.

Second of all, worst designed game? Nobody really talks about truly poorly designed games. Nobody even gives a fuck about FATAL, RaHoWa or TimeCube: The RPG. Or Gygax's Lejendary Adventures. Those works are shit with no redeeming features and no traction, so we don't bother talking about them.

RIFTS, for example, has always been a completely, utterly fucked system. But there is mild amusement to be had in character building, and the stting, concepts and artwork are pure crack for our inner 12-year olds. Also, KS is insane in amusing ways. Thus, we talk about RIFTS.

D&D 3rd and Shadowrun have enormous traction, and they contain elements of good design; that's why the bad parts make us so angry. Also, the steady slide into shittyness of later editions (D&D 4+, SR 4 after the core book) is obviously more of an issue than some neckbeard publishing yet another shitty fantasy heartbreaker.

TL;DR: We hate because we love.

Said everything I was going to, with moderately less FUCK YOU.

So let me add...

1. Your Mom
2. Your Mom
3. Your Mom

[Josh_Kablack]

I know that without incorporating Rifts stuff one could make a massively shrunk dinosaur Time Lord.

If you combined the right pre-Rifts stuff creatively, there was supposedly an infinite BIO-E loop involving the Time Lord stuff.

[Username17]

By this point, I hope you guys are missing the time when I was the silly brazilian on board.

Yes. We totally are.

Anyway, since the premsie of this thread is a load of bullshit by a known cross-posting troll, I think I'll talk about the weirdest tangent in the thread. I take that to be OgreBattle's discussion of gaming with black people.

One thing that I thought was interesting is that when it became incredibly important to differentiate all the Bobs in the group, it never even crossed our minds that we could refer to the Bob with the darkest skin as "Black Bob" and the Bob with the second darkest skin as "Pacific Islander Bob." Those labels didn't even come up in the conversation. So we ended up "Big Gay Bob" and "Skinny Gay Bob," but no Bobs named by their skin color. You might think that it was because of potential confusion with "Black Bob" and "Robyn" (who was also black), but that wasn't it. Not one person suggested it as a way to differentiate some of the Bobs. We ended up naming some of them variants on "Gay," but that was their idea. I don't think it would have been used if they weren't cool with it.

-Username17

[Stinktopus]

I find it tragic that someone missed the opportunity to be "Dark Bob."

[Dean]

I have also had a friend who we referred to by the nickname "Big Gay John". It seemed totally fine in a way that just "Gay John" might not have so there might be some pejorative healing power that comes by calling men big.

[momothefiddler]

[stream of consciousness theorizing]
See, if you call someone "Gay", there's a chance you mean they're like a woman, and thus inferior. But if you call them "Big Gay", you're reaffirming their masculinity so it's okay. They're not less of a man, they're just a man who likes to fuck dudes.

The only reason being gay is bad is because it makes you more feminine and misogyny.
[/stream of consciousness theorizing]

Alternatively, everyone loves bears so it can't be an insult.

[talozin]

Let's not overlook the power of South Park.

[Krusk]

I'd like to hear more about your issues with Savage Worlds. I keep hearing it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, but it always leaves me a little unsatisfied.

I'm a little slow to the party but sure. Everyone I know IRL says the same thing. Shit, I've played in 2-3 SW games in the past 12 months. Every single time by friend who loves it swears it will be the greatest thing. It lasts until character gen, and then I do the "Stick it out because I like you" thing for a few sessions until everyone eventually quits because its terrible. (they all claim to like it)

We generally play "Explorer's Edition". Usually Necessary Evil, but once or twice we did cowboys. IIRC Deadlands Reloaded.

1 - Basically all the shit everyone else said.
2 - Dice pools where for certain DCs a less skilled PC has a better chance than a skilled one.
3 - The system encourages you to take a million skills at d4 so you can roll on any check (and probably have a decent chance to pass) but never specialize in anything. The more you specialize, the less pay off you get. End result is the people focused on stuff succeed, but so did I. And I just have a D4 so I can "roll".
4 - sometimes its better to be "untrained" than it is to even put the minimal training in to get a D4, in the instance you have a high natural stat. (we play supers, so not uncommon. My d12+2 -2 is better than if I had decided to learn how to do it a little, and have a d4.)
5- Hinderances, and edges. Generally designed around "be a dick to the other players". So you get ones like "Arrogant - Be a jackass" get build points. The other players love that sort of thing... Some of the others are special, like "Blind. You can't see." which is either a "You can't be a PC" flaw, or you are daredevil and its not a flaw. Special points go to "Yellow" which IIRC is a racial slur derived from old west slang for asians. (And still is used)
6 - Between skills, edges, hinderances, equipment, and potentially magic/super powers its about as rules light as core 3.5 in terms of character gen. For a rules light system that sucks.
7 - Bennies - Its straight up a "Be the DMs best friend". Quite players never get any, and vocal players get a lot. "Important" NPCs get a pool and the DM gets an arbitrary other pool of his own as well.
8 - For a rules light game they make a big deal about ranges. You are supposed to track ammo, and ranges are measured to 2 yards. Not 1 meter, 1 yard, or 5ft. We go 2 yards.
9 - Init - My DM loves this. instead of being based on your PC, its based on dealing a deck of cards. Not particularly faster than rolling a die, but at least your PCs stats don't matter at all. Quickest Draw in the west? Go fuck yourself you got a 4.
10 - More init - They came up with a suit order to resolve ties. Not the "Most Common One" from wikipedia or anything. They have their own, so you probably don't have it memorized and get to look it up. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_card_by_suit I've got gripes about init in other systems, but this rules light game managed to make it take longer and remove player agency. Its like the worst of both worlds.
11 - For a rules light game, it has 6 different "on foot" movement modes. Crawling, crouching, falling prone, difficult ground, jumping, and running.
12 - Page 73 throws out an offhand mention to the idea that you are using minis in combat, and should factor the "Tests of Will" in for morale rolls during fights. Yeah, a rules light system with minis, gridded combat, and a morale system. Luckily, I'm pretty sure no one ever rolls the morale checks unless a PC directly wants to use them, or you are fighting vampires. (Unless you use the other chapter on Fear for vampires)
13 - The game's injury table (Yes a rules light game with location specific attacks and damage locations) mentions your dick twice. So thats fun, considering there are 5 options. Also its permanent. So you get gems like "Reproduction is out of the question without miracle surgery or Magic".
14 - The vehicle rules include facing. I kind of get it, but again its supposed to be rules light.
15 - Ill just copy and paste this gem from my PDF's DMing chapter. About how to make plans with your friends. "It’s most common for people to play from
about 6PM to 11PM on a weeknight, or on
a Sunday night. Friday and Saturday are
great if you’re in college, but difficult for older
players who have wives (apparently only dudes play) and children as they
need their weekend nights to be with their
families. If you start at 6PM, your players
have time to get off work, grab some food
(or share pizza with the group), and get deep
into the game by 7 or so.
Make sure you wrap things up by 11PM
or so as well. Your players likely have work
or classes the next day and you don’t want
game night to be a stressful experience for
them." This one is mostly just insulting.
16 - The game straight up tells you to give "really good roleplayers" extra bennies compared to the "Average players".
17 - The monster manual at the back is especially nice because it doesn't include any sort of a CR guideline.

TLDR - The game is rules light, but I find it no more "rules light" than 3.5. Just vague and poorly written. Its got a million subsystems all over the place and we spend more time looking shit up in this than we ever did with other games. Mostly due to them not being consistent or intuitive throughout the book on how the subsystems worked.

TMNT - I loves reading that book. A guy down the hall in college (that DMed RIFTS) had it and we never got enough people to play, but we would spend tons of time talking about the PCs we would play.