Best and worst RPGs

[tchizek]

Well based on the interesting discussions that hijacked this thread.

I thought I would start a best and worst RPGs thread - I didn't see anything like this when I searched but I am sure someone will whack me if this has been done to death before .

To start things out, I personally think that D&D 3.5 is the best RPG that I have played.

Reasons I like it -
1) I like the d20 vs target number mechanic that is used. It is easy to use and understand.
2) I like the class system (but frankly this might just be my D&D roots showing through), the classes are broad enough to be interesting and able to be specialized through skills and feats.
3) I like the feat system to let general characters specialize.
4) I like the hp system, it keeps combat flowing and gives players feedback on how hurt they are.
5) I like the combat system in general - it uses the same mechanic and calculation as everything else.

Things that I am comfortable with but have to have an excuse to like
1) The magic system, I like it...but at the same time I am aware that the reason I like it is that it is the same as D&D's magic system has always been and thats why I like it.
2) The spell caster classes being weak at the start and powerful at the end...again this is just like D&D has always been so I am comfortable with it. I am also well aware that this has always been one of the areas that people who play other game systems dislike about D&D.
3) The hp system (yes I know I put it in twice), I am aware that it is a silly abstraction but it works and keeps play flowing. Every game I have tried with "more realistic" damage systems turned into an exercise in dice rolling tiny details every time damage happed. So while its a silly abstraction it works.


The worst RPG I have played?
Wow this is actually much harder there are so many...I guess I have to go with AD&D (aka first edition D&D).
Things to dislike
1) No skill rules at all unless you are a thief - then only skills for "thief" type skills. Plus the "skills" use a completely different mechanism than the rest of the game.
2) Combat rules, funny look up tables that are different for every class and did not have a steady progression at all. Different bonuses for different weapons to hit different kinds of armor (that did not actually fit with the real life logic of the weapon),
3) Get experience for finding lots of money and treasure.
4) Lots of rules for the cost of magic items, no rules for making magic items at all.
5) Lower armor classes are better with -10 being the best armor class in the game and 10 being the worst.
6) Huge numbers of rules 90% of which were crap.
7) Huge numbers of inconsistent add-on products (from the same company) that contradicted themselves at every turn.
Magic users who were basically useless until they were protected for several levels, then became the most powerful beings in the game. With basically no transition between the two states - one level magic users are useless the next they can kill anyone in the group.
9) All characters of a specific class have exactly the same skills at exactly the same level.
10) Max level for non-human races.
11) Classes that are denied non-human races
12) Minimum stats to qualify for a class - if you had a wisdom of below 10 you were restricted to thief...
13) difference between multi-classing (advancing in two classes, only non-humans and only in some classes/combinations that have to be picked at character creation) and dual-classing (taking a second class after character creation, only humans, only allowed to advance in one class at a time, can't use the lower level class or you don't get experience for the whole adventure) [I can't believe I remembered that - what a waste of memory space ]
14) isn't that enough?

[Stark]

I really enjoyed Pendragon, for the speciifc mechanics added for the setting - passions, traits, etc. Instead of being a straightjacket for roleplaying, they gave both feedback and prompted player actions (since they fluctuated during play). Added to the dynastic style and very low-fantasy play, it was a really fun game, especially when played with a bunch of medievalists. Similarly Call of Cthulhu effectively captures the setting, but in this case the mechanics are far more clunky and generally less successful.

The worst RPG system ever? Can I blanket say 'anything with a class system'? The worst system I've ever used personally would be Palladium - class-based, but ALSO with a hideous skill system, a hopelessly unbalanced yet over-complex combat system and the worst writing quality and editing ever (each edition would correct some errors and INTRODUCE MORE).

Class systems are hideous and I hate them. Their only potenial use in my opinion is for new players, which is why skill-based systems have archetypes. I also hate levels, for much the same reason - but skill systems seldom need levels (even though they often have them anyway for no reason, like the Bethesda system).

Since I was never dumb enough to play ADnD, I consider it of note only for historical reasons. Millions of fat nerds with no taste playing it is more funny than anything.

[Ghost Rider]

And to be honest, this should be RPG system one likes best or worst. Because your initial post is what you were screaming before. You like something, fine, fantastic, people have opinions. There is nothing wrong to enjoy something, but to leap that claim as being objectively good because you like it is flawed.

[VF5SS]

The worst RPG system ever? Can I blanket say 'anything with a class system'? The worst system I've ever used personally would be Palladium - class-based, but ALSO with a hideous skill system, a hopelessly unbalanced yet over-complex combat system and the worst writing quality and editing ever (each edition would correct some errors and INTRODUCE MORE).

Believe it or not they still do things the same way the did in the 80's. Like instead of using photoshop or whatever they still physically arrange the elements for each page and then scan them. I've heard this keeps costs down because they don't have to change the way they do things.

[Stark]

They are the guys (Erik Wujic I believe) who said they used experience levels because they were realistic and accurate. Wouldn't surprise me.

[Stofsk]

This thread has reminded me that I should really get into a game or start a game of my own.

Fortunately, I've got the latest edition of Traveller which just from looking it over has quite a lot to recommend it: no classes, no levels, its skill based, combat is DEADLY, and it has a fun character generation system (I actually found it hilarious that in the Classic edition, it is actually possible for your character to die in character gen! ). The only thing that this version lacks is a really good ship design system. The D20 version of Traveller, and whether you like D20 or not I would still say it is one of the better uses of the D20 system around, had a really good design system for ships and vehicles.

As far as the worst RPG system I've played, I wouldn't call it awful or anything but I just don't like Exalted. It just feels really wanked out.

[Stark]

Is 'current' Traveller back to the old style? I remember in the 90s there was 'T4' which was a horrible abortion created by idiots that didn't even have the cool career system of Classic Traveller.

I've found, without exception, every system ever that lets players design anything is hopelessly broken. I'm biased though, because I've seen a lot of it in Shadowrun.

[Stofsk]

Is 'current' Traveller back to the old style? I remember in the 90s there was 'T4' which was a horrible abortion created by idiots that didn't even have the cool career system of Classic Traveller.

Yeah. It feels like CT but with a makeover. There are a lot of careers too, not just "Lol you join the Military for 20 years then you leave to become an adventurer."

I like the thought that's gone into it. Chargen has a number of different variations, including doing the CT style 'iron man' ie you can die during generation. Skill selection can be a dice roll or if you prefer you can just select which ones you want, depending on the player and referee in question (some will want to roll the dice to see what comes up, others would want the choice of personally customising the character they want to play, which is brilliant I think). The book gives recommendations too about house rules, saying you can go this way or that if you want to.

Skills also can be modified by a characteristic, but unlike D20 where a skill has (usually) only one ability modifier, Traveller skills can have different characteristics modify a skill, and sometimes no characteristic. It all depends on the situation.

I've found, without exception, every system ever that lets players design anything is hopelessly broken. I'm biased though, because I've seen a lot of it in Shadowrun.

I would agree with you, except I really like T20's ship design system versus CT or the current version. The current version, well, it isn't too bad or anything but it feels confusing and less straight forward than T20's.

Besides, it's a sci-fi RPG, so you should be allowed to build spaceships.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

For the penultimate word in playing the game, not the rule system, West End's Paranoia, second ed.

Essentially set in a dystopian bubble city of the future with the characters starting out as entry- level agents and enforcers of the system, there was a very strong love it or hate it element, because it was one of the very few black comedy games that ever really got it right, I think.

The twist of supreme elegance was that the rules were considered an in- universe artifact; one that existed way above the characters' security clearance. Players were not allowed to know the mechanics of the system. Partly, this was to disguise the fact that there actually were very few hard and fast rules, but mainly to facilitate the GM's amending them at the drop of a (white) hat.

Min-maxing was difficult verging on impossible, although any GM actually interested in having fun would at least let the players know what their characters' best judgement of the situation was. You had to play the character and the situation, not the rules; I think it was probably the best system for teaching and enforcing actual roleplaying I've ever come across.

For the ultimate word, Baron Munchausen. It is basically a game of competitive storytelling, there is no system as such, just the players going round the table, pretending to be the titular Baron and his friends, spinning wild and improbable tales of adventure, essentially trying to out- invent and out-imagine each other.


For the rock- bottom, godawful worst, I wouldn't say D&D, not even fourth ed... mainly because I have no intention of acquiring the knowledge base to say exactly how bad it is. I'd have to nominate Rolemaster. Magic that is so much of a burden to use it isn't even vaguely magical, rules that positively require obsessive dedication to grasp, a world that came out of a cookie cutter, combat mechanics that involve cross referencing four separate tables in three different books to swing a sword- the pace is glacial. It's simply not a game, and not susceptible of enjoyment.


I suggest a special Quantum Indeterminacy Award for the minority- company game Mechanical Dream; it has one of the most genuinely different cosmologies I've ever come across, so much so that although I know at least eight people who bought the book out of fascination, I don't think any of us, or possibly anybody at all other than the playtest groups, ever managed to run it. I'm not sure any of us managed to explain it successfully, for that matter. It looked elegant, but it had the scent of hidden curveballs.


Stark, I have most of the T4 rulebooks- the name of the person to blame for it all is Marc W. Miller, one of the original creators of Classic Traveller. It was a quick and dirty cash in, as far as I can tell, before he sold the rights to Steve Jackson who produced a version of Traveller compatible with the GURPS rules, then it somehow ended up having a D&D d20 version produced- 3.5 based- befgore having the license picked up by someone else again, Mongoose, who rejigged it all to run on their version of the Runequest system they bought from Chaosium.

They've tried to go back to the good old days in flavour, but the mechanics are, well, runequestish. The career system is back, though.

[loomer]

I'd have to say MERP was one of the single worst systems I have ever tried. It's interesting, sure, and Tolkien's stuff is great - but the sheer level of needless complexity (there was spell to mend broken fingers, for fuck's sake!) did somewhat overwhelm it.

I loved the critical charts though, and I've actually adapted those for my regular games of D20 - which is sort of a hybrid between a dozen systems here at my place with all the house rules.

[Deathstalker]

They are the guys (Erik Wujic I believe) who said they used experience levels because they were realistic and accurate. Wouldn't surprise me.

It was mainly Siembada or however you spell his name. According to him in one of the books, he kept the xp system because he read comic books where a hero defeated someone, the hero would say it was his experience that allowed him to win.
And NEVER EVER EVER mention game balance to Palladium fan.


Anyway, I think 3.5 D&D is an all around good system. It allows for a lot of flexibility and the rules are fairly consistent.

For bad systems, I've heard Phoenix Command had an atrocious combat system. The system was used for the Aliens RPG and a friend of mine who played it said it took forever to resolve a hit, assuming you actually managed to hit something.

[Covenant]

Designing an RPG system is such an absurdly simplistic thing that anyone can do it, which is why all the big commercial games end up being obtuse, over-the-top piles of rules and charts and pictures. There's still some moronic original D&D players out there, but they're not spared my lash just for liking a flexible system. There's a difference between flexible rules and rules that have lost rigidity due to the amount of holes in them.

Really, it shouldn't require books full of charts and tomes and so forth. I'm not a roleplay purist in any sense, I view games from a "find the most efficent way to do it, ignore that, and find the most interesting way to subvert the system" perspective. I love games full of charts and rules, since it makes them easy to exploit, and closer to a self-running computer game. But now that you can actually do that with your friends, I see no reason for tabletop games to continue trying to emulate that system. In a sense, I think 4e is the only way dice-heavy games can realistically go. It's one step from being a computer game.

I can't say any system I've seen is far and beyond best or wost, since they all are flavors of each other, and rely on the same generally poor core concepts. I like the idea of the Mutants & Masterminds system, but I don't really think it's much better overall. Any game that has a lot of combat needs quick, interesting, and detailed combat rules. Almost nothing I've seen approaches that, and they sprawl outwards with endless and pointless attempts to quantify everything in terms of dice, which really just makes more places for rules to be confusing. I'd say GURPS is the one closest to earning a "best" rating from me, but nearly every RPG system I've seen that uses the GURPS logic warps it from a simple system to an overly complex one.

[Stark]

I really liked the Millenium's End combat system - a simple outline+overlay that used a single die roll and a table to tell you hit, location, damage, effects, and healing/deterioration. More detailed than you really need, but still fast as hell to use and only one roll. IMPOSSIBLE.

[Formless]

In a sense, I think 4e is the only way dice-heavy games can realistically go. It's one step from being a computer game.

Miniatures wargame, more like. That said, I'm in the same boat; if I can get the same experience from a computer game like Diablo WoW or Nethack, which will also be faster paced and more streamlined, why am I messing around with dice and $30 rulebooks? For as much as I hate the ease at which DnD 3.5 facilitates powergaming, at least there is some kind of roleplaying element to it besides "kick down door, slay monster, loot room, kick down next door." 'cause that's a kind of fun best served in small quantities.

[Stark]

There's something funny about people recommending horrible one-note nonsense and then complaining that RP is just sword-chop.

[Formless]

What recommendation are you talking about?

[Norade]

I personally find Cyberpunk 2020 to be a very good system. The setting incorporates some interesting tech, a lot of it pretty unrealistic, but hey that's what RPG's are for. Combat is very deadly and any idiot with a high powered rifle can kill somebody, which is very much like real life. The wound chart gives you things like limb loss and hampered stats and isn't simple alive or dead like many systems currently use.

The worst systems are defiantly Palladium made ones, they have combat that drags on and on for no reason, s magic system that is confusing and nigh unusable, and no sense of balance at all. If I wanted to play a game that is done by a Palladium source I would use a different system.

[Stark]

I personally find Cyberpunk 2020 to be a very good system <snip>

You're a lunatic. 2020 is ... it's... horibble. It's a munchkin simulator.

Formless, it seems you just said 'DnD3.5 facilitates powergaming thus RP in general is chop chop chop', when this is fucking retarded. Some RP games (like some even mentioned in this thread) are almost entirely RP based, which you aren't getting from a computer game anytime soon. People with dicks got bored for wargame RP (like DnD which might as well still have a fucking mapgrid) at 14.

[Covenant]

Diablo and WoW aren't exactly truesilver examples of what to aspire to... but yeah, I suppose. What I really was getting at was the simulation of all these different factors--skills being the biggest problem-- is mostly irrelevent to the game, but yet consumes a huge amount of space, requires a lot of tables, and doesn't really bring extra fun to the table.

Tabletop RPGs thrive on a few things--but the only thing they offer that computers do not is the tactile experience if sitting physically with your friends and talking the story out with buddies. Tabletop games don't come with cutscenes, you can't see your buddy's character in action, you have to try to visualize the epic battle with little minis (or more likely, empty beer bottles and bottlecaps) and there's no Hollywood voice actors breathing life into your friend's poorly thought-out Elven Archer stereotype. That's what makes them good. It's that deranged human feeling of satisfaction you get when you barely manage to accomplish a task it would have been easier, and smarter, to hire a professional to do. It can also be rather compelling at times. Penny Arcade's little adventures with the WotC staff had the help of top-notch GM's, but it was an example of why they still make money making games.

But the essential experience, regardless of system, is still identical. All that changes are the reasons to roll the dice. That's the part that needs work--giving the GM's enough material to build a campaign, but enough flexibility to resolve conflict and adapt to monkeywrenching players, is a careful balance not often achieved through increased weight of rulebooks. It may be just me, but it always seems like the things that get players excited are the atmospheric elements that make the world seem to have a reality independant of their specific, current actions... and the combat elements that let them take part in some kind of heroism. Therefore, combat needs clear, easy to access rules and atmospheric elements need clear, easy to access information as well. All the rest of it is mostly irrelevent. People should remember the dragon they defeated, not the lucky dice roll they got, otherwise what you're doing is just running your characters through a set of probability experiments. Unless you have a gambler's form of magical thinking, you can quickly see how boring this is.

This isn't to say all the people who enjoy themselves aren't enjoying themselves, but they're doing it in spite of the existance of all these burdensome rules, not by the grace of them. That said, the best system would have to be the one that minimizes the amount of effort that goes into creating an atmosphere of fun, and lets all players get the most ideal play experience from it. This favors small systems with loose themes and internally consistant rule-sets and enough important rules that large elements of theme are consistant across games, allowing players to pick up and play without needing extensive discussions of house-rules. I don't know any game much like that.

[Formless]

Formless, it seems you just said 'DnD3.5 facilitates powergaming thus RP in general is chop chop chop', when this is fucking retarded. Some RP games (like some even mentioned in this thread) are almost entirely RP based, which you aren't getting from a computer game anytime soon. People with dicks got bored for wargame RP (like DnD which might as well still have a fucking mapgrid) at 14.

Then perhaps you need a lesson in reading comprehension. I was comparing DnD 3.5 exclusively to DnD 4, I never even remotely said anything related to any other game. I only mentioned powergaming because its an issue that seems to be intrinsically linked to DnD's existence. Do you read too far into things often?

[Norade]

I personally find Cyberpunk 2020 to be a very good system <snip>

You're a lunatic. 2020 is ... it's... horibble. It's a munchkin simulator.

What do you find so horrible about it? I find a few things to be annoying and we changed them a bit to better suit our play style; but in all we tend to have fun playing in a more modern setting where you can die from realistic levels of damage. Maybe I simply haven't played a good sampling of RPG's, but out of &D 3.5, D&D 4th Edition, Palladium's Suckage, D20 Modern, and Cyberpunk 2020, I find Cyberpunk 2020 to be the most enjoyable system.

[Stark]

Then perhaps you need a lesson in reading comprehension. I was comparing DnD 3.5 exclusively to DnD 4, I never even remotely said anything related to any other game. I only mentioned powergaming because its an issue that seems to be intrinsically linked to DnD's existence. Do you read too far into things often?

YES! Cov was talking about a particular approach to RP, which isn't the whole of the RP genre. When he says that the computational aspect of most RP games is extortionate for the ingame 'role play' benefit they provide he's absolutely right, and it goes right back to most RP players just being impotent nerds on power trips. It's sad that there are systems that follow the loose-framework idea but they're frowned on by most fatty nerds.

What do you find so horrible about it? I find a few things to be annoying and we changed them a bit to better suit our play style; but in all we tend to have fun playing in a more modern setting where you can die from realistic levels of damage. Maybe I simply haven't played a good sampling of RPG's, but out of &D 3.5, D&D 4th Edition, Palladium's Suckage, D20 Modern, and Cyberpunk 2020, I find Cyberpunk 2020 to be the most enjoyable system.

You've mentioned the high lethality before, but that wasn't my experience as the players just munchkined out with all the most retarded man-portable 20mm cannons etc and it was a chopshop. I think there are better settings for modern, high lethality games, but I certainly can't recommend Shadownrun's terrible system.

[Norade]

What do you find so horrible about it? I find a few things to be annoying and we changed them a bit to better suit our play style; but in all we tend to have fun playing in a more modern setting where you can die from realistic levels of damage. Maybe I simply haven't played a good sampling of RPG's, but out of &D 3.5, D&D 4th Edition, Palladium's Suckage, D20 Modern, and Cyberpunk 2020, I find Cyberpunk 2020 to be the most enjoyable system.

You've mentioned the high lethality before, but that wasn't my experience as the players just munchkined out with all the most retarded man-portable 20mm cannons etc and it was a chopshop. I think there are better settings for modern, high lethality games, but I certainly can't recommend Shadownrun's terrible system.

We used a starting score cap for skills so you could get at most a 5 to any one skill and thus you start with very bottom tier starting money. We then used the same system we used to shops in game for buying guns making them a bit more expensive based on supply and demand and how popular a certain gun should be based on in game stats. So normally cheap too powerful for cost weapons get bumped in price. Then again we tend to run a rags to slightly better rags campaign more often than not and I can see how the game could turn into a 20mm cannon penis extension type of game.

[Stark]

Oh now you've reminded me about the broken availability systems in both 2020 AND Shadowrun. It's like the designers just thought 'yeah this will work, what's mathematics'...

[Norade]

Yeah, we tend to use our own system for that, and I suppose because we had to do that the game is broken in a fundamental way. However we enjoy the combat in it and have a good time with it, I ran a pretty fun Warhammer 40k setting in it, and we've also run a ghetto game in it where we were all wondering if we'd even live to eat our weeks worth of kibble bought at character generation.