Awesome settings you couldn't get into due to the rules

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Jun 18, 2015 9:45 am

Palladium Fantasy is one for me. 2E Ravenloft is another setting I really liked but didn't like the mechanics.

Do hating a setting for the fans count? Because I also like Planescape but the planescape fans on the WotC boards were such insufferable pricks I ended up hating the setting. Yeah, I get that you're roleplaying and we're all primes. You're forgetting that one of the big reasons primes are disliked is because it takes a lot of power to get to the outer planes and they're likely to be both unpredictable and dangerous.

Ferret · Post by **Ferret** » Thu Jun 18, 2015 2:21 pm

Seconding EarthDawn; I love the premise of explaining D&D tropes as in-world constructs the PCs and NPCs are aware of. None of my other players would be able to function in the step system, though.

Speaking of - are there any other games out there that explicitly recognize the game system features in the game world?

8d8 · Post by **8d8** » Thu Jun 18, 2015 2:39 pm

I like the premise behind Exalted, both as a setting and as a system. I love the polar regions and the idea that mundane and fantastic people live throughout. I love that there is conflict everywhere without it devolving into chaos. I love that there are crazy powerful superheroes that you get to play, but you also have the option of playing as their more common little brothers. And that there are other flavorful options for setting up campaigns that allow the game and the characters to be vastly different, while remaining in the same game world. But the execution of all that was just terrible.

I'll join the people mentioning Earthdawn. Everything about the pitch for that game makes me wet. But no amount of lube had prepared me for the barbs covering the rules.

martian_bob · Post by **martian_bob** » Thu Jun 18, 2015 2:54 pm

Out of curiosity, do you always start identical threads here and on RPG.net?

silva · Post by **silva** » Thu Jun 18, 2015 3:02 pm

Yep. And on other fora too sometimes (RPGCodex, RPGsite, Spellrpg, Storygames, etc). Call it a little social experiment.

Ferret wrote:Speaking of - are there any other games out there that explicitly recognize the game system features in the game world?

Freemarket (a transhumanist sci-fi game) does that. Everything on the system level exists as is on the fictional level. To the point your character sheet is what other people see floating above your head on an augmented reality overlay in the game world.

violence in the media · Thu Jun 18, 2015 5:29 pm

Prak wrote: and there is also Grimm, which is, again, kids going into storybook land.

One of the problems I remember from this game was that it was clearly written by someone that spent too much of their youth shoved in a locker. IIRC, the "Jock" class had a -4 penalty to INT, was a 2 skill points per level class, and possibly had a miscellaneous penalty to skills on top of all that.

Covent · Post by **Covent** » Thu Jun 18, 2015 6:00 pm

Changeling: The Dreaming.

Played and loved the game for all of highschool. My now wife, (One of my high-school players), bugs me for years to start another changeling game.

I drag out my old books and "BLAGHGRGHAHG"...

I had forgotten that even as a 14 year old idiot I recognized the hideous nature of the rules in changeling. Loved the setting so much I had several binders full of house rules for it, finally found those and well let me say it showed that it was written by a 14-17 year old idiot. Yet it was still better than the changeling mechanics.

The setting is just so beautiful, so we tried to play.

Lasted 2 sessions...

*Sob*

crasskris · Post by **crasskris** » Thu Jun 18, 2015 6:37 pm

Numenera. I made it halfway through the classes (halfway through the Nano description, in fact), then re-read the Glaive description, and decided I didn't have time for another wizard > your mom > warrior kinda game. It didn't add up favorably to the other nagging doubts I already was entertaining at that moment.

The setting is nice and I'll probably combine it with the Dark Tower setting in the future and run it on another engine, but ... not plain Numenera. Just no.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Thu Jun 18, 2015 6:57 pm

What makes the Numenera setting nice? I looked at it briefly and it seemed to be the least distinctive far-future-fantasy thing I'd ever seen. Why would you choose it over the Dying Earth or the Book of the New Sun?

souran · Post by **souran** » Thu Jun 18, 2015 7:41 pm

I am going to have put another vote in for mechwarrior and for the same reason Heavy Gear (and Jovian Cronicles as well).

Although I think my experience was basically the opposite of Stahleese. I found that brand new "mechwarriors" could (and should) max out their mech pilot and gunnery. If they were inner sphere then every other skill was basically gravy. You could then ride out into combat in the cheepest mech the game would let you get, get a couple of kills and immediatly upgrade your mech through in game means.

Clan characters were even easier. They could max out gunnery and pilot and something social so that they could either trick, cajole, or insult an experienced pilot into a duel in mechs. Then you win and take their stuff.

We stopped playing mechwarrior because what we wanted was an RPG would would interface with Battletech and let us play out variants of the mechwarrior computer games. What we found was that mechwarrior failed as a game if you wanted any PC to BE a mechwarrior pilot the game failed because there was no room for upward advancement because any rookie who was not better than an Ace pilot was not built correctly.

As far as I can tell the only way to play the mechwarrior rpg is to handwave the action in the mechs and play it as an entirely out of battlesuit space rpg about A mechwarrior and the team that supports him, or soldiers who do covert missions in the mechwarrior universe or something similar. This is, of course, acceptable to nobody who wanted to play the "mechwarrior" rpg.

The incredible thing is: About a decade after I stopped with mechwarrior I found Heavy Gear. Heavy Gear is a great wargame, just like battletech. Its also about mech pilots, and it also has a companion RPG....That I bought only to discover that the rpg has EXACTLY the same flaws.

crasskris · Post by **crasskris** » Thu Jun 18, 2015 7:48 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:What makes the Numenera setting nice? I looked at it briefly and it seemed to be the least distinctive far-future-fantasy thing I'd ever seen. Why would you choose it over the Dying Earth or the Book of the New Sun?

Fair point. Let me correct myself:

lesscrassandmoreprecisekris wrote:A couple of ideas in the setting are nice and I'm totally going to rip them off when making my Dark Toweresque setting.

Also I'm no more than passingly familiar with Dying Earth or Book of the New Sun, I should probably correct that first.

Aryxbez · Post by **Aryxbez** » Sat Jun 20, 2015 8:48 am

Well, I find the Fallout setting to be stupid awesome, and there is a Fallout RPG...but seems to unwieldy to play (let alone read).

The Upcoming Titansgrave RPG sounds like it has a cool setting, but since its tied to a more generic version of the DA RPG, I'm not so sure it'll be all that good. Lastly...Dragonball Z RPG, its not an AWESOME setting sure, but I like it enough I'd roleplay in it. Course rolling literal buckets of dice is kinda unwieldy, and I've my doubts to how well it plays considering number of houserules made for it.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jun 20, 2015 9:01 am

Covent wrote:Changeling: The Dreaming.

Played and loved the game for all of highschool. My now wife, (One of my high-school players), bugs me for years to start another changeling game.

I drag out my old books and "BLAGHGRGHAHG"...

I had forgotten that even as a 14 year old idiot I recognized the hideous nature of the rules in changeling. Loved the setting so much I had several binders full of house rules for it, finally found those and well let me say it showed that it was written by a 14-17 year old idiot. Yet it was still better than the changeling mechanics.

The setting is just so beautiful, so we tried to play.

Lasted 2 sessions...

*Sob*

I'll second this, but raise WoD in general, and specifically NWoD and Scion. WoD's base concept of "you're Universal Studios Monsters" is cool, and Demon is a special favourite because of my hipster nietschist religious leanings, but WoD's storyteller system is just terrible. OWoD is playable in much the same way that Cops and Robbers is, in that there's enough there to mindcaulk together until two peoples' mindcaulks differ. Then you ask the ST and hope their mindcaulk isn't feeling horny. But NWoD... first there's the issue that they jettisoned all the established setting of OWoD so you basically have to learn shit over again, but then they made their system even worse.

The actual fluff doesn't help, but the urban fantasy horror where you explicitly play the monsters is very cool. WTA's skinchangers book that lets you play a bespoke werething is very cool. But the system is just crap to the extent that even people who say they like it and want to play very obviously want to play a different game. I tried to get my OWoD ST to look at AS, but he just wouldn't take the time. It was easier to just say "no, you can't use the umbra. For raisons." and "I don't know how ajaba/bastet/gurahl work, we'll just run them like werewolves."

Aryxbez wrote:Well, I find the Fallout setting to be stupid awesome, and there is a Fallout RPG...but seems to unwieldy to play (let alone read).

The Upcoming Titansgrave RPG sounds like it has a cool setting, but since its tied to a more generic version of the DA RPG, I'm not so sure it'll be all that good. Lastly...Dragonball Z RPG, its not an AWESOME setting sure, but I like it enough I'd roleplay in it. Course rolling literal buckets of dice is kinda unwieldy, and I've my doubts to how well it plays considering number of houserules made for it.

Having watched Wheaton's first session, it seems cool, but holy fuck is there a ton of MTP.

I guess it's not a bad thing necessarily, but... it's just a simple system, and I like crunchy systems. It's easier to do cool stuff if I can point to a part of a book and say "this is why, this is how, the system says I can, do you want to change that?" than "hey, I have this awesome idea with no support, can I do it?" Possibly because I'm not a charismatic person who people say "yes" to readily.

rasmuswagner · Post by **rasmuswagner** » Sat Jun 20, 2015 1:40 pm

Of all the shit nWoD does, one things stands out like bright yellow corn in a giant floating turd: Attacks bundle power and accuracy/skill into one number.

silva · Post by **silva** » Sat Jun 20, 2015 3:01 pm

Aryxbez, have you take a look at Mutant Year Zero ? I think its a nice fit for Fallout. It even has a Vault-based campaign by default.

rasmuswagner wrote:Of all the shit nWoD does, one things stands out like bright yellow corn in a giant floating turd: Attacks bundle power and accuracy/skill into one number.

Care to elaborate ? I can't see how that's a bad thing. Isn't this the default for all its rule set ? (adding attribute + skill ?)

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Mon Jun 22, 2015 9:40 pm

hogarth wrote: I think the far larger category would be "settings that sound awesome, but that actually kind of suck for using in an RPG".

Wheel of Time fell into this because the game specifically took place circa book 7, so it was all the problems of Mary Sue NPCs doing all the fun shit while you did... well... something. I never did play a *good* WoT game that actually amounted to much more than "OMG Trollocs ATTACK!" that paid any attention to the stories.

silva · Post by **silva** » Mon Jun 22, 2015 9:44 pm

Put Sid Meier Alpha Centauri in that spot too. AWESOME setting, but not really fit for a tabletop rpg. Sorry Gurps.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Tue Jun 23, 2015 1:02 am

silva wrote:Care to elaborate ? I can't see how that's a bad thing. Isn't this the default for all its rule set ? (adding attribute + skill ?)

Weapons just have a rating, which gets added into your attack pool. Damage is just your successes minus the opponent's successes on dodging/soaking (which are also combined).

So weapons can't be more accurate or more lethal, they're just better or worse. If a huge spiky axe has a rating of 5 dice, then it's not only more deadly than a sword but also more accurate. Mainly the latter, in fact, because often offense and defense are close enough that the result is 1 or 2 damage. So two people fighting with chainsaws involves barely any misses but a bunch of grazing hits that do low damage.

In addition to being aesthetically stupid, the small number of variables involved makes quantity the most important factor. Leading to the "bus full of kindergarteners easily defeats a werewolf" problem.

silva · Post by **silva** » Tue Jun 23, 2015 1:18 am

I can see how that can be a problem, yeah. Thanks, Ice.

Hiram McDaniels · Post by **Hiram McDaniels** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 4:53 pm

Exalted. Love the setting, but I can't stand the actual game part of it.

I had hoped that Exalted 3 would make the game lighter and easier (if it ever comes out at all), but apparently brisk moving and intuitive game mechanics are not what people play Exalted for : (

K · Post by K » Sun Jul 05, 2015 7:56 pm

Rifts and GURPS are pretty high on any list. Pretty iconic in terms of shit rules and amazing flavor.

Mage is probably the one I most wanted to play, but it scared off any takers.

Amber Diceless.

Wraith, because spending chargen points for abilities like "affect the real world in a tiny way" is shit. Also, I didn't have any clinically-depressed friends who wanted to play an extended meditation on death.

I almost wanted to play Numenera, but only for the setting described in the first page of the book. The setting promised in that page sounds awesome, but the actual setting is pretty boring.

Eclipse Phase. Literally, the suggested reading list is all my favorite authors, but FUCK any 1,000 point creations systems that are also poorly priced.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 8:53 pm

I have read like thirty GURPS sourcebooks and can't imagine actually playing a game with any of them except maybe Goblins.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:26 am

Aryxbez wrote:Well, I find the Fallout setting to be stupid awesome, and there is a Fallout RPG...but seems to unwieldy to play (let alone read).

Fallout in general is just GURPS. SPECIAL is a GURPS hack and for a long time it was supposed to be a licensed GURPS game.

But yeah, basically. You don't solve anything by going back to GURPS.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:29 am

Ice9 wrote:
silva wrote:Care to elaborate ? I can't see how that's a bad thing. Isn't this the default for all its rule set ? (adding attribute + skill ?)
Weapons just have a rating, which gets added into your attack pool. Damage is just your successes minus the opponent's successes on dodging/soaking (which are also combined).

So weapons can't be more accurate or more lethal, they're just better or worse. If a huge spiky axe has a rating of 5 dice, then it's not only more deadly than a sword but also more accurate. Mainly the latter, in fact, because often offense and defense are close enough that the result is 1 or 2 damage. So two people fighting with chainsaws involves barely any misses but a bunch of grazing hits that do low damage.

In addition to being aesthetically stupid, the small number of variables involved makes quantity the most important factor. Leading to the "bus full of kindergarteners easily defeats a werewolf" problem.

Don't forget that with the static difficulty system, which is in itself an improvement, gets integrated with all the other bullshit, you basically have a completely deterministic combat game. I mean, it's not as deterministic as "count up all the actions each side has, whoever has more dots in Celerity wins" that oWOD suffered from, but at least you'd get swingy hits occasionally where you did shitloads of damage or no damage in oWOD.

pragma · Post by **pragma** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:30 am

Eclipse Phase is my number one. It's a beautiful game, and I even did a brief PbP of the thing, but I just can't justify learning and teaching another heavy, clunky ruleset with shitty hacking.