Do you love a game despite the mechanics being garbage?

silva · Post by **silva** » Sat Apr 18, 2015 12:38 pm

If by solid you mean an internally consistent setting, I nominate:

Transhuman Space
Blue Planet
Glorantha
Pendragon
Empire of Petal Throne

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Sat Apr 18, 2015 11:44 pm

Never heard of any of them.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 12:41 am

TheFlatline wrote:I've come to realize that every single game I've ever run/played in that lasted for a really long time with like one exception had shit mechanics. What is it about shitty systems breeding games that refuse to die?

Lots of houserules equals lots of personal investment?

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 4:07 am

Shady314 wrote:
TheFlatline wrote:I've come to realize that every single game I've ever run/played in that lasted for a really long time with like one exception had shit mechanics. What is it about shitty systems breeding games that refuse to die?
Lots of houserules equals lots of personal investment?

And a lot of long term games tend to break down as the rules begin to meet their points of failure... but if you've already thrown out the rules then you're better equipped to deal with this problem; or in fact already dealt with that problem.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 10:16 am

Every single RPG ever has shit mechanics. All of them. That you've only noticed this with games you've played for a long time just shows how good they all are at hiding it.

On Topic, I played a fuck-tonne of 2nd edition AD&D back in the day. It's ... there's nothing good about it. It sort of works if you avoid all the stuff that breaks it, which is heaps of it, and the advice it gives is objectively bad at achieving it's goals. Much fun was had anyway.

Also low-level 3e, which is good fun if you just play AD&D style with it and less so getting into the ways 3e naturally optimises around nova strikes and 15-minute adventures because of the peculiarities of the target numbers and resource schemes.

Nihnoz · Post by **Nihnoz** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 3:32 pm

maglag wrote: Fixed that for you.

Biggest examples would be Exalted and 40K, that have lots of fans for it despite the "heroes" being giant assholes that make the world in which they live a worst place for everybody else.

Heck, if anything, I can't even remember any popular tabletop RPG setting that's also solid.

Exalted is a good setting for play specifically BECAUSE the solars are giant self-interested dickheads. Perfectly in-line with a typical play session. I'm just glad that 3e is going to make the rules somewhat sane.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 3:40 pm

Warhammer 40k has lots and lots of problems but it's all I actually played more than once when it comes to tabletop wargames.

souran · Post by **souran** » Sun Apr 19, 2015 7:52 pm

OgreBattle wrote:Warhammer 40k has lots and lots of problems but it's all I actually played more than once when it comes to tabletop wargames.

Yeah, the really sad thing is that Rick Priestly can write really excellent wargames rules when he wants to. Warmaster (large battles analog of WH-fantasy) and Epic 40k are actually both really amazing wargames.
They have lots of room for additions of rules, subsystems, etc.

However, nobody plays those games and GW won't support anything except the two main lines for longer than 12 months.

So you end up playing 40K and Fantasy and those games are both terrible wargames. It sucks, but for any wargame/CCG player base is actually WAY more important than rules quality.