[DL] Worst Games

[Ross Coburn <coburn@sympatico.ca>]

I will only speak for games played/encountered, not things I just had the
common sense not to even look at:

1. Anything at all by Palladium.  I just LOATHE the system, and usually the
setting as well.  Especially giant robots.  I HATE giant robots.  And
classical Japanese mecha-animation.  And major genre-mixing like that too,
for that matter.  (Sorry Shane, prolly would have hated Torg too if I'd
ever given it a chance).

2. Middle-Earth role-playing.  I am a Tolkien fanatic, and what they did to
that world was just rude.  Of course, as far as I'm concerned, Gawd Himself
couldn't design a Middle Earth game that I'd approve of, ultra-purist that
I am.

3. GURPS.  Just leaves me cold.  On the other hand, some of their
supplements (I'm mainly speaking of the new Traveller stuff) are pretty
solid.  (I get complimentary copies, so I actually get to look at them, but
I still wouldn't PLAY G:T).

4. Traveller: the New Era (and T4, which is just so obvious that I wonder I
even write it here).  Took a wonderful game, and a wonderful game system,
and a wonderful setting, and ruined all of them in one fell swoop.

5. CJ Carella's Witchcraft.  Would ordinarily be one of those games that
I'd know better than to buy, but I must have been on some really
interesting drugs that evening in San Francisco at the convention dealer room.

Honourable Mention: Phoenix Command.  In their quest for 'realism', they
made a horrendously clunky combat system whose real danger is boring the
participants (players) to death, or let old-age nab 'em as they try to
resolve it.  Add to that the fact that it was essentially about nothing but
being a manly gunfondler and shooting stuff in tactical gear, and it had
nothing going for it.

Oh, and I suppose I should have put Aftermath at the top of the list, but
it was so broken and unplayable that I actually remember it fondly.  As a
young boy (maybe 15-16 when it came out?) trying to make a character with a
system that didn't actually let you finish the process (all kinds of
important information omitted form the rulebooks, prolly on the cutting
room floor), I actually wondered for a while if it was just me.  Nope.  <g>


Those're mine.  Like my favourites, subject to change at any moment.