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  1. - Top - End - #721
    Firbolg in the Playground
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    Default Re: Worst Tabletop RPG

    Quote Originally Posted by sktarq View Post
    Now this is part of where I think Rifts gets bad rap it doesn't deserve.

    I personally like the skill buying system allows you to change your stats...I think it actually a really good idea even if it takes a while for people who are used to other system to get used to it never seemed to bother people who started in Rifts at all, so I think that may be an expectation issue. I think it is a good reflection of what has a character done with their life. But a lot of people complain about it.
    I mean, if he had made learning how to program increase you Int, and how to edit increase both your Int and Charisma, and your choice of RPG affect your stats, that would be one thing. But only affecting physical stats, and an inexplicable hefty helping of preferential treatment for boxing of all things? My suspension of disbelief died during character creation.

  2. - Top - End - #722
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jason View Post
    I call it a set of house rules because it is very clearly derived from D&D, with changes that are obviously responses to things Seimbieda thought were bad in D&D or would work better his way. The "no neutrals" rant is just one of the most clear instances of Siembieda saying "my version is superior because of x y and z." I'm not saying they're still compatible.
    It's not like Siembieda came up with something completely original. He very clearly started with AD&D and changed stuff to get where he went. Attributes are very similar, class-and-level, alignments, hit points, a d20 attack roll, percentile skills (thieves in AD&D), all clearly derived from AD&D.

    Tunnels & Trolls is also a heavy modification of D&D. It would be very hard to cross over between systems, and the end systems play very differently, but it is a version of D&D, derived from OD&D instead of AD&D as Palladium was. It's basically a simplified version of OD&D verging on parody.

    Contrast the original Traveller, which although it has a similar publishing format to OD&D (three half-sized booklets in a black box instead of a white one), it has completely different mechanics. The idea of creating a sci-fi RPG may have come from D&D, but pretty much none of the mechanics did (maybe having 6 attributes is a direct borrow, but they are scaled 2-12 instead of 3-18). 6-siders only, no classes or levels (very little character progression, in fact), no alignments, no hit points, and you could die during character generation.
    See this actually illustrates some of my frustration with the statement that Palladium is just a houseruled D&D. You are willing to give a pass on stats for Traveller, because they use a different number scale, while saying that Palladium is basically a copy. But the stats in Palladium also scale differently, and (other than strength) do different things than the similar D&D stat due to the underlying mechanics being different.

    Yes, you have class and level, but that also means a different thing in Palladium than it does in AD&D, partly due to how skills work in the system (both combat an otherwise).

    Yes, there are alignments, but they are also much different than the AD&D alignments. The alignments have much less interaction with class and interact with very few magic/psionic abilities.

    Yes, there are hit points, but they are also generated and progress differently than D&D. They also gave the sdc (material health) to items to have armor degrade during combat, which is just as important as character health to any close combatant.

    Yes, there is a d20 attack roll, but the combat system relies on active defense, so the attack roll isn't generally against the static armor rating unless attacking someone from outside their field of view.

    So, yes, it is just a slightly altered AD&D, except that it is completely unrecognizable as AD&D when playing it. It just seems like a fashionable thing to bash, and it is easy to dismiss with the recurring "houseruled AD&D" line. I suppose there is someone that claims that Zweihander is just a D&D clone because, after all, it just lazily used percentages for all skills like the thief skills in AD&D. It even went the extra mile to turn combat into a skill and use the percentile for that. It has alignment, and careers/occupations are obviously just classes with skill bonuses. The damage track is basically just a small handful of hit points that attackers have to overcome DR to remove. It must just be houseruled D&D!

  3. - Top - End - #723
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    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    I mean, if he had made learning how to program increase you Int, and how to edit increase both your Int and Charisma, and your choice of RPG affect your stats, that would be one thing. But only affecting physical stats, and an inexplicable hefty helping of preferential treatment for boxing of all things? My suspension of disbelief died during character creation.
    Yeah, that is one thing I prefer about the 1E fantasy game. Some classes may give bonuses eventually, but skills don't change your stats in that game. I suppose some really like the minigame of min/maxing the skill choices for maximum stats, but it can really get out of control. You could make some stupidly (physically) powerful characters in TMNT (I guess it is After the Bomb now) with skill choice and moderate dice luck.

  4. - Top - End - #724
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    PaladinGuy

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kraynic View Post
    See this actually illustrates some of my frustration with the statement that Palladium is just a houseruled D&D. You are willing to give a pass on stats for Traveller, because they use a different number scale, while saying that Palladium is basically a copy. But the stats in Palladium also scale differently, and (other than strength) do different things than the similar D&D stat due to the underlying mechanics being different.
    I think you missed the part where I said that being a heavily modified version of D&D is not in itself a bad thing. "There are lots of games on the market that are heavily modified versions of D&D."

    I give Traveller points for originality at a time when most RPGs were "heavily modified versions of D&D", but originality of rules by itself doesn't mean a game is good either.

  5. - Top - End - #725
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    Why does Traveller have rules for killing PCs during character generation anyway? At least in old school D&D you rolled your stats first and the game just told you flat out that if they were unplayablly bad you dropped them immediately. But random character death before you start play doesn't seem useful.
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  6. - Top - End - #726
    Eldritch Horror in the Playground Moderator
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    Quote Originally Posted by Luccan View Post
    Why does Traveller have rules for killing PCs during character generation anyway? At least in old school D&D you rolled your stats first and the game just told you flat out that if they were unplayablly bad you dropped them immediately. But random character death before you start play doesn't seem useful.
    IIRC, the risk is memetically exaggerated. Traveller character generation was rolling successive tours of duty in your chosen career track until you retired or were injured on campaign. Receiving an injury during generation gives you a medical discharge, which means your pre-game career ends and you are now a playable character. Willingly overriding that to keep rolling more tours of duty let you continue to gain skills/money/stats, but now there was a risk of death if you suffered a second injury. It wasn't something you could roll unless you willingly opted in to the risk of it happening. But it's been a long time since I read it.
    Last edited by The Glyphstone; 2021-01-07 at 02:22 PM.

  7. - Top - End - #727
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    PaladinGuy

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    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    IIRC, the risk is memetically exaggerated. Traveller character generation was rolling successive tours of duty in your chosen career track until you retired or were injured on campaign. Receiving an injury during generation gives you a medical discharge, which means your pre-game career ends and you are now a playable character. Willingly overriding that to keep rolling more tours of duty let you continue to gain skills/money/stats, but now there was a risk of death if you suffered a second injury. It wasn't something you could roll unless you willingly opted in to the risk of it happening. But it's been a long time since I read it.
    Originally failing a survival roll was a straight-up "you're dead", but later editions (starting with the 1980 revision) made it "your character generation is over" with death being the optional rule.
    Traveller characters don't advance much skill-wise after character creation. Most of their skills are generated with the career system before play. Since the more terms of service your character had before beginning play the more skills and benefits you would have, the player would have to decide whether to risk a failed survival check against how many more skills he thought he could get serving another term. Aging would eventually reduce your physical characteristics too if you went too long.
    The Scout career was the most dangerous one (7+ on a 2d6 to survive, +2 on your roll if your Endurance is 9 or higher, in a system where Endurance is also initially generated by a 2d6 roll) because it gave you the best chance of both the very useful Jack-of-All Trades skill and a starship. Just about the smallest starship available, admittedly, but one without a mortgage like all the other careers that provide a ship have.

  8. - Top - End - #728
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    Quote Originally Posted by Luccan View Post
    Why does Traveller have rules for killing PCs during character generation anyway? At least in old school D&D you rolled your stats first and the game just told you flat out that if they were unplayablly bad you dropped them immediately. But random character death before you start play doesn't seem useful.
    It's a press-your-luck mechanic. Let's say you've rolled pretty well for stats, got into one of the career paths that tends to get you skills you want for your character, and have gotten through 4 or 5 tours of duty. Do you muster out, or stick around for one more tour? After all, this might be a tour where you get enough for a really nice starting setup, maybe even a ship share or the like. Big money... big money... <rolls dice>... and they died (or in later editions got an injury which will reduce their play competence significantly. Oh well, maybe you shouldn't have pushed your luck (but then again...) All of which is in service of the base mechanic that was common in the 70s of using plenty of random rolls to determine whether a given character started off on the right or wrong foot for their adventuring career. However, unlike D&D roll for stats and starting gold, this one involved a lot of direct player engagement and even decision-making. Having played it, I'd call it successful. Rolling up characters could be so fun that even after you made the one you wanted to play, you might keep rolling just for fun until everyone else was done (or you realized that you were all just rolling up alts, and start playing).

  9. - Top - End - #729
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    Default Re: Worst Tabletop RPG

    Note also that Traveller isn't a "generate one character and force you to live with it". You're supposed to roll several characters and choose one that is going to work.

    Also skills often modify or gate attribute rolls. So you can have rolls of:
    2d6 + pilot-2 for 7+
    2d6 for 12 - (DEX + pilot)
    2d6 (-2 if DEX is 5 or less, +2 if 9+) but only roll if you have at least pilot-1

    So going old & skilled was offset by having lower physical stats. Add trips taking weeks to 2 months between stops and a mid-long game character could see 4+ years and another aging roll. I did a 9 month RL game that covered about 2.5 game years, but I was modding and trips took a bit less time (never more than 3 weeks between stops).

  10. - Top - End - #730

    Default Re: Worst Tabletop RPG

    Quote Originally Posted by Luccan View Post
    Why does Traveller have rules for killing PCs during character generation anyway? At least in old school D&D you rolled your stats first and the game just told you flat out that if they were unplayablly bad you dropped them immediately. But random character death before you start play doesn't seem useful.
    It's a game from the 70s. One of the first non-D&D games. Don't underestimate "they just didn't know better" as an explanation for why people made bad decisions. People make bad decisions when designing games today, and they have forty years of additional experience and knowledge to draw on.

  11. - Top - End - #731
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    OldWizardGuy

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tanarii View Post
    Yes Rifts is pretty much the ultimate blender setting.

    On less is more, surprisingly 5e successfully pulled it off.
    i generally agree 5e succeeded surprisingly well for low rule content, slow splat release, and high prices.

    some of the concept material was playable too. though concentration i think did more harm than good. if i didn't have so much dislike of tactical 4e, i would rate 5e as the worst of the bunch because of stuff like concentration and schizophrenic interclass/action economy limits.

    Attempting to balance in the south west of the garden while the imps are madcap on the north lawn is scarcely tolerable. For every Nerf i found in 5e i found some OP exploit a few pages later that dwarfed it. Case in Point, Frosty Clones.

  12. - Top - End - #732
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    Quote Originally Posted by Telok View Post
    Note also that Traveller isn't a "generate one character and force you to live with it". You're supposed to roll several characters and choose one that is going to work.
    I think this is important. Classic Traveller character creation is like the first two levels of classic D&D. The intent of is not that the first dude you send through will last you the entire game, but that you throw a dozen people there and pay the one that comes out in the best shape.

    It's not that they didn't know better, it's because they were writing the kinds of games they were playing not the kind we are playing these days.

    Having read the original book (thanks to my dad having the CD with it on pdf) it's also fast. I would be willing to that Traveller character creation became less deadly at the exact same moment it became more complicated.


    It's like how both Shadowrun and Cyberpunk have long lists of augmentations for characters. If their first editions came out today this would likely be held against them, but they weren't writing for the industry of today. Shadowrun Anarchy gives us a look at how they might have been treated if the game was originally designed in the 2010s and it's very different. But it's a very rare system that drops what it's known for, Traveller will always have a risk of death in character creation, and future editions of Shadowrun will feature long lists of cyberware (and I'll stick to running Anarchy).
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  13. - Top - End - #733
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    OldWizardGuy

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jason View Post
    Originally failing a survival roll was a straight-up "you're dead", but later editions (starting with the 1980 revision) made it "your character generation is over" with death being the optional rule.
    Traveller characters don't advance much skill-wise after character creation. Most of their skills are generated with the career system before play. Since the more terms of service your character had before beginning play the more skills and benefits you would have, the player would have to decide whether to risk a failed survival check against how many more skills he thought he could get serving another term. Aging would eventually reduce your physical characteristics too if you went too long.
    The Scout career was the most dangerous one (7+ on a 2d6 to survive, +2 on your roll if your Endurance is 9 or higher, in a system where Endurance is also initially generated by a 2d6 roll) because it gave you the best chance of both the very useful Jack-of-All Trades skill and a starship. Just about the smallest starship available, admittedly, but one without a mortgage like all the other careers that provide a ship have.

    i had a character i made that was pro from dover thawed out stasis pod specialist in a couple of psychic abilities, at the expense of all else. My game master laughed and showed me another player who had some how repeatedly rolled on a life extension process and kept rolling up abilities over and over until they had everything i had, but better, plus tons of everything else, and their own super space ship. I cannot recall if it also turned into a giant Meowing Cabbit.

  14. - Top - End - #734
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    PaladinGuy

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    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    It's a game from the 70s. One of the first non-D&D games. Don't underestimate "they just didn't know better" as an explanation for why people made bad decisions. People make bad decisions when designing games today, and they have forty years of additional experience and knowledge to draw on.
    It wasn't a bad decision. Character generation is still a fun minigame in the Mongoose Publishing 2nd edition that came out in 2016 (it's the 2nd edition of the Mongoose version that came out in 2008, not the second edition of Traveller. Counting ports to other systems like GURPS Traveller and T20 it's actually the 10th edition of Traveller).
    They've tweaked character generation a little. It's a little more complex, with a little more player control, and it produces slightly more competent characters, and you don't automatically die on a failed survival roll (though a failed roll is never a good thing). But the system still has the player making the decision of whether to risk another survival or aging roll or both in exchange for more skills and mustering out benefits. And Scouts still roll a 7+ modified by their Endurance to survive each term of service, still have the easiest access to the Jack-of-All Trades skill, and still have the best chance of getting a free-and-clear starship.
    Last edited by Jason; 2021-01-07 at 10:59 PM.

  15. - Top - End - #735
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    Default Re: Worst Tabletop RPG

    Ok, the risk-reward thing makes some sense. I read an old set of Traveller rules once in like 2009, so I really didn't remember much about it. In fact, I didn't even remember you could die in character creation until this thread brought it up (but for some reason immediately recalled it being referenced in Regular Show)
    Last edited by Luccan; 2021-01-07 at 10:47 PM.
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