Worst Tabletop RPG

[EggKookoo]

There have been video games for almost three decades now with branching game paths which allow a player to have more impact on the course of the game than railroading GMs allow players to have on the tabletop. If the standard for being an RPG hinges on having an answer to anything, many human held games fail to qualify and contemporary computer games outdo them.

Maybe. Each TTRPG counts as a unique game. Whereas multiple people playing a particular cRPG really counts as the same game. Given that, you'll get large absolute numbers of undeniably horrible TTRPG experiences, but you'll also get a large absolute number of great TTRPG experiences that are way better than anything a computer can do.

And truthfully, the majority of cRPGs are pure railroading experiences. The best TTRPGs don't just provide player freedom, but player choices will then inform future GM decisions. That back and forth, where the GM presents a situation, the players respond in a way the GM didn't anticipate, and the GM modifies the setting and environment to account for it, is something we've never seen in a cRPG. I would pay quite a bit of money to play a game like WoW where I could make actual choices that caused the game world to react as though it were run by a creative human mind. We may get there someday, but it's not this day!

[Cluedrew]

I'm not so sure. It might in fact be fundamental. Are there any successful RPGs that don't include some form of character generation rules?

Why does the system have to be popular to count? Unpopular RPGs are still RPGs. Bad RPGs are still RPGs. I have read this entire thread and I recall a single statement of "No that one is so bad it doesn't count as an RPG anymore."

So one hand I can't name any successful RPGs that don't include character creation rules. On the other hand I have played an RPG where character creation is writing down a fixed stat line and heard of another where character creation is more character selection and I consider both of those to be RPGs even if not many people like them.

[Jason]

Why does the system have to be popular to count? Unpopular RPGs are still RPGs.

Not popular, successful. The main reason is that there are probably thousands of home brewed systems out there that don't include character generation, but nobody outside their immediate group would recognize or play them.

[Cluedrew]

Not popular, successful. The main reason is that there are probably thousands of home brewed systems out there that don't include character generation, but nobody outside their immediate group would recognize or play them.

I had a bunch of stuff about popularity vs. success, a few things that really got into your working and a some other points but then I realized it all come down to this:

Any fundamental feature of a role-playing game would be in all role-playing games and I know role-playing games that don't have character creation rules.* Therefore character creation is not a fundamental features of role-playing games.

The fact that some subgroups of role-playing games do all have that feature (even a significant group like the ones people enjoy playing**) is irrelevant. Put a different way would I - knowing nothing about a new in-progress system - recommend it contains character creation rules? Yes. Would I say it has to? No.

* Unless we get really generous with what character creation rules can mean.
** And honestly even that group isn't without exception unless we put a minimum on the number of people.

[Quertus]

If a community theater puts on a play with well-known movie characters, the play might (and likely will) deviate from the movie, at least somewhat. You might hear, "her performance as Aragorn was excellent", or "her take on Aslan was novel (lions don't wear clothes, after all)". But it is unlikely that the *acting* will be *better* than that of professional actors.

If SNL puts on a skit, you might be able to imagine Sean Connery asking Alex for "swords for $400", or the Avengers coming down on Hawkeye. But they are highly unlikely to do *better* than the real thing.

Now realize that your typical RPG table isn't anywhere their level. Nor do they spend hours/weeks/months rehearsing in preparation for their performance. So, for me, running a "known" character is just going to come off badly - and that's even ignoring "so and so wouldn't do that!"

About the only time I can enjoy it is when someone (not me) is playing a character that someone else (could be me) isn't familiar with, and gets to interact with them "honest". "That's a nice glowing sword you've got there. Say your 'Jed's eye', eh? Sounds like 'Religious freak' to me. It is a religion? Well, don't try and convert me - I ain't having none of that religious stuff. Religious, with a sword… you like being up front? Maybe talking to folk? Yeah? OK, cool - welcome to the party." Watching that kind of exchange, where the *player* genuinely doesn't get the reference, makes the bad acting worth it.

And I can kinda see wanting to ask "what if" questions ("what if we mapped out 'Determinator' logic for D&D, then back ported it to the LotR party?", "What if Obi-Wan had died to Darth Maul?", "What if Dr. Strange had used the Time Gem, looked ahead, and fought Thanos *before* he had the gems?"). But most of those seem like a cross between bad acting and scene stealing that would seem better suited to single author fiction than an RPG, IMO.

If you ask me, I'd probably say that the best thing about SNL skits, or HISHE, or fan fiction, is that it gives us *more*. More of something that we know that we like. Is that the draw of playing an existing character, that hope of getting more of them? Because, for me, role-playing isn't about continuing (or offshooting) *their* stories, but writing our own stories almost as a byproduct of (role)playing characters that we know. That is, just as actors try to get to know their character, we can roleplay better the characters that we know better - and what characters could we know better than the ones that we have ourselves made, where we already know the answer to "what's my motivation?".

[Jason]

Any fundamental feature of a role-playing game would be in all role-playing games and I know role-playing games that don't have character creation rules.* Therefore character creation is not a fundamental features of role-playing games.

So could I ask which games you're thinking of? Because I can't think of any that I would call an RPG that don't have character generation, but I obviously haven't played everything,

[Vahnavoi]

Now realize that your typical RPG table isn't anywhere their level. Nor do they spend hours/weeks/months rehearsing in preparation for their performance. So, for me, running a "known" character is just going to come off badly - and that's even ignoring "so and so wouldn't do that!"

See, now, this is what I meant when I said roleplayers have The Stupid about playing established characters.

Mastery is not required to play an established character, you don't need to be Elijah Wood to play Frodo any more than you need to be David Beckham to play a fun game of soccer. Worrying about not doing well is just stage fright. Other players raising a fuss because they think you aren't doing justice to a character is just them getting their art critic on at the wrong moment.

Remember, both of these happen with custom characters. The sort of people who would whine "That's not what Frodo would do!" are the sort who also whine "That's not what a Paladin would do!" or "I don't think a real war veteran would think like that" or "I don't think you as a Non-Japanese person have any business portraying a Japanese-inspired character". I've had a player get cold feet and quit on me because another player was giving them a hard time for playing an Irish character when the player wasn't Irish.

The solution is for people to silence their inner art critics for duration of a game and give their fellow player a modicum of good faith and interpretative freedom... and for the fellow player to get over their stage fright because screwing up your portrayal of Frodo Baggins in a game is the least consequential mistake you can make.

---

So could I ask which games you're thinking of? Because I can't think of any that I would call an RPG that don't have character generation, but I obviously haven't played everything,

I've been a judge and a contest GM in convention quickplay scenario design contest. The constraints of the contest are such that a GM has to be able to run the scenario with no other material than it and be able to learn and prep it in 15 minutes. A lot of submitted games involve preset characters to save time. Ruleswise, they are RPGs as much as OD&D or any other rules-lite system. (Some of the scenarios are archived and licensed for free distribution, you can get dozens of them from Ropecon's website, to give an example.)

Are they successful? Within context of the contest, they often are, and winners and popular favorites survive to be played in later conventions and hobby clubs. They usually aren't commercially succesful for the same reasons a local cooking contest winner usually doesn't kick off a franchise capable of competing with McDonalds: they're more likely to be employed by McDonalds.

[Anonymouswizard]

So could I ask which games you're thinking of? Because I can't think of any that I would call an RPG that don't have character generation, but I obviously haven't played everything,

I know if at least one that didn't have it in the initial release (Time Lord, and I want to say MHRP but I'm working from secondhand information). But not of any that have never had some kind of a system, even if it's 'pick a playbook and make one or two choices*'.

* Those do the to have more to do, but it's fluff stuff that you'll probably want to sleep on.

[VoxRationis]

The worst RPG I've actually played would be the Palladium superhero game (whose title I have forgotten). The game's terminology (in what I understand to be Palladium form) was excessively fond of acronyms, all with unnecessary periods to boot. The book was poorly laid out, to the extent that it wasn't clear to my group that references to "levels" sporadically appearing in the rules referred to character levels because the only tables detailing XP and advancement were on the very last page of the book. The game allowed for characters of vastly differing power levels from session one, and not only did not warn prospective players sufficiently about that*, but encouraged parties of such disparate abilities by emphasizing character generation via rolling randomly on a large array of tables. Options were sometimes given that were purely inferior to others (e.g., when playing a psychic character, one is given the choice of playing a "developed talent" or a "latent talent," with the former being better in every respect, with no drawback). The rulebook had no sample statistics for NPCs or monsters and no guidance on how to structure an effective adventure at the level of game mechanics. The combat system encourages simply dual-wielding SMGs and unloading both upon the enemy at the first opportunity, because such an approach, due to either the lack or impotence (I forget which) of mechanical penalties to trying such a thing, is almost guaranteed to deal triple-digit damage to the opponent. Lastly, the book never stops shilling other Palladium games and even lists them in bold font so as to emphasize that they desire you to buy one of their other shoddily-written texts.


*Strictly speaking, there were disclaimers about power imbalances in the section on "mega-heroes," but even discounting that chapter entirely, the remainder of the character creation system was completely unbalanced.

[Cluedrew]

So could I ask which games you're thinking of?

The "write down a fixed stat line" one is Roll for Shoes and the "pick a character" one is Lady Blackbird (also the one I haven't played).

The worst RPG I've actually played would be the Palladium superhero game (whose title I have forgotten).

Heroes Unlimited, also the subject of MegaDumbCast season 2 if you want to go over it page-by-page (I've listened to it twice).

[Jason]

The worst RPG I've actually played would be the Palladium superhero game (whose title I have forgotten). The game's terminology (in what I understand to be Palladium form) was excessively fond of acronyms, all with unnecessary periods to boot. The book was poorly laid out, to the extent that it wasn't clear to my group that references to "levels" sporadically appearing in the rules referred to character levels because the only tables detailing XP and advancement were on the very last page of the book. The game allowed for characters of vastly differing power levels from session one, and not only did not warn prospective players sufficiently about that*, but encouraged parties of such disparate abilities by emphasizing character generation via rolling randomly on a large array of tables. Options were sometimes given that were purely inferior to others (e.g., when playing a psychic character, one is given the choice of playing a "developed talent" or a "latent talent," with the former being better in every respect, with no drawback). The rulebook had no sample statistics for NPCs or monsters and no guidance on how to structure an effective adventure at the level of game mechanics. The combat system encourages simply dual-wielding SMGs and unloading both upon the enemy at the first opportunity, because such an approach, due to either the lack or impotence (I forget which) of mechanical penalties to trying such a thing, is almost guaranteed to deal triple-digit damage to the opponent. Lastly, the book never stops shilling other Palladium games and even lists them in bold font so as to emphasize that they desire you to buy one of their other shoddily-written texts.


*Strictly speaking, there were disclaimers about power imbalances in the section on "mega-heroes," but even discounting that chapter entirely, the remainder of the character creation system was completely unbalanced.

Congratulations, you have just described all of Palladium's games, not just Heroes Unlimited.

The basic mechanics haven't changed much since the early '80s, when they were Siembieda's house rules for D&D. Some of the text of the rules hasn't changed either, since each game just re-uses stuff like the alignment rules word-for-word. Game balance is something Palladium has never really concerned itself with. Acronyms abound, and they all have the periods.

And yet they still sell. They have a certain exuberant charm to them that makes me occasionally flip through the books i still have, though I haven't played any of them since shortly after high school. Maybe there's a nostalgia factor for me, though I never actually played them more than a few sessions. I had a friend who was always planning his next Rifts game and generating characters.
The artwork is nice.

[Quertus]

See, now, this is what I meant when I said roleplayers have The Stupid about playing established characters.

The solution is for people to silence their inner art critics for duration of a game

And if you simply cannot enjoy ice cream that is gritty, oatmeal that is cold, cereal that is soggy, or known characters who are portrayed poorly? I don't think "taste" is a matter of "the stupid".

Congratulations, you have just described all of Palladium's games, not just Heroes Unlimited.

Yeah, when I describe Paradox as "Rifts, but good", that's (a small part of) what I'm talking about.

At least the Palladium systems are consistent?

[Jason]

The "write down a fixed stat line" one is Roll for Shoes and the "pick a character" one is Lady Blackbird (also the one I haven't played).

I had to look those up.
From what I can see, I could be argued that Roll for Shoes does have character generation, through its character advancement system, since you chose what to attempt and then gain relevant skills through success. Your skill choices are your character generation.

Lady Blackbird describes itself as an "adventure module", not a complete role-playing game. I agree.

[Ottriman]

On the other Hand, GURPS, in all its incarnations, is a dry, overtly complex, but very well made and WORKING system.

And I can only remember having horrible to bad sessions playing it (one time because we were all dropped into palying it in the last few hours on the day before we played, given premade characters to avoid having to spend the night building, and still it all sucked. College Groups, sigh....).


Agreed regarding deathwatch btw. Horribly done, but thena gain, the abse system was aimed at "characters that suck", so making SPace MArines in that, well^^

Having played Deathwatch, it's hard to disagree. Taking the base Dark Heresy system and scaling it up to Space Marines did not go well.

I'm inclined to agree, but I also think it has to do with the system not being honest with its players about what it is. I really like Lancer, which like D&D 4e has very stringent rules for how anything works in tactical combat, while disjuncting tactical combat mechanics from how something might work out of combat.

In open-play, your railgun might have a range on the order of double or triple digit kilometers (work it out with the GM). In tactical-play, a railgun has a range of twenty hexes. How much distance is twenty hexes? Whatever makes sense for the GM's battlemap.

Lancer is open and unapologetic about this lack of diegetic consistency across the two play modes. It's how the game works, and yes for some players it's like being dunked in acid. Fortunately, Lancer clearly labels itself as not for them. D&D 4e, on the other hand, positioned itself as the natural iteration of a preexisting game with a different focus and a lot of baked in expectations.

------------------------------------------------
Anyways, worst system I've actually played in is the Warhammer 40K bunch, because of serially incompetent stooge syndrome. I'll admit, I'm a bit inconsistent on that one, since I'm way more tolerant of it in Call of Cthulhu.

Happy to not be the only one who thinks those 40k systems have deep dysfunctions in their basic rules.

I left in the bits about GURPS and Lancer there because I've played the former and tweaked it so much as to be running a custom edition, and because I have some interest in the latter.

For GURPS I definitely know what you refer to as the problems of character creation and competencies, part of why I made skills much broader, stopped building based on character points and more. Even if I love the system I can appreciate peoples reasons for why it doesn't work for them.

As to Lancer there, the part I bolded would have made my brain hurt until a year or two ago, I've chilled on not needing to measure everything accurately since. I still have some players who would still be brain-seared by the disparity haha.

Starfinder was a surprising disappointment for me. I really like Pathfinder 1e, and what little I've played of Pathfinder 2e I've enjoyed. Starfinder feels like a halfbaked 2e playtest — there are several mechanics that clearly exist in between the 1e and 2e implementations or are simply the 2e version (like flat-footed). The mechanics didn't have the depth of 1e or the simplicity of 2e, the story failed to grab me, and the itemization was terrible. e: Oh, and ship combat was terrible in several ways. The group I was playing Starfinder with abandoned the campaign and we ended up doing a 5e campaign.

I was handed the Starfinder pdf once and though it was shiny I ended up declining the offer to play it. I felt that cool stuff was missing or comically nerfed. Reading about peoples experiences (such as yours) has only vindicated that decision.

Not only that, it's also the worst game I was stupid enough to run. For well over 10 years. But sitting in the platonic cave of D&D, you have no point of reference to tell that your game is awful. You think that it doesn't live up to your expectations can only be down to the GM needing more experience.

I guess it's a rite of passage for an RPG player to realize that the RPG we started out with doesn't have all the answers and we can do better. Or just differently and better-suited to certain styles of games. Then again, is it really a rite of passage if a tremendous number of players refuse to even consider it?

Oh man I feel this. First it was me being blind to the bad parts and weaknesses of D&D. Then I switched to GURPS and became obsessed with mechanical rigor and simulation and felt it'd do everything great. Only over the past few years have I learned to appreciate a variety of RPG systems and styles I'd have dismissed in those earlier times.

[Vahnavoi]

And if you simply cannot enjoy ice cream that is gritty, oatmeal that is cold, cereal that is soggy, or known characters who are portrayed poorly? I don't think "taste" is a matter of "the stupid".

Those, like poor player performance, are externalities. Your control over them is limited, but you do control your reaction to them. That's where The Stupid actually is in practice - namely, people getting into a nerd fight over how a character should or shouldn't act in the middle of a game, or never even playing because they're afraid of reactions of others. It's like arguing with your spouse about your oatmeal being cold - someone with modicum of virtue is perfectly capable of eating the damn oatmeal and moving on with their life without raising a fuss, regardless of little they enjoy the taste.

[noob]

A game that uses a human game master/referee as the ultimate arbitrator of the rules, does not require physical props or maps (but can use them) beyond one or more randomizers like dice or cards to determine success. It tells a story and allows the players to make decisions that affect the outcome of the story. For starters.

There is rpgs with a symmetrical structure that have no players with a specific gm role and they are often narrative oriented.
It is a completely different style of rpg but it is rpgs: you impersonate characters and take decisions as if you were them.

[Batcathat]

There is rpgs with a symmetrical structure that have no players with a specific gm role and they are often narrative oriented.
It is a completely different style of rpg but it is rpgs: you impersonate characters and take decisions as if you were them.

That's true. Maybe a workable definition of roleplaying game is something along the lines of "playing a character and making decisions as them, within some sort of rules". I would argue that rules - however loose - has to exist for it to be a roleplaying game, rather than improv or playing pretend.

[Vahnavoi]

A roleplaying game is a game where a player decides what to do, and how, and why, from the viewpoint of a specific character in a staged or virtual scenario.

There is no point in tacking on "oh, and it must have rules". Think for two seconds of how you're supposed to have a staged or virtual scenario without rules. You can't, it's natural requirement of having such a scenario. This applies to improv and playing pretend, by the way. They have rules, they can be analyzed and approached as games, sometimes they qualify as roleplaying games.

The reason why tabletop players are resistant to this is because tabletop players are often irrationally partisan about tabletop conceits. But a general definition of a roleplaying game isn't interested with just the tabletop, just like general definition of a ball game isn't just interested with soccer. Soccer and volleyball players do obviously different things and there's limited overlap between soccer players and volleyball players, but you don't see soccer players saying volleyball isn't a real ball game.

[EggKookoo]

A roleplaying game is a game where a player decides what to do, and how, and why, from the viewpoint of a specific character in a staged or virtual scenario.

There is no point in tacking on "oh, and it must have rules". Think for two seconds of how you're supposed to have a staged or virtual scenario without rules. You can't, it's natural requirement of having such a scenario. This applies to improv and playing pretend, by the way. They have rules, they can be analyzed and approached as games, sometimes they qualify as roleplaying games.

Also, there's roleplaying, and there are roleplaying games. Games need rules, else they're not games. So simply taking on the role of and acting as a character by itself is not sufficient to make a roleplaying game. You need some kind of rules.

Now, those rules will cover how characters interact. By extension, those rules will determine how those characters are crafted, since that kind of goes hand-in-hand. Therefore, all roleplaying games will have character-creation rules, if only by implication.

[Vahnavoi]

That's a sort of technical point that has no relevance for what my original statement was about: players playing characters they didn't make. Because implied character creation rules of the sort you outline are only necessary for the person setting up the game, such as a game master. A player doesn't need to have anything to do with them.

[Jason]

Also, there's roleplaying, and there are roleplaying games. Games need rules, else they're not games. So simply taking on the role of and acting as a character by itself is not sufficient to make a roleplaying game. You need some kind of rules.

Yep. It needs rules or it's just role-playing, not a role-playing game. How many rules you need before it's a game and not a role-playing exercise is open to debate.

Now, those rules will cover how characters interact. By extension, those rules will determine how those characters are crafted, since that kind of goes hand-in-hand. Therefore, all roleplaying games will have character-creation rules, if only by implication.

Also yep. Even Lady Blackbird has an obvious format that all of its pre-generated characters follow, implying that there were rules used in creating them, even if those rules were not published.

[Quertus]

Those, like poor player performance, are externalities. Your control over them is limited, but you do control your reaction to them. That's where The Stupid actually is in practice - namely, people getting into a nerd fight over how a character should or shouldn't act in the middle of a game, or never even playing because they're afraid of reactions of others. It's like arguing with your spouse about your oatmeal being cold - someone with modicum of virtue is perfectly capable of eating the damn oatmeal and moving on with their life without raising a fuss, regardless of little they enjoy the taste.

If people can criticize a movie for bad acting, and not want to watch it because that, I cannot see how not wanting to participate in a much more time-intensive version because of similar criteria can reasonably be called into question.

Oatmeal is sustenance. Children mixing oatmeal, cereal, and ice cream into a gritty ice cream / soggy cereal / cold oatmeal creation… could be sustenance that one soldiers through, or it could be trash. But, like a (non-date) movie, an RPG is purely for enjoyment. Something that kills the enjoyment of such is a hard… dagnabbit, I lost the word… no sale (or something. Darn senility).

Of course, you are free to control your reaction, and watch the worst movies, and eat "whatever's in the fridge, all mixed together". But my time (and pallet) are more valuable to me than that.

[Delta]

Those, like poor player performance, are externalities. Your control over them is limited, but you do control your reaction to them. That's where The Stupid actually is in practice - namely, people getting into a nerd fight over how a character should or shouldn't act in the middle of a game, or never even playing because they're afraid of reactions of others. It's like arguing with your spouse about your oatmeal being cold - someone with modicum of virtue is perfectly capable of eating the damn oatmeal and moving on with their life without raising a fuss, regardless of little they enjoy the taste.

Well, I can only speak for myself obviously, but I can't believe I'm alone with this opinion: I absolutely believe I could play Aragorn in a LotR based RPG group if I had to (let's be honest, Tolkien did a lot of great stuff, but it's not like his characters are insanely complex riddles no one but him will ever be able to understand), but I have absolutely zero interest in doing so because I'm absolutely sure it just wouldn't be any fun for me, at all, so I'm still not sure where exactly you're going with this whole argument.

[Batcathat]

Well, I can only speak for myself obviously, but I can't believe I'm alone with this opinion: I absolutely believe I could play Aragorn in a LotR based RPG group if I had to (let's be honest, Tolkien did a lot of great stuff, but it's not like his characters are insanely complex riddles no one but him will ever be able to understand), but I have absolutely zero interest in doing so because I'm absolutely sure it just wouldn't be any fun for me, at all, so I'm still not sure where exactly you're going with this whole argument.

I agree. I don't really like playing premade characters to begin with (even if I can see the point of it in some situations) and playing a character that's not only premade but that's in a story that's already "played out" in a certain way? Of course "my" Aragon could act differently than the original and the story would probably end up quite different too (assuming no railroading) but it would be even harder than normal to ignore meta-knowledge.

[Satinavian]

Same with me. Will avoid premades whenever possible.

Not that i can't portray them. But it tends to be harder to get into them and that takes all the fun out of playing. It feels a bit like playing NPCs as the GM. Sure, you can portray them but you generally don't care about them even remotely as much as a typical player does about his own created PC.


It sometimes can't be helped with oneshots trying out new systems or convention games but i try to make my own character even for a oneshot of a system i don't know, if i can and i have kinda lost interest in convention games over the years partly because of this.

[Vahnavoi]

If people can criticize a movie for bad acting, and not want to watch it because that, I cannot see how not wanting to participate in a much more time-intensive version because of similar criteria can reasonably be called into question.

There's a difference to critiquing a movie after you've seen it and not wanting to watch it again, which is fine, and standing up in the theater and shouting "this movie is rubbish!", which is not fine and is equivalent to what a lot of people actually do when they get into an argument about how a character should or shouldn't act midgame.

There's also a difference between complaining about movies you've seen and movies you haven't, and a lot of the people who are opposed to playing established characters are doing the latter. They approach the very idea in bad faith, which also means confirmation bias kicks in if they ever do try it: they go in expecting it to be bad, see only the bad and then conclude the thing is bad.

Oatmeal is sustenance. He Children mixing oatmeal, cereal, and ice cream into a gritty ice cream / soggy cereal / cold oatmeal creation… could be sustenance that one soldiers through, or it could be trash. But, like a (non-date) movie, an RPG is purely for enjoyment. Something that kills the enjoyment of such is a hard… dagnabbit, I lost the word… no sale (or something. Darn senility).

Well that's what you get for bringing in unnecessary analogies. But I disagree with your... I don't know if it's your conclusion or premise. Roleplaying games aren't for "pure enjoyment" any more than food, movies or other pursuits. Maybe you do them for pure enjoyment, but if that's the case I honestly suggest you forget about games entirely and just do drugs.

See, the thing is that playing any game requires skill, and both your ability and mine to have a pool of capable players relies on someone soldiering through the poor first attempts. And mimicry is one way through which people learn. Even when you do have custom character creation, the first instinct of many players is to play something like their favorite fictional character... so if playing Frodo or Aragorn is off the table, they'll just play Clone-Frodo or Clone-Aragorn.

The point I've been making in this thread is that you can just cut the middle and have them play Frodo or Aragorn. The things they would do when playing Clone-Frodo or Clone-Aragorn are fundamentally what they'd do just playing Frodo or Aragorn. If you are willing to suffer through that and give them constructive criticism instead of just being a Negative Nelly about their ability and shutting the endeavor down, you will eventually get a player who is capable of playing Aragorn in a way that's enjoyable to both of you. By focusing on being virtuous instead of how much your enjoying the current situation, you eventually create a world that has more things to enjoy in it.

And that's why it's a crying shame when games about established settings bar you from playing established characters, or even characters like the established characters, because the game authors think You Are Not Cool Enough to play them. Not only is it a betrayal of player expectations, it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: if, effectively, no-one is allowed to play established characters, no-one will get any good at it. And then people take the observation that they're no good at it as further justification to never do it.

Of course, you are free to control your reaction, and watch the worst movies, and eat "whatever's in the fridge, all mixed together". But my time (and pallet) are more valuable to me than that.

If my argument was just about your time, I wouldn't waste mine.

---

Well, I can only speak for myself obviously, but I can't believe I'm alone with this opinion: I absolutely believe I could play Aragorn in a LotR based RPG group if I had to (let's be honest, Tolkien did a lot of great stuff, but it's not like his characters are insanely complex riddles no one but him will ever be able to understand), but I have absolutely zero interest in doing so because I'm absolutely sure it just wouldn't be any fun for me, at all, so I'm still not sure where exactly you're going with this whole argument.

I'm not really going anywhere so much as elaborating my earlier stated stance that games set in established settings often fail because they approach what the players are doing as fan fiction, and implicitly bad fan fiction at that. Related is my stance that hobbyists are often irrationally opposed to playing established character, or even any preset characters, hence the tangent about character creation.

As for your statement about playing Aragorn? I'm categorically skeptical of absolute statements about preferences, because human preferences in general are not absolute. There are non-absolute arguments you could raise in defense of either, and empirical evidence you could bring up in support, that I'd accept. You aren't doing either right now and neither do most other people making statements such as this. That is The Stupid. There isn't a good reason to give such opinions much time of the day when designing a game meant for general consumption. It's about as useful as a rock musician saying they could do pop, but don't because they find no satisfaction in it, when you're designing a band game.

[icefractal]

Soggy oatmeal is assuming it's bad and can only be tolerated or not. Rather, I'd call it Cilantro Salad - tasty side dish for some, literally tastes like soap for others.

I'm kind of surprised at the level of surprise that games could exist without char-gen. Most convention games don't have char-gen (because they use pre-gen characters) even if the system they're being run in normally does have it. I don't know that I'd like that style for a whole campaign, but for a one-shot it's fine and sometimes preferable.

[Batcathat]

See, the thing is that playing any game requires skill, and both your ability and mine to have a pool of capable players relies on someone soldiering through the poor first attempts. And mimicry is one way through which people learn. Even when you do have custom character creation, the first instinct of many players is to play something like their favorite fictional character... so if playing Frodo or Aragorn is off the table, they'll just play Clone-Frodo or Clone-Aragorn.

The point I've been making in this thread is that you can just cut the middle and have them play Frodo or Aragorn. The things they would do when playing Clone-Frodo or Clone-Aragorn are fundamentally what they'd do just playing Frodo or Aragorn.

At least to me, the issue wouldn't be so much about playing existing characters (even though I don't like it myself) but about playing existing characters with an existing story attached. We don't just know how Frodo and Aragorn are as people, we know what happens to them and how they react to that. Even a player who's great at avoiding metagaming will make pretty much any decision knowing what the "original" one was. Even if the game's story take place after or before the original story (which might be hard in itself, since those stories usually have a natural beginning and end) the character still comes with so much baggage.

I'm not saying it couldn't be done. Some people would probably even enjoy it. But I think there's a good reason it's not usually done.

[Delta]

As for your statement about playing Aragorn? I'm categorically skeptical of absolute statements about preferences, because human preferences in general are not absolute.

And you express that skepticism by making lots of absolute statements about the preferences of other people? That sounds just the slightest bit hypocritical.

There are non-absolute arguments you could raise in defense of either, and empirical evidence you could bring up in support, that I'd accept.

Which has been done plenty and which you have not accepted.

[Vahnavoi]

At least to me, the issue wouldn't be so much about playing existing characters (even though I don't like it myself) but about playing existing characters with an existing story attached. We don't just know how Frodo and Aragorn are as people, we know what happens to them and how they react to that. Even a player who's great at avoiding metagaming will make pretty much any decision knowing what the "original" one was. Even if the game's story take place after or before the original story (which might be hard in itself, since those stories usually have a natural beginning and end) the character still comes with so much baggage.

I'm not saying it couldn't be done. Some people would probably even enjoy it. But I think there's a good reason it's not usually done.

I thought I already addresses this, but here we go again...

Knowing what happens in a book isn't the same as knowing what happens in a game. You can metagame all you like and it doesn't necessarily make the game any easier or less interesting. Again, board games and video games test this all the time. Knowing Aragorn survives in the book doesn't actually spare you the effort of dodging orc arrows in video game rendition of Return of the King, etc.

For a particular implementation of how to avoid metagaming, I'll point out an old Spectrum Alien game. It has the same ship, same characters and the same enemy. The twist? Who the face-hugger impregnates varies by the game, as does who is the android. So if you try to metagame based on what you saw in the movie instead of paying attention to what happens in the game you're playing, you get eaten by xenomorph.

So I do agree avoiding metagaming is a chief reason tabletop players don't play established characters, but I'm skeptical if it's actually a good reason.

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And you express that skepticism by making lots of absolute statements about the preferences of other people? That sounds just the slightest bit hypocritical.

You had the option to substantiate your clain, including quoting where I do what you claim. Instead you resorted to classic "tu quoque". This is why we can't have nice things.

Which has been done plenty and which you have not accepted.

I said there are arguments and evidence you could've given, but didn't, and continue to do so. As for others? For example, Satinavian, above, was writing as the same time as me, so I didn't see it and couldn't comment. I can accept Satinavian's argument for why they don't enjoy preset characters - chiefly because they say they've tried it and I can take that in good faith. However, whether Satinavian's experiences generalize is an open question.