Worst Tabletop RPG

[Batcathat]

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.

Sure, I guess. A game where I knew the basic story could still be challenging and interesting — but I almost guarantee it would be less so. I love rereading books and replaying games but it's not the same as doing it the first time. Again, I'm not saying it couldn't be done but I don't really see any interest in it personally and considering how rare it seems in general, I'm leaning towards most people agreeing with me.

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 what would the equivalent be in our hypothetical Lord of the Rings game? The GM having to change around the story enough that it feels fresh? A good GM could certainly pull that off but at that point, why not just make an entirely new story that's your own instead of a frankensteinian mix of Tolkien's ideas and your own?

[Vahnavoi]

So what would the equivalent be in our hypothetical Lord of the Rings game? The GM having to change around the story enough that it feels fresh? A good GM could certainly pull that off but at that point, why not just make an entirely new story that's your own instead of a frankensteinian mix of Tolkien's ideas and your own?

We can be more concrete than thar. The equivalent would be varying when the Ring Wraiths arrive at Hobbitton, and from which direction. So all the decisions the players make exist in advancing time frame, but they don't know when and where the Ring Wraiths are at the start. (The characters in the book don't know either; the exact time frame is laid out in appendices, IIRC.) This means the characters may have to leave at different time and take a different route than planned, which naturally has ripple effects through the story.

The point, here, really is that Tolkien has done most of the work for you, the peoples and locations the characters are laid out, you and your players know what the goal is and they have an example of how they could succeed... now they just have to do it. Or, shortly, the point and appeal is largely the same as with any other game set in Middle-Earth.

Obviously, you can go off a tangent and do your own thing, but it's not generally speaking any easier or lead to better results. We know this, because ripping off Tolkien has been favorite past time of both fiction writers and tabletop GMs alike and LotR and games set in Middle-Earth still exist and stand on their own.

[King of Nowhere]

i never heard about fatal or rahowa before. i had a few good laughs reading recensions.

fatal looks like it could be fun for a while, as long as nobody comes in with the wrong expectations. just like there are people who watch the worst b-movies to have fun at how crappy they are, the same could be doable here*. i wonder if someone can share experiences along that avenue?


*the main obstacle to trying it is the manual, since i would never want to actually give money to the guy who made that stuff. but i'm sure it can be found on the internet for free.

[JNAProductions]

i never heard about fatal or rahowa before. i had a few good laughs reading recensions.

fatal looks like it could be fun for a while, as long as nobody comes in with the wrong expectations. just like there are people who watch the worst b-movies to have fun at how crappy they are, the same could be doable here*. i wonder if someone can share experiences along that avenue?


*the main obstacle to trying it is the manual, since i would never want to actually give money to the guy who made that stuff. but i'm sure it can be found on the internet for free.

Eh... There's two issues with that, the way I see it.

1) The ideas behind it are so bad. It's not "Look at that cheesy acting!" it's wallowing in despair at how cruel, petty, and bigoted someone can be.

2) The mechanics are utter garbage too.

[Batcathat]

We can be more concrete than thar. The equivalent would be varying when the Ring Wraiths arrive at Hobbitton, and from which direction. So all the decisions the players make exist in advancing time frame, but they don't know when and where the Ring Wraiths are at the start. (The characters in the book don't know either; the exact time frame is laid out in appendices, IIRC.) This means the characters may have to leave at different time and take a different route than planned, which naturally has ripple effects through the story.

So either we get basically Lord of the Rings with some details changed or we have something that's actually different, which means basically the same amount of work as using something entirely original but with meta knowledge of how it "should" happen still influencing everyone. Neither version seems preferable to an actual original campaign.

Obviously, you can go off a tangent and do your own thing, but it's not generally speaking any easier or lead to better results. We know this, because ripping off Tolkien has been favorite past time of both fiction writers and tabletop GMs alike and LotR and games set in Middle-Earth still exist and stand on their own.

Yes, Tolkien rip-offs are rarely as good as the original and that would apply to playing out Lord of the Rings too. I much rather play an original adventure with original characters (even a Frodo clone is preferable to a player trying to act as Frodo) that's not overshadowed by the original.

[Vahnavoi]

There's two thing I can say to that, which I already said in respect to players playing established characters, just applied to GMs running settings:

First, metagaming and being overshadowed by earlier works happens even when you're doing original work. These aren't unique problems for games in established settings and have a lot to do with player attitudes.

Second, mimicry is a way of learning. Looking at and running established settings is potential stepping stone to learning how to make your own. It's exceptional for anyone to crap out good original work in a void. We could be having this same discussion about music, painting etc.. Setting the bar at original work that cannot be overshadowed is really, really high. The ability of any individual person to get there is always suspect.

Shortly, originality is overrated.

[Batcathat]

First, metagaming and being overshadowed by earlier works happens even when you're doing original work. These aren't unique problems for games in established settings and have a lot to do with player attitudes.

Sure, but don't you think that the issues might be more noticeable if you're playing the exact same characters in a very similar story compared to original characters in an original story? If I were to create a piece of art, odds are it would be overshadowed by the likes of Leonardo da Vinci no matter what I painted. But if I attempted to paint my own version of the Mona Lisa, I'd say the overshadowing would be much more noticeable.

Second, mimicry is a way of learning. Looking at and running established settings is potential stepping stone to learning how to make your own. It's exceptional for anyone to crap out good original work in a void. We could be having this same discussion about music, painting etc.. Setting the bar at original work that cannot be overshadowed is really, really high. The ability of any individual person to get there is always suspect.

That is true, but I think that creating your own character or writing your own story inspired by the greats is much more educational than trying to make an almost-copy. Playing a clone of Frodo or Batman or Drizzt might not be very original but I think it's a better learning experience than playing the actual Frodo, Batman or Drizzt.

[Jason]

I ran a very successful Star Wars game a few years ago that sort of re-told the original trilogy plot, with the players finding R2-D2 with the Death Star Plans, finding an old Jedi Knight to train one of them (a one-armed Mace Windu in this case, rather than Obi-Wan), and being intercepted on their way to the Rebels by the Death Star. The Jedi Knight was killed in a fight with Darth Vader that allowed them to escape, and then they analyzed the plans and performed the trench run that destroyed the Death Star.

We followed with the Battle of Hoth and the Jedi going off to Dagobah to train with Yoda while the rest of the group found refuge in Cloud City, only to be betrayed by Lando Calrissian. Boba Fett found the Jedi on Dagobah and killed Yoda, but was killed himself, and the Jedi raced off to Cloud City in disguise as Boba Fett to save his friends from the evil Darth Vixis (aka Leia Skywalker). He fought a duel with Darth Vader in which Vader was destroyed and the traitor Lando killed.

After interludes with Jaba the Hutt, redeeming Leia Skywalker, and gaining the help of Imperial star destroyer captain Han Solo, the players managed to convince the Mon Calmari to raise a Rebel fleet to keep the Empire's fleet busy while they infiltrated Coruscant to face the Emperor and his apprentice Mara Jade. They turned Mara against her master and destroyed the Emperor, winning the Rebellion.

Yeah, it was only loosely the plot of the original trilogy (notably Return of the Jedi ended up being very different, with no Second Death Star and no Ewoks). My players took the story-roles of the power trio without playing the same characters. They were playing a farm boy with Jedi potential, a smuggler, and a noble who becomes a leader of the Rebels, but were not playing Luke, Han, and Leia, but characters of their own design that filled similar story roles.

It was awesome.

So yes, you can have fun playing a story that was mostly known, if it has twists, and if you let the players make their own characters rather than playing exactly the same story with the same characters.

[King of Nowhere]

Eh... There's two issues with that, the way I see it.

1) The ideas behind it are so bad. It's not "Look at that cheesy acting!" it's wallowing in despair at how cruel, petty, and bigoted someone can be.

2) The mechanics are utter garbage too.

yes, i see that problem. while i can look forward to rolling my anal circumference while joking with my friends that a high roll there may save my life in case my magic will accidentally summon a gang of sodomitic ogres, i'd not want to go through 11 pages of character creation and a 900 pages manual just for it.

[KineticDiplomat]

Well, worst has it’s definitions. For worst-playing, most cringe inducing, and so forth, people have listed most of them.

For worst effect on the hobby, I still go D&D every time. In a world of good-to-great range RPGs covering virtually anything you could want, D&D remains a spectacularly mediocre one that appeals to the worst traits of munchkinerry and yet has become nearly synonymous with the entire genre.

It’s like watching a world where Milawaukee’s Best is hailed as the exemplar of beer.

[Jason]

Well, worst has it’s definitions. For worst-playing, most cringe inducing, and so forth, people have listed most of them.

For worst effect on the hobby, I still go D&D every time. In a world of good-to-great range RPGs covering virtually anything you could want, D&D remains a spectacularly mediocre one that appeals to the worst traits of munchkinerry and yet has become nearly synonymous with the entire genre.

It’s like watching a world where Milawaukee’s Best is hailed as the exemplar of beer.

Would there be a role-playing hobby if there had been no D&D?

It is the most successful and popular RPG, and has been from the beginning. The only thing that has come close to dethroning it was Pathfinder during the 4th edition years, and Pathfinder is an explicit copy of D&D.

[ImNotTrevor]

Would there be a role-playing hobby if there had been no D&D?

Probably yeah, eventually.

It wouldn't have its wargaming roots, and it might not have been what we're used to now, but the idea of roleplaying with a group was not first invented by Gygax and crew.

It is the most successful and popular RPG, and has been from the beginning. The only thing that has come close to dethroning it was Pathfinder during the 4th edition years, and Pathfinder is an explicit copy of D&D.

Popularity isn't synonymous with quality, a statement any Cardi B song stands as evidence for.

[EggKookoo]

Probably yeah, eventually.

I would say if TTRPGs didn't materialize or catch on by the late 80s, they probably wouldn't exists as we think of them at all. Computer games would have taken over.

It's interesting to try to imagine how cRPGs would have evolved in the absence of TTRPGs.

[King of Nowhere]

D&D remains a spectacularly mediocre one that appeals to the worst traits of munchkinerry

i believe this forum can give this opinion, but the forum is not representative of how most people plays the game.

i've said it times and again, but the good thing of d&d is that, with a mixture of homebrewing, houseruing and session 0 agreements, you can mold it to do almost anything. and by the time you could branch out and learn new games, you are proficient enough at d&d that you can mold it to your needs, and you'd rather do that than learn an entirely new system completely from scratch.

[NigelWalmsley]

In a world of good-to-great range RPGs covering virtually anything you could want, D&D remains a spectacularly mediocre one that appeals to the worst traits of munchkinerry and yet has become nearly synonymous with the entire genre.

The people who think "D&D" and "TTRPGs" are the same thing were never going to play whatever indy game you think is the best. Blaming D&D for the fact that Apocalypse World or FATE isn't a household name is like blaming the Hunger Games for crowding out the Midnighters Trilogy.

Would there be a role-playing hobby if there had been no D&D?

Would there have been D&D if there wasn't a role-play hobby? Initially, the terms referred to the same thing. It wasn't until Gygax started demanding that everyone accept that he owned D&D that the terms diverged.

It is the most successful and popular RPG, and has been from the beginning. The only thing that has come close to dethroning it was Pathfinder during the 4th edition years, and Pathfinder is an explicit copy of D&D.

Vampire also beat it in the late 90s. That said, you are broadly correct that D&D has a level of presumptive dominance similar to WoW among MMOs or Star Wars in movies.

[Satinavian]

Would there be a role-playing hobby if there had been no D&D?

It is the most successful and popular RPG, and has been from the beginning. The only thing that has come close to dethroning it was Pathfinder during the 4th edition years, and Pathfinder is an explicit copy of D&D.

Only in markets where it came first.

In countries where early D&D was translated late and other local offerings came earlier, it had and still has significant problems.

It is just that whatever is already established has a huge market advantage for group finding, older players recruiting newer ones etc. Turns out that D&D, without this particular advantage, is not more successful/popular than the others.

[Friv]

Would there be roleplaying without D&D? Absolutely. Wargaming existed already. The SCA existed already. Various people were already experimenting with story games. Something would have blended together.

Would it look like what we got? Much harder to say.

[Anonymouswizard]

Would there be a role-playing hobby if there had been no D&D?

It is the most successful and popular RPG, and has been from the beginning. The only thing that has come close to dethroning it was Pathfinder during the 4th edition years, and Pathfinder is an explicit copy of D&D.

D&D is a victim of it's own success, and differs from not being very good for where the hobby has moved to. More it would be unfair to say that D&D have been updating itself with the times, but it's generally been rather far behind the industry.

This wouldn't be a problem if people went forcing D&D into forms it wasn't meant to be payed in. The TSR editions were designed to be dungeon exploration games, 4e is a very good dungeon skirmish game, while 3.X and 5e are somewhere in between. And when used for those purposes they work really well, but they're very much not storytelling games, that's more the domain of Burning Wheel or Apocalypse World.


Plus you know, it's so unnecessarily fight to get people to play anything that isn't D&F. I'd love to play more Fate or Unknown Armies.

[Vahnavoi]

Would there be a role-playing hobby if there had been no D&D?

Yes, but it would've evolved more directly from historical re-enaction and military pedagogic tools (kind reminder: modern wargame evolved from Kriegsspiel, which was invented to train military officers). It wouldn't have had such strong ties to speculative fiction and consequently the entire field of modern genre fiction would be different.

I would say if TTRPGs didn't materialize or catch on by the late 80s, they probably wouldn't exists as we think of them at all. Computer games would have taken over.

It's interesting to try to imagine how cRPGs would have evolved in the absence of TTRPGs.

It is very hard to imagine how computer games would've evolved, because both early and current game designers were massive D&D nerds (computers and D&D first got popular in the same place and earliest attempts to computerize D&D date to 70s). D&D and computer games based on D&D have had disproportionate effect on computer game design. Just to give some idea of the ripple effects... without D&D, Zelda and Pokemon franchises as we know them would have never become a thing. DOOM wouldn't exist either.

[Satinavian]

Yes, but it would've evolved more directly from historical re-enaction and military pedagogic tools (kind reminder: modern wargame evolved from Kriegsspiel, which was invented to train military officers). It wouldn't have had such strong ties to speculative fiction and consequently the entire field of modern genre fiction would be different.

Wargaming had evolved in the direction of fiction and entertainment for decades already.

What might have changed is the kind of fiction and/or wargaming that would have been at the core. Maybe instead of plundering ruins we would have gotten a more world- and story focussed game like the Warhammer RPGs (which kinda also evolved from Wargaming). Or maybe the first successful RPG would have been written by someone inspired by Arthurian Legends or the tales of Charlemagnes Paladins and we would have gotten something like Pendragon first. Or maybe the first RPGs would not have been about Fntasy and more about SF and something like traveller would have been first.

[Vahnavoi]

Not denying that - what I mean is that Chainmail and D&D were sort of unique in that they stole ideas from pretty nearly everyone, from national mythologies to Tolkien, Lovecraft, Anderson & all and put them in the same game and eventually same fictional setting. D&D was pretty important in popularizing and codifying several speculative fiction tropes for tabletop and computer games alike. Warhammer, as we know it, could not exist either without D&D.

[Satinavian]

Yes, that is true. Instead of stealing everywhere and putting it all together, no matter what, we might have gotten something more focussed and with some proper worldbuilding first. Maybe then expansions/supplements for other inspirations. And then maybe something like Gurps for the first "take everything" approach.

[EggKookoo]

Also, when Gygax was creating the game, he was a LotR fan during a time that LotR was not very well known in the broader culture. People knew The Hobbit, of course, but LotR was obscure. I mean it was so obscure to the general pop that Terry Brooks could rip off Fellowship almost chapter-for-chapter and character-for-character and Del Rey successfully gambled that they could get away with it. It's likely that LotR itself got its 80s surge in popularity because of D&D, and without it we probably wouldn't have had the Jackson films.

In 1977, Star Wars came along and dominated how Hollywood viewed SF and space opera for well over a decade. If the market-equivalent of D&D happened at that point, it would have almost certainly been a space opera game. We would have ended up with something more akin to Gamma World or Star Frontiers as the basis for the TTRPGs that came later.

[King of Nowhere]

Yes, that is true. Instead of stealing everywhere and putting it all together, no matter what, we might have gotten something more focussed and with some proper worldbuilding first.

i doubt it.
as the first roleplaying game, d&d stole from what was collective culture at the time. and it tried to cater to different styles, since it was the only rpg available - i think the very concept of rpg didn't even exhist yet. and same goes for worldbuilding. admittedly, i'm not the greatest expert, but from what media i know of the time, i'm not aware there was any modern concept of worldbuilding anywhere*.
the first rpg was pretty much guaranteed to end up like this disjoined mess. more modern concepts are only possible because we already have other rpg, we already have the disjoined mess, and we learned from there, and we developed new needs.



* we're talking of the seventies, what I know of the time is star wars and star trek, which are alternate worlds, and as far as i'm aware, they had a very simplified general framework, then they introduced new elements whenever they needed them for the plot, and let them fade into the background later. tolkien was probably the first to do serious worldbuilding, i.e. explore elements that are not related to the plot. Modern star wars and star trek also evolved to have the modern worldbuilding, but only in later years. possibly the Aasimov books also had worldbuilding, but i'm not familiar enough with them; anyway, it was something isolated, done by few authors.

[Jason]

Also, when Gygax was creating the game, he was a LotR fan during a time that LotR was not very well known in the broader culture. People knew The Hobbit, of course, but LotR was obscure. I mean it was so obscure to the general pop that Terry Brooks could rip off Fellowship almost chapter-for-chapter and character-for-character and Del Rey successfully gambled that they could get away with it. It's likely that LotR itself got its 80s surge in popularity because of D&D, and without it we probably wouldn't have had the Jackson films.

In 1977, Star Wars came along and dominated how Hollywood viewed SF and space opera for well over a decade. If the market-equivalent of D&D happened at that point, it would have almost certainly been a space opera game. We would have ended up with something more akin to Gamma World or Star Frontiers as the basis for the TTRPGs that came later.

Um, no. The Lord of the Rings was somewhat obscure in the '50s, when it was first published in England, but it was very popular from '65 onward when it first appeared in America in the unauthorized Ace edition. The National Lampoon Bored of the Rings parody came out in '69. Tolkien was quite wealthy when he died in '73 precisely because LotR was so popular. The Silmarillion was published in '77 because the demand for more Tolkien was so high. Ralph Bakshi's movie came out n '78, and the BBC radio version was a big hit in '81.

The Lord of the Rings was very popular, not obscure, when D&D was put together.

Brooks could successfully copy the general structure of the series with The Sword of Shannara in '77 precisely because there were so many fans eager for more Tolkienesque works.

Lord of the Rings was popular before D&D and therefore would have been popular without it (although there probably is some cross-fertilization going on). If anything, the movies helped 3rd edition D&D become more popular rather than the reverse.

The market-equivalent to D&D that came out in '77 is Traveller, a game that was popular in its own right as the first sci-fi RPG (not entirely true, but close enough). I love Traveller, but it has never been as successful as D&D and is rather obscure now by comparison.

EDIT: Star Wars (and its dark brother Alien) still utterly dominates sci-fi film. That's why nearly every sci-fi film is also either an action or a horror movie.

[WanderingMist]

Um, no. The Lord of the Rings was somewhat obscure in the '50s, when it was first published in England, but it was very popular from '65 onward when it first appeared in America in the unauthorized Ace edition. The National Lampoon Bored of the Rings parody came out in '69. Tolkien was quite wealthy when he died in '73 precisely because LotR was so popular. The Silmarillion was published in '77 because the demand for more Tolkien was so high. Ralph Bakshi's movie came out n '78, and the BBC radio version was a big hit in '81.

The Lord of the Rings was very popular, not obscure, when D&D was put together.

Brooks could successfully copy the general structure of the series with The Sword of Shannara in '77 precisely because there were so many fans eager for more Tolkienesque works.

Lord of the Rings was popular before D&D and therefore would have been popular without it (although there probably is some cross-fertilization going on). If anything, the movies helped 3rd edition D&D become more popular rather than the reverse.

The market-equivalent to D&D that came out in '77 is Traveller, a game that was popular in its own right as the first sci-fi RPG (not entirely true, but close enough). I love Traveller, but it has never been as successful as D&D and is rather obscure now.

I wonder how much of D&D's success is due to that whole moral panic over it. Sure, it existed before then, but the whole "It's a Satanic cult" got it spread nationally on panicking local news stations and that sort of thing.

[SwordCoastTaxi]

HERO System:

It's far more complicated than it needs to be. As far as "point-buy Supers" goes, M&M 2nd edition does everything Champions does only easier. For non-Supers, GURPS 4e again does point-buy easier than HERO.

[Jason]

I wonder how much of D&D's success is due to that whole moral panic over it. Sure, it existed before then, but the whole "It's a Satanic cult" got it spread nationally on panicking local news stations and that sort of thing.

D&D certainly benefited from the bad publicity, but there wouldn't have been a moral panic if it hadn't already been fairly popular on campuses.

[Quertus]

EDIT: Star Wars (and its dark brother Alien) still utterly dominates sci-fi film. That's why nearly every sci-fi film is also either an action or a horror movie.

Quick - name a sci-fi romcom. A sci-fi whodunnit. A sci-fi coming of age film.

HERO System:

It's far more complicated than it needs to be. As far as "point-buy Supers" goes, M&M 2nd edition does everything Champions does only easier. For non-Supers, GURPS 4e again does point-buy easier than HERO.

M&M, at least, doesn't give the visceral satisfaction of throwing handfuls of dice at a problem the way Hero does.

And I used Hero as the base for a Naruto game - I'm not sure either of the others would be quite as easy, or work quite as well / feel right.

But generally, yeah, M&M seems vastly superior.

[EggKookoo]

Um, no.

Hm. I wonder how I got my decades mixed up. The dangers of recalling conversations from too many years ago without verification.