Ok, we've had the top 10, someone had to do the bottom... here are the rules.

1: Where possible, base your votes strictly on bad gaming experiences you have had with a particular rules set. Bitching about game designers' personalities won't get us anywhere, and ragging on games you've never played or read is silly. Let's we've tried to play but struggled with, either because the rules are badly worded, or there's too many of them, or there's too few, or because the system just plain didn't work for you. Obviously I can't reach through the Internet and check that you're being truthful, but I'll take it on faith that you're being honest unless you say "I've never read or played it, but D&D 3.5 looks terrible!"

2: Rank games from 1-10, with up to 3 honourable mentions. Scoring will be the same as in the "top games" thread.

3: If you want to PM me with votes because you don't want to start a flamewar about someone else's favourite game or pet project, feel free, but I'll think worse of you if I do.

4: Strict deadline: 5pm GMT next Friday. Any votes which come in after that won't get counted.

#1- Pax Draconis
#2- Imagine RPG
#3- Blue Planet
#4- Hero
#5- Burning Wheel
#6- SW D20
#7- Cyberpunk v3
#8-  Shab al-hiri roach
dont have 2 more.


added roach, I'm not sure that its actually an RPG though.

1. Weapons of the Gods - Horribly overrated game that demonstrates poor layout, poor description, and unnecessarily complex rules.
2. RIFTS - Just reading it hurts my eyes now.
3. Star Wars D20 - Neat in concept, but the mechanics fall apart at mid to high levels.  Jedi tend to be very un-Jedi like.  Space combat is downright difficult to run.

Hmm.  I'm tapped out after that.  These are the only three that come to mind right now.

Weapons of the Gods pissed me off like few games have, though I could be taking it personally

Cyberpunk v3 is an abortion. I refuse to speak more of it.

Synnibar: Oy! (yes, I've had two different copies of the rulebook. No, I never got to play it. Not for lack of trying, but then I am a glutton for punishment)

Rogue Trader: As an RPG, which I tried to use it for, it earned the Golden Paperweight award. As a tabletop game it was much to RPGish...

I'll add more as the bad memories float to the surface.  I'm tempted to add MERP, as my play expirence was that first level experts with bows could not hunt to save their lives, and we spent so very very long at first level. Could have been just a rotten GM...:rolleyes:

1. Black Company - Mainly the magic system here. It is brutally complex while having a lot of missing explainations.
2. C&C (my experience is with first printing, I've heard the second printing fixed a lot of issues....but that isn't a second printing, that's a redo) - Stuff just missing. Yeah it's a 'light' system but it'll mention something in reference with the thing referred to nowhere to be found. This happened so much and is so systemic that I was just left scratching my head.  I bailed after the second session of the campaign using it. The campaign died a session after that.
3. Warhammer FRPG 2e - It is like a sad, sad country song about drinking yourself to death because your wife drove over your dog with your pickup truck as she left you. Only you can't dance to it.
4. AD&D - Oh man I'm so glad I had friends to get me through this.
5. Shadowrun 3 - Rules so byzantine and counter-intuitive that eventually I just gave up playing Shadowrun, even though I really liked the wacky setting, until 4e came out.

I think it's difficult t name 10 bad games you've actually played. Their badness usually mkes them unplayable...

But here ges.

1. AD&D 2nd edition.  Arg.
2. RIFTS. Arg again.
3. Werewolf: the Apocalypse. Couldn't figure this one out
4. Exalted: the Fair Folk. Great read, impossible to play with more than 1 person.
5. WWF the role-playing game. Not Know your Role but the one that came out in 1991.
6. GURPS 3rd edition. This game seems to make sense to a lot of people. not me.

That's al I've got.

GURPS - I don't really know what it is about it, but I don't really care for the system. Maybe it's cuz I don't like roll-under systems? Nah, that can't be it cuz I like BRP.

HERO - too much crunch for me.

I had fun playing Weapons of the Gods, but yeah that book!! Holy moly!

I also really love the setting and overall concept in Shadowrun 4th, but the magic and hacking rules are horribly overcomplicated.

EDIT to add Werewolf (both oWod and nWod). I just don't like how they're presented. I'm an old school werewolf fan (ala Lon Chaney Jr.)

I'll try.  In order of crappitude, 10 sucking harder than 1:

1: d20 3.5.     It just doesn't fire for me.  It's halfway decent but not halfway enough.

2. Star Wars d20   An epic mis-match of tone and ruleset.

3. Traveller 20   When I can't even finish making a character...

4. Story Engine   I like rules-light systems just fine, but this one seemed...I dunno, flaccid?

I can't come up with a 5 through a nine, so...

10. Dark Realms    Never heard of Guild of Blades Publishing's "Dark Realms"?  Good.

1. Rifts - After spending two sessions building characters, it took us less than 20 minutes of game time to go "WTF???"

2. d20 SW - an excellent example of a system being shoe-horned into a setting it doesn't match.

3. d20 D&D - not a dreadful game per se, but at high levels it just makes my head hurt.

4. Millenium's End - another game that isn't dreadful per se.  But it includes damage system that checks for blood loss, broken bones and hydrostatic shock.  Detail waaaaaay beyond my requirements.

5. AD&D2E Players Options - let's take a system that is already a bit sketchy and tack on a whole bunch of shit.  Yeah... that'd be a good idea.

That's about all I got.

1. Continuum (not sure if I spelled that right).  Too much time spent futzing with the time travel mechanics to make sure things weren't screwed up to actually enjoy the game.

2.  Sorcerer.  It felt like Ron Edwards was getting in the way of his own game; I never did really figure it out.  Sorcerer and Sword is great, though.

3. Ex Machina.  I couldn't determine why I would want to use this, instead of just sticking with BESM 2nd if I wanted to use Tri-Stat.  I also thought it was ironic that, despite saying in the intro that other cyberpunk RPGs had too much focus on combat, the book still spent around 40 pages on it.  

4. Silver Age Sentinels (Tri-Stat).  Ran a one-shot with the system once, but once again, it seemed like it just would have been easier to stick with BESM.

Couldn't think of more; sorry.  The vast majority of my RPG experiences have been at least OK, if not good or better.

1. Owlbears -- The worst RPG ever. Bee stings aren't funny.

2. Bangkok Adventure -- Very funny guys.

3. Big Dog Diceless Roleplaying -- I'd rather read a book.

4. Hybrid -- Save vs. madness.

I have 4.

1. D20 D&D

2. MERP

3. VtM

4. Jade Claw

1. Rifts (not Palladium)- Personal MDC equipment and endless upworld building supplements
2.  2nd ed. D&D - Upward endless supplements with none of the charm of the original

Quote from: Mcrow#1- Pax Draconis
#2- Imagine RPG
#3- Blue Planet
#4- Hero
#5- Burning Wheel
#6- SW D20
#7- Cyberpunk v3
dont have 3 more.:confused:

Hey! I wa sin that Hero game...yuck...I played Wheelie, the deranged paraplegic super hero...yeah, it was that kind of game.

You should regale them with your stories of how the Pax Draconis game went. Truly epic.

Bill

Well, normally I don't play games I suspect will suck, but

1) WEG Star Wars - Nice starter game, but a bit into the campaign, the system soon tired on me, made me hate dice pools, and made me wish that I could have a character a fraction as good as the statted out movie characters.
2) Over the Edge - the game that made me hate rules light games.
3) Rifts - the power levels of the characters are so uneven, it's either player motivated mayhem of rule by DM fiat.
4) GURPS. All the pain of Hero without the flexibility.