AD&D 2nd edition. Twilight 2000. Rifts. Ars Magica. Shadowrun. Kult. Deadlands. World of Synnibar, Cyborg Commando, etc.

All games from late 80s to mid 90s. All games where complexity for complexity's sake, slow gameplay, and opaque goals were the norm. Could we argue this was the period with the biggest amount of poorly designed games? Specially in contrast to the periods that came immediately before (70s-80s) and after (2000s-now) ? Can someone positively constrast those rules to the kinds of, say... Runequest and OD&D, or the recent entries of OSR and PbtA?

I always thought everyone loved 2nd edition.

Quote from: Itachi;1010937AD&D 2nd edition. Twilight 2000. Rifts. Ars Magica. Shadowrun. Kult. Deadlands. World of Synnibar, etc.

All games from late 80s to mid 90s. All games where complexity for complexity's sake, slow gameplay, and opaque goals were the norm. Could we argue this was the period with the biggest amount of poorly designed games? Specially in contrast to the periods that came immediately before (70s-80s) and after (2000s-now) ? Can someone positively constrast those rules to the kinds of, say... Runequest and OD&D, or the recent entries of OSR and PbtA?

Personally I don't think any major or famous rulesets come within an ass's roar of being the worst ruleset. That'd go to some of the pure crud which is now forgotten.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1010940I always thought everyone loved 2nd edition.

I did until the Player's Option books came along. After those? I was done.

If I wanted a fantasy game that complex, I would have continued playing Rolemaster.

Quote from: Itachi;1010937AD&D 2nd edition. Twilight 2000. Rifts. Ars Magica. Shadowrun. Kult. Deadlands. World of Synnibar, etc.

All games from late 80s to mid 90s. All games where complexity for complexity's sake, slow gameplay, and opaque goals were the norm. Could we argue this was the period with the biggest amount of poorly designed games? Specially in contrast to the periods that came immediately before (70s-80s) and after (2000s-now) ? Can someone positively constrast those rules to the kinds of, say... Runequest and OD&D, or the recent entries of OSR and PbtA?

Except none of those were bad games, slow games, opaque games or anyof that. Aside from Synnabar.

You fail at trolling.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1010940I always thought everyone loved 2nd edition.

Not in my neck of the woods.  It was the most reviled edition.  Until 3rd came.  Then it was 3.5, then it was 4th.

I'd have to say Palladium's Rifts was the worst for me.  Stat numbers that mean nothing below a certain rank, seemingly arbitrary percentile based skills, 'classes' with widely varying power levels and no sense of scale (To be honest, some were kind of obvious, like the Mind Melter or the various baby Dragons, but others were deceptive.  A Headhunter should be comparable to a Glitter Boy, yes?  Nope.  Hell, even a Cyber-Knight wasn't very impressive at the start) and finally the Vietnam War technology limits for giant futuristic war machines and basic rifles that were better than anything in terms of raw staying power, oh and the SDC creep is another issue.

Quote from: Itachi;1010937AD&D 2nd edition. Twilight 2000. Rifts. Ars Magica. Shadowrun. Kult. Deadlands. World of Synnibar, etc.

Funny, our group loved Kult and Rifts. Twilight 2000 was too simulations and fine grained in its mechanics for its own good. Deadlands had a great idea and setting, playing it seemed to be an exercise in novelty ofr novelty's sake.

To me 3e and d20 was terrible.

Quote from: Itachi;1010937AD&D 2nd edition. Twilight 2000. Rifts. Ars Magica. Shadowrun. Kult. Deadlands. World of Synnibar, etc.

Of those I actually got to play... far from the worst, I'd say.
Kult's rules didn't really match its setting, IMO... but they worked.
Shadowrun and Deadlands weren't my favorite games, but that had as much or more to do with who I was playing them with... and my not liking some of the 'gimmicks' of Deadlands... but that's a matter of taste, not being objectively bad.

It's tough to make a generalization. In those years we also had Hero System (84), Gurps (86), WEG Star Wars (87), and Vampire: The Masquerade (91). While each game has strengths and weaknesses, as well as fans and detractors, none of them are among the worst games ever produced. In fact, they are some of the most influential games in the hobby.

Quote from: Aglondir;1010959It's tough to make a generalization. In those years we also had Hero System (84), Gurps (86), WEG Star Wars (87), and Vampire: The Masquerade (91). While each game has it's fans and detractors, none of those four were among the worst games ever produced. In fact, they are some of the most influential games in the hobby.

Agreed. But at the same time the period had such horrid rulesets as Shadowrun 1s edition, Mechwarrior RPG and World of Synnibar. Oh and didn't Cyborg Commando come out by this time too?

Did any other era have such a bad batch?

Quote from: Aglondir;1010959It's tough to make a generalization. In those years we also had Hero System (84), Gurps (86), WEG Star Wars (87), and Vampire: The Masquerade (91). While each game has strengths and weaknesses, as well as fans and detractors, none of them are among the worst games ever produced. In fact, they are some of the most influential games in the hobby.

And Call of Cthulhu (1980). The OP's theorem is fatally flawed.

You're just being selective and arbitrary in your judgement. Some people would say that games like The Burning Wheel or even D&D3.5/Pathfinder are complex and slow to run. You conveniently omit games like the D6 system, Amber, Castle Falkenstein or Prince Valiant from your list. Ars Magica, certainly in it's 1st and 2nd editions was no more complex that RuneQuest or even something like Mythras from later eras.

You are merely trying to create a narrative, again, where you can claim so-called 'indie games' like Sorcerer or Apocalypse World actually have more significance than they do. You don't need the help of psychedelic drugs to see through you.

Quote from: Herne's SonAnd Call of Cthulhu (1980). The OP's theorem is fatally flawed.

1980 is not late 80s, as indicated in the first post.

GURPS is a game that I never enjoyed, despite trying hard to like it and being a fan of the Fantasy Trip, but I would not call it one of the worst games ever.  As for Shadowrun 1e, we played it and had fun. It could have been better, but I don't remember it being that bad, at least with just the core book.

Mega-Traveler. That's truly on my list for the worst ever.

Convoluted character generation where your character could die before ever making it to play. And routinely did.

And tons of behind the scenes busy work for the GM to create things that 9 times out of 10, would never really matter to or even effect the player characters.