To all of the people out there who like The Riddle of Steel, you should take a good look at the Burning Wheel. I wrote a little bit about it here in this area of the forum. The system is very well constructed and has some of the best rules I've seen for non-combative actions and their advancement. It's also loose enough to easily import rules from other games systems, like TRoS's combat system and HârnMaster's occupations.

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Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.

Not that they are bad, and you have to give them credit for trying something "new". However, I could never really enjoy rpgs that try to be system-less or oriented toward "collective story-telling", etc. like White Wolf or Castle Falkenstein.

I know it makes me stodgy and old school, but if the GM just kind of just makes up the most dramatic outcome for the situation why did I have to spend $25 on the book, why can't I just go back to screaming "BANG, your dead!!" really loud at other players...

To second Neil:

Heroquest, massively disappointing. It is everything I tried to keep out of my campaigns. A friend gave me the whole set last April, he said he couldn't get his money back, I understand why he gave it away.

After that,

Rifts. I liked the first book, it was kinda amatuerish and innocent. Then out came those trillions of suppliments. I sat in on a session once where two guys were competing on building the biggest rules-rape PC.

Shadowrun. If you don't know why I don't like it I can't tell you.

As per Twilight 2000, I run that using the cyberpunk2020 rules as a PbEM for many serving military guys (a big stress out for a non military guy like me) and I play it differently to the canon setting, there's plenty of room for pathos and I don't tolerate people who like to RP war criminals (well, the PCs don't, for which I'm grateful). I think it's a military RP game in an 'understandable' conflict, two big empires butting heads and trampling everything in their death throes. If the GM is mature and portrays the enemy as humans rather than AD&D orcs it becomes an interesting game, but I've seen many a terrible campaign I must admit.

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Vino prudentiam augeri
Foresight is improved by wine

Caelyndd, I'm confused by your last post. Are you referring to my previous post about Burning Wheel? If you are, then I have totally given you the wrong impression about the game. It is anything but system-less, and I really don't like any of those "collective story-telling" games either. PM me if you or anyone else has any questions about the game.

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Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies.

Twilight 2K is about as good as it gets for a "modern day" setting. I love that game.

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"Rules are GOOD. Rules help control the fun!" -Monica Geller, Friends

MERP. I love Middle_Earth as a setting but always hated the MERP/Rolemaster Setting

The current Decipher system seems over complex for the job, so I'm ending up using GURPS for my new LoTR campaign.

Big Glorantha fan, can't get into HErroQuest even though the best man at my wedding and my long term RQ GM is one of those contributing cash to Issaries Inc.

Hate the Bushido/Daredevil/Aftermath system

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Ar-Pharazon
Down with Elvish Oppression

Can you tell us why? Granted, things got waaay OTT with Aftermath, but the basic system used in Bushido and Daredevils was rather nice, IMO. Sort of a skill-based D20...

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Balesir
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- Eschew Obfuscation!

Ratafia's
I do agree with Ratafia...Specialy the latest version(played on gameboard) is just too hack 'n slash...
Another game sytem/world I dislike is HeroQuest...I have just played it too much. It's just too "leave brains to cloakroom room and hack 'n slash"
if you know what I mean

Beside Hárn, Twilight 2000 is one of my favorites...Just love it. Too bad, that my friends dislike it
Vampire: the Masquerade is also one of my favorites...Playing vampires, that's just it

I, too, love the post-apocalyptic Twilight 2000. Some time ago, I pulled out the old books and was very amused of their vision of history which - thanks God! - never happened.
I once even gamed a Hârn/TW2000 crossover. Now, that was fun.
I also like other GDW-stuff, mainly Space 1889, which was re-released, I think. Or Cadillacs&Dinosaurs. Well, we had one good campaign with it and that's probably the maximum with this setting, but still, it has this certain charme.



Not for me. I wanna be a Hru!

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Florian
A most unique Ivashu

We are starting TW 2000 campaign where everybody plays with their own military ranks and branch. Glad I wasn't a cook

Er, can't say I do - of all the things I think one could quite reasonably dislike about it (lack of detailed combat results, for instance, or the bidding system) that isn't one I'd have thought of. The fact that it has so much scope for non-combat healers, scholars, entertainers and so forth as PCs is one of the things I like about it (as HarnMaster does too, of course). Are you sure you're thinking of the RPG, not the old boardgame?

Florian Eiber's
I did once a mix of rules out of Twilight 2000 and Hárnmaster , for a great misery my computer got virus and my rules combination was history


Do I remember wrong, but ain't "Hru" a synonym for a werewolf?

Trotsky. I meant the boardgame version as I wrote ---->

I kind of liked the MERP when it came out, but I was also comparing to D&D.

But what I did dislike was the MERP/Rolemaster for one primary reason. The spell list looked nothing like MERP spells. One time I tried to use for a Middle Earth campaign, and decided to cross out spells I did not feel fit Middle Earth. I had to cross out 2/3 of some of the lists.

I forget now what many of the spells where I deleted, but the various incarnations of "Fly" or "levitate" was one I remember.

A Valar (Morgoth) killed numerous eagles without being able to figure out a fly spell. Gandalf could have gotten away from Saruman with such a spell. Obviously, Saruman didn't think a fly spell was possible either as he did not keep Gandalf enclosed. If any of the Noldor had a fly spell, Fingon would not have had to climb a mountain to rescue Maedros. I could go on and on......

I your going to design a game sytem for Middle Earth, try to make it a bit moe accurate!

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

TW2000 was a great system, It was really easy to get diseases or infections, so all Harn fans could appreciate that.

As silly as it sounds, one could run a SG-1 (godstones being portals) campaign or use TW2000 as a setting for a more modern harn.

remeber your prime directive kiddos, praise god and pass the ammunition, Harry Turtledove aint got nothing on me.

No, no, not at all. I wasn't aware of the game. I just looked at the Web-site it looks pretty cool.

I was talking about games that try to hide the system. Like by elimianting a skill list or dice rolling, etc. For example, in Castle Falkenstein your "character sheet" is a bookmark that describes your character in simple terms such as "good at math".

Neat idea, but that type of thing usually comes of as too artificial for my tatse.

Yeah, mine is lost, too, no virus - just lost papers. Gladly, we have our mighty Warflail whose Gunmaster Gold rules are much better than anything I ever did. If you want to combine Hârnmaster with firearms, it seems like the best thing to start, even if you do not own HMgold.



Maybe, don't know. On Hârn it is the literally "cool" stone-like Ivashu.

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Florian
A most unique Ivashu

Silly: yes, but I did it anyway. I am normally not fan of world-hopping, but for once, I left realism aside and transfered Hârn characters to the TW2000 setting. Three of them came from a village destroyed by a gargun swarm, and they felt right at home. The fourth PC was a ratter, which fitted quite well, too.

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Florian
A most unique Ivashu

From my gaming experiences

Various Likes
1. Harnmaster v1: Force model, skills based, good use of wounding and fatigue. Smooth gradations in system using %tile, skills not dependant on one variable.
2. TW2000 all versions: Fairly simple yet decently accurate combat that integrated personal and vehicular damage well into one common roll. I didn’t like the skills though.
3. Traveler the New Era: Pretty much used GDW’s engine but updated and tweaked a bit.
4. 2300AD v2: Toned down insta kill issue.
5. Call of Cthulhu: Simple, very simple yet fun as hell.
6. Paranoia: Same thing, simplicity
7. Many more


Game Dislikes
1. D&D all versions and mutations: I can’t stand table based, class systems. They lead to endless errata attempting “game balance” when in reality life/physics isn’t fair. PC and marketing hogwash!
2. Gurps: The game mechanics are too clunky using D6
3. Shadowrun: Magic and nature took lead over technology and physics slewing combat mechanics why to the bizarre. I felt it was an unbalanced system but initiative syatem was neat..
4. 2300AD v1: Bang you’re dead! No fun in that is there…
5. Traveler: There’s that darn D6 issue again.
6. Hero: D6 again and lots of room for twisting character generation.
7. Palladium: Ugh! Just a mess overall
8. Harnmaster v2: They got the combat/fatigue all clunky and lost the fluidity of v1.
9. Many more

Really I find myself liking and disliking aspects of about all games. So far nobody has mixed all the parts I like but I’m working on it!

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Yay We're Doomed! Gir: Invader Zim: Bad, Bad Rubber Piggies

I have played many different game systems and while I can't say that I really hate or find any of them especially despicable I do have some critisisms:
Earthdawn: I am not a big fan of weird races and crazy world specific classes and such.
Talislanta: The system is pretty cool but the world is just too weird. I also didn't like the granularity of the system. Too coarse for my blood.
RoleMaster: On the other side we have Rolemaster. The fact that they kept putting more and more companions out to add to its complexity was almost ludicrous.
D20 that try to be what they aren't: T20 was a big disappointment. You can't make Traveller into a d20 game. D&D is good for what it is, high fantasy heroic roleplaying.
I do think that the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay system is a bit troubling the world is so cool that it almost makes up for it. If you can get a GM who is stingy with XP but makes it interesting than you can go quite a while but if you give it out Monty Haul than you are asking for trouble since its lack of granularity makes advances huge and certain advances are way overpowering.

And I know it is sacriledge but I found HM1 difficult to GM. The amount of paperwork required was intense and there were a few errors that really screwed me up (like some of the pages were bound in the wrong order). When HMC came out I had found the near perfect system...Until HM3.0 came out and fixed some of the oversights in HMC.

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Chris Van Tighem
"Ever Stalwart"

The absolutely worst RPG of al time is ...

<drumroll>

The World of Synnibarr!

Mutants, Dwarves, Robots, Ninja's, Super Heroes and badgers, all living on the hollowed out inside of the planet Mars which has gone rogue (Space 1999 anyone) and is now travelling through the universe on the whim of a sleeping demi-god who was discovered in the Amazon and is attempting to save the universe ....

<takes a deep breath>

Be warned. This game has been known to cause sterility and dementia in labratory animals and munchkins.

And sterility in munchkins is a bad thing?

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"Rules are GOOD. Rules help control the fun!" -Monica Geller, Friends

In my opinion ... no.

But the SPCM has been on my back for years now, so I try to help out the twisted little snots whenever I can.

As always, it's pretty dang hard to beat FATAL for sheer badness. Unless you actually count RAHOWA as a game (I had a quick look at that abortion and it seemed too incomplete to actually play even if all good taste, sense and common decency were moved to /dev/null).

Limiting myself to games that have actually been published on paper and bound into books, and furthermore limiting myself to games that I actually own, I'd have to say MEGA. Which was a Norwegian-designed (but English-language) system from the 1980s. Heavy on the tables and charts, nigh-incomprehensible dice mechanics, and severely lacking in many vital areas such as "rules for character generation". Though the GM screen was pretty nifty (it was the widest and lowest GM screen known to man, or so the voices in my head tell me).

It was pretty nifty and became quite useful:
1. Spray-paint black
2. Attach tables from other game

Mega should also be recommended for the quality of it's illustration. It has a collection of quite possibly the hairiest armpits in RPGs.

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:: Tim Falkenberg ::
tim.admin@harnforum.com