For me I would never play 4th edition D&D ever again. Played 10th level game and my wizard just felt weak and unfun. All the martials were having the time of their life. I didn't like much of the mechanics. I'm not a fan of 5e, but it's a big improvement in comparison.

As for running, I don't think I'll ever run Pathfinder 1e again. As a player, it's a great game. It improved on every aspect of 3e. As a GM, it's such a burden to run, especially once players get to higher levels. Simple stuff like keeping track of monster feats (which often have no description, so you need to look them  up) would turn combats into just basic attacks or whatever is a power with a description. Players would get choice paralysis as well at higher levels. So bad to the point I'd just be like "just attack" because I knew that was their best option than to do some combat maneuver.

I ran a game using Fate once. I'll never touch products made by Evil Hat again after they decided to lecture about morality.

I probably also won't run 3.5 or pathfinder with the rules as written. Too many modifiers when it's really not necessary. With a group of casual players, this is a pain in the ass because I will have to end up being the one keeping track of and updating character sheets

Ironclaw due to severe problems with Sanguine way back.

Everytime SJG pulls some new wretched stunt my interest in gurps drops just one more notch. Everytime some gurps fanatic badmouths classes my opinion of gurps drops one more notch.

White Wolf for just being creeps left and right when they think no one is looking.

Palladium games is a 50/50 due to the mistreatment of some of its writers. Kevin is a nice guy... till he isnt. I used to know two of the writers for Palladium and still have a huge manuscript that one of them just handed off to me and totally quit RPGs from the bad experience.

On the PC side. Bethsada for lying through their teeth to me about their intentions so they could steal my old company name to slap on Starfield. I would totally not have cared if they had just been fucking honest instead of approaching under false pretext. Then they did it again with a character name.

Theres more but those stand out at the moment.

There's a lot of systems that I don't like, but with the right GM and/or group of players, I'd probably be willing to give any system a try.

The rules is only one piece of a given RPG session. It's important, but it's not everything.

There's a ton of games I'll never run (or run again), and almost that many that I wouldn't play.  However, it's mostly about prioritizing.  For instance, I don't have anything against Reign, and it looks like it would be interesting to try, but it will likely not bubble up high enough on the list to get session time.

I don't run anything from the woke companies, even when I own the game, because I don't want to encourage other people to buy from them.

Shadowrun is the big one for me. I played from 1e-5e (although mostly 2e and 4e) and even bought the core rules pdf of 6e, but I just got tired of the edition treadmill (especially when 6e was total shit), the cumbersome mechanics, and the game always seemed to attract crap players (worse than 5e D&D for weird shit turned up to 11 all the fucking time).

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 03, 2025, 11:03:38 PMShadowrun is the big one for me. I played from 1e-5e (although mostly 2e and 4e) and even bought the core rules pdf of 6e, but I just got tired of the edition treadmill (especially when 6e was total shit), the cumbersome mechanics, and the game always seemed to attract crap players (worse than 5e D&D for weird shit turned up to 11 all the fucking time).

Not looking to derail the thread, but as a quick aside did you ever find a good alternative for cyberpunk games? My group was never able to get into the newer Shadowrun editions, and while I have Cities Without Number it still isn't perfect.

To answer the original question, there are a number of games I'd never want to run or play again. Some of them have already been mentioned, but I'll go with one that I haven't seen listed: Exalted (any edition, but especially 2nd). I don't think I've ever seen a game that actively hates the GM as much as Exalted. The amount of paperwork and memorization required to handle even one moderately powerful NPC is staggering, and it only gets more complicated as fights get more involved. Other games can handle Exalted's power level in much simpler fashion, so for me I never see myself opening those books again.

Dungeons & Dragons - ANY version.

 The store once drafted me to run a session of it with intoductory materials WOTC sent out.
I read the stuff over night and faked my way through it based on GM-ing other role playing games over the years.

 I did keep it moving and the players had a good time.

Its just NOT 'my bag' or style.

 Last time I did any Fantasy or 'Sword & Sorcery' setting it was with the DUNGEON FANTASY rules thats a GURPS variant.

- Ed C.

Oof, I gotta tag what I would call that entire class of RPGs: The Ultra Bargain Cause Célèb Charity Bundle (typically over hundreds, sometimes even thousands, of "games" for only $5 or $10).

So many are un-play-tested, single page, hackneyed, wanna-be, quasi-activist premise "RPGs" that. just. don't. work. in. actual. play.

I got wrangled to play(test) well over a handful of these around some latest cause célèb (the $5 gets you 5000 games to help victims of -isms!) that after the 3rd one I was through. I think I couldn't help myself but I blurted at my breaking point, "Who the fuck are these fools grifting their grievance for pesos on the dollar? Have they no self respect for themselves and their own craft, if not for my time? Game charity is not half-assed art therapy! "

When offered to donate like my other friends I thought it better to offer that $5 to a local homeless crackhead direct. More honorable, less bureaucratic overhead, a happier time had by all. I'm not wasting my time on playing, let alone running or buying, those performative debacles again.

40k Wrath and Glory, I hear they did fix it, but it was awful at launch. I would say id never run 5e again since I had a "final campaign" but I played in a friends core book only 5e game cause it was her first time GMing and I did it to be supportive.

Quote from: Brand55 on January 03, 2025, 11:29:17 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on January 03, 2025, 11:03:38 PMShadowrun is the big one for me. I played from 1e-5e (although mostly 2e and 4e) and even bought the core rules pdf of 6e, but I just got tired of the edition treadmill (especially when 6e was total shit), the cumbersome mechanics, and the game always seemed to attract crap players (worse than 5e D&D for weird shit turned up to 11 all the fucking time).

Not looking to derail the thread, but as a quick aside did you ever find a good alternative for cyberpunk games? My group was never able to get into the newer Shadowrun editions, and while I have Cities Without Number it still isn't perfect.

I recently got to play Cyberpunk Red. It was fun and the mechanics pretty straight-forward. However, nobody in our party was a netrunner and I don't know how good the game's netrunning rules are in comparison to other systems.

I used the Interface Zero (current version is 3.0) setting book for Savage Worlds to run cyberpunk and sci-fi games.

Palladium Books.

I'll be honest and admit that the unclear way you tally up bonuses got to me in the end. 

I have plenty of alternatives now.  Tiny-D6 is a new favorite.  This is mostly due to only having time to play impromptu one-shots with my grade school aged son.  I need quick and easy, as well as a range of genres.  Tiny-D6 has that covered.

But, back to Palladium.  When Kevin retires and Sean Robertson writes a 3rd edition I hope he can clarify and simplify the rules.  Then I might go back.

Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 04, 2025, 06:49:08 AMBut, back to Palladium.  When Kevin retires and Sean Robertson writes a 3rd edition I hope he can clarify and simplify the rules.  Then I might go back.

It is my sincere and earnest hope we see this with TMNT. It's the perfect place to do it because it doesn't affect the Rifts line. A revision of the core system for a limited release of a retired property would be the perfect soft launch.

Palladium dies whenever Kevin dies. He will never retire, and certainly never give anyone control over his company in any capacity. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

Also, I gave away a complete set of 3.X D&D except for the main three books, 3.0 edition. I had a lot of fun for several years playing it, but I certainly never see myself running another campaign (which I only did once or twice) and playing it is probably off the table since my group pretty much agreed it's much closer to a boardgame than RPG after we migrated to Castles & Crusades. There are a lot of other games I'll never play again, like HERO 5/6th or GURPS 4th, and I got rid of everything for those systems and kept the older stuff because I think it's better, honestly. As much as I like Swords & Wizardry (and backed the recent KS), every time I think I want to run it I end up just using AD&D and ignore weapon speed and weapon-vs-armor.

I think over the course of about three years I have sold or given away ~1000 books, and it was hard at first, but now I rarely ever think about them EXCEPT for the Everquest RPG for some odd reason, then I look at a bootleg PDF I have and remember why it ended up in the giveaway box.