What old school games do you really dislike?

The Butcher · September 04, 2010, 09:09:32 AM

Quote from: Lizaur;402881Let's face it: MERP was Rolemaster's little brother. When I close my eyes and try to remember it I can only see charts upon charts!... and well, yes, the superb illustrations of the master Angus MacBride.

Which is precisely why I like it. Toned-down Rolemaster* + Middle-Earth + Angus MacBride = win.

* I'm not a fan of "real" Rolemaster.

A retro-cloned setting-agnostic MERP would make a badass sword & sorcery game (HARP is close but not quite what I want). If only I still had them old books...

The Butcher · September 04, 2010, 09:16:32 AM

Quote from: Benoist;402775Rolemaster as being this overly complex monster of a role playing game is a myth, mainly born from people who had an allergy to tables and charts and didn't bother to actually play the game or use a little brain matter in the process (I mean, it's not rocket science to use some bookmarks to refer to the charts quickly, or photocopy only those you use, for instance).

I don't mind the charts.

Quote from: Benoist;402775Sure, the character generation can be long. That I agree with. But in actual play, man, that game's working good.

I do mind the character generation. Not because it's long, but because it feels long, and drawn-out, and tedious, with dozens of skill groups and redundant skills (how many different skills does one need to use poison?). That's just poor game design, "realism" be damned.

Same problem I have (to a much lesser degree) with GURPS or Palladium, actually.

Good, functional (and free) character generation software would go a long way towards changing my opinion of either game.

RPGPundit · September 05, 2010, 11:37:31 AM

Yeah. Rolemaster was appalling.

RPGPundit

Hackmastergeneral · September 06, 2010, 05:47:15 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit;403029Yeah. Rolemaster was appalling.

RPGPundit

There was a nugget of a good system in there, if you had enough systems mastery to cut down on all the effing charts.

But we never got that much systems mastery, because playing it bored the shit out of us.

Most of us loved MERP, though I still found aspects of it annoying, and so "a more robust system MERP is based on" appealed to us. After playing it for a while, most of us gave up on it. Tedious, and when you start out, it takes forever flipping through the charts.

If you stuck with it long enough so the charts became second nature, it might fly. None of us wanted to play it that long, because it was like pulling teeth.

Caesar Slaad · September 06, 2010, 09:42:37 PM

Quote from: Benoist;402775Sure, the character generation can be long. That I agree with. But in actual play, man, that game's working good.

It worked ALRIGHT. I can't remember a gameplay experience that made me want to play it again, but I can think of a few that give me the opposite impression.

But limiting this to the chargen: you're not out of the woods once you made your character. You had to go through the whole skill-point juggling act every time you level up.

thedungeondelver · September 07, 2010, 12:46:14 AM

Funny thing about Rolemaster - it started out as alternate combat rules for OD&D, so I hear.

Benoist · September 07, 2010, 12:58:47 AM

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;403346It worked ALRIGHT. I can't remember a gameplay experience that made me want to play it again

Well I can *shrug* Some amazing moments actually. Rolling on critical charts at the last moment of a fight with the BBEG up the stairs, up the tower, Robin Hood style, while the keep was burning all around us, cutting the hand of the bastard and burying my sword in his thigh. Covered with his blood, then jumping from the heights of the tower and crashing down in the moat. An old man rolling a 300+ on a fighter picking on the villagers (we were laughing soooo hard). I mean. So many cool spells for my elementalist. An Actual Fucking Elementalist that DOES feel like a fucking Elementalist. Lots of very cool moments!

Mileages vary, man.

GameDaddy · September 07, 2010, 01:07:37 AM

I never found the math in Rolemaster particularly challenging, just time consuming.

Chivalry and Sorcery on the other hand, that was the 800 lb. Gorilla. It wasn't the charts, it was the formulas... I think I spent three weeks just unraveling all the math just for character generation.

At the time, mastery implied a more mature game, a game adults would play. Such thinking is laughable now. When you are 14 though, playing the games the kids in college play or that adults in the real world play is the grail!

I still like Chivalry & Sorcery... Melee is easy, they still have the best Jousting rules. Characters started out with some experience, and a very colorful medieval background. I liked the magic too... You could create entirely new spells on the fly.

Benoist · September 07, 2010, 01:08:00 AM

Quote from: thedungeondelver;403378Funny thing about Rolemaster - it started out as alternate combat rules for OD&D, so I hear.

From my understanding, it was actually conceived as modular parts one could plug and play with different game systems, like AD&D mostly, and RuneQuest also. RM1 came in 1980, and from there the Arms/Claw/Spell/Campaign Laws evolved to form an entire standalone game system, up until 1984 when the Arms/Claw Law, Spell Law and Character Law were put together in a boxed set. The rest, as they say...