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What's the Worst RPG or Setting That's Actually Popular?

Started by RPGPundit, May 16, 2017, 05:54:21 PM

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Kyorou

Shadowrun, for being a bloated mess of a system.

Forgotten Realms, for being a bloated mess of a setting.

AsenRG

Quote from: Luca;963680Everyone has his own ideas, of course, but characterizing the refusal to invest the time needed to master 700 exception-based Charms as "internet butthurt syndrome" sounds a tad biased.

Exalted is a system which can only work for someone who has lots and lots of free time and mental space to invest in it.
Which makes it different from every other crunchy system...how, exactly:)?
And if people complain that a system that works doesn't work the way they want, that is, to me, almost the definition of Internet Butthurt Syndrome.

Of course, the whole thread is about slamming games that we dislike;).
What Do You Do In Tekumel? See examples!
"Life is not fair. If the campaign setting is somewhat like life then the setting also is sometimes not fair." - Bren

Nexus

Quote from: TrippyHippy;963736I think that D&D, as the seminal RPG, was basically an accident.  

Imagine that the first ever RPG was something like Fate instead! Ooooh! :eek:

[Heresy]

Like so called "Story games" coming first?

[/Heresy]
Remember when Illinois Nazis where a joke in the Blue Brothers movie?

Democracy, meh? (538)

 "The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn't even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it."

Itachi

Quote from: S'mon;963694I feel that way about most of the 2e AD&D settings for some reason. They never feel quite right. Contributed a lot to me dropping D&D and (pretty much) RPGs for much of the 1990s, coming back with the 3e D&D release in 2000.
For me it was the opposite: Dark Sun and Planescape brought me to D&D. Then I saw how little people actually played them (instead preferring things like Forgotten Realms), that I ended up giving up on D&D altogether. So I think these settings are only a problem for the public of D&D, weirdly.

BoxCrayonTales

Quote from: Itachi;963764For me it was the opposite: Dark Sun and Planescape brought me to D&D. Then I saw how little people actually played them (instead preferring things like Forgotten Realms), that I ended up giving up on D&D altogether. So I think these settings are only a problem for the public of D&D, weirdly.

For whatever reason, the market prefers the generic and bland Forgotten Realms while original spins like Dark Sun, Planescape, Spelljammer, Eberron, etc are unpopular. All of these settings exist in the same overarching universe, so I find strange that there are no source books or adventure paths which take advantage of that. You could mix and match this stuff to have an eclectic setting that combines Lord of the Rings, Conan the Barbarian, Sliders and Star Wars.

Oh no! The Happy Hunting Grounds are under attack by the Dark Elf Star Empire! Send in the Warforged and their steam-powered giant mechs!

Steven Mitchell

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;963903For whatever reason, the market prefers the generic and bland Forgotten Realms while original spins like Dark Sun, Planescape, Spelljammer, Eberron, etc are unpopular. All of these settings exist in the same overarching universe, so I find strange that there are no source books or adventure paths which take advantage of that. You could mix and match this stuff to have an eclectic setting that combines Lord of the Rings, Conan the Barbarian, Sliders and Star Wars.

Oh no! The Happy Hunting Grounds are under attack by the Dark Elf Star Empire! Send in the Warforged and their steam-powered giant mechs!

If you want to play the campaign directly suggested by a setting, then the more flavorful options are a good choice (assuming, of course, you can find one with a flavor you enjoy).  If you want to do mash ups, then lots of flavorful options are also good.  If instead, you want to do your own thing, but using the setting as a starting place to save some work, then generic is by far the superior option most of the time.  You'll note that most of the push back on the Forgotten Realms through the years has not been because it is generic, but when it is has gotten too specific or "out there".    Go back to the 1E setting materials, ignore the novels, and it's a fine starting point for cheap DIY.

Dumarest

I've never played or owned any settings published by anyone. I'm curious, does anyone have actual sales figures? Are they actually popular in general or just "popular in relation to each other"? For instance, how many copies of the actual rules were sold compared to copies of the settings? Do most people make up their own (which is what I always assumed) or is there really a large audience buying these settings and using them?

Ratman_tf

Quote from: Omega;962947Dark Sun devolved.

It got better. 4th actually brought it back from the abyss of stupidity.

I'm going to say Greyhawk. I think it's popularity is in large part being "Gary's campaign". The actual material is boring as all get out.
The notion of an exclusionary and hostile RPG community is a fever dream of zealots who view all social dynamics through a narrow keyhole of structural oppression.
-Haffrung

Future Villain Band

Call of Cthulhu.  The metaplot sucks -- I hear the game designers have some kind of global war planned in the late '30s that culminates in some kind of superweapon changing the face of the Earth, and that's only after a global Depression where all of your antiquarians and wealthy characters lose their money.

Llew ap Hywel

When did Call of Cthulhu get a metaplot?

Was the question I was going to ask till the penny dropped :D
Talk gaming or talk to someone else.

Future Villain Band

Quote from: HorusArisen;963926When did Call of Cthulhu get a metaplot?

Was the question I was going to ask till the penny dropped :D

:)

What I hate the most is some of the players have read the metaplot notes and are always trying to catch me on stuff.  "The first deSoto didn't roll off the line until 1928!"  Luckily it's Call of Cthulhu, so I just blame it on Yith.

"Why would Yith care about the deSoto automobile?"  "You don't know.  The universe is alien and horrifying.  Just pondering why these automobiles are special costs you SAN.  You sure want to pull on this string, Dave?"  "The taxi driver is driving a deSoto it is!"

Justin Alexander

Quote from: Justin Alexander;963111The problem is that, in the real world, the rhetoric of white supremacists includes

Quote from: Christopher Brady;963114This is incorrect on a few points.  It WAS about Slavery, but it wasn't about the PEOPLE.  It was about the ECONOMICS.  See, you can't tax slaves, but you can free people. So slave owning was a losing proposition for the government, and the North knew it.  It also didn't help that the Plantation model of farming was destructive to the land in general.  So as rose coloured glasses you want to make up the whole abolishing of slavery, it has very little to do with the people being enslaved, but more about the money generated by it. (...) Now as for the Civil War still happening, actually probably. Because the South was very resentful of the North, which they saw as soft and unworthy to own the land they got. In some parts, they still believe this. They'd likely would have found another excuse. But there's no way of really knowing.

Yup. That's a perfect example of the sort of white supremacist rhetoric that makes Deadlands' alternate history problematic.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;963114Does it matter if it's fun?

Yes. Because, as you've just demonstrated, it gives people spouting white supremacist rhetoric both an excuse for doing so and then a pseudo-plausible claim that it's "just for fun" or "just for the game" even in situations where they literally just got done using the game as an excuse for introducing the fake-history rhetoric into a conversation about the real world.
Note: this sig cut for personal slander and harassment by a lying tool who has been engaging in stalking me all over social media with filthy lies - RPGPundit

AsenRG

Quote from: Dumarest;963911I've never played or owned any settings published by anyone. I'm curious, does anyone have actual sales figures? Are they actually popular in general or just "popular in relation to each other"? For instance, how many copies of the actual rules were sold compared to copies of the settings? Do most people make up their own (which is what I always assumed) or is there really a large audience buying these settings and using them?

Given that a number of RPGs in the top 5 sellers contain a setting in the corebook, and a number of their fans dislike the system that comes with it, you can answer that question for yourself;).
What Do You Do In Tekumel? See examples!
"Life is not fair. If the campaign setting is somewhat like life then the setting also is sometimes not fair." - Bren

fearsomepirate

Egalitarian progressivism is such a latecomer to world-historical affairs that constructing a fantasy setting that has absolutely no "troubling" or "problematic" callbacks to the Unenlightened Before Times*. In fact, based on the latest developments in Progress, I doubt you can even reference anything before 2012.

*Most people on the Union side were white supremacists, including Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman. So it's best to avoid that era entirely.
Every time I think the Forgotten Realms can\'t be a dumber setting, I get proven to be an unimaginative idiot.

tenbones

Star Wars

The movie-era of Star Wars as a setting sucks so bad it makes my skin crawl. Metaplot hangs over everything like a soggy turd, dumb assumptions about the way in which the politics and organizations within the setting operate are ludicrous. While everyone freaks the hell out about Force users being too OP - the setting assumes there's only two Jedi and two Sith which makes trying to get away from the metaplot even more impossible without much hand-wavery.

Now there's enough material to ignore all this stuff. But the setting still sucks.