Ever play (or own) an RPG that was well received by others but you hated?

[Old Man]

On 10/3/2022 at 2:05 PM, Duke Bushido said:

 

Temple of Elemental Evil, anyone?

 

 

that thing might as well have been a Paranoia adventure; at least yoy'd have five back-up characters.

 

Or the "tournament" Slave Lords modules, where the entire point was to see how far the party could get before TPK.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Or the "tournament" Slave Lords modules, where the entire point was to see how far the party could get before TPK.

 

Yeah I started to rewrite those in to Hero like I had several previous modules (I got the first one done), and each one I was wondering how a party of adventurers was supposed to deal with this stuff.

[Duke Bushido]

They weren't.

 

We,didnt realize it at the time, but Gygax was also creating the "survival horror" genre.

 

 

 

[Hugh Neilson]

On 10/3/2022 at 10:42 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

Again, that depended on the scenario.  That sample dungeon level in the AD&D DM Guide sticks with me.  Level one characters exploring and one character cleverly figures out how to get up to the upper opening where there used to be steps and is rewarded by the GM by... a level 3 monster killing and eating him.  That's what Gygax thought adventures should be like.

 

I'm trying to recall whether there was actually a sample dungeon level, or just a brief summary of a game in progress, but I do recall the Ghoul rending the paralyzed character to shreds.

 

1e D&D characters were pretty quick to create, consistent with a pretty high level of lethality.

 

On 10/3/2022 at 10:42 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

I think initially, game designers did not realize how attached people would get to their characters so they were much more lethal in their scenario designs.

 

Given RPGs grew from wargames, the characters were just tactical units - pawns on the board.  Nothing in 1e D&D ever directed players to characters with personalities, or even survival instincts.  Look at all those old artifacts and similar - 90%+ something horrible would happen to the character; small chance something really beneficial would happen.  So they lined up to spin the Wheel of Misfortune.  Plenty more PCs where that one came from.

 

Building characters rather than pawns for the board evolved over time.

 

[Strand]

Star Wars. It's the one with the strange dice. All my friends loved it. I never could wrap my head around the strange dice and how the system worked. If I couldn't get my mind around those dice, I couldn't get into the game. I love Star Wars. I don't think we were allowed to play Jedi. One guy plays a Mandalorian. (before the show and I didn't have that in depth understanding all I knew was he was this guy in armor). But I just got hampered by the dice and I think if we played the D20 version I would have liked it. But the others HATED the d20 version.