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The Worst Game I've Ever Been In
Mar. 6th, 2009 02:30 pmSo, what was the worst RPG you've ever played in?
I have given this question some thought. I discounted some of the games I played in my early teens. They were definitely bad, sure. The gamemasters were unfamiliar with the rules, often poorly prepared (if at all), and curiously vengeful. The player groups were often dysfunctional. But, as I say, I discount pretty much anything before the age of 14 or 15 as more than a sort of formalized game of cops and robbers. The arguments were, in some sense, part of the social activity of gaming.
Friends have heard me speak more than a few times of a particular GM we had through late high-school and most of university. He was a rather misanthropic and angry fellow who looked scornfully at me because I didn't know what a Teddy Boy was. He ran Mage without once explaining the setting to us, trusting us to pick it up by osmosis. We ran through a lot of characters, because he did not believe in staying his hand when it came to PC death. However, I must admit that he fully understood the rules, and had arcanely plotted adventures, and always had something for us to do, even if it mostly involved sitting about and waiting for something to explode in our faces. We went BACK to his table for more, every week.
No, I fear the worst game I've been in was much more recent than that. It was run by a GM with a great enthusiasm for the setting and the game, yet who was curiously unsuited to run it. It was sort of like being invited to the home of a man who loves classic cars, to listen to him talk knowledgeably about car specs and the joys of driving a car, only to find out that he doesn't have a license. All he does is play racing games on his computer.
It was a game of Trinity, and RPG where players take on the role of psychic warriors defending humanity against various threats. Chief amongst these threats are the “Aberrants.” As far as I understood the setting, these were sort of transcended human/terrible amoral monster types, who emerged a few generations before and ended up in a war with mankind. Cthulhian super villains, you might say. That was the vibe I got.
( You see me now, a veteran of a thousand psychic wars... )
I have given this question some thought. I discounted some of the games I played in my early teens. They were definitely bad, sure. The gamemasters were unfamiliar with the rules, often poorly prepared (if at all), and curiously vengeful. The player groups were often dysfunctional. But, as I say, I discount pretty much anything before the age of 14 or 15 as more than a sort of formalized game of cops and robbers. The arguments were, in some sense, part of the social activity of gaming.
Friends have heard me speak more than a few times of a particular GM we had through late high-school and most of university. He was a rather misanthropic and angry fellow who looked scornfully at me because I didn't know what a Teddy Boy was. He ran Mage without once explaining the setting to us, trusting us to pick it up by osmosis. We ran through a lot of characters, because he did not believe in staying his hand when it came to PC death. However, I must admit that he fully understood the rules, and had arcanely plotted adventures, and always had something for us to do, even if it mostly involved sitting about and waiting for something to explode in our faces. We went BACK to his table for more, every week.
No, I fear the worst game I've been in was much more recent than that. It was run by a GM with a great enthusiasm for the setting and the game, yet who was curiously unsuited to run it. It was sort of like being invited to the home of a man who loves classic cars, to listen to him talk knowledgeably about car specs and the joys of driving a car, only to find out that he doesn't have a license. All he does is play racing games on his computer.
It was a game of Trinity, and RPG where players take on the role of psychic warriors defending humanity against various threats. Chief amongst these threats are the “Aberrants.” As far as I understood the setting, these were sort of transcended human/terrible amoral monster types, who emerged a few generations before and ended up in a war with mankind. Cthulhian super villains, you might say. That was the vibe I got.
( You see me now, a veteran of a thousand psychic wars... )
