Worst RPGs ever

Worst RPGs Ever

RPG.net is where all kinds of games are discussed, both the good and the bad ... and, occasionally, the ugly. Surprisingly enough, there is fairly good agreement among RPG.net denizens on which games are the worst of the worst, the ones that sit comfortably on the left tail of the curve, the ones that demean both the hobby and the people who play it, the ones you can't take seriously.

The following is a list of these bad games. Some have bad rules (confusing, contradictory, complicated, whatever); some have bad settings; most desperately need editing—and the truly bad ones are all of the above.

(Note that this page will probably be tweaked several times...)

Here are the leading candidates:

FATAL (also known as F.A.T.A.L.)

When it first hit the fora it was greeted with derision and disbelief, with posters quoting snippets from the ruleset as “evidence” that they can't be serious, this can't be a real game, they had to be putting everyone on. Sadly, it eventually came out that it was no joke, that Byron Hall and company were dead serious and firmly believed they had created the Greatest Game Ever (an opinion they apparently still hold). The short version: FATAL is over-complex, incoherent, racist, misogynist, and deviant in a bad way. More details are in the “Game That Must Not Be Named” entry and the links from there.

RaHoWa

The name is an acronym for Racial Holy War—and that should tell you most of what you need to know right there. The PCs play “White Warriors”, fighting against the classic 'enemies' of racist groups: blacks, Jews, latrinos (the game uses that term), and basically everyone outside of the “Aryan ideal”--or, would, if the game had decent rules. Incomplete, racist, and stupid. More details at Primary Error.

Wraeththu

At the top of the “bizarre setting” list is this game, based on a series of novels by Storm Constantine (although it has been shown that the RPG is a seriously inaccurate adaptation). The Wraeththu are hermaphrodite bishonen ubermenschen who are apparently slowly taking over the Earth—and, along the way, converting the occasional human into one of them by transfusing blood into them. Oh yeah, there are only male Wraeththu—and their genitalia look like flowers or anemones. (Hence the name I'm trying to popularize for it, MHLD, for Mr. Happy Looks Different.) More details are in Darren MacLennan's Wraeththu Review Thread.

HYBRID

One person's attempt to create one ruleset to simulate the whole of comics—or possibly an extended game of Nomic gone berzerk—or possibly a schizophrenic's cry for help. No one's entirely sure, including the author if the text is any indication. Probably not playable, but here because it is, after all, an attempt at a game.

KABAL

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Spawn of Fashan

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World of Synnibar

This science fantasy RPG is among the most legendary examples of mass "worst game ever!" sentiment, and has been mocked both for its surreal setting (every time Synnibarr comes up in discussion, someone just has to mention the flying grizzly bears with laser beam eyes) and incredibly complex rules (which go as far as providing an equation for how hard you can exhale!). This reputation was not helped by creator Raven c.s. McCracken's hostility towards the game's critics in the early 90's. These days, however, Mr. McCracken is more friendly (he even got along with Darren MacLennan at Origins 2003, despite the latter's previous vitriol), and many people feel FATAL is more deserving of "worst game ever" status than Synnibarr ever was. A few gamers even enjoy the game's silliness in an Ed Wood/Plan 9 From Outer Space way.

SenZar

This fantasy RPG became infamous after a 1996 usenet incident where the creators overhyped the game, going as far as using sock puppet accounts to attack the inevitable critics. As with World of Synnibarr, SenZar was once considered by many RPGnet denizens the worst RPG ever, but this antipathy has largely been redirected against FATAL. The game itself is surprisingly playable, having more elegant rules and fewer restrictions than most class/level games, and arguably doesn't belong in any list of terrible games. Nonetheless, it still has elements that an average gamer might object to, such as its open encouragement of powergaming, the lack of balance among the professions/classes, the rather juvenile writing, or the fetish for all things heavy metal.

Leading Edge Games

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Cyborg Commando

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Empire of Satanis

The author of Satanis, Darrick Dishaw, described his game in the RPGnet forums as a "dark fantasy RPG inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Ligotti, Hellraiser, and [his] own nightmares." What players who cracked open the game found was a mess of a game whose major reason for existing was to be as "rebellious" and "dark" as a 14-year-old proto-Goth. The system was a competent enough spin on d6, but the setting killed the interest for a number of reviewers, who just didn't see a reason for playing beings of pure evil who scheme in a hell dimension and occasionally go out and torment humans. Dishaw didn't help matters much; the self-proclaimed Satanist and "Cthulhu Cultist" (believing that beings made up by H.P. Lovecraft were representational imagery of real Things That Should Not Be) actually tried to levy a curse against all those who panned his game on the RPGnet forums. An interesting idea that had already been portrayed by In Nomine in a more well-rounded fashion, and which wasn't at all helped by the eccentricites of the author.