Trash your own game

[Kinslayer]

This is an exercise to keep us humble. We designers are usually the first ones to toot our own horns and portray our games as wonderfully thrilling. The idea for this thread is to find negative things to say about our own games. This is not to say that it's okay to diminish someone else's efforts, only our own.

So, tell me about how your game sucks.

[Kinslayer]

I'll start.

The main problem with Midian is its size and complexity. There's a whole lot to it. The size and detail of the game world, as well as the ruleset, can be daunting to new players. I never intended Midian to be someone's very first roleplaying game, but I have seen that happen many times. The time and effort involved in making one's first character isn't trivial, and this is only compounded by these new players having no prior knowledge of any sort of roleplaying game whatsoever.

Speaking of creating characters, that is something that can still be time consuming for veteran Midianites. Part of this is by design. Different aspects of character creation can affect other aspects. For example, your Backgrounds can affect your Attribute points. I wanted players to be invested in their characters, so that they would try to retain them for a long campaign, and so that a character's death means more than missing a few rounds of combat while you create a replacement. But I think I went a bit too far with it. A Midian character can take a half hour or more to create, for new players or someone really tweaking the numbers.

What would be considered essential game content is often a bit trim in Midian. Large lists of weapons, armour, and spells aren't to be found. You'll have to be content with little lists for now. Lists of clothing items, on the other hand, are much more extensive. I'm both easily distracted and hyper-focused. So instead of a huge chart filled with various weaponry, there's about a dozen types of jam on the equipment list.

Midian is not a monster-slaying game, so I have deliberately avoided having a large bestiary filled with ravening beasts for pc's to slay. But by avoiding that, I also don't have game stats for dogs, horses, and other animals that would be encountered all the time. This also means Gamemasters are on their own if they want to have an encounter involving a tiger or shark or angry house cat.

It is a fantasy game. It is not rules-lite. These two factors alone are going to drive away potential players. Because EVERYBODY knows that if you want a fantasy game you just play D&D.

Midian is rather scatterbrained in its inspirations/genre. This is not to say that it's a kitchen-sink setting, or that I try to keep the rules universal. What I mean is that I take from everything from anime to zoology. Midian is a little bit horror, a little bit sci-fi, a little bit noir, a little bit steampunk, a little bit low-fantasy, and a little bit non-historic re-enactment simulation.

Development is really slow. I know that I have the excuse of it mostly being just me, and I do have daily new content added. I also playtest extensively before I release anything. But I still think things should be going faster. Considering that the beta rules went live in '01, there really ought to be more Midian content by now.

Having said that, I still think Midian rules over all other games.

[Bryndon]

Its possible I'm a little... too awesome.

Superliga's most damning features are the complexity of the skill interactions and my inability to stop tinkering with the rules. Lastly, I haven't playtested it as extensively as I'd like. I still have no idea if a mechanowalker really can wipe the floor with every opponent or if there's a hideously broken combination of skills that allows you an infinite combo of some description.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

Dead and Back has a noted flaw in its combat system that rifles are 4+ steps above normal humans, so they will kill a character instantly - quite a bit more dangerous than I intended. Furthermore, most of its setting is not typed up, or available to prospective players, and there is no artwork what so ever. Its been three years since I got the main rules typed up - and then work tapered off to leave much to be done. It needs more examples to help players with combat, I keep going back and forth as to how Necropoints work.

Most of my games are pretty clinical rules, and often only mechanics without much background as my ideas for setting spiral out of hand.

[Rob Lang]

This is a healthy exercise!

version 3 is filled with problems. Since I wrote it, I have read well over 100 other games and a fair few. When you return to something after all this knowledge, you gain a completely different insight. Here's what's going to change:

1.Disparate System.
There's close combat. Firefighting. Vehicle Combat. Space Combat, Gaia combat (net hacking) and cabbage combat. Alright, not cabbage combat but all the others in there. Each one has its own techniques and styles. It's too much. I've never run any space combat and nor have I run much Gaia combat.

Space combat will be replaced by the vehicle combat system. You shoot stuff. You try and avoid being shot. Repeat. I might add some options for technical characters to be useful, adding speed or making dodging better.

Gaia combat will reduce to close combat. There are no weapons in Gaia, so I imagine characters having fist fights in cyberspace. Hacker characters will be used for doing illegal stuff, such as breaking into places.

2. One book
At the moment, Icar split between a number of books. They need to be squished into one. Everything except the equipment index, which is designed to be printed as required.

3. More depth
Icar has a lot to it but the main society book needs more depth. I'll do this mostly with the GM section.

4. A better default setting
The low power scavenger setting I've provided is ok but doesn't really focus on all the cool stuff in Icar. So it will need to change. I'll probably do a new mercenary based setting. Either that or the Scavenger Setting is souped up a bit.

5. Improved layout
I've experimented with layout with Cloudship Atlantis and I think I want to update Icar now.

So, that's me. Lots to do.

[Wolfboy]

Normality is a monumental pile of incomprehensible art-wank because we were angry with D&D players and felt justified in trying to inflict pain on them. There is meaning in there, but you have to wonder how worthwhile it is if it's buried so deeply.
On a more prosaic and less self-loathing level, it's also damned intimidating for a GM to pick up, and if they do pick it up, read it through and decide it's worthwhile, they still have the unenviable task of trying to convince a group of players that they would like to be mentally tortured in that particular way.

In contrast, The Penguin Harlequinade is like Mary Poppins - practically perfect in every way. But (and this is a big but) it's only for really for slightly theatre-nerdish types who want to run one-off light-weight games. Anyone who wants something crunchy and progressive will get very little out of it. Also, reserved people tend to not have a very good time when they play it, I have noticed - it doesn't really work for the "strong silent" type of player.

[misterecho]

[Rob Lang]

Mister Echo, that's a superb idea and I'm going to do just that.

[Rob Lang]

Oh and I should mention that I took Kinslayer's idea to heart and in my latest blog post!

[misterecho]

i seen that post. you forced a fragmentation grenade down icar's throat!