Bought it, Never Gonna Play It :: RPG Matchmaking

[Pete]

So you bought something new and shiny. You spread open the pages, closed your eyes, and inhaled deeply of that new-book fragrance. Then you read it and you just knew that you'd never ever get to play it.

Either the game was shiny on the outside and reeked of rough badger's toby on the inside; or it's too darn out-there for your group; or it requires so much investment that it's never going to see play until you have six spare months on your hands to digest the rules; or something else entirely.

So what games - let's limit it to two - do you have on your shelves of gaming goodness that you'll never ever play? Sharing a trenchant snippet about why you ain't gonna ever play 'em would be nice.

And, since this is a matchmaking thread, what is your Cursed Badger's Toby may be someone else's Wizard's Sleeve +5 - maybe you can swap for something that you will actually play. Spread the gaming love groovebirds.

Peace out, cheers
Hippie Pete

[w00hoo]

Artesia - Just requires too much player knowledge to get anything out of it and none of the people I play with (as a whole group anyway) would be interested in putting in that much homework for a game. Some wouldn't put in any in fact. You can't even just say 'read these three soft porn trade paperbacks as it would appear 90% of the world background hasn't made it out of the authors head and in to the comics yet.

CJ Carella's Witchcraft - I loved this when it came out. I spent money on it and don't even begrudge it now being free. I really wanted this to be a great game, but it's just never going to play the way its written. For a decent magical ritual you need at least 7, and preferably 13, people in the cabal doing the casting, who wants to try and RP that many NPC's trolling around and there's no way I'm going to just have a load of faceless batteries 'just turn up' when it's right. There are other bits like that dotted through it but that's the bit that sticks in my mind. Much like oWoD Vampire, there is no way it ever plays the way it's written to play and if I'm going to run it watered down I might just as well play Unknown Armies as it does that level better.

[Neil Gow]

CJ Carella's Witchcraft - tee hee, comedy aside. I bought this game once, read half of it, realised it wasn't the awesome that I thought it was and was indeed a bit wank. Put it back in the bag and told the guy at [games shop deleted to protect the innocent] that I bought it as a present for someone whose mother was very religious and wouldn't have it in the house. Could I swap it for something else? They agreed and I waltzed out with stuff that wasn't poo. Phew! Quiet bairns get nowt.

Back onto the subject.

Burning Empires looks at me and laughs, like the target on Private Benjamin. Except instead of turning into a muskrat, it turns into £25 thats never going to hit the gaming table. I don't -regret- the purchase, but it would be nice.

Mutants and Masterminds 2nd Ed. Bought on a whim the week before I effectively stopped looking to run stuff like that. Likelihood of ever being played. Nil.

The entire Nephilim collection. Its reference material, OK!

Full Light, Full Steam - bought it, read it, wondered how I could sell it to my players and then it was forgotten for years. Been supersceded in my head now by SF BtQ

Neil

[Kaiserjez]

Aces and Eights - OMG it's a fricking monster! Although I did actualy try and play this once, it was only a test of the combat rules and it took 45 minutes to roleplay through 4 seconds of game time! Something about it stops me from getting rid of it though and I still like to get it out every now and then and have a read.

Operation: Fallen Reich - Keep your eyes peeled for the forthcoming review of this pile of dog wank where I will explain in full why it should never be played - by anybody.

[Evilgaz]

Battlestar Galactica / Serenity / Stargate etc. Any of the movie / TV franchise books have always been disappointing - some stills from the show that you can get off the internet anyway, a load of text that's lacklustre often, cod details that Trekie buffs like to accumulate, bolted on generic system. For any of these I'd rather watch the show and use Savage, Empire, Hot War or some other weapon of appropriate choice, with little reference to the published books...

Glorantha 2nd Age & supplements - started reading them, but ultimately again, I'm going to Savage Runequest and use the background from the early (real world) years of Glorantha if I'm going down this road. Probably some really good stuff in there, but I've just not get the energy to learn a setting I'm familiar with for a different time period all over again.

[Mick Red]

Spirit of the Century - No thanks its pants, bits you neeed to leave out and range increments, for pulp ill use HEX
Savage Worlds - though it may be the one system to rule them all then i played it and spent the game shaken, so did the others it was pants

[Avatar]

Trail of Cthulhu - Nice art but horrible to read, worse to write for, doubt I'll ever run it again!

[Pete]

Some surprising - and some not so surprising - games mentioned there, good stuff.

@Jez: I look forward to reading about piles of dog wank - you never disappoint with your colourful and cutting one-liner reviews.

I have various entries in The Enemy Within Campaign that I will never ever use. Growing up on the arse-end of the world - Johannesburg, South Africa - we only had access to one copy of the WFRP 1st Edition core rulebook with no chance of getting our hands on any of the much-longed-after supplements and scenarios like Shadows over Bogenhafen. I've subsequently picked them up cons and eBay - they're good reads, but my gaming tastes have really moved on so I'm never going to game with them as-is.

If anyone wants Shadows over Bogenhafen (original slipcase version) and Death on the Reik (hardcover), just ping the thread and I'll send them to you gratis.

Cheers
Pete

[Evilgaz]

Indie! I've never owned any of the Enemy Within stuff as for decades I hoped someone would run them for me. Alas it has not been the case. I'd love them. Besides anything else Im a collecting gamist whore.

I'm struggling tobthink of something I have that you might want. Fnarr

[Pete]

Hi

Indie! I've never owned any of the Enemy Within stuff as for decades I hoped someone would run them for me. Alas it has not been the case. I'd love them.

Sure thing. PM me your address and I'll send them off... er, a week today.

I'm struggling to think of something I have that you might want.

It's cool man. Perhaps the automatic sliding of the Old Pete character sheet to me when I sit down to play "Tight Purse Harvey and the Whores of Barbary" might be nice

Cheers
Pete

[dr_mitch]

Mythic Russia- Love the background, but Heroquest doesn't work for me. I might have a stop at converting it to Wordplay one of these days, but I have too many other projects on the go.

Sufficiently Advanced- I'm not sure what the system's trying to do, and I can't really see how I'd go about designing adventures. The game's beyond me.

[dpmcalister]

Indie! I've never owned any of the Enemy Within stuff as for decades I hoped someone would run them for me. Alas it has not been the case. I'd love them. Besides anything else Im a collecting gamist whore.

And here I've been, 4 years in Nottingham and able to run the entire campaign (of course, I'd Savage it )

[andreww]

The 1st Edition Exalted fae Fatsplat. It sits on my shelf mocking me with its verbal incontinence.

Burning Wheel. It has given me loads of ideas for how to run games but the thought of trying to actually play or run it leaves me utterly cold.

[Halfbat]

As Gaz suggested, one of mine is AEG's Stargate. Great show, great RP linked-campaign gadget (the puddle - go through it and you could be anywhere) and loads of action on-planet with break-neck chases on starships to off-gate locations. The RPG: pages and pages on how to hack a computer, together with the different computer styles; complex feat trees; detailed skill breakdowns; even more details about miniscule differences in classes; almost no details of the starships; write-ups of each show that... er, can be gleaned from watching the DVDs.

And lots and lots of ::yawn:: Really disappointing.

Same happened for a lot of the LotR RPGs - somehow, they didn't quite ignite the flame or the magic of Middle Earth.

Apart from Star Wars, I wonder how many of these RPG tie-ins really are worth it?

[dpmcalister]

The problem with most TV or film tie-ins is that they need a system that fits the genre. Two of my favourite TV series (Stargate SG-1 (the first 7 or so seasons) and Babylon 5 have been made into RPGs but both failed to capture the right feel. Why? Because they both used the d20 System (or varients thereof). This isn't a bash at the d20 System (I enjoy playing D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder) just a comment that it isn't the right fit for those programmes.

Back to the topic at hand (and to prove that the above was still on-topic ). The only games/settings I still own that I will, probably, not play (never say never) are:

• Traveller: I've got Mega-Traveller and the Mongoose pocket version of Traveller. A bit too hard science for my tastes. I hope, however, to use the Traveller Babylon 5 books in the future (if not use the rules themselves )
• Babylon 5 d20: Again, will never play using the d20 rules but will mine them for ideas/information for future games (probably Savage Worlds )
• Necropolis: I like the idea of a sci-fi world fighting against undead but the religious aspects are a bit too similar to the real world for my liking.
• Shaintar: This was my first fantasy purchase for Savage Worlds and I really wanted to like it. Instead it's a bit meh.
• Sundered Skies: I can't quite put my finger on what it is about Sundered Skies that I don't like which is a pain as I'd like to know

I'm not one for hoarding games though so my list is pretty small. Anything I really don't like after I've bought it gets sold on (such as Ancient Odysessy which I sold at Con-Quest).