"Best/worst/most unused..." Topic

I see we have a "Best" rules set poll going?

Are we going to have a worst war game rules poll too?

And, for the thin-skinned among us, I would not vote TS&TF as being the worst. Not best but certainly not worst…

I will nominate 'Raven' by Harlequin Miniatures for worst game rules. I have never managed to get these to work but I do like the fluff in them so keep the set.

x42

*'Celtos' 1st ed.
Densely packed wall-of-text layout, using tiny print and a ridiculously ornate 'Celtic-style' typeface, over a coloured background. Utterly incomprehensible, and a genuine chore to try and read.

*Anything from West Wind's "Q-die" series.
Irredeemable rubbish.
The promise of a decent core mechanism rendered unusable by poor layout, ludicrous typos, (in fact, a general lack of proof-reading or editing) lots of 'padding' (so much so that some of the purposeless fluff actually appears two or three times, reprinted in different sections of the rules), conflicting info and jaw-droppingly dumb historical inaccuracy.
(Did you know there were South American jaguars in the arenas of ancient Rome?)

I really like the idea behind "q-die" too. Still allows for failure but gives capable figures the chance for real heroics.

Some of that series are done better than others.

By the Sword

'Celtic-style' typeface, over a coloured background. Utterly incomprehensible, and a genuine chore to try and read.

You'd think by the turn of the 21st century, publishers would have learned how awful to read that sort of thing was (the 90's were lousy with it), but it still persists. 1st ed. Dystopian Wars had what was supposed to look like a "vellum" background (for whatever reason), but it looked more like burlap.

And let's not forget WW's atrocious artwork.

To keep from further dogpiling: I nominate Legions of Steel's 'Planetstorm'. I couldn't make heads nor tales of it. And I can't remember the rules ever explaining what the values in the stat-lines were.

Living Steel and Phoenix Command. Nice productions values (for the period) but ludicrous and superfluous detail that robbed me of any enjoyment.

For example, I don't think that the differences in ballistics between the FN FAL used by the Argentinian forces and the British armies FN (the L1A1 or SLR) – beyond one being semi and the other being full auto – are worth building into a gaming system: they are essentially the same rifle.

And I don't need to know whether my target as a light groin wound or not…

Rivet counting nonsense…

John T

And I don't need to know whether my target as a light groin wound or not…

Maybe it's for the target's edification.

Ooh, I had a friend who floated the notion of Phoenix Command for our group. I took one look at it, and and WOW. Thankfully, he didn't really push it.

Palladium's equipment guides were godawful for concocting major stat variance between almost-identical bits of kit.
Yugoslav AK-variants having twice the effective range of East German ones, that kind of thing.

None of the games that made it to our table were THAT awful but I must admit, the Rifts rpg seemed pretty bad, mechanics wise, though we still had fun with it.

I don't think we ever quite figured out what was actually going on, and combat was a merciless grind of blasting each other at point blank range to wear down their armour.

I was turned off to ACW (/WNA) gaming early on when I asked about the very different stats for the Enfield and Springfield rifles and was regaled with scathing instruction about the way things are. A few years ago, there was an article in Guns & Ammo where they rebuilt a Springfield and an Enfield to period standards and then had an expert marksman have at them both. The performance was statistically the same.

FN FAL and L1A1 are very different rifles of course and should be statted as so!

I agree with Palladium/Rifts. All we played as adolescents was Palladium. It sucked but we still had fun because we were idiots.

Any one page set of rules, I have seen enough of them to know they are all unreasonable. the first time you meet any sort of complexity they give no clue to how to resolve it. May aswell just push the figures around without any rules at all and to me that is utterly pointless.

I think the hobby is full of people who are "legends in their own lunchtime " when it comes to writing rules.

The dichotomy between game and simulation creates a lot of fanboys and luddites.

So you spend your hard earned cash on the latest or "relevant" shiny set of rules ( if your over 60 like me in analogue format) only to find you have problems reading it due to the "arthouse" style background to the page – Tomorrow's War or it's a Frank Chadwick Friday afternoon special – Condottiere which looks as though nobody went through and edited it. Both set of rules I actually play.

So there we are probably the two big issues for me: non intuitive publishing – layout, format, too many nice pictures not enough explanation and examples and where the bleep is the index.

Literary incompetence , Celebrity rule writers complacency and the either total lack of or inability to have the manuscript edited. A lot of rules are play tested table top but not the final draft idiot proofed/ sanity checked before publishing.
As the investment in a set of, or rules system takes more of our £ $ should we not expect a quality product.

Just in case someone thinks I'm a bit partisan on this don't get me started on bad British written rules as there is not enough space on this thread for this and I am just off to paint some figures.

1644 & AK47 v2. Both caused me to dump painted armies, so I would rate them as truly bad. I would say 1644 for the win because at least AK had a decent v1.

One of the worst rule sets I've ever played, was SL and ASL. We were playing advanced scenarios, in Cross of Iron, and we had to keep looking back to the very first scenario, to refresh our memories on LOS rules! Those games were so freaking complex, we could not keep all the minute rules clear!

I played one game of SeeKrieg 5… I downloaded the free rules PDF, to try and read them, as I was completely lost in them. One player spent 10 minutes calculating his torpedo shot's chance of hitting his target, after his ship had fired… He used Trigonometric calculations, involving Sine, Cosine, Tangent formulas, and more. In the end, he announced he had a 7% chance of success: he rolled a 96. LOL!

I want to play a game; I do not want to use Trigonometry math to play my game. I just want to use tactics, and roll dice, to see if I can blow stuff up, kill enemy units, and achieve some goals. I don't want to know that I have a 7% change To Hit, I just want a target number, and a chance to roll some dice, and quickly move on to the next combat challenge. YMMV. Cheers!