"What was the worst convention game you ever played in?" Topic

And conversely, what was the worst game you ever played in and what made it so bad? What mistakes did the GM make that ruined potentially good games?

Eight factions. Hidden victory conditions, where A won by doing in B, who won by killing C, who one by blocking D, and so on. Intricate, interwoven victory conditions which were hard but not impossible for anyone. Until the GM messed up setting up the table, putting faction A over between E and F, and couldn't reach B (or be reached by G) within the span of time allowed to play the game.

Yay.

I once played a Medieval Joust Game at Borderwar in KSC.
The game was beautiful with a full castle and a cast of 1,000's of figures. Game was absolutely controlled by the Gm. You weren't allow to touch any of the figures and the game was a straight role off of a 6 die. If the GM got a dislike for you were downgraded to a D4.

I helped my 9 year old play a beautiful pirate game at a show. The rules weren't well thought out. They recycled dead figures on both sides so that he'd wipe out an enemy just to have them pop up again a foot or so away. It became clear it was pointless to kill people fairly quickly as no matter how many you wiped out there would be more between you and your objective within a move.

It was at Little Wars a few years ago. It was a post apocalyptic skirmish game with home brew rules. The only people who knew the rules were the two GM's who spent most of the game talking with friends who passed by or going outside for a smoke.

It was brutal. For a beer and pretzel skirmish game it was very complex with too many complexities.

I wouldnt have stuck it out until the end but I found the big mguffin that would ensure that I would win a $30 USD gift certificate early on. I had to stay to win my prize.

A card driven game of wind and the lion. Pretty game. Just too many factions. In 4 hours I got to move 3 times.

Sail & Steam Navies game at Historicon back in Valley Forge. The one where you are punching through the block ships up the Mississippi. Half the Union ships never got into the battle in 4 hours. Great looking game. Atrocious scenario for a time limited convention battle.

I almost, ALMOST walked out, but I was too polite. In hindsight, I should have. 4 hours doing nothing but watching the 30% or so of the players who actually got into contact roll dice.

Origins '84. Leipzig or some such battle. 4 hr slot, 16 players. Each of us was given one corps. First two and a half hours went into setting up the battle. Table was about 12 by 12 and so many figures were crammed onto the table that I doubt there was three square inches anywhere without a figure. Next hour and some was spent with the first side (my opposing side) moving and and firing. Throughout the whole 3.5 hrs we listened to some fellow on my side who had a cav corps talk about being impetuous. "I'm impetuous… you all wait and see… I am impetuous" for 3.5 hrs. When it got to be time for our side to move and shoot, Mr. Impetuous volunteered/demanded to go first, and charged his corps into the barrels of a grand battery and lost the better half of his cav. The game masters then called "time to quit" – we need everyone's help to clean up. Never got to move, never got to fire… never got those four hours back.

Two games.
One was a Wild West game. The GM briefly explained the rules and then took off to go to dinner. While he was there, he allowed a guy to switch figures between one of the player's Head Bad Guy, and some lowlife when I shot the HBG.
While we were working out an intricate shootout in the street, the Mexicans had time to run 5' down the table, sack another town and come back.
Then the GM came back from dinner.
The other players were so familiar with the rules I got the impression that they were regulars who liked to ambush newbies.

The other was an AWI game. I had a column of Patriot militia to bring up a road. On Turn 2, I was ambushed on all sides by Tory Scum and wiped out. I complained to the GM. He smirked and said "Just like in Real Life". I had no choice or chance to deviate from his master plan.
What ever possessed this clown of a GM to decide this made a "good convention game" escapes me.

I played a WSS game where the GM kept the only copy of the roster where all units strengths were recorded. Lots of players but no one could do anything without reference to the roster. We slogged through three turns in four hours with many players never even getting to fire.

One of the worst was a game of Classical Hack. Egyptians vs Romans based on a Shakespeare play. The GM explained that in the play the Egyptians attacked the Romans down a wharf and when they got to Caesar, he jumped into the water, swam to shore, met up with some Roman reinforcements and escaped.

My son and I played the Egyptians. Over almost 4 hours we battled through the city. We battled to the wharf. We battled past a fortified and locked guard tower. We made it Caesar and were just about to capture him when the GM said, "This is where Caesar jumps and escapes. Game over." Wha?????

Funny thing -- many years later at another convention, I was talking to a couple of guys who had just played in a game with me where the scenario was very against us and I told them about the Classical Hack game. They started laughing because they had played the same game at a different convention and the GM did the same thing to them!

At Hcon I played a ship of the line game with homebrew rules. A historical engagement, can't remember which battle. The two lines were coming at each other at a 90 degree angle, and I was at the back. I told the GM that it didn't seem like I was going to get into combat. He remarked that yes, these ships don't normally make it. I thanked him and left.

Steve

HCon the past 2 years I have tried a Conan game with slightly customized rules. The GM set-up a beautiful board and had great figures for it. Even a compelling story. Problem was that the entire thing was story driven and if your actions didn't match the idea he had, then you simply didn't do them.

For example, we were supposed to go to a certain spot and get info from someone, simple objective attainment. But there could only be so many people in building at one time. I rolled very well for movement and was the first to get to the objective. GM decided that I had to wait outside for Conan to arrive. This kind of thing went on all night, where players would work out a plan and enact it only to have it stopped by fiat.

DallasCon '86

Empire III 1813 scenario on a 4x16 table. We played the attack down the length of the table (at 6 inches a turn).

A Wild West game with about a dozen players, based on the gunfight in Ingolls, Oklahoma, in 1893, when US marshals took on the Dalton gang. The table was fantastic, the miniatures included not only the marshals and outlaws but a fair number of townspeople, the rules were simple and would have been fun, except for the GM's tendency to give a detailed biography every time a character moved for the first time and the fact that there just too many players. In 3-1/2 hours, my character moved twice.

LT

Reading the above accounts should be required reading for all GMs. The figures, rules and terrain need to be balanced by well planned scenarios and allow players pretty much non stop action.

I too have done the "Naval scenario where it was impossible for my ship to get into range in the allotted game time." And haven't we all been assigned to a pinning corps that gets chewed up the whole game while other players move about with great elan? I guess someone has to do it.

I was running a Command Decision game for first time players new to the system, so it was a pretty straightforward Russians vs. Germans East Front action. Everyone got a battalion or so and it was designed to be finished in a few hours with no aircraft, recon, etc., to just speed the game along.

Two German players, who fancied themselves WW2 experts, whispered to me that they were going to use hidden movement and sneak up on the Russians for a flank attack. I explained that there was no hidden movement and they were extremely disappointed. A turn or so later I noticed them breaking off bits of the trees and moving them along a road. When I asked them what they were doing they replied they were using the lichen pieces to represent their "hidden forces"! I put everything back and two turns later they were at it again. When I explained for the third time that there was no hidden movement they angrily stormed off claiming the rules were unrealistic!

You know, upon thinking about it, I've played several stinkers. I've also played many, many great games, but I am surprised at how many stinkers I've played in.

Usually they involve games that move by at an excruciatingly slow pace, or crap GMs who are just there to hang with their friends, or didn't think through the scenario, or both.

There was the game at GenCon many years back with the 8 foot long Star Destroyer. I played the first year and it was a blast. The next year they came back even bigger and better, right? No, this was the year where it took 4 hours to complete a single turn. We didn't even finish turn 2 before the 6 hour time frame was done. Beautiful game- unbelievably boring.

Then there was the game I played at an unnamed game convention playing an old set of WWI flying combat rules. Again, 4 hours to complete a single turn, with stupefyingly complex rules that the GM didn't bother to explain even though everyone playing had never played them before. I played another game of his on another topic a couple of years later and this time it was even worse. I took note of his name this time. That GM seems to be prolific at the local shows, but if I see his name in the listings, I avoid him like the plague.

Then there was the WWII scenario that used computer moderated rules to run a scenario where a company of German soldiers supported by a Panzer IV platoon squared off against a single platoon of US paratroopers with a single 57mm anti tank gun. We were all shocked when the GM announced that the forces on the board were indeed all of the soldiers in this scenario. I was on the German side, and my son got to run the tank platoon, so at least we got to move some lead. The Americans were defending, so they never moved, were outnumbered ridiculously, and with the computer moderated rules it was boring and academic. "My squad shoots at that squad." The GM checks his computer. "You kill half the American Squad. American player, please remove casualties." Ugh. No dice, just movement and wait for the GM to tell us if we were successful.

Then there was the game of Pulp Alley I played. I really wanted to play this game. The table was beautiful. The rules are simple. What went wrong? Too many players. The GM had 14 separate players crammed around the table. Pulp Alley are simple, elegant rules. Somehow, this GM took 90 minutes to explain the rules before we could even begin. I could read the book cover to cover in that amount of time! Then play for 5 minutes and wait for another 75 minutes while the other 13 players take their five minute turns. Ugh.

Finally, there's the Battletech game I played a few years back. It was set up for 6 players. The GM was ready to go, but waiting for some reason as the appointed time came. What was the deal? Suddenly his 3 best buddies show up and now we have 9 players playing a 6 player scenario? His solution? He took away the best mechs from several players and gave them to his buddies- leaving the dregs to the rest of us. At least my son won a sweet mech as a prize for playing. Other wise it was 3 hours of watching the GMs buddies play with his friends while the rest of us occasionally got to roll a few dice.

Then there's the scenario where our team, who moved up to 8 inches per turn were given a scenario where we had to cross 72" in 6 turns, and clear every building on the map as we went. We explained that mathematically that was impossible, and the GM just shrugged and said, "Well, that's the way I wrote it."

I could go on and on…

I did a blog post touching on this subject last year, then went on to put my money where my mouth was and ran games at 2 conventions. Hopefully no one mentions mine here!

Here were my thoughts: link

Two come to mind. One was the Game Masters fault. The other a players.

Played in a massive 40k game at Origins a few years ago. Lots of vehicles, destroyed buildings and a river running down the middle of the board that could only be crossed at the two bridges. So much stuff on the board and only 2 points to cross. It became a funnel at the two bridges with both sides just meat grinding troops or having vehicles lined up on both sides of the river taking shots back and forth. In 4 hours, I moved my units three or four times and never touched the dice.

The other was one of my first Flames of War game. Again at Origins, years ago. France, 1940. One of the players was a Rules Lawyer who challenged the Game Master at every chance he could, constantly complaining and trying to persuade the GM that his interpretation was correct. The final straw was when he became livid when his armor rolled into a unmarked minefield. He started screaming a the GM that they wern't briefed about the mines!! Finally one of the other players had enough and got in the Rules lawyer's face, shouted him down and basically did what the GM should have done and "asked" him to leave.

When the disruptive player stormed off, the game continued, but with a much subdued and uncomfortable atmosphere.

One was a massive TSATF game in which the GM broke the rules by having way too large of a game with too many players.

The other was also a card driven game. Not a lot of players, but it moved so slow. I stuck it out because a gamer I knew was running it. My brother simple walked away.

Yeah, reading these other stories is why I don't sign up for games with more than 8 players, and always swing by the table before hand to see the set up before attempting to play or letting the GM know I registered for their game.

I think most of us GM's have been guilty, of one or more of the above infractions. Hopefully that was in the past and we all learn as we go. There are times in the creativity process where it easy to get sidetracked, and not visualize how the how the scenario will play out. So these are all valid points. I would caution those who have not GM'd at cons to try it a few times before you criticize too harshly.

I've GMed two. In retrospect both were screwed up by me. No more.

Played in a Convention Alamo game in which I was defending one of the walls, and the opposing Mexican player was cheating so much, and so obvious that I actually had photographic proof of it, and posted it on my blog….I just walked away.

Played in a pirate game at Bayou Wars long ago. Homebrew rules. I was running the civilians. Everything I asked if I could do, the GM said "No". So i simply moved my civilians away from the pirates and out of the town and let the soldiers fight the pirates.
I had an emergency phone call, and stepped about five paces from the table, and came back to find the GM had moved all of my figures back into the town, because I had left the game.
I went to roll a die and it fell onto the table and knocked over two figures. GM said "A meteor has just landed and killed those two!" I started to say something but then someone else as the table said "You don't argue with God!"
I simply said "1: It's a game. 2: HE's NOT God! 3: Get a grip!" and walked away.

Worst one was a T2000 game in the late 80's where the GM ran a "computer program to determine dice rolls". The winner of the game happened to be the only female player, (Dressed like Tinkerbell) that actually sat on the floor during the game and rubbed his leg with her hand.

Back in the early days of my convention going, I would watch as club members would put all the new players on one side with the club members being the opposition. As they knew the rules and scenarios, they would kick butt and laugh about it after.
One of the reasons I started to GM was to prevent that from happening.

I run many games at cons, so I feel very free to call crap GMing when I see it. As a GM, it really peeves me to see poorly run games from people who should know better. If it's a new GM, I will encourage and give advice, but all my clunkers were from people who were established GMs.

I would caution those who have not GM'd at cons to try it a few times before you criticize too harshly.

This.

I have put on some games that could have gone better. I doubt they would have made this list (I hope). The answers are usually simple:

1) play test, play test, play test
2) Keep the game moving
3) make sure every player is engaged
4) don't try to be God cuz you ain't

This is a big difference from a GM delaying a game so his buddies can show up late, or the GM disappearing for a smoke, or leaving to go to dinner, beating up on newbies, or being a table top tyrant. Those are inexcusable.

Played in a Convention Alamo game in which I was defending one of the walls……..

Jeez Murphy, I hope that wasn't the game put on by the HAWKS years ago at one of the HMGS cons. My son and I played in their Alamo game and that turned out to be one of the best games we ever played. We still talk about that today.

79th PA has a great memory. I did that game in the late 80's at Little Wars. I think there were 8-10 players on a side. I have not done such a big game since.

The highlight was when we heard screams from the ladies room and a couple of the guys went in, they saved a young lady from being raped. Real war gaming heroes!

My own worst game was not one of personality, but of playing pieces, or lack of such. It was in the middle 90's, at a local con. The game was a Custer's Last Stand. About 20 people lined the table, as the GM explained the game. Then he said, "I did not have time to paint the natives, so those will be represented by pennies." There was a murmur around the table, as others, and me said, they had to be somewhere else. I moved over to play in a very interesting new concept -- Matrix Game. Glad I switched.

Not played in but I ran a "monster" Colonial game at a Bayou Wars convention about 9 or so years ago pitting hundreds of Zulus against not so many Brits. Didn't work out. British couldn't get enough troops in line to shoot and Zulus just ran them down. Was a bigger "Isandlhwana" debacle. I've vowed never to do that kind of game ever again.

A young lad played the British reserve and didn't get into the fight. But this fortunately didn't dismay him and he has been a regular at this convention ever since.

Jim

Played a naval game at historicon with homebrewed rules, American subs vs. the Japanese. It was BAD. I had a Japanese convoy and accompanying destroyers. When a US sub sunk one of my ships, i said "aha" I've got you now there's destroyers all around it. He told me that the sub outran my destroyers, underwater. Fine, I will keep playing to be nice, but im getting frustrated. Then when we spotted it again after i lost another ship, i was more frustrated. There were 3 enemy subs. 2 had revealed, and my plane had another spotted quite a bit away. Suddenly the sub was in my convoy shooting!!! It moved 10 hexes submerged in one turn. My plane could fly 8. I asked for his thinking behind it, and my answer was "Well that's my rules" I got up and left.

I know that one game I ran that had a problem with the scenario. When I play-tested the scenario I only had enough room to run the right flank and the center command or the left flank and the center command. Every one of the 6 play-tests worked great and gave a good gripping game to the last minute that my guinea pigs enjoyed. When we went to the convention and used the bigger table, the one side used his superior movement to totally bypass the one slowest command and tried to make it a 3 players v one on the far flank. Whereas the "slower side" had an objective that could still eke out victory for them, their rolls were so bad, that it didn't save them. I learned that in the preparation for a game, you must play the whole thing at least once even though I had playtested each section multiple times. The players said that they enjoyed learning the game, but I wasn't happy with my performance.

First I would like to thank all the GMs who put a lot of time, effort and money into trying to make something entertaining for the players.
The worst like above was simple roll off at straight 6D sided die even up. Close to this was me rolling a 12D against a 4D sided even up.
I also played in a game a Valley Forge where the GM had actually been given some award during the game (I think it was for terrain.) When he describe the victory conditions, which were get a unit to one corner, my side decided just to make a dash of it and avoid clashes as much as possible. Two plus hours into it he (the GM) realized there was not going to be any sort of epic clash and we would win by his objectives. He then moved all our figures so that they would have an "epic clash." At that point there was less than an hour on the clock and everyone just left.

My bad gaming experience was with a GM at Historicon running a Piquet Renaissance game, who obviously had a bias for one side. He would make a ruling (that wasn't supported by the rules) favoring "his" side. The next turn when the "bad" side tried to something similar, then the rules clearly state that it cannot be done. When asked about how this was different from what the "good" side had done, he stated "I don't have a good memory and I can't be relied upon to remember what happened last turn." When it was pointed out word for word what he had ruled (the "good" side players said that they agreed with the recitation) he yelled at the "bad" side, and told them not to try to misquote his rulings.

He accused the "bad" side of cheating, when they had done nothing but move a unit less than its full move so it wouldn't be flanked, and actually yelled at the players.

He was thoroughly unpleasant to one side the whole game and they almost walked away, and probably should have.

(Writer's note: See my post under the "best games" thread to balance out my negativity here.)

Some years back my pal, Sodapop Bill, and I played in an Arab-Israeli game at Historicon, 6 or 10mm IIRC, but in all truthfulness it is painful to try to recall this event. Slow, disorganized, the GM was just not together. Any thoughts we had of moving and firing in order to execute some plan quickly devolved into the agony of static die rolling. The rules were a commercially published set, not some strange homebrew, but made little sense.

Holy Moly… I think I'm having flashbacks and possibly a panic attack!

Good god, people have had some terrible experiences. That is why I always run Astounding Tales! As part of the experience, folks expect you to make it up as you go along, and I have never run a pulp game where a player did not try something I did not anticipate.

There are some great stories here. Extra compliments for all those who admit to running some clunkers themselves – God knows I have. There are times when even thoroughly play-tested scenarios just don't "click," whether it's due to quirky dice rolls, unforeseen situations, the chemistry of those involved or some other factor, tangible or intangible. Still fun to read the stories, though!

If you find yourself in a convention participation game that is such torture as described above why stay in? Surely it's easier to just walk away? Life's too short to waste time on such foolishness.

I ran a big Fallschirmjäger game that didn't go well at first. The parachute drops were on the first turn, and I should have done them pregame instead. Units were of course mixed up after landing (to be expected) but my usual labeling (which is with color-coding rather than text) created additional confusion. Thanks to some dedicated players (you know who you are if you have not erased this game from your memory) the game was pulled out of the hat.

My worst experience of a game run by someone else was one in which several of the players were assigned to lead reinforcements that took ages to get to the table. A couple of people walked away, and I couldn't blame them.

Then there was a huge game in which the assignment of troops to each player was not made clear. There were units sitting passively as the enemy attacked. After several attempts at drawing attention to this, I just thought, hell, I'll run those troops myself. And I did.

At this point -- 04 May 2018 at 2:08 p.m. -- the number of posts about "worst game" is greater than those about "best game". Does this say something about us? Maybe just that we've played so many great games it's hard to single one out, whereas the bad ones are rare enough that we remember them. Certainly the case for me.

Bob, I've never been to Little Wars, so I wasn't talking about you!

Does this say something about us?

That there are a shocking number of bad games every convention and that we remember the stinkers more than the good ones.

I can't say I've ever been in a total stinker. I've been in a few that were disappointing, mostly because the GMs hadn't done their rules prep, so basic questions were met by that ole deer in the headlights look. Things bogged down, but usually a few proactive players started bypassing the GM with on site let's just agree that…resolutions.

One memorable game was nobody's fault really. It was a computer moderated Battle of the Coral Sea. The info enterer fat fingered and the Shoho group moved one turn on course 220 at 200 knots. The GMs struggled to get the toothpaste back into the tube and Shoho out of northern Australia for quite some time. After 20 minutes I just sort of drifted away. I drifted past about an hour later and it looked like they had hit another snag.

Warfare in the Age of Reason at a Little Wars many, many years ago. Twelve players, many like myself were new to the system. Six hours after the scheduled start time my forces had moved 12" in I think 3 turns, fired a light cannon once, and spent the majority of the time watching a cavalry charge that went wild. I've never walked out on a game, but I wish I had. Totally too large and disorganized game. You can't sort out the troops during the game time.

All the others were either the fault of the game system or players.

I've been to at least 40 HMGS cons. Figure 3 games played per con (I usually run 1) so at least 120 games and I can think of 3 real stinkers and about a dozen more where I hated the rules. I think that's a fantastic record and a tribute to all the great GMs.

All my bad games involved one or more of four things:
1. Rules I didn't know and wasn't given.
2. Bad math on the part of the GM, as in I'd have needed an 11 on a D10 to hit anyone.
3. Very, very slow. (If you want to make this worse, find a GM who doesn't want anyone to talk, so now you aren't gaming and can't socialize.)
4. Dice trump tactics. If a single die roll--activation, command, reinforcements or when the bridge blows--is more important than player decisions, why bother pushing troops?

A couple spring to mind. There was an ACW naval game at Battlefleet some years ago which was toured as "lasts about an hour". It used range estimation (so hits were rare) and damage inflicted by each hit was painfully small, especially when combined with ships that has vast numbers of damage points. After 2 hours our ships had barely scratched each other. I reckon we'd have only been half way after 6 hours. But then one of my hits caused a small flood. Just a few points per turn but there were no rules for leak stopping. At that point I said the was no way the enemy ship could survive the flood, made my excuses and left.

Then there was a WW2 game at the old Chippenham show. WW2 skirmish run by 2 guys with them as the Germans vs the players as the allies. After some clever moves getting my anti tank team past the hordes of German infantry I got my PIAT outflanking their Tiger, rolled a 12 to hit followed by a 6 for damage (yay, must have killed it!) only to be told that a PIAT couldn't penetrate the armour so my attack (with the only weapon in the game that should have been able to kill the tank). I heard from some friends who had played the game before that the Germans never lost the game. Ever

For my own part Ihope I've never run a stinker of a game at a show, but I must apologise to the lady playing my "Stingray" game a couple of years back whose suffered a critical hit on turn 1 that knocked out her fire control system (so she couldn't launch weapons) and who failed every single repair roll in the game.

Gettysburg game that was actually an alpha test of a very freeform, "What do you want to do?" system.

With referees who didn't know Gettysburg or ACW very well …

I got talked into accompanying friends to a very large Pirate game with 30 or more players back when such monster games were de rigeur for certain clubs or companies. Confusion reigned. An hour after the ‘beginning' of the game no one had moved.