Dud-geons and Drag-ons.

For your consideration; a wet fart.

I’ve actually sworn off buying any and all PBtA games until I play a game of it that actually excites me. The books are gorgeous, and the system seems to make sense. But it’s just never clicked with me.

I’d have scooped up a copy of Night Witches months ago, had I not been burned one too many times!

Yeah, PbtA is one of those systems where games are either hits or misses with very little in between.

Personally, I really enjoyed Urban shadows and I can't wait to get my books form the 2nd edition Kickstarters I backed a while back. Uncharted Worlds is also pretty good, and Vagabonds of Dyfed is a sort of hybrid of PbtA and OSR which looks really good on paper, but I've yet to try it yet. I've also heard a lot of good things about Dungeon Worlds, so probably look into that.

I did backed the End Time Kickstarter, and when I received my book, felt the system was pretty "meh"... just to prove that they're not all games that I like...

I deny your consideration. Also my vacation starts tonight so I think I'm going to start a Cartel game. I'll show you the wonders of PbtA!

I own so many PbtA games... and remain very conflicted about most of them. I've had good fun with Masks, The Sprawl, Action Movie World (briefly), Offworlders and Breakers, like the -idea- of Freebooters on the Frontier and Stonetop... and I think I could enjoy Monster of the Week and Super Destiny High School Rumble. Had a good time with AW finally, because I played in a PbP game run by a PbtA pro. I think it *really* matters how these games are run.

Still waiting for great core experiences with stuff like Dungeon World, SCUP, Root, and MotW. Not sure if it's in the cards.

*cough*You forgot to mention Cartel.*cough*

I so want to play Breakers

My top of the list for Duds: DnD 4e. TOO BALANCED to the point that every class feels and plays exactly the same with different flavor. The adventure modules have interesting set ups but then are far too rail-roady, it's one set piece battle to the next.

Oh, that reminds me of Cypher. I only ever played one low-level game of it, so I might not be a good judge of the system but while the character creation sounds fun with the three parts, in practice, I only ever ended up rolling a straight D20 for anything. Sure, my abilities added a bit of personality, but overall, it felt very bland and not like my character choices really influenced what I was good at or not.
The fact that if you do spend points, it doesn't give you a bonus but only reduces the difficulty also adds to this feeling of sameyness.

I still enjoyed the game but it was definitely despite the system, not because of it

In fact, I did not. =]

I love Call of Cthulhu and games of that genre. Average Joe’s mixing it up with a mystery.

But boy, does it feel bad to constantly roll over your meager stat values. They’re just so low. I don’t know if it’s something that ‘Pulp Cthulhu’ might correct for (making the heroes more competent and punchy) but I hope it does.

It’s on both sides of the screen. It really takes any horror or fear out of a scene when you’re big ugly gribblies miss inexplicably for the third round in a row.

Yeah that and overly complicated combat are the two big negatives about CoC. I feel too many skills start at too low a value. I feel all skills should start at either 1/2 or at least 1/5 of the most applicable base stat, similar to how the Dodge skill works. Next time I run CoC I might do that.

It's the best terrible game. ;)

There are many alternatives! Cthulhu Dark, Rats in the Walls, Eldritch Tales, Tiny Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, the list goes on.

Here's a wetwipe so you can clean up! Gonna agree though. I played Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Fellowship, and their verison of Avatar. I just can't get into it. Everything you do feels the same, and the playbooks don't do enough to differentiate the characters. I kept trying new ones but not one actually felt any different to play than any other.

I hear that. In some ways, this is the 'appeal' of the system but it does make your character's specializations invisible in a way. I wonder if it would make a difference to add modifiers to rolls rather than decrease the target number? It wouldn't be hard to do.

Another thing that bugs me in cypher in pbp is the GM can't roll for the player because they should be given a chance to declare effort before the roll is made. In particular this can lag combat. In D&D-likes, the GM can roll all the monster's attacks in a single post, but in Cypher you have to wait for your player to roll their defense.

There are other bells and whistles to draw upon that could shake things up. GM intrusions, player intrusions, and having interesting cyphers could go a long way. I'd like to see a Cypher game really push those unique features. Characters are pretty robust and can afford big intrusions to push the drama buttons, and that kick starts the XP economy for players to make intrusions too. I think people should think about intrusions as a "Make This Scene More Awesome" button and press it liberally. But again, it is another transaction - a player can refuse the intrusion and that takes time to confirm that can hold up the game.

Cyphers are also pretty hit-and-miss. Like, is your character cool because of disposable gadgets? Maybe if you're playing Adam West Batman or James Bond, but not most characters in fiction. They make perfect sense in Numenera but not many other genres.

The "I am an adjective noun who verbs" formula for characters is one of the system's best features and I think you could leverage it for other things in the game. Like, a cypher Star Wars game, your ship could have a sentence. The Millenium Falcon could be a Piece-of-Junk Smuggler Ship that's Got It Where it Counts.

I would love to play it in person, because the Harrigan transactions aren't so much of a time-killer there. I think it would really shine that way.