RPGS that you want to like but....

Yeah, well… of all the life experiences to casually toss in as a semi-relevant afterthought, that’s probably the only story that should be restricted to Main Topic.

What’s even worse is that, in hindsight, it did more to discredit my point than it did to support it.

We were in Rome, and Neo Nazis were doing a demonstration. They had uniforms, shaved heads and a flag. Their presence messed up traffic, forcing our bus to stop right beside them.

I was 21, technically a chaperone on my brother’s high school trip (Catholic school), and several American teenagers who had never seen a real live Neo Nazi before pointed out the windows. The girls giggled. This I watched from the upper deck’s back seat. My brother’s friend said, "Guys, this isn’t a joke." One man drew a gun and started to board the bus. The friend was ignored. Word of the gunman boarding prompted curious faces to press against the windows.

So here I was, too young to have any real authority. Old enough that I had to be a Chaperone so I could go. The situation forced me to live up to my fake title. I stood up to say, "Guys, don’t piss them off." At the word ‘don’t,’ I realized there were two nuns sitting beside me, and my next word was going to be ‘piss.’ Having graduated from that school, I knew it was really bad to say that in front of a nun. Worse than a Neo Nazi murdering kids? No, but this didn’t need to be an either-or thing.

Without skipping a beat, I redirected my sentence to whatever phrase popped into my head. It came out as, "Guys, don’t F••• with them."

The kids were shocked, staring at me and the nuns as they slowly sank to their seats. My dad yelled my name. I stammered, "but Dad.. the Nazis.."

I turned to face the nuns ready to get hell. Both were completely calm and poised (as always). One gave me a nod.

Yikes!

A quick Google search tells me this is, more or less, the so-called "New World of Darkness" so I'm guessing it corresponds to Vampire: The Requiem? Only played a LARP game of that, can't say I was thrilled about the cut down to 5 clans or the 5 social clubs, but in fairness, it might have been the group/STs and I left before we got too deep into what's really going on in the background.

Yep!

I don't like VtR, but I like the meta-plot of VtM/WoD. And all of the numerous vampire clans are pretty tied into and central to that burden of metaplot. So just thought it might be worth a look for you.

The more mass appeal you go for, the blander your product becomes. More people like it, but less people love it. If you take risks, you end up alienating people (and I'm talking about playstyle preferences, NOT social issues), and Hasbro doesn't want to take risks. They want D&D to be the game that anyone can sit down and play, and anyone can and lots do but... it's just not great.

Definitely DCC for me, I've tried it twice via play by post. It's not for me

5E, he said, giving an unpopular opinion. I just don't like it. I feel that it is oversimplified and heavily weighted in favor of the players. I enjoy D&D, but 5e just kills the fun for me.

I'm also an unpopular-opinion-haver since I dislike 5e too lol.

I'm also not a fan of 5e, but conversely to you, it's because it's too overcomplicated. :D

Sorry to keep at this, but did I miss something? So one of the neo-nazis drew a gun and started to board your bus? You told the kids to stay quiet and not antagonize him, and then....?

Cyberpunk RED. I bought the PDF when it first came out and played a long-term game with my IRL group soon after. The over complicated character sheet, the combat mechanics, the netrunner "mini game"... There's a lot of crunch with little to no return for a fun cyberpunk experience.

I wanted to like it since it was the only system that had Cyberpunk 2077's lore / roles by default, but the same can be achieved in a system better suited for someone like me.

The tour guide and the Neo Nazi leader (whom we named "Lester Lightbulb," later, from the safety of our hotel) talked the gunman into putting the gun away and stepping off the bus.

That conversation was on the lower deck, in Italian and, from where I was sitting, out of earshot. There was talk later of how, had things gotten worse, there would have been Bad Press because we were Americans. I don’t know if there’s any truth to that.

Wow, that's insane. I'm glad everything turned out okay, and appreciate the update.

I didn’t want to hijack the thread, but it would have been rude of me not to answer.

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Interesting take. Maybe that’s why I gravitate to weird niche games.

Certainly. I'm no fan of 5e either and a big part of GamersPlane's initial appeal for me was the chance to find people willing to try out weird niche games. I think the slow pace, read-based format of PbP accommodates trying new games because you have the time to look up stuff in rulebooks, it's not like holding up a live game by flipping through pages.