RPG Errata: Errant Challenger, and Bad RPGs

Errant Challenger, by Fauix, is still in its Beta at time of writing. It’s a fairly straightforward system, easily graspable by most anyone familiar with RPGs.

It’s a bad RPG.

I mean, look at it! It’s not so much a rule-book as it is a word document exported to PDF. The cover is poorly structured AI mush. There’s no real setting, just a chunk of fantasy pablum. The system itself doesn’t do anything that hasn’t been done twenty times over in different systems.

Except, of course, for the complications of otherwise simple mechanics. Instead of rolling 3d6 like GURPS, Errant Challenger uses 3d8’s. Critical Hits occur only in combat if there are two 8s rolled, which only means an automatic hit unless the total roll is equal-to-or-greater-than the target’s armor class or the roll was three 8s, in which case the attack also does double the weapon-dice of damage. Critical Successes are different, and only happen if three or more 8s are rolled on a skill check or saving throw, likewise with Critical Failures which require three 1s. All of this is affected by Advantage and Disadvantage which are measured in +/- 1s, which all increase the number of 8s thrown, but if you have more Advantage you take the highest three while if you have more Disadvantage you take the lowest…

Then there’s the issue of Classes vs. Subclasses, hundreds of keywords and glossary terms… ugh!

Okay, let me first take a step back and say this unequivocally: I don’t think Errant Challenger is a bad game. This is a rhetorical device, yeah? Just go with it for a second.

Because is the game really that bad? Well, of course, all quality is subjective. I can say that for me personally there isn’t anything particularly gripping about the system. Reading through it, I never sat up straight to say “oh that’s interesting!” The worldbuilding isn’t entirely bog-standard: not many worlds include both the usual elves and dwarves and dog-folk, frog-folk, and goblin-kin. True, the formatting is clumsy, but ashcan versions are hardly ignoble. A solid game could be printed up on toilet-paper and it’d still be worthy of your time. And, remember, the game is still in beta.

Let me say that again for you folks in the back. Errant Challenger is not a bad game. It is just a useful rhetorical device to focus on a simple question: what actually is a “bad game?”

Again, I could pull out my Socratic soul and start poking holes in any definition you or I might come up with, but that sounds dumb and boring. Being Socratic just means forcing you to do all the heavy lifting while smugly saying “you haven’t given me a perfect answer yet, so really, who’s the jackass here?”

Socrates was, yes, the first Sealion.

And I’d like to be better than that. I’d like to not simply shove your-and-my ignorance in your face, and actually progress the discussion. I’d like to be a Better Socrates, so I’m going to go down a different rabbit hole.

Is “good” a meaningful metric to measure games by?

I wonder, sometimes, if we aren’t slaves to quality. Not even quality; popularity. I wonder sometimes if wanting to play “good” games is a corruption of the goal to play. Having fun is important, of course, but to itemize and categorize certain games as “good” or “bad”…

Perhaps we should start to celebrate the bad games, the dumb movies, the awkward and cringe, the foul and aggrivating. No one tries to make a bad game, and those that do have their reasons. Don’t those reasons deserve engagement, rather than dismissal?

On the one hand, we have a limited time on this planet, and wasted time is time lost forever. Don’t spend your time on something that you’re not enjoying. “Life is too short for bad wine.”

On the other hand, such devotion to “quality” will do little more than prevent us from putting time and effort into the efforts of others. Judging and qualifying can waste our time just as swiftly. “Life is too short for any wine to be bad.”

And that’s before we even consider the effect of the ever-shrinking-world. The internet means that instead of looking at the best-and-worst of a few local RPG designers, we’re subjected to the best-and-worst of the whole world. Can we really be expected to sort through all the RPGs to find the ones that we like the best, especially when D&D is right here? After all, “Life is too short to judge your wine.”

Of course, this is for varying definitions of “bad.” Patently offensive or hateful RPGs of course have no place in civilized society, and the unholy trinity still deserves to be ignored forever; but what about those games that are just clumsily designed?

A lot of people thought Dark Souls was bad design at first. Then, a certain kind of player figured out what made the game fun, and a whole new sub-genre of game was born.¹

As I have said before, every RPG is a hack. Every adjustment to the rules, every application of the rules, everything that is done at your table is your own game. Any RPG that isn’t “good” is easily fixable by the players. Don’t like this rule? Toss it aside. Think a d10 is a better die than a d12? Roll it instead! The setting complete and utter nonsense? Pull in a setting from a different game, or make your own, or mix and match, or make your setting as you go!

Every Story is a Hack. We tell the stories we’ve been told, and we recycle them again and again in a ouroboros of culture. Our superheroes overcome adversity, our tragic heroes hero tragically, our horror stories terrify, our comedies make us laugh, and we piece together new ways of telling the same old tales time and time again, only this time it’s you. This story, the same as everyone else’s, is yours.

I don’t know if there is a solid answer to this. I do think that calling a game “bad” is so rife with personal preferences, opinions, and biases influenced by the specific events of the sessions you played and the people you played them with, as to be almost meaningless. You can say you don’t like what a system does, or how you engaged with the rules, but does that make the game bad? If the formatting is confusing or they can’t write a useful index to save their lives, did the writers make a bad system? If your GM didn’t quite grasp the intricacies of the ruleset, is that the game’s fault?

A stick and a ball don’t make a game. Neither do the rules. It takes rules, equipment, and a shared understanding to really make a Game. Settings can be put into different systems, different rulesets can be adjusted to fit different genres, and players can play simulation games, narrative games, collaborative, competitive…

It has been said many times and in many ways, but we do not get to choose that which resonates with us. The greatest tragedy, I feel, is when a human sees something that strikes a chord deep in their soul, only to squash that delight because the origin of that delight was not “acceptable.” Pokémon is for kids, My Little Pony is for girls, Star Trek’s Enterprise was a bad show.

So perhaps I fall more on the side that “Life is too short for any RPG to be bad.” This doesn’t mean you can’t prefer certain games over others, or dislike certain kinds of play, and it certainly doesn’t mean that you should stick around when the play gets unpleasant, boring, or even abusive. I still believe all that Session Zero stuff is paramount to proper, safe, and enjoyable play.

But maybe we don’t have to get hung up on whether a game is “good” or “bad.” Maybe instead we can give ourselves the freedom to explore what makes this game fun, and how to make the next game better.

Besides, who am I to judge games. I haven’t gone to RPG Reviewing School, I don’t have a degree in game-design; I’m just this goblin on the internet, ranting into the digital void. What are my credentials? I haven’t ever tried to make an RPG, have I?

Well…no.

And that’s something I can fix.