History Horrible / TabletopGames

** The character system is ''also'' completely broken. It takes forever to draw up a character thanks to the aforementioned dice rolling, taking up a ''full third'' of a [[Doorstopper more than 900-page tome]]. Races are poorly thought out -- they all hate each other so much that it's totally implausible to form an adventuring party from them. Classes are broken -- all earn experience in different ways, but some are incomplete, many are civilian jobs no player would want, and for some it's possible to die of old age before reaching ''Level 2''. Stats are complex and include things like head size, social and marital status, and [[{{Squick}} anal circumference]]. And given the broken nature of the rolling system, in early editions it was possible for "anal circumference" to be [[BodyHorror zero]] or [[AlienGeometries negative]].

** The character system is ''also'' completely broken. It takes forever to draw up a character thanks to the aforementioned dice rolling. Races are poorly thought out -- they all hate each other so much that it's totally implausible to form an adventuring party from them. Classes are broken -- all earn experience in different ways, but some are incomplete, many are civilian jobs no player would want, and for some it's possible to die of old age before reaching ''Level 2''. Stats are complex and include things like head size, social and marital status, and [[{{Squick}} anal circumference]]. And given the broken nature of the rolling system, in early editions it was possible for "anal circumference" to be [[BodyHorror zero]] or [[AlienGeometries negative]].

* '''''Monopoly Global Village: Pokemon GO''''' is a knockoff version of ''Monopoly'' made to cash in on ''VideoGame/PokemonGo''. The game was just regular Monopoly just with the spaces changed to real-life cities and costs having an extra zero (you will run out of currency really fast if you played the game, unlike the original Monopoly), the game has nothing to do with Pokemon except for the box and the centre of the board being changed, the game board was noted to be so flimsy that there was no way to get it to lay down flat, the player tokens and dice were extremely tiny (for the player pieces, they could have at least used some of those knockoff Pokemon miniatures you can find online), the money was printed using cheap paper and would tear easily, the box and game board were made out of poor quality plastic and the building pieces were extremely poorly molded. Not to mention that half the renders on the packaging and on the game board have nothing to do with Pokemon Go (such as fanart of the Kanto starters playing Gameboy, Charizard, Ivysaur and Jigglypuff from the Super Smash Bros series, Dawn, Red and Ethan from the main series games, Detective Pikachu, and the Eeveelutions from Pokemon Stadium). Also, Seoul and Tokyo cost the least, possibly due to China's relations with Japan and Korea. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lZeH_c5uts Phelan Porteous was so unimpressed by it that he gave it a rating of 2 out of 10]] .

* '''''TabletopGame/RacialHolyWar''''' was made by a white supremacist group called The Creativity Movement, and it's pretty clear that pushing their ideology was more important to them than making a good RPG. The plot is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin right there in the title]]: set in the future, the Jews have taken over the world, and you play as the plucky white LaResistance who will overthrow them. It reads like an over-the-top parody of neo-Nazism, or like someone read ''Literature/TheProtocolsOfTheEldersOfZion'' but didn't feel quite up to tackling ''Literature/MeinKampf''. The game's most ridiculous feature is that every enemy race has a SpecialAttack based on racial stereotypes, which ends up making the whites look far less badass than what the writers intended; Jews can [[GreedyJew bribe them not to attack]], and Black people can debilitate them with their body odor. Even if you're not offended by its hateful premise, there's no fun to be had with this game, as the rules are horrible, broken, and unfinished, including complete omission of rules regarding player-character attack resolution -- put simply, the game forgot to tell you how to attack things. The Intimidation mechanic is the most broken, adding up the score of every combatant on each side, meaning a handful of heavily armed White Warriors could be scared shitless by a hundred Jewish babies. And the game's cover is outright stolen from ''Film/TheHillsHaveEyes1977'' with almost no changes. It's so bad, [[Website/FourChan 1d4chan]] [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Racial_Holy_War considers the game]] worse than ''TabletopGame/{{FATAL}}'' -- the material lacks shock value, doesn't [[CrossesTheLineTwice cross the line twice]], and is too reprehensible and pitiful to be mocked. More info [[http://web.archive.org/web/20080212094700/http://atrocities.primaryerror.net/rahowasucks.html here]].

* RTG released a '''''Anime/DragonBallZ'' RPG'''. The execution was just as ludicrous as it sounds -- stat blocks for characters from the series had attacks that required rolling upwards of 30 dice... and that was just for the Saiyan Saga. The book itself was poorly written and poorly laid out, and it suffered from a lot of filler devoted to only marginally-relevant subjects, such as customizing action figures for use as game pieces. Three sourcebooks were released (with more cancelled), but the Fuzion system was ''horribly'' suited to ''DBZ'' -- the creators took a system with expected stat values between 1-10 (involving rolls of only 3d6 to resolve checks) and fed stats in the ''hundreds'' into it. "Power levels" amounted to nothing more than MP, but were used as the basis for gaining XP from a fight.

* '''''Redakai''''' was an attempt by [=SpinMaster=] to [[FollowTheLeader capitalize on the popularity]] of ''TabletopGame/{{Bakugan}}'', and wound up being a prime example of every design flaw a CollectibleCardGame can have. Cards were made of clear plastic with lithographic designs that would "animate" when moved, allowing the cards to layer their effects by being stacked on each other. This was a DancingBear at best, but in execution was a ''massive'' detriment, because it was impossible to make a unified card back, and the specialized black container (sold separately of course) didn't even work -- in other words, you could recognize cards from the back. The extra material costs made the starter decks and boosters far more expensive than its competitors. Game balance was atrocious and clearly untested; several cards gave you an ExtraTurn at no cost, and some one-sided floodgates would lock the opponent out of the game. There was even an infinite loop one-turn-kill that could be executed as early as the third turn, all the pieces of which could be found in ''one starter deck''. Throw in low-quality action figures, oodles of overpriced peripherals, and a SoOkayItsAverage [[WesternAnimation/{{Redakai}} tie-in cartoon]], and you have an utter flop. Despite the huge marketing push, ''Redakai'' floundered around for only six months before being cancelled entirely. WebVideo/{{Kohdok}} discusses it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quOjWWfvFGI here]].
* The ''Top Trumps'' pack '''''Space Phenomena'''''. The parent game is well-respected and has had a ton of expansions, mostly from its simplicity; you compare statistics on each card, whoever had the better one wins, and you learn about various things in the process like cars or planes. ''Space Phenomena'', however, was filled with statistics that were extremely low, used incorrect units[[labelnote:example]]speed listed in "Earth years", perhaps a result of mistaking orbital velocity with orbital period, not that it makes the makers look any better[[/labelnote]], changed reference points[[labelnote:example]]pitting orbital periods of planets, given relative to the Sun, to the orbital period of the Sun ''itself'', relative to the galactic center[[/labelnote]], were horrendously unclear[[labelnote:example]]suggesting the Moon wasn't discovered until 1651, when it was very obviously known before then -- 1651 is the date of Giovanni Battista Riccioli's ''Almagestum Novum'', which laid the foundations for modern lunar nomenclature[[/labelnote]], or just plain impossible[[labelnote:example]]Halley's Comet is -6,000,000 Earth masses, when they meant that it was (as Website/WolframAlpha has it) 3.7E-11 Earth masses[[/labelnote]]. Watch ''[[Creator/StuartAshen Ashens]]'' rip it apart [[http://youtu.be/1Us3iSgixRI here]].

* '''''TabletopGame/RacialHolyWar''''' was made by a white supremacist group called The Creativity Movement, and it's pretty clear that pushing their ideology was more important to them than making a good RPG. The plot is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin right there in the title]]: set in the future, the Jews have taken over the world, and you play as the plucky white LaResistance who will overthrow them. It reads like an over-the-top parody of neo-Nazism, or like someone read ''Literature/TheProtocolsOfTheEldersOfZion'' but didn't feel quite up to tackling ''Literature/MeinKampf''. The game's most ridiculous feature is that every enemy race has a SpecialAttack based on racial stereotypes, which kind of gives the whites a WeaksauceWeakness; Jews can [[GreedyJew bribe them not to attack]], and Black people can debilitate them with their body odor. Even if you're not offended by its hateful premise, there's no fun to be had with this game, as the rules are horrible, broken, and unfinished, including complete omission of rules regarding player-character attack resolution -- put simply, the game forgot to tell you how to attack things. The Intimidation mechanic is the most broken, adding up the score of every combatant on each side, meaning a handful of heavily armed White Warriors could be scared shitless by a hundred Jewish babies. And the game's cover is outright stolen from ''Film/TheHillsHaveEyes1977'' with almost no changes. It's so bad, [[Website/FourChan 1d4chan]] [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Racial_Holy_War considers the game]] worse than ''TabletopGame/{{FATAL}}'' -- the material lacks shock value, doesn't [[CrossesTheLineTwice cross the line twice]], and is too reprehensible and pitiful to be mocked. More info [[http://web.archive.org/web/20080212094700/http://atrocities.primaryerror.net/rahowasucks.html here]].

* '''''TabletopGame/RacialHolyWar''''' was made by a white supremacist group called The Creativity Movement, and it's pretty clear that pushing their ideology was more important to them than making a good RPG. The plot is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin right there in the title]]: set in the future, the Jews have taken over the world, and you play as the plucky white LaResistance who will overthrow them. It reads like an over-the-top parody of neo-Nazism, or like someone read ''Literature/TheProtocolsOfTheEldersOfZion'' but didn't feel quite up to tackling ''Literature/MeinKampf''. The game's most ridiculous feature is that every enemy race has a SpecialAttack based on racial stereotypes, which kind of gives the whites a WeaksauceWeakness; Jews can [[GreedyJew automatically bribe them not to attack]], and Africans can overcome them with their body odor. And even beyond that, the rules are horrible, broken, and unfinished, including complete omission of rules regarding player-character attack resolution -- put simply, the game forgot to tell you how to attack things. The Intimidation mechanic is the most broken, adding up the score of every combatant on each side, meaning a handful of heavily armed White Warriors could be scared shitless by a hundred Jewish babies. And the game's cover is outright stolen from ''Film/TheHillsHaveEyes1977'' with almost no changes. It's so bad, [[Website/FourChan 1d4chan]] [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Racial_Holy_War considers the game]] worse than ''TabletopGame/{{FATAL}}'' -- the material lacks shock value, doesn't [[CrossesTheLineTwice cross the line twice]], and is too reprehensible and pitiful to be mocked. More info [[http://web.archive.org/web/20080212094700/http://atrocities.primaryerror.net/rahowasucks.html here]].

* '''''TabletopGame/RacialHolyWar''''' was made by a white supremacist group called The Creativity Movement with the intentions of pushing their views rather than making the product actually playable, and it shows. The plot is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin right there in the title]]: set in the future, the Jews have taken over the world, and you play as the plucky white LaResistance who will overthrow them. It reads like an over-the-top parody of a neo-Nazi, or like someone read ''Literature/TheProtocolsOfTheEldersOfZion'' but didn't feel quite up to tackling ''Literature/MeinKampf''. The game's most ridiculous feature is that every enemy race has a SpecialAttack based on racial stereotypes, which kind of gives the whites a WeaksauceWeakness; Jews can [[GreedyJew automatically bribe them not to attack]], and Africans can overcome them with their body odor. And even beyond that, the rules are horrible, broken, and unfinished, including complete omission of rules regarding player-character attack resolution -- put simply, the game forgot to tell you how to attack things. The Intimidation mechanic is the most broken, adding up the score of every combatant on each side, meaning a handful of heavily armed White Warriors could be scared shitless by a hundred Jewish babies. And the game's cover is outright stolen from ''Film/TheHillsHaveEyes1977'' with almost no changes. It's so bad, [[Website/FourChan 1d4chan]] [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Racial_Holy_War considers the game]] worse than ''TabletopGame/{{FATAL}}'' -- the material lacks shock value, doesn't [[CrossesTheLineTwice cross the line twice]], and is too reprehensible and pitiful to be mocked. More info [[http://web.archive.org/web/20080212094700/http://atrocities.primaryerror.net/rahowasucks.html here]].

* '''''Oneupmanship: Mine's Bigger''''' is a 2013 roll-and-move game. The goal is to be the first player to get $100,000 by investing in real estate, playing the stock market, gambling, and acquiring valuable items. That doesn't sound too bad, but there's a good reason Tom Vasel of ''WebVideo/TheDiceTower'' subtitled [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18b0XYf05tA his review]] "How NOT to design a game". It plays like a demented, low-rate ''TabletopGame/{{Monopoly}}'' clone; one space forces you to pay 20% of everything you have (which is a pain to calculate, why ''Monopoly'' used fixed amounts), and the "Free Parking Jackpot" {{House Rule|s}} is codified in the game (when in ''Monopoly'' it's not a rule because it causes severe EndingFatigue). You can ignore paying for any of your other buildings if you own the tallest on the board. The random mechanics can be cruel, with the worst being the "Do or Die" space in which you force another player into betting ''all your properties'' on a single roll. The Chance card equivalents have weird requirements like playing a thumb war with an opponent or standing on one foot singing "The Star-Spangled Banner". If one player declares bankruptcy, ''every other player'' must do so as well, and the game ends in a draw. And the components are lazily designed and cheap, especially the paper money, which looks like it was just printed out on computer paper. It was apparently designed to be a parody of the nonsensical lifestyles of the rich, but its execution was just lacking.

* '''''Monopoly Global Village: Pokemon GO''''' is a knockoff version of ''Monopoly'' made to cash in on ''VideoGame/PokemonGo''. The game was just regular Monopoly just with the spaces changed to real-life cities and costs having an extra zero, the game has nothing to do with Pokemon except for the box and the centre of the board being changed, the game board was noted to be so flimsy that there was no way to get it to lay down flat, the player tokens and dice were extremely tiny, the money was printed using cheap paper and would tear easily, the box and game board were made out of poor quality plastic and the building pieces were extremely poorly molded. Not to mention that half the renders on the packaging and on the game board have nothing to do with Pokemon Go (such as fanart of the Kanto starters playing Gameboy, Charizard, Ivysaur and Jigglypuff from the Super Smash Bros series, Dawn, Red and Ethan from the main series games, Detective Pikachu, and the Eeveelutions from Pokemon Stadium). Also, Seoul and Tokyo cost the least, possibly due to China's relations with Japan and Korea. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lZeH_c5uts Phelan Porteous was so unimpressed by it that he gave it a rating of 2 out of 10]] .

* ''Monopoly Global Village: Pokemon GO'' is a knockoff version of ''TabletopGame/Monopoly'' made to cash in on ''VideoGame/PokemonGo''. The game was just regular Monopoly just with the spaces changed to real-life cities and costs having an extra zero, the game has nothing to do with Pokemon except for the box and the centre of the board being changed, the game board was noted to be so flimsy that there was no way to get it to lay down flat, the player tokens and dice were extremely tiny, the money was printed using cheap paper and would tear easily, the box and game board were made out of poor quality plastic and the building pieces were extremely poorly molded. Not to mention that half the renders on the packaging and on the game board have nothing to do with Pokemon Go (such as fanart of the Kanto starters playing Gameboy, Charizard, Ivysaur and Jigglypuff from the Super Smash Bros series, Dawn, Red and Ethan from the main series games, Detective Pikachu, and the Eeveelutions from Pokemon Stadium). Also, Seoul and Tokyo cost the least, possibly due to China's relations with Japan and Korea. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lZeH_c5uts Phelan Porteous was so unimpressed by it that he gave it a rating of 2 out of 10]] .

** The definitive review of this game, by [=RPG.net=] reviewers Darren [=MacLennan=] and Jason Sartin, is [[https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14567.phtml a very detailed, horrific, NSFW ordeal]] that laid out its case meticulously (and got a rise out of the game's authors, who proved they CantTakeCriticism). The game also has a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy8hjxHuRHk the theme song]], which is [[SoBadItsGood pure comedy gold]].

** But the biggest problem with the game is its [[VulgarHumor all-around contempt for basic human decency]] -- it's horrifyingly racist and sexist. Those races no one wants to play at are mostly bizarre ethnic stereotypes. Sex happens ''all the time'' in this game, to the point where it's possible to accidentally rape an opponent to death ''during combat''. (But to determine the results of sex, the player must solve quadratic equations.) The overall tone is especially cruel toward women -- the most fleshed-out thing in the whole game is prostitution, and women are either [[StayInTheKitchen housewives]] or whores. The game seems to assume you'll be playing as an asshole rapist, and if you aren't, it tries to push you towards it at every opportunity.

* '''''TabletopGame/RacialHolyWar''''' was made by a white supremacist group called The Creativity Movement with the intentions of pushing their views rather than making the product actually playable, and it shows. The plot is pretty much ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: set in the future, the Jews have taken over the world, and you play as the plucky white LaResistance who will overthrow them. It reads like an over-the-top parody of a neo-Nazi, or like someone read ''Literature/TheProtocolsOfTheEldersOfZion'' but didn't feel quite up to tackling ''Literature/MeinKampf''. The game's most ridiculous feature is that every enemy race has a SpecialAttack based on racial stereotypes, which kind of gives the whites a WeaksauceWeakness; Jews can [[GreedyJew automatically bribe them not to attack]], and Africans can overcome them with their body odor. And even beyond that, the rules are horrible, broken, and unfinished, including complete omission of rules regarding player-character attack resolution -- put simply, the game forgot to tell you how to attack things. The Intimidation mechanic is the most broken, adding up the score of every combatant on each side, meaning a handful of heavily armed White Warriors could be scared shitless by a hundred Jewish babies. And the game's cover is outright stolen from ''Film/TheHillsHaveEyes1977'' with almost no changes. It's so bad, [[Website/FourChan 1d4chan]] [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Racial_Holy_War considers the game]] worse than ''TabletopGame/{{FATAL}}'' -- the material lacks shock value, doesn't [[CrossesTheLineTwice cross the line twice]], and is too reprehensible and pitiful to be mocked. More info [[http://web.archive.org/web/20080212094700/http://atrocities.primaryerror.net/rahowasucks.html here]].

* '''''TabletopGame/RacialHolyWar''''' is pretty much ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: set in the future, the Jews have taken over the world, and you play as the plucky white LaResistance who will overthrow them. It reads like an over-the-top parody of a neo-Nazi, or like someone read ''Literature/TheProtocolsOfTheEldersOfZion'' but didn't feel quite up to tackling ''Literature/MeinKampf''. The game's most ridiculous feature is that every enemy race has a SpecialAttack based on racial stereotypes, which kind of gives the whites a WeaksauceWeakness; Jews can [[GreedyJew automatically bribe them not to attack]], and Africans can overcome them with their body odor. And even beyond that, the rules are horrible, broken, and unfinished, including complete omission of rules regarding player-character attack resolution -- put simply, the game forgot to tell you how to attack things. The Intimidation mechanic is the most broken, adding up the score of every combatant on each side, meaning a handful of heavily armed White Warriors could be scared shitless by a hundred Jewish babies. And the game's cover is outright stolen from ''Film/TheHillsHaveEyes1977'' with almost no changes. It's so bad, [[Website/FourChan 1d4chan]] [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Racial_Holy_War considers the game]] worse than ''TabletopGame/{{FATAL}}'' -- the material lacks shock value, doesn't [[CrossesTheLineTwice cross the line twice]], and is too reprehensible and pitiful to be mocked. More info [[http://web.archive.org/web/20080212094700/http://atrocities.primaryerror.net/rahowasucks.html here]].

* '''''TabletopGame/RacialHolyWar''''' is pretty much ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: set in the future, the Jews have taken over the world, and you play as the plucky white LaResistance who will overthrow them. It reads like an over-the-top parody of a neo-Nazi, or like someone read ''Literature/TheProtocolsOfTheEldersOfZion'' but didn't feel quite up to tackling ''Literature/MeinKampf''. The game's most ridiculous feature is that every enemy race has a SpecialAttack based on racial stereotypes, which kind of gives the whites a WeaksauceWeakness; Jews can [[GreedyJew automatically bribe them not to attack]], and Africans can overcome them with their body odor. And even beyond that, the rules are horrible, broken, and unfinished, including complete omission of rules regarding player-character attack resolution -- put simply, the game forgot to tell you how to attack things. The Intimidation mechanic is the most broken, adding up the score of every combatant on each side, meaning a handful of heavily armed White Warriors could be scared shitless by a hundred Jewish babies. And the game's cover is outright stolen from ''Film/TheHillsHaveEyes1977'' with almost no changes. It's so bad, [[Website/FourChan 1d4chan]] considers the game worse than ''TabletopGame/{{FATAL}}'' -- the material lacks shock value, doesn't [[CrossesTheLineTwice cross the line twice]], and is too reprehensible and pitiful to be mocked. More info [[http://web.archive.org/web/20080212094700/http://atrocities.primaryerror.net/rahowasucks.html here]].

* RTG released a '''''Anime/DragonBallZ'' RPG'''. The execution was just as ludicrous as it sounds - stat blocks for the characters from the series had attacks that required rolling upwards of 30 dice... and that was just for the Saiyan Saga. The book itself was poorly written and poorly laid out, and it suffered from a lot of filler devoted to only marginally-relevant subjects, such as customizing action figures for use as game pieces. Three sourcebooks were released (with more cancelled), but the Fuzion system was ''horribly'' suited to ''DBZ'' - the creators took a system with expected stat values between 1-10 (involving rolls of only 3d6 to resolve checks) and fed stats in the ''hundreds'' into it. "Power levels" amounted to nothing more than MP, but were used as the basis for gaining XP from a fight.
* '''''TabletopGame/{{FATAL}}''''' is, hands down, the all-time reigning champion of horrible [=RPGs=]. The rulebook consists of '''800-1,000''' (depending on the version) agonizing pages of poor mechanics, a massive number of ill-defined stats, violations of common sense, [[VulgarHumor and all-around contempt for basic human decency]]. [[LoadsAndLoadsOfRules The sheer number of rules is ridiculous]]; for instance, to calculate the results of sex, one must solve quadratic equations. One of the most basic rolls in the game is [=4d100/2-1=],[[note]]To break that down: roll a hundred-sided die four times, sum the results, divide in half, and subtract one.[[/note]] used for all 17 stats and anything else requiring a bell curve. Later versions "improved" it to [=10d100/5-1=].[[note]]Roll a hundred-sided die 10 times, divide by five, and subtract one.[[/note]] Character creation takes a while in this system--more than a hundred dice rolls, in the first version, including an outright ridiculous '''1d10,000,000''' roll.[[note]]In terms of dice that actually exist: 7 d10 rolls, one per digit.[[/note]] Races are very poorly thought-out for player characters--to the point where even forming an adventuring party is implausible, as they all hate each other. Character stats are complex and include things like head size, social and marital status, and anal circumference--which is a very important stat, as during combat it is possible to misroll and anally rape an opponent to death. Despite this, in the first version of the game one could have [[BodyHorror zero anal circumference]], or even ''[[AlienGeometries negative]]''. The class system is terrible--they all earn experience points in different ways (and for some it's possible to die of old age ''before reaching Level 2'', many are civilian jobs no player would want, and are just plain incomplete. As for the magic system: spells are either useless to normal play, pointlessly situational, time-consuming and impractical, needlessly risky, or useful only for sexual situations. The exception is the [[TitleDrop namesake spell]], which [[ApocalypseHow kills everything in the world]] and is part of the miscast table. Magical items tend to consist of sophomoric, racist jokes. The overall tone is especially cruel towards women--the most fleshed-out thing in the whole book is prostitution, and women are either [[StayInTheKitchen housewives]] or whores. The game also seems to assume that you'll be playing it as a rapist asshole, or if you aren't, tries to push you towards it at every opportunity. RPG Net reviewers Darren [=MacLennan=] and Jason Sartin [[https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14567.phtml have a far more detailed, and horrific, review if you're still tempted]] (NSFW). However, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy8hjxHuRHk the theme song]] is [[SoBadItsGood pure comedy gold]].
* First appearing on the newsgroup [=rec.games.frp.super-heroes=] as a series of posts by the author "C++", '''''[[https://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=4345 HYBRID]]''''' purports itself to be a roleplaying game that "accurately models physical reality". The ever-expanding "rules" consist of a disjointed jumble of mathematical equations with undefined variables; allusions to social and political issues and pop culture; cross-references to other rules, nonexistent rules, and even rules from other games; misogynistic and other offensive statements; and much more. It is virtually impossible to make any kind of sense of the rules, much less actually create a character and play the game. RPG Net ranks this as the second-worst game of all time, with only ''FATAL'' ranking worse.
** As you start to actually ''read'' the thing, you realize it doesn't have rules - it has word salads that seem like, at best, C++ flipped through a dictionary and picked out whatever words his finger landed on. At worst, it reads like stream-of-consciousness, if not outright logorrhea. Rule Number Zero is supposed to be an explanation on how C++ numbers his version histories, but starts to drift into an aside about Superman canon and quickly devolves into an AuthorFilibuster and [[ConspiracyTheorist conspiracy theory]], eventually totaling over 1,500 words. To top it all off, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking C++ fails to follow his own version history numbering rule]].
* In 1985, FASA put out a '''''Franchise/MastersOfTheUniverse'' RPG''' to cash in on the fad of the time... and it was close to being completely unplayable. Combat works by using an "attack" option vs. an opponent's "defend" skill. Important rules were left out (defending requires rolling 1d6 and adding their skill... but ''which'' skill is never given) or even directly contradicted (one monster is listed as having two "attack" options, only for ''the very next sentence in the book'' to note that it "always defends"), and even when there is an explanation it tends to be unnecessarily complicated (players have to consult a complex table to see how an enemy reacts to being hit before they can actually do damage). Stats are given for several characters from the show, but many of them give the impression that the writers had never watched the source material - Teela, for example, is a magic user despite being the BadassNormal of the Masters, and [[PluckyComicRelief Orko]], of all people, gets offensive spells. Worse yet, some of said spells ''didn't even have rules included for how they worked'' - later releases included a card that, rather than giving the rules, just said that they would be included in a future edition (which never came out). It was intended for 8- to 10-year-olds to introduce them to [=RPGs=], but even adults with college degrees have expressed confusion over the mechanics.
* '''''TabletopGame/RacialHolyWar'''''. The title [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin speaks for itself]], but the concept warrants a fuller explanation: in the future, the minorities have conquered the world under the guidance of their Jewish masters and reduced white people to a few small pockets of resistance. But now the whites are going to strike back... and you're going to play them. The material seriously reads like someone who just finished ''Literature/TheProtocolsOfTheEldersOfZion'' but didn't quite feel up to tackling ''Literature/MeinKampf''. And that is ''before'' you get to the horrible, broken, unfinished rules, including, but not limited to ''complete omission of rules regarding player-character attack resolution'' - that's right, the game actually forgot to tell you how to attack things. The Intimidation mechanic is utterly broken: since it involves adding up the Intimidation score of ''every'' combatant on each side, a handful of heavily-armed White Warriors would, in theory, be scared shitless by a hundred Jewish babies. The game's most ridiculous feature is that each enemy race has a SpecialAttack based on racial stereotypes, meaning the White Warriors are debilitated by Africans' body odor and [[GreedyJew will accept bribes from Jews]] in exchange for standing still ''in the middle of combat''. [[FridgeLogic Makes you wonder how the player race can claim to be "superior" if they suffer from the same physically-debilitating greed as the enemy races]]. In addition, the cover for the game is outright stolen from ''Film/TheHillsHaveEyes1977'' with little to no changes. [[Website/FourChan 1d4chan]] considers this game [[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Racial_Holy_War to be worse]] than ''TabletopGame/{{FATAL}}'' as the material lacks shock value, doesn't [[CrossesTheLineTwice cross the line twice]] for them, and is too reprehensible and pitiful to be mocked. More info [[http://web.archive.org/web/20080212094700/http://atrocities.primaryerror.net/rahowasucks.html here]].
* '''''TabletopGame/SpawnOfFashan''''' is a [[https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/classic/rev_6157.phtml classic]] example from the early 1980s that has become one of the standards by which execrably-bad [[TabletopGames tabletop]] [=RPGs=] are measured. It was an incomplete release - even though it had an example world, it didn't include enough in that sample for full use of the system. It took a long time to create characters and run combat because the stat tables were poorly organized and poorly labeled.
* '''''Literature/{{Wraeththu}}: From Enchantment to Fulfilment'''''. The RPG [[CanonDefilement "adaptation"]] of Creator/StormConstantine's fantasy series about post-apocalyptic mystical monoecious mutants with flower-like genitalia (no, seriously) ended up not realistically portraying the setting of the books at all, casting the player characters as [[SmugSnake pretentious and glamorous sociopaths]], and going out of its way to be as unhelpful to the novice GameMaster as possible. Of note are the gutwrenching mechanics: among other transgressions, chain mail transfers a statistical immunity to flamethrowers. Details [[https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/this-is-the-wraeththu-review-youve-been-waiting-for.244590/ here]] and [[https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14347.phtml here.]]

* Regardless of one's religious views, '''''Intelligent Design Vs. Evolution''''' fails at being a fun game, teaching about Intelligent Design, or encouraging non-believers to convert. It is a simple board game where two players or two teams must move their pieces to the end of the board, while gaining brain cards by answering questions. Unfortunately, there are only 250 question cards (by comparison, ''Trivial Pursuit'' has 1,000, with ''six'' questions each). The questions themselves either make cheap shots at evolution, use AdHominem, convince players to believe in the church, or are just random Bible quotes. Not only is the information on the cards misquoted, but they clearly weren't proofread. One card cites ''[[Website/{{Wikipedia}} Wickipedia]]'' (sic, we're not joking) as a source. Another blatantly uses the NoTrueScotsman fallacy to explain why there are no {{hypocrite}}s in "the Church". The blog Freaking Awesome takes a look at it [[http://freakingawesome.net/2012/01/09/intelligent-design-vs-evolution-the-board-game-an-analysis/ here]].
* '''''Film/JurassicParkIII: Island Survival Game''''' is an overly simplistic "roll and move" game whose primary failure is the utter lack of strategy designed into it. Two players control either the humans or the dinosaurs; the goal for the humans is to escape Isla Sorna, while the dinosaurs must kill the humans by attacking them to remove one life chip at a time. This setup, combined with the opportunity for the human player to roll an escape during the dino attacks which also allows them to move forward several spaces, puts the dinosaur player at an intrinsic disadvantage. The [[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vbOSVYVyX2I/U_IyleOpoLI/AAAAAAAAIls/DOY_LdOuwAs/s1600/20140818_111955.jpg board]] is split into 5 portions based on the main action scenes from the film, and it's so linear that there is little motivation to choose one alternate path over another. Cards with certain effects are drawn when the human player lands on certain spaces, and strictly adhering to the rules means they must be used immediately rather than held for later strategic use. The win condition for the human player is achieved through further strategy-free luck: keep landing on the final space, drawing cards, and hoping that you pull the win card or else you must backtrack through the final section of the board. The physical and aesthetic craftsmanship is also lacking: while the modeled plastic dinosaur pieces are somewhat decent, the cards, life chips, and even the human character pieces are all made of cheap cardboard, while the game board itself features a low-detail illustration of the island. ''Critical Hits'' [[http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2007/04/26/jurassic-park-3-island-survival-game-a-review/ gave the game]] a 2/10, noting that the only potential fun to be had would be from ignoring the given rules and simply role-playing your own scenario with the pieces.
* '''''Oneupmanship: Mine's Bigger''''' is a 2013 roll-and-move game. The goal is to be the first player to get $100,000 by investing in real estate, playing the stock market, gambling, and acquiring valuable items. That doesn't sound too bad, but there's a good reason Tom Vasel of ''WebVideo/TheDiceTower'' subtitled [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18b0XYf05tA his review]] "How NOT to design a game." Components of the game are lazily designed and cheap-looking - especially the paper money, which looks like it was simply printed out on computer paper. It lifts several mechanics from ''TabletopGame/{{Monopoly}}'' that only serve to make the experience worse, such as the space that forces you to pay 20% of everything you have [[note]](a pain to calculate - at least ''Monopoly''[='s=] Income Tax space gives you the choice to pay a fixed sum instead of 10% of everything you have)[[/note]] and the "Free Parking Jackpot" {{House Rule|s}} (notorious for dragging out ''Monopoly'' games) is an actual rule. Other dubious mechanics include the fact that buying and upgrading buildings allows you to pay nothing on other buildings if yours is the tallest, and Chance-like cards where you can lose money by losing a thumb war to another opponent, lose a turn for not standing on one foot singing "The Star-Spangled Banner", or lose your pants for the rest of the game (you can instead lose a turn for that one). There are also some mechanics that make luck play an overly large role in the game - the worst one may be the "Do or Die" space, which lets you force another player into a wager where you bet ''all your properties'' on a die roll. Oh, and that thing about winning the game by getting $100,000? Another player can declare bankruptcy, which basically nullifies the victory as ''everyone else'' has to declare bankruptcy as well and the game has to be restarted. The designer advertised the game as a parody of big-business lifestyles, but even if that's true the humor is just as horrible as the game is.
* '''''Power Lunch'''''. A variant on Rummy, players have to meld together cards of celebrities at a table in a restaurant. If the cards don't match any sets, the player must explain why they'd be sitting together and the opponents vote yes or no to it. There is no advantage for the opponents to agree with the set, so it's wiser to say no at all times. Moreover, the celebrities are whoever was popular at the time it was made (1994), so in a couple of decades [[TimeMarchesOn the game can be quickly outdated]] with most players having no memory of most of these people. Only one version was made of this game and [[http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2910/power-lunch Board Game Geek]] gave it a rating of 2.60 out of 10.
* '''''TabletopGame/RapRat''''' is a board game for kids made in 1992 which used [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW5m3ix8KuI a VHS tape]] as part of the game. Kids would put in the tape and roll a color-coded die and move around the board. However, the board goes in a complete circle and does not end. Instead, they have to roll the same color as their piece, pretty much making the board useless (in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkSx9Sd83PI the PAL version]], the die is numbered, so the board actually serves a purpose), and each time they land on one of their color they get one part of a Cheese Jigsaw Puzzle, and they had to collect 10 pieces in order to win. While doing it, Rap Rat himself would repeatedly interrupt the game to shout out to the players to have them say and do stuff, and would act generally annoying with his pseudo-raps (which consist of him just skipping over the same word several times), all while eating the cheese on the screen. It would take him 10 minutes to finish the cheese on the screen, and if he eats it all before a player can collect 10 pieces, all players lose. Given the [[LuckBasedMission odds of rolling your color 10 times to get the puzzle pieces, it is extremely difficult to do it in 10 minutes]] and on top of that, sometimes he takes away pieces, making the game harder than it already is. Combined with Rap Rat being insufferable and [[NightmareFuel downright creepy]], the uselessness of the board part of the game, and lack of anything else, made the game absolutely unbearable. It really says something when the game's bad design and the creepiness of Rap Rat himself led to the creation of a [[http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Rap_Rat creepypasta]] and the game is only remembered by said creepypasta. It happens that these were the people who brought you the horror-themed ''[[TabletopGame/{{Atmosfear}} Nightmare/Atmosfear]]'' VHS board game series (A Couple 'A Cowboys, an Australia-based publisher)- but at least, in the case of Atmosfear's various iterations, you get at least forty minutes to play, which is more reasonable. And this is a ''[[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids kids']]'' game. Matt Sall of the website ''Bell of Lost Souls'' reviews it [[https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2020/04/board-games-retro-rap-rat-is-pure-nightmare-fuel.html here]].

* '''''Havic: the Bothering''''' is a "parody" of ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' which actually predates the first official ''Magic'' SelfParody set ''Unglued''. The game itself plays exactly like an extremely dumbed-down version of ''Magic'', so much so that "THIS IS A PARODY" was printed on the starter deck boxes and the rules card explicitly tells players '''not''' to build their own decks, [[WritingAroundTrademarks all in an attempt to avoid legal issues from Wizards of the Coast.]] Didn't work, and the game's creators were banned from [=GenCon=] thanks to [[ScrewedByTheLawyers legal maneuvering by WotC.]] But beyond that the game itself is bad, with most cards being borderline or outright unplayable, a shallow card pool (96 cards!), terrible "artwork", and humor which nobody would find amusing. The rules were all printed on a single card included in each starter deck, which fails to explain certain mechanics, comes up short in explaining others, reads like a run-on sentence, and also abounds with [[RougeAnglesOfSatin misspellings]]. Certain cards also have misspelled words, which prove that a proofreader was not employed by the designers. You can check out the game and its history [[https://www.magiclibrarities.net/624-rarities-havic-the-bothering-cards-english-cards-index.html here.]]
* '''''Redakai''''' was an attempt by [=SpinMaster=] to [[FollowTheLeader capitalize on the popularity]] of ''TabletopGame/{{Bakugan}}'', and wound up being a prime example of every design flaw a CollectibleCardGame can have. Cards were made of clear plastic with lithographic designs that would "animate" when moved, allowing the cards to layer their effects by being stacked on each other. This was a DancingBear at best, but in execution was a ''massive'' detriment. There was no unified card back for obvious reasons, meaning decks had to be held in a specialized black container (sold separately of course)... which didn't work, since you could still see most of the top card. The extra material costs also meant starter decks and boosters were far more expensive than its competitors. Design aside, game balance itself was atrocious and clearly untested. There were several cards that could let you take an ExtraTurn at no cost, as well as one-sided floodgates that would lock the opponent out of the game. There was even an infinite loop one-turn kill that could be done as early as turn 3, all the pieces of which were found '''in one starter deck'''. Throw in low-quality action figures, oodles of overpriced peripherals, and a SoOkayItsAverage [[WesternAnimation/{{Redakai}} tie-in cartoon]], and you have an utter flop. Despite the huge marketing push, ''Redakai'' floundered around for only six months before being cancelled entirely. WebVideo/{{Kohdok}} discusses it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quOjWWfvFGI here]].
* ''Top Trumps'' is a very well-respected card game that has lasted for years with tons of expansions. However, its '''''Space Phenomena''''' pack is the worst of the lot. The game works by having 2-6 players compare a statistic on the cards with the highest one being the winner. The ''Space Phenomena'' cards have stats as "N/A" or an extremely low number and rapidly shift in measurements, meaning that most cards are straight-up unusable. This makes the game incredibly slow without HouseRules. Even worse, some of the stats provided are in non-standard or just plain wrong units (such as "Earth Years" for ''speed'') [[note]](perhaps the creators confused orbital velocity with orbital period, as orbital period depends on orbital velocity; a more appropriate statistic would be "Distance from Sun" or even "Distance from Barycenter", though the former still results in the Sun and other objects having an N/A and the latter is perhaps too obscure for the general public, though the Sun will not have an N/A in this case)[[/note]] or change reference points (for instance, orbital period, or "speed", for planets is given relative to the Sun, while orbital period for the Sun and other objects is given relative to the galactic center), resulting in numbers that are insane, wildly inaccurate, and seemingly pulled out of nowhere. (Apparently, the Moon wasn't discovered until 1651 [[note]]{Giovanni Battista Riccioli's ''Almagestum Novum'', published in 1651, laid the foundations for the modern system of lunar nomenclature}[[/note]], Venus wasn't discovered until 1990 [[note]]{the Magellan spacecraft, which produced the first global terrain map of Venus, arrived at Venus in 1990}[[/note]], and Halley's Comet is -6,000,000 Earth masses [[note]]{the Halley's Comet card attempts to describe the comet's mass in terms of Earth's, but fails miserably; the correct value is 3.7E-11 Earth masses, according to Website/WolframAlpha}[[/note]].) Watch ''[[Creator/StuartAshen Ashens]]'' rip it apart [[http://youtu.be/1Us3iSgixRI here]].
* '''''Spellfire''''', a CCG based on ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' made in the FollowTheLeader rush after ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' popularized the concept of collectible card games. Unfortunately, several factors helped kill the game - bad rules; artwork recycled from ''Dragon Magazine'' and old book covers; and very rare/powerful figures and items whose art were ''photographs'' of dressed-up employees, mundane items, and/or poorly-made models. When your cards being as flimsy as photo paper is the '''least''' of your concerns, you know you're in trouble.

* The collectible trading game '''''[=BreaKeys=]''''', whose main gimmick was literally breaking your opponent's game piece when they lost. ''[=BreaKeys=]'' pieces apparently came in bags of 20 for $20, which could be wasted in less than a minute in a game. Because the weaker pieces would always be the first ones to break, the law of collectible games, in which the rarer the game piece the stronger it is, does not apply here. Furthermore, the broken plastic pieces were fairly sharp and could cause messes and small injuries. And the icing on the cake: you could just feel, with your fingers, how strong each key was before using it. Watch [[WebVideo/FamiliarFaces CR]] review it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu6Vqco4rpk here.]]

* '''''TabletopGame/{{FATAL}}''''' is, hands down, the all-time reigning champion of horrible [=RPGs=]. The rulebook consists of '''800-1,000''' (depending on the version) agonizing pages of poor mechanics, a massive number of ill-defined stats, violations of common sense, [[VulgarHumor and all-around contempt for basic human decency]]. [[LoadsAndLoadsOfRules The sheer number of rules is ridiculous]]; for instance, to calculate the results of sex, one must solve quadratic equations. One of the most basic rolls in the game is [=4d100/2-1=],[[note]]To break that down: roll a hundred-sided die four times, sum the results, divide in half, and subtract one.[[/note]] used for all 17 stats and anything else requiring a bell curve. Later versions "improved" it to [=10d100/5-1=].[[note]]Roll a hundred-sided die 10 times, divide by five, and subtract one.[[/note]] Character creation takes a while in this system--more than a hundred dice rolls, in the first version, including an outright ridiculous '''1d10,000,000''' roll.[[note]]In terms of dice that actually exist: 7 d10 rolls, one per digit.[[/note]] Races are very poorly thought-out for player characters--to the point where even forming an adventuring party is implausible, as they all hate each other. Character stats are complex and include things like head size, social and marital status, and anal circumference--which is a very important stat, as during combat it is possible to misroll and anally rape an opponent to death. Despite this, in the first version of the game one could have [[BodyHorror zero anal circumference]], or even ''[[AlienGeometries negative]]''. The class system is terrible--they all earn experience points in different ways (and for some it's possible to die of old age ''before reaching Level 2'', many are civilian jobs no player would want, and are just plain incomplete. As for the magic system: spells are either useless to normal play, pointlessly situational, time-consuming and impractical, needlessly risky, or useful only for sexual situations. The exception is the [[TitleCall namesake spell]], which [[ApocalypseHow kills everything in the world]] and is part of the miscast table. Magical items tend to consist of sophomoric, racist jokes. The overall tone is especially cruel towards women--the most fleshed-out thing in the whole book is prostitution, and women are either [[StayInTheKitchen housewives]] or whores. The game also seems to assume that you'll be playing it as a rapist asshole, or if you aren't, tries to push you towards it at every opportunity. RPG Net reviewers Darren [=MacLennan=] and Jason Sartin [[https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14567.phtml have a far more detailed, and horrific, review if you're still tempted]] (NSFW). However, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy8hjxHuRHk the theme song]] is [[SoBadItsGood pure comedy gold]].

* '''''TabletopGame/{{FATAL}}''''' is, hands down, the all-time reigning champion of horrible [=RPGs=]. The rulebook consists of '''800-1,000''' (depending on the version) agonizing pages of poor mechanics, a massive number of ill-defined stats, violations of common sense, [[VulgarHumor and all-around contempt for basic human decency]]. For example:
** One of the most basic rolls in the game is [=4d100/2-1=]. To break that down: roll a hundred-sided die four times, sum the results, divide in half, and subtract one...for all ''17'' of your stats, and anything else requiring a bell curve. The creators, on learning the flaw of this system, decided to "improve" it to [=10d100/5-1=]. For the record, if you're using real dice, that requires 20 d10 rolls. Character creation takes a while in this system, especially since (at least in the first version) each stat had four sub-stats (requiring ''more than a hundred'' dice rolls), and at one point it calls for a '''1d10,000,000''' roll. For the record, that's either seven d10 rolls (one per digit), or one die that would be better [[Film/RaidersOfTheLostArk for crushing]] Franchise/IndianaJones than for getting a random number.
** Practicality is thrown out the window in favor of vulgarity and offense, a quality not helped by the creators' claim that only white, non-Christian people inhabit TheVerse and their constant flip-flopping between claims that it's either "[[BlackComedy controversial]] [[ParodyRetcon humor]]" or "[[DeliberateValuesDissonance historically and mythically accurate]]" (which it obviously isn't).
** Races are incredibly badly thought-out for player characters, and given that every race shown hates each other, it's unlikely that any sort of adventuring party would be formed.
** Character stats are complex and include things like head size, social status, whether you're married (and whether or not the marriage is unhappy), and anal circumference. It's very possible to get ridiculous results via this method, and the first version of the game had it possible for a character to have [[BodyHorror zero anal circumference]], or even ''[[AlienGeometries negative]]''.
** That anal circumference stat is actually very important, because during combat your roll may cause you to accidentally start raping your opponent, and how much HP they lose depends on the mismatch between the circumference of your appendage and their orifice. Yes, in ''FATAL'' '''it's possible to accidentally rape an opponent to death during combat'''.
** [[LoadsAndLoadsOfRules The sheer number of rules is ridiculous]] and makes the game incredibly difficult and annoying to play rather than giving a fun challenge. For instance, to calculate the results of ''sex'', one must '''solve quadratic equations'''.
** The class system is terribly thought-out - classes all earn experience points in different ways (and for some it's possible to die of old age ''before reaching Level 2''), many classes are civilian jobs no player would think of taking, and most of the classes are just plain incomplete.
** The magic system consists of spells nobody would use in normal play, spells too situational to be useful, spells that are time-consuming and impractical to cast, spells that will probably end badly for you, spells only useful for sexual situations, magical date-rape drugs (that only work on women, naturally), and [[ApocalypseHow a spell that kills everything on the world]] ([[MercyKill mercifully ending the game]]). Oh, and said world-ending spell is part of the miscast table (along with various other bizarre effects), so it's entirely possible to accidentally cause the apocalypse when trying to determine whether or not you're pregnant.
** On top of all this, the game is absolutely ''drowning'' in piles of misogyny, rape, and apologia for same. The most fleshed-out thing in the whole book is prostitution, and women are either [[StayInTheKitchen housewives]] or whores. The game also seems to assume that you'll be playing it as a rapist asshole, and goes out of its way to provide you the opportunity to do so. (An example? Without getting graphic, ''the opening of the book'' blatantly tries to push the player into taking the worst possible option when interacting with a chained-up woman. It goes downhill from there.)
** The first version of the game was even worse in this regard, including things like magic items themed around racist caricatures.
** RPG Net reviewers Darren [=MacLennan=] and Jason Sartin [[https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14567.phtml have a far more detailed, and horrific, review if you're still tempted]] (NSFW). However, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy8hjxHuRHk the theme song]] is [[SoBadItsGood pure comedy gold]].

* RTG released a '''''Anime/DragonBallZ'' RPG'''. The execution was just as ludicrous as it sounds - stat blocks for the characters from the series had attacks that required rolling upwards of 30 dice... and that was just for the Saiyan Saga. The book itself was poorly written and poorly laid out, and it suffered from a lot of filler devoted to only marginally-relevant subjects, such as customizing action figures for use as game pieces. Three sourcebooks were released (with more cancelled), but the system was ''horribly'' suited to ''DBZ'' - the creators took a system with expected stat values between 1-10 (involving rolls of only 3d6 to resolve checks) and fed stats in the ''hundreds'' into it. "Power levels" amounted to nothing more than MP, but were used as the basis for gaining XP from a fight.

* '''''Redakai''''' was an attempt by [=SpinMaster=] to [[FollowTheLeader capitalize on the popularity]] of ''TabletopGame/{{Bakugan}}'', and wound up being a prime example of every design flaw a CollectibleCardGame can have. Cards were made of clear plastic with lithographic designs that would "animate" when moved, allowing the cards to layer their effects by being stacked on each other. This was a DancingBear at best, but in execution was a ''massive'' detriment. There was no unified card back for obvious reasons, meaning decks had to be held in a specialized black container (sold separately of course)... which didn't work, since you could still see most of the top card. The extra material costs also meant starter decks and boosters were far more expensive than its competitors. Design aside, game balance itself was atrocious and clearly untested. There were several cards that could let you take an ExtraTurn at no cost, as well as one-sided floodgates that would lock the opponent out of the game. There was even an infinite loop one-turn kill that could be done as early as turn 3, all the pieces of which were found '''in one starter deck'''. Throw in low-quality action figures, oodles of overpriced peripherals, and a SoOkayItsAverage [[WesternAnimation/{{Redakai}} tie-in cartoon]], and you have an utter flop. Despite the huge marketing push, ''Redakai'' floundered around for only six months before being cancelled entirely.

* '''''Redakai''''' was an attempt by [=SpinMaster=] to [[FollowTheLeader capitalize on the popularity]] of ''TabletopGame/{{Bakugan}}'', and wound up being a prime example of every design flaw a CCG can have. Cards were made of clear plastic with lithographic designs that would "animate" when moved, allowing the cards to layer their effects by being stacked on each other. This was a DancingBear at best, but in execution was a ''massive'' detriment. There was no unified card back for obvious reasons, meaning decks had to be held in a specialized black container (sold separately of course)... which didn't work, since you could still see most of the top card. The extra material costs also meant starter decks and boosters were far more expensive than its competitors. Design aside, game balance itself was atrocious and clearly untested. There were several cards that could let you take an ExtraTurn at no cost, as well as one-sided floodgates that would lock the opponent out of the game. There was even an infinite loop OTK that could be done as early as turn 3, all the pieces of which were found '''in one starter deck'''. Throw in low-quality action figures, oodles of overpriced peripherals, and a SoOkayItsAverage [[WesternAnimation/{{Redakai}} tie-in cartoon]], and you have an utter flop. Despite the huge marketing push, ''Redakai'' floundered around for only six months before being cancelled entirely.

* Regardless of one's religious views, '''''Intelligent Design Vs. Evolution''''' fails at being a fun game, teaching about Intelligent Design, or encouraging non-believers to convert. It is a simple board game where two players or two teams must move their pieces to the end of the board, while gaining brain cards by answering questions. Unfortunately, there are only 250 question cards (by comparison, ''Trivial Pursuit'' has 1,000, with ''six'' questions each). The questions themselves either make cheap shots at evolution, use AdHominem, convince players to believe in the church, or are just random Bible quotes. Not only is the information on the cards misquoted, but they clearly weren't proofread. One card cites ''[[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} Wickipedia]]'' (sic, we're not joking) as a source. Another blatantly uses the NoTrueScotsman fallacy to explain why there are no {{hypocrite}}s in "the Church". The blog Freaking Awesome takes a look at it [[http://freakingawesome.net/2012/01/09/intelligent-design-vs-evolution-the-board-game-an-analysis/ here]].

* '''''TabletopGame/RapRat''''' is a board game for kids made in 1992 which used [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW5m3ix8KuI a VHS tape]] as part of the game. Kids would put in the tape and roll a color-coded die and move around the board. However, the board goes in a complete circle and does not end. Instead, they have to roll the same color as their piece, pretty much making the board useless (in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkSx9Sd83PI the PAL version]], the die is numbered, so the board actually serves a purpose), and each time they land on one of their color they get one part of a Cheese Jigsaw Puzzle, and they had to collect 10 pieces in order to win. While doing it, Rap Rat himself would repeatedly interrupt the game to shout out to the players to have them say and do stuff, and would act generally annoying with his pseudo-raps (which consist of him just skipping over the same word several times), all while eating the cheese on the screen. It would take him 10 minutes to finish the cheese on the screen, and if he eats it all before a player can collect 10 pieces, all players lose. Given the [[LuckBasedMission odds of rolling your color 10 times to get the puzzle pieces, it is extremely difficult to do it in 10 minutes]] and on top of that, sometimes he takes away pieces, making the game harder than it already is. Combined with Rap Rat being insufferable and [[NightmareFuel downright creepy]], the uselessness of the board part of the game, and lack of anything else, made the game absolutely unbearable. It really says something when the game's bad design and the creepiness of Rap Rat himself led to the creation of a [[http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/Rap_Rat creepypasta]] and the game is only remembered by said creepypasta. It happens that these were the people who brought you the horror-themed ''[[TabletopGame/{{Atmosfear}} Nightmare/Atmosfear]]'' VHS board game series (A Couple 'A Cowboys, an Australia-based publisher)... And this is a ''[[WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids kids']]'' game. Matt Sall of the website ''Bell of Lost Souls'' reviews it [[https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2020/04/board-games-retro-rap-rat-is-pure-nightmare-fuel.html here]].

** Practicality is thrown out the window in favor of vulgarity and offense, a quality not helped by the creators' claim that only white, non-Christian people inhabit TheVerse and their constant flip-flopping between claims that it's either "[[BlackComedy controversial]] [[ParodyRetcon humor]]" or "historically and mythically accurate" (which it obviously isn't).

* '''''Redakai''''' was an attempt by [=SpinMaster=] to [[FollowTheLeader capitalize on the popularity]] of ''TabletopGame/{{Bakugan}}''. While its [[WesternAnimation/{{Redakai}} tie-in cartoon]] was considered SoOkayItsAverage, the same can't be said for the game itself. Cards were made of clear plastic with lithographic designs that would "animate" when moved, allowing the cards to layer their effects by being stacked on each other. This was a DancingBear at best, but in execution was a ''massive'' detriment. There was no unified card back for obvious reasons, meaning decks had to be held in a specialized black container (sold separately of course)... which didn't work, since you could still see most of the top card. The extra material costs also meant starter decks and boosters were far more expensive than its competitors. Design aside, game balance itself was atrocious and clearly untested. There were several cards that could let you take an ExtraTurn at no cost, as well as one-sided floodgates that would lock the opponent out of the game. There was even an infinite loop OTK that could be done as early as turn 3, all the pieces of which were found '''in one starter deck'''. Despite the huge marketing push, ''Redakai'' floundered around for only six months before being cancelled entirely.

* '''''Spellfire''''', a CCG based on ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' made in the FollowTheLeader rush after ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' popularized the concept of collectible card games. Unfortunately, several factors helped kill the game - bad rules; artwork recycled from ''Dragon Magazine'' and old book covers; and very rare/powerful figures and items whose art were ''photographs'' of dressed-up employees, mundane items, and/or poorly-made models. When your cards being as flimsy as photo paper is the '''least''' of your concerns, you know you're in trouble.
* ''Top Trumps'' is a very well-respected card game that has lasted for years with tons of expansions. However, its '''''Space Phenomena''''' pack is the worst of the lot. The game works by having 2-6 players compare a statistic on the cards with the highest one being the winner. The ''Space Phenomena'' cards have stats as "N/A" or an extremely low number and rapidly shift in measurements, meaning that most cards are straight-up unusable. This makes the game incredibly slow without HouseRules. Even worse, some of the stats provided are in non-standard or just plain wrong units (such as "Earth Years" for ''speed'') [[note]](perhaps the creators confused orbital velocity with orbital period, as orbital period depends on orbital velocity; a more appropriate statistic would be "Distance from Sun" or even "Distance from Barycenter", though the former still results in the Sun and other objects having an N/A and the latter is perhaps too obscure for the general public, though the Sun will not have an N/A in this case)[[/note]] or change reference points (for instance, orbital period, or "speed", for planets is given relative to the Sun, while orbital period for the Sun and other objects is given relative to the galactic center), resulting in numbers that are insane, wildly inaccurate, and seemingly pulled out of nowhere. (Apparently, the Moon wasn't discovered until 1651 [[note]]{Giovanni Battista Riccioli's ''Almagestum Novum'', published in 1651, laid the foundations for the modern system of lunar nomenclature}[[/note]], Venus wasn't discovered until 1990 [[note]]{the Magellan spacecraft, which produced the first global terrain map of Venus, arrived at Venus in 1990}[[/note]], and Halley's Comet is -6,000,000 Earth masses [[note]]{the Halley's Comet card attempts to describe the comet's mass in terms of Earth's, but fails miserably; the correct value is 3.7E-11 Earth masses, according to Website/WolframAlpha}[[/note]].) Watch ''[[Creator/StuartAshen Ashens]]'' rip it apart [[http://youtu.be/1Us3iSgixRI here]].