Bad Attitudes is (or was) a tongue-in-cheek action movie roleplaying game written by Berin Kinsman. It used to be available for free download from Uncle Bear (http://www.unclebear.com/) Recently he seems to have removed the game from his site. This is a shame.

Bad Attitudes is a purposely simplistic game in which all characters have, in accordance with the time-honored laws of action movies, only one statistic: Attitude. The amount of attitude a character begins with depends on which class of character he is, either Action Hero, Sidekick, Evil Mastermind, Henchman or just an ordinary citizen. Attitude determines how many points you have to assign to skills, Attitude is the stat upon which many tests are rolled, and Attitude also equates to hit-points. Whenever a character takes damage, he loses attitude, but attitude can be regained by saying something kick-ass in a tight spot.

The game was purposely imbalanced on the side of Action Hero characters and the Mastermind’s second-in-command, since they were the center of the game (and of the action movies on which the game is based).

Bad Attitudes was fun to read about, and even fun to play occasionally. It wasn’t exactly Call of Cthulhu, but it was an entertaining game in small doses, and wasn’t a bad source of ideas, either.