Anyone else overall disappointed by D&D books?

[Nellisir]

Personally, I don't think AU is heavier on Diamond Throne flavor than the PHB is on Greyhawk flavor. Possibly somewhat less - "Sibeccai often feel indebted to giants" is less intrusive than "Dwarves hate orcs and goblinoids and get +1 to attacks against them," since the Sibbecai bit doesn't have game mechanics backing it up.

Point - the PH races (for example) do have mechanics (preserved from earlier versions) that are arguably cultural in nature (elven weapon proficiency for another).

But the only campaign-specific Greyhawk references in the PH are the names of the gods (some of whom were altered in nature from the original setting to be more "generic") and argueably the wizards. There's no presumed history or cultural outlook beyond the most generic (again, preserved from earlier versions).

Arcana Unearthed starts off with this "Arcana Unearthed suggests a world in which people take rituals very seriously, and ceremonies constitute an important part of every aspect of a person's life.... In game terms, big important ceremonies provide characters with powerful feats and tie into class and race abilities."

Or, contrasting the dwarves and the verrik...
"Dwarven kingdoms usually lie deep beneath the stony faces of mountains, where the dwarves mine gems and precious metals and forge items of wonder."

"The verrik dwell in hot, dry areas that were never entirely conquered by the dramojh so long ago."

The second is more intrusive and more referential to a specific campaign setting.

Gotta run, dinner's ready...I'm off topic anyhow.
American fried rice, yum.

Cheers
Nell.

 

[Acid_crash]

Put me in the category that also finds the latest books released from WotC a little lacking in the effort column. Complete Warrior was Okay. Complete Divine was lame as can be. Complete Arcane will hopefully be Okay, not lame. Eberron looks awesome, but that's a campaign setting and not just a sourcebook.

I think that WotC is putting out the bland books because they are writing for a genericaly bland game and everything they write has to fall within a certain spectrum of creativity and ideas. WotC wouldn't put out something like Conan (and if they did, it sure wouldn't have been as cool as the one from Mongoose), or Lone Wolf, or anything from the other companies because the other companies release books that are DIFFERENT and unique. WotC offers bland over and over and over again (Eberron being the exception this year).

Nothing WotC writes anymore is new, it's all a rehash of previously release things from their past. Most of the Complete books are reprints from Dragon magazines, or their previous splatbooks, and neither so far really help a player create a well rounded character. Just tosses more classes and feats at players, thinking that that is all we need.

Unearthed Arcana was Okay as well, the Advanced PG from SS&S being a much better book and better organized in my opinion (plus it did have that classic look to it that just makes it much cooler).

 

[MDSnowman]

90% of WotC books do disappoint me, greatly, and All the books I get the most use out of are by other publishers..

..UA however is the best WotC book I've read in years... be nice to it.

 

[TroyXavier]

I like most of WOTC stuff(not everything) but that's true for every company I buy stuff from. Some I wonder why I even brought it in the first place. Best recent purchase for me is Lone Wolf(The conversion is excellent. Need to get a game going for it.)

 

[diaglo]

i was disappointed with the UA from the start.

i still say EGG wrote it for his powergaming scions.


but it was TSR and not WotC then.

 

[derverdammte]

I too think that the stuff WotC has been producing lately has been crap. When I looked at their list of soon-to-be-released products yesterday, I was reminded--not for the first time--of that glorious era in the 90s when the business model was "release a whole bunch of random useless crap and hope it sells." The brown books now are roughly similar in quality to the brown books back then, for instance. And "Frostburn"? Oh please. Who's pitching this crap? I mean, at least in the 90s, we had the Planescape products, but even the campaign setting-related stuff I've looked at lately has been extremely boring.

 

[king_ghidorah]

Nothing WotC writes anymore is new, it's all a rehash of previously release things from their past. Most of the Complete books are reprints from Dragon magazines, or their previous splatbooks, and neither so far really help a player create a well rounded character. Just tosses more classes and feats at players, thinking that that is all we need.

Actually, it seems like they just toss more crunch at the market because WotC perceives it as what people want, thanks to market surveys, user feedback and, quite frankly, what sells. So they produce marketable material.

 

[Psion]

Well, I came out against Turanil in the initial post, mostly because I don't see any problem with them being "policitally correct", or see them as being marketed to teenagers, etc.

I do, however, find recent releases a little lackluster. UA was decent, Draconomicon was great, but about everything else since the "big name" diaspora -- eh. BoED, minis handbook, complete books, have all not quite compared to books I can get elsewhere. Fiend Folio felt like dregs salvaged from the cutting room floor of other books to me. And so on.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

The PHB had better be nothing more than a bunch of rules. Save the setting material for those that want it.

Exactly!



Back on topic:
I like most of the books Wizard has released recently: Expanded Psionics is a vast improvement from the old Psionics Handbook, Draconimicon is about the coolest D&D Book I've ever seen, Exaltet was OK, Player's Guide to Faerûn did it's job, and did it well, Complete Warrior was terrific. Ok, Complete Divine could have been more, since it saw a fair bit of rehashed material, but the new stuff is good (some of the art, especially the Tiamat full-page picture, is really great, the new base class is very intriguing, and the for-me-new favoured soul, too).

 

[Desdichado]

I think D&D is specifically positioned to be "generic" fantasy. So I think the reason you're disspointed may have something to do with your expectations.

Well, I have to take exception with that. D&D is not at all generic. It's generic only in the sense that it works across a broad range of D&D settings, but each of those D&D settings has enough implied setting material to make calling it generic dodgy at best.

In fact, even the author of a significant portion of the core rulebooks (Monte Cook) said as much, and that his AU book was specifically to present the same ruleset but with different implied setting, which impacted the races, the classes, the feats, the skillset, the magic, etc.

The Monster Manual is the only core book that has a decent claim at being generic, in my opinion.