Amusing joke apology.
I've never really got the nerdrage over the book myself. But then I never got the silly nerdrage over stuff like the Star Wars prequels, or Highlander movies or any other such silliness either. And let's face it, I'm a huge nerd with no life the way it is, and yet I still find the rage incomprehensible.
I never really noticed the problems with the book myself. My biggest beef, and it wasn't really a big one, was that the book kind of largely ripped off Tolkien elves, without including anything that was great about them. I didn't have a critical enough eye to notice the hypocritical racism that the elves were repeatedly displaying in the book, but then that was kind of typical of 2e elves anyway. No was I an experienced enough DM to notice any serious mechanical problems. Colin's right too that the DM needs to take control of the game, which has always been true to some extent, but moreso that this is a 2e product, and 2e was one of the editions where the DM was pretty much god and his word was law.
Anyway, the book's problems are a bit overstated. The entire first half of the book is elves talking about how great they are and such, all elf fluff and no crunch. The mechanics are in the back. And the problem stuff is this:
Rules for drow PCs. This is not the only place where drow PC creation rules are found in 2e, so not a good enough reason to bash the book. Just put your foot down as DM and ban all the Drizz't wannabes.
The bladesinger. I'm pretty sure this is the only kit that has really serious game-breaking problems in the game. The idea itself though isn't bad but it needs tweaking for balance purposes. Mechanical benefits for RP penalties are an endemic problem all throughout 2e, largely because the game had what is arguably the strongest Narrativist approach of all of D&D's various editions.
Elves got better stuff than the PCs and they'll never share because, well they're arrogant elf bastards. Not a problem found only in this book, stuff like the elven plate mail and other super gear is very much similar to the whole problem of disintegrating drow crap that goes back to 1e.
So really, when you take a look at the book's mechanical problems, they're all par for the course for that period of 2e. Any DM going back to play the edition these days should probably be well aware of it from personal experience or at least know the problems are there from the experiences of other DMs.
