Blandest d20 Product?

[Prince of Happiness]

From Kalamar, I seem to hear pretty consistently that it's either a great traditional D&D setting, even so far as to hear plenty of people say that's the only one they'll run again, or folks think it's as dry as dust.

I guess there's a real niche kinda aspect to it; if you're the kind of person who likes the mock history, linguistics and anthropology, then it's great, otherwise, it's as boring as reading real history, linguistics or anthropology.

Me, I'm definately in favor of it. I mean, one of my favorite books that I reread every coupla years or so is J.P. Mallory's In Search of the Indo-Europeans fer cryin' out loud.

So totally with you on this one.

I love the cultures, the complex histories and politics...

And drowning them in seas of blood and storms of slaughter.

 

[talinthas]

See, i love linguistics and cultural detail. I just don't like the linguistics and cultural detail of Kalamar =)
I find it very textbooky, and really, i'd rather read real textbooks.

 

[Chaos Drake]

Hero's Builder Guidebook... even to newbies it'd present D&D as a very, very dull game.

 

[the Jester]

Mmm, I'd say Arms & Equipment Guide and the Book of Exalted Deeds top my list; I examined them in the store and decided against buying either one. The BoED I later borrowed from a friend and read and found myself pretty much bored stiff.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

I'm not exactly prolific in my purchasing, but Urban Arcana strikes me as the blandest book I own. Except Incantations. Those rock... except the descriptions. I still havn't read through the entire chapter, and I keep trying!

I dislike the presentation of a great many of the advanced and prestige classes. Actually, that's not necessarrally true, but the first one I was interested in, the archaic weaponmaster, and the second, the swashbuckler, ended up being a chain of fighter feats. Also, the straight up Holy/Unholy Knight lost me.

A lot of the weapons are just straight ports of the D&D PH, as are a lot of the spells. The orginizations felt too briefly put together, and I didn't feel any real hooks or systems comeing out fo them. The monster section ranged from interesting to downright silly, and that comment goes for most of the book. The few things I found interesting were usually too short.

They also struck a compromise between making a campaign setting and making a rules toolkit that really doesn't do it for me. On the one hand, it's not a campaign setting, really, they don't establish much tone. On the other hand, it doesn't feel like a toolkit. The Techno mage is a little too specific for a techno mage, there's no good "Guy who likes more than one arcane weapon" class. They've got all this talk about shadow, and how travellers from other worlds forget their memories, and the restrictions on planar magic, but there's no reason for it, as far as I can tell. And there definately isn't a coherent feeling to the presentation of the game.

I'd was hoping for a more generic "modern fantasy" setup with more open ended game types (Like D20 Modern). I would have been happy with a distinct setting with it's own particular vibe.

I got a handful of classes, a few races, information I allready had, and silly game restrictions. In short, I got mush.

 

[greywulf]

Strike another bland vote up for the Greyhawk Gazetteer which did more to kill the world setting in the eyes of my players than TSR (RIP) ever did. That's one boring, thin and useless tome.

I've used the Hero's thingummy quite a few times to give new player's inspiration. I'd put it pretty high up the bland stakes - but that's more a case of it's subject matter (archetypes are just....so...archtypical) than the product itself, which is full of enthusiasm for the game.

Another vote for d20 Modern. Flat, flat, flat, flat, flat. Ick. Need I say more?

Outside d20, I'd say all of these are eclisped by the blandest RPG product ever. GURPS. All of it.

 

[Turanil]

#6 - Slaine. A work with some good flavor completely overwhelmed by a sick preoccupation with blood sacrifice. Too bad, the adventures would probably have been fun to run; but I just couldn't have the players in a race for victims. Really sets the hobby back.

I don't find the d20 Slaine being bland, but extremely flavorful. However, I much agree with you about this sickening stuff about making horrid bloody human sacrifices to get more spell-points. I can understand that for villains, but in this game it's good for anybody, so PCs included. I am certainly not interested in running a game where players tell me how they torture some npc to gain more earth-power. :\

So? "Bland" doesn't preclude "useful" (as a few on this thread seem to have mistaken).

This what I think of Relic & Ritual: Excalibur. Really useful for a setting with (diluted) Arthurian chivalry, but an extremely bland book.

On the other hand, BoED is not only odiously bland, but also near useless.

 

[Spell]

The Epic Level Handbook. Due to a glitch at buy.com, I got it for less than $15 new. That's about how much the monster section was worth, which was the only redeeming section of the entire book, unfortunately.

Amen, brother!!! It read like a dull mathematics book (and I studied maths at uni, so I tend to like the average maths book...). And I paid the full price for it.

I couldn't get a single idea out of the whole book, apart from the monster chapter. I was somewhat offended by the section on epic dungeons, but I calmed down when I realised it was meant as a kind of joke... because it was a joke, right?

To make a long story short, that was the last nail in the coffin with wizards for me. The 3.5 announcement was the burining of the coffin, with the corpse. Since then, I just brought a couple of Midnight books, and that's all. I play to HackMaster and GURPS. Siller and more complex systems, maybe. Inspiration guaranteed, though.

 

[green slime]

Hero Builder's guidebook, hands down, feet tied together, and wearing a blindfold.

There is just nothing as uninspiring in my bookshelf. ELH is as frustrating as a course in self-castration, due to the poor thouht put into many of the rules. Shoddy, IMO, but it still has a few gems worth the effort... The HBG is just.... (words fail me). *walks away shaking head*

 

[Ghostknight]

Heh- Slaine is meant to be bloody barabarian mush intent on destroying the horrible formorians invaded the land of the Young. Or at least tat is how it was originally written for 2000AD (a comic). The RPG version hasn't hit our shores here in RSA unfortunately.

On the issue of sacrifices by players- well that is the tone of the comic. Druids in Slaine are of the Roman demonised type - definitely not earth huggers and far more into human sacrifice and bloody mayhem. Comics wise Slaine is killed at the end of his seven year reign as high king (but brought back by the Goddess to be her champion) in a rather bloody ceremony which includes reading his entrails.