Did anyone like the old Monstrous Compendium ring-binder format?

[the Jester]

The thing I liked about the 2e monster binders was that if you knew which monsters you were using in a given adventure, you could take just a few pages out and ferry them to the game instead of the 20 lbs. entailed in all the monsterous compendiums combined. [/hyperbole]

 

[Turanil]

I much prefer a good book. Binder has a great advantage in which you only keep the monsters you really want. Also, one monster per page is a pleasant thing, and it's good when you can only bring the few monsters you need with you. However, these days, I copypaste the SRD for monster stats I like, photocopy the pic to show to players, and that's okay. Binders were IMO cumbersome.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Are there any other odd formats that people have come up with for RPG products?

I loved the folder format, books are obnoxious.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I loved the idea. In some ways I still do. However, the execution of the binder was kind of crappy. The pages would tear easily and the with the constant addition of material, you had to get several binders.

Though the best part about it was the fact that you could find the criters you wanted to use for the evening, pull them out and have them ready just for a few hours.

 

[DragonLancer]

I didn't mind it at the time, but I do greatly prefer having books.

 

[diaglo]

Having been an old Star Fleet Battles fan, I liked the idea beforehand.

After using them for a while... and seeing how poorly the pages ...

ditto. as more of them poured out. i retracted my earlier care for them.

 

[Psychic Warrior]

Freaking hated that thing. It was garbage and I would kill the company that tried to force that on me again. I bought one supplment for it and by that time 30% of the pages had torn out (and I was careful with the damn thing). Pure crap.

 

[Li Shenron]

Having a single tome for all your monsters would be nice, but it would take cardboard pages to make it durable. I'd like to have monsters organized by type, so if the MM was made into this format I'd probably rearrange everything in chapters from "Aberrations" to "Vermins". But I think I'd be the only one

 

[Tetsubo]

I still have mine. The most useful thing I found was the ability to remove the encounter tables at take them to the gaming table. Other than that I thought the product was a flop.

 

[WayneLigon]

I wasn't too keen on the format because I have a fondness for books and also I found the individual pages would dog-ear and tear at the holes in the binder.

It was both a good idea and a so-so one. It really only worked when there was just one monster per page. For a time it was neat to be able to take all the creatures I'd need for a night's GMing and put them in the same binder, or assemble a binder for a particular campaign (OK, now this world has no minotaurs, but it does have this.. and that..).

Resorting them when I was done was a real PITA.

Now, thankfully, we have the SRD document and I can just copy what I need from that.