Failed promises

[demiurge1138]

Let's see... Dieties and Demigods, natch. It's been said so many times it barely bears repeating again; in order for this to have been a good book, it would have needed more actual information on the gods beyond their stats, and should have more info on their interactions in the campaign world.

Book of Exalted Deeds. A lot of it is so broken. And the Celestial Lords are uninspired. Only my obsessive-compulsive monster collecting keeps me from selling it off.

Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary. Wasn't this supposed to be the monster book to end all monster books? Color me unimpressed. Wonky stats, some really poor concepts and a sinking sense of "oh, look, another CR 2 humanoid" make this one one of my biggest wastes of money.

Enemies and Allies. Yes, I bought this book. No, I don't know why.

Demiurge out.

 

[Ravenknight]

The mother of all encountertables. I heard of it, preordered it, got it, read it and never used it. Such a letdown and I love encountertables...

 

[Garnfellow]

Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary. Wasn't this supposed to be the monster book to end all monster books? Color me unimpressed. Wonky stats, some really poor concepts and a sinking sense of "oh, look, another CR 2 humanoid" make this one one of my biggest wastes of money.

I certainly should have had this one on my list, as well. Atlas is a great game company, and I was really pumped up for this book, but . . . meh.

It's certainly not awful, and does a few things really well -- it has fantastic indexes, nice adventure hooks for each monster, and crystal clear demarcation of open content. But those are all peripherals.

As far as the monsters themselves, like most compilation books with multiple authors, it lacks a certain unifying vision and has too many redundant or retread concepts. The mechanics are generally OK, but often lack tightness or elegance. And the book has a layout that's very hard to read -- all the flavor text is done in a smallish script-style typeface on a grayed-out background.

This book, probably more than any other, also exemplifies the negative impact of the 3.5 revision on third party publishers. My understanding is that Atlas had this book in the can right when 3.5 broke, and had to make an unhappy choice between delaying the relase by several months in order to update all the statblocks, or to release it as a 3.0 book shortly after 3.5 came out. That's a no-win situation, and I suspect it hurt sales on the book.

 

[beaver1024]

3.5. Enough said.

 

[Pseudonym]

My major dissapointments have been mentioned: d20 Deadlands, d20 Traveller, d20 Gammaworld, Arms and Equipment Guide.

To that I would add Mythic Races and Relics and Rituals. In their defence they were some of the earliest third party d20 offerings to come out, but ...ugh.

If we are opening up the field to old school non-d20 then I'd add FASA's Doctor Who RPG. Man that sucked, mechanically and in emulating the feel of the series.

I'll also throw out Decipher's Lord of the Rings. Damn that is a pretty book and looks great on my shelf, but that's about it. Did I mention it looks pretty?

 

[Psion]

If we are opening up the field to old school non-d20 then I'd add FASA's Doctor Who RPG.

Do we want to go there? I could start on the old TSR Indiana Jones game.

I took it back to the store and demanded my money back due to the misleading packaging impying that it was a role-playing game.

 

[Pramas]

This book, probably more than any other, also exemplifies the negative impact of the 3.5 revision on third party publishers. My understanding is that Atlas had this book in the can right when 3.5 broke, and had to make an unhappy choice between delaying the relase by several months in order to update all the statblocks, or to release it as a 3.0 book shortly after 3.5 came out. That's a no-win situation, and I suspect it hurt sales on the book.

Oh, no doubt. Our Testament: Roleplaying in the Biblical Era came out perhaps three weeks before 3.5 and sales definitely suffered because of it. Those companies that had big 3.0 books ready to go had a tough decision to make.

 

[eyebeams]

Irrelevancy, not relevancy.

It remains one of the most pointless comments of the internet.

People want a product they buy to be good. If it isn't they have a right to complain. In his opinion GWD20 was not good. I rather agree.

People have the "right" to do all sorts of things. I have the right to vocally complain that WotC renamed Thieves Rogues and got rid of weapon vs armour mods -- but I shouldn't expect anybody to take the above seriously.

The fact of the matter is that nobody can replicate your sentimental feelings about a book in another book without reading your mind. I owned prior editions of Gamma World. The game swayed back and forth between being a hack of AD&D and a hack of MSH, usually with minimal campaign material. The MSH kludge is a particularly terrible game and I suspect that most people like it because of the Parkinson cover, since its setting detail was nearly nonexistant and its overall quality was rushed and shoddy.

What I note, though, is that some people have complained about retreads like this with so much detail that really, they could have channelled that into their own work. As I noted before, the majority of fan material for the old GW concentrated on reducing the "Wahoo!" factor, not celebrating it.

This is where fans need to apply a certain amount of self-analysis. You are creative folks, but you aren't in a position to demand a creative partnership with designers. Thus, you might be miffed that something doesn't fit your personal vision, but nobody who was actually writing/designing had any obligation to pay attention to you in the first place. Stop acting like they do. Your "input" is with your wallet. Spend with more discrimination, and you'll get yopur message across far better.

That said, SSS got a bad deal when it came to this license, since there were things they were simply not allowed to write about. The decision to update the setting was a good one, since frankly, nostalgia for 80s nuclear anxiety is hardly something to base a 21st century property on if you want it to sell and are constrained from emulating the inspirations in full.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

This is where fans need to apply a certain amount of self-analysis. You are creative folks, but you aren't in a position to demand a creative partnership with designers. Thus, you might be miffed that something doesn't fit your personal vision, but nobody who was actually writing/designing had any obligation to pay attention to you in the first place. Stop acting like they do. Your "input" is with your wallet. Spend with more discrimination, and you'll get yopur message across far better.

So if there's something I don't like, I should just shut up and leave it in the store?

I say that is my right to complain. Actually, I'm sure that many designers want us to tell them what we hate about their stuff. If we stop buying without saying a word, they'll sit there wondering why their sales plummet. They might thing that noone likes the game anymore and stop producing. But if a lot of people complain about how they don't like a particular thing, the designers might rething the thing, fix it in the next edition, and sales go up again.

D&D wouldn't be what it was if the fans just stopped buying.

 

[The_Universe]

Oh, no doubt. Our Testament: Roleplaying in the Biblical Era came out perhaps three weeks before 3.5 and sales definitely suffered because of it. Those companies that had big 3.0 books ready to go had a tough decision to make.

Interesting. I would have imagined that it took enough liberty with "standard" D20 to have made the 3.0/3.5 switch largely irrelevent. It had its own classes, etc...