Just a small Gloat... materialism at its finest

[twofalls]

A few weeks back I put up a post where I listed some books I picked up at my FLGS which has been having an ongoing sale for the past month to clear out dead inventory before the end of the year. By far I have purchased the majority of what has been placed on the shelf. The sale has been $5 a book or 5 for $20.

I went wild, and though the sale is now over (well there is still some items up but no more will be added) I have walked away with the following 34 titles. Its going to be a long time before I can go through and read all of these, if anyone has any comments on their experiences with any of the listed books I'd really love to hear from you. I had some excellent feedback from my last post.

Blood and Shadows: The Dark Elves of Tellene
Freind and Foe: The Gnomes and Kobolds of Tellene
Stealth and Style: A Variant Class Guidebook to the Infiltrator and Basiran Dancer
Ultimate NPC's (MGP)
Book of Dragons (MGP)
Trinity
Monster Encyclopedia Vol1
Monster Encylopedia Vol 2
Legends of Excalibur (D20)
Codex of Erde
Rokugan
Love & War (Penumbra)
Trouble at Durbenford
The Tome of Drow Lore
Exalted
Tome of Horrors lll
Tome of Horrors ll
Glades of Death
Bardsgate
Dead Man's Chest
Starship Troopers the RPG
Such is the Way of Faeries: A Guide to the Thornwode Deeps
Morningstar
Babylon 5 Roleplaying Game and Factbook
Free Mars
The Coming of Shadows
The Narn Regime Fact Book
The Fiery Trial
Into the Crucible
The League of Non-Aligned Worlds
The Psi Corps
Ultimate Prestige Class Vol. 1
Ultimate Prestige Class Vol. 2
Spells and Spellcraft

 

[jdrakeh]

Which edition of Exalted did you oick up? If it's the original edition, save it for a setting sourcebook (it's full of cool setting ideas), but unless you don't mind rolling up to 30 ten-sided dice at once (or don't own that many ten-sided dice), you'll probably want to skip playing it and pick up the new edition instead (it also uses tons of dice, but is significantly streamlined from the earlier edition and introduces rules for social conflict).

Trinity is very fun and is (I think) one of the best implementations of the old Storyteller system. If you like psionics, space opera, and crime drama you should love Trinity. It's also remarkably playable with just teh core book. Unlike many of the older White Wolf games, metaplot was nearly non-existant in the core Tinrity book (it was added later, but the decision to largely exclude it from the core book made it easy to ignore).

World of Erde seems to be in the $5.00 bin everywhere. It's not a horrible setting, mind you, but it doesn't really have a leg up on any other D&D settings out there in terms of bringing new stuff to the table. Additionally, the rules appendices demonstrate either a poor understanding of the D&D 3x rules or a deliberate ignorance of them. Finally, the layout is confusing in places. The setting is currently undergoing an extensive revision.

I have no familiarity with the other books on yoru list.

 

[pogre]

Nice pick-up. There are quite a few books in there I would have snagged for that price.

 

[twofalls]

It must be the original, says it was printed in 2001, and is product code WW8800. The copy write page doesn't list it as a revised edition.

 

[jdrakeh]

It must be the original, says it was printed in 2001, and is product code WW8800. The copy write page doesn't list it as a revised edition.

Yep -- use it for setting inspiration, but feel free to ignore the rules. It's easily the least intuitive implementation of Storyteller ever (I've seen single actions in combat take more than five minutes worth of dice rolling to resolve). Of course, if ploddingly slow combat resolution and tons of bookkepping isn't a big deal for you, you may not need to snag the new edition (and the new edition is a new edition, not merely a revision, BTW).

 

[Treebore]

I like these well enough. I asterixed (*) the ones I like a lot.



Blood and Shadows: The Dark Elves of Tellene
Freind and Foe: The Gnomes and Kobolds of Tellene
Legends of Excalibur (D20)
Codex of Erde*
Rokugan
Love & War (Penumbra)
Trouble at Durbenford*
Tome of Horrors lll*
Tome of Horrors ll*
Glades of Death
Bardsgate*
Dead Man's Chest
The Fiery Trial
Into the Crucible
Spells and Spellcraft*

They are all worth $5.00

 

[jdrakeh]

Say. . . Bard's Gate is a fairly recent release, isn't it? Last six months or so?

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Bard's Gate was only $5? Did that end up in there by accident or something. I was also surprised to see the Tomes of Horror II and III there as well.

Those 3 books, Love and War, Trouble at Durbenford and Dead Man's Chest would all be great value at $5 in my opinion.

Olaf the Stout

 

[twofalls]

Thanks for the responses! I doubt I will pick up another Edition of Exalted, I bought it primarily because I heard it was a fun read and I do like storyteller games. There are about three Trinity books besides the core on the shelf, I will call tomorrow and ask them to put those aside since you suggest it so highly.

I can't say why Bardsgate was in there, but it wasn't a mistake, Steve the store owner is an engineer and seldom makes errors such as those. Tome of Horrors ll and lll just weren't selling I guess. He said that he did put some items onto that shelf that he had ordered too many of, and that they sell fine but he just doesn't want them in inventory come Jan 1.

I appreciate being told what is good material out of this, it will prioritize my reading list.

 

[Corsair]

I've never run a Babylon 5 game yet, but if you are a fan of the show and a fan of d20, you would be well served to pick up that stuff. Very good products (and I like their mechanics for teeps)