D&D 5E (2014) Least Favorite WotC 5E Book?

[Scribe]

SCAG did all it needed to do. Free us from the tyranny of 4E Tiefling.

 

[Parmandur]

I've never really thought about checking the library here, I might check and see what, if anything, they have.

My library actually carries all the 5E books, but any library can probably get any of them on loan for free: long enough to get a taste and see if you want your own copy for sure.

 

[humble minion]

There's an awful lot of material i haven't bought so can't judge. Strahd and Dragonlance are the only adventures i own, I never bought Ravnica or any of the adventure compilations, or Acquisitions Incorporated or Bigby's - so i can't really easily judge the whole line.

Of the stuff I do own - VRGtR gets worse every time i read it, but there's still enough legitimately good stuff in there to keep it off the bottom. SCAG isn't BAD exactly, just phoned-in and perfunctory. Xanathar's and Tasha's are both essential in my opinion, though the puzzles section of Tasha's is an insult to paper and Xanathar's missed a few big opportunities to fix inadequate stuff like the Mastermind, Inquisitive etc and the attempt to fix Pact of the Blade by making it viable for Hexblades and only Hexblades was dumb.

It probably comes down to Spelljammer or Strixhaven in the end.

Spelljammer is a space pirate setting lacking not only a whole lot of essential space piracy material, but also lacking actual setting, which is kinda a big deal for a setting book. Add to that a railroaded and uninspired adventure, terrible proofreading and quality control (not just the hadozee art, but also the hadozee glide rules which were errata-ed within weeks of the thing coming out but which EVERYONE warned WotC about in the UA survey), terrible value for money, a DM screen nobody asked for or wanted, and a monster book of which 1/3 of the pages are a big middle finger to Dark Sun fans, rubbing their noses in the fact that WotC will never ever do a 5e edition of that setting and stealing all the DS monsters for use in a completely thematically inappropriate different setting instead.

Strixhaven was just a case of ... why? I can understand the idea of a magic college setting - it's even an interesting idea to have a setting that limits classes to ONLY the magic users (even if WotC were too timid and conservative to do that in the end). But the book has almost no support for anything like running a college setting where things like, y'know, classes and exams and so on matter. The whole interpersonal relationships rules were a nice concept, but so lazily implemented as to be worthless (and ferociously min-max-able by polyamorous PCs!). And the adventure is annoying and repetitive and the stakes just seem ... silly and trivial a lot of the time. The whole thing and place just lacks - focus, theme, dynamism, a reason for being. What IS Strixhaven, and what do you do there if you're not running the cruddy low-level adventure? It just fails to provide any hooks or give me a reason to care. It's not like there's no compelling fictional magic schools. Aside from Hogwarts, there's of course Brakebills, or Naomi Novik's Scholomance just off the top of my head.

So yea, one of those two.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I find it really strange that people are naming books they don't own and have never read their least favorite.

'Least favorite' isn't necessarily 'most hated', so it makes sense to me that if you don't hate any of the books (having missed Volo's subtext, I charitably assume), then the ones you haven't read would be least favorite by default.

 

[cbwjm]

Maybe Strixhaven works better as a MtG setting than a DnD setting.

 

[humble minion]

Maybe Strixhaven works better as a MtG setting than a DnD setting.

It's quite possible. I don't play MtG or know much of anything about it, but i've read posts on here that in MtG fiction etc it's written as much a much more ruthless cut-throat Machiavellian kinda place than the D&D book portrayed it. Maybe that might have made for a more interesting setting. Or perhaps the people running the D&D line freaked out about the optics of having a less-kid-friendly 'school' setting.

I mean, even if you're intent on writing Strixhaven with 'American college with magic' vibes, where's the booze, where's the people peddling magical pot, where's the multiplicity of passionate groups pushing various social and political causes, where's the struggle to pay for your instant noodles with a bunch of part time jobs, where's the dreadful dormmates, where's the evil frat? Just lazy and one-dimensional and blaaaaand.

 

[Valetudo]

Um the ravenloft setting book. I think it's the 3rd edition one that was from a 3rd party is so much better on a whole other level. Spell jammer. I'm hoping better with planescape.

 

[pukunui]

… and a monster book of which 1/3 of the pages are a big middle finger to Dark Sun fans, rubbing their noses in the fact that WotC will never ever do a 5e edition of that setting and stealing all the DS monsters for use in a completely thematically inappropriate different setting instead.

They’re in there because Doomspace was originally Athaspace (as evidenced by the map initially posted on DDB). That would’ve been an even bigger middle finger … here’s Dark Sun but the gods came back and turned the sun into a black hole, and Athas is now a frozen wasteland that’s only months away from being swallowed up. Have fun!

 

[delericho]

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.

Though I suppose I should be grateful - thanks to that one, I skipped Spelljammer, which I'm sure I would have hated.

 

[Zardnaar]

I stopped buying after Van Richtens and Fizbans. Didn't buy Storm King's Thunder or Waterdeep books.

Maybe Icewind Dale. Looks pretty but meh.