NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Darrin Drader" data-source="post: 1384903" data-attributes="member: 7394">I have every 3rd edition product WotC has produced, Call of Cthulhu D20, Wheel of Time, al the Star Wars books, and all the D20 Modern books. That takes up almost 2 shelves. I have an entire other book case full of D20/OGL products. Despite my the balance of my collection, I probably use about 2/3 WotC material and 1/3 3rd party stuff. The third party books range quite a bit, from adventures, to the Tome of Horrors, to variant rule sets, like Darwin's World and Babylon 5. I see no reason to deprive myself of rules from either side of the fence, especially since I help write material for both. There are many 3rd party rule sets that I like better than some WotC rules and there are a lot of WotC rules I like better than similar 3rd party stuff. I really don't have a lot of respect for "WotC purists" simply because they are focusing in too much on one source of material where there are a lot of companies producing outstanding material that is useful in D20 games. On the other hand, I categorically disagree with anyone who thinks that the recent D&D books have been of lesser quality than 3rd party material. I've seen the amount of playtesting and development that goes on and I can say with confidence that any time you pick up a WotC book, it has been properly playtested to ensure that it's power level isn't out of whack, and the mechanics and their interractions with mechanics from other sources are sound. I can also say that the same is not necessarily true for some of the 3rd party products I've been involved with in the past. While there is effort put into making those products better, they do not get the same rigorous development, playtesting, and editing that happens at WotC. Are there occasional mistakes in WotC book? Of course there are, but I have yet to see any book on the market that is free from minor mistakes.</blockquote>

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