Quality of WotC and 3rd party D&D books

[Nellisir]

I've found that Green Ronin Publishing, Malhavoc Press... all deliver the goods. ... Additionally, despite its genre AEG's Spycraft game includes many mechanics that have proved invaluable for the D&D games I've been part of.

I'll wholeheartedly support Green Ronin, Malhavoc, and AEG, and add Fantasy Flight Games* (particularly Midnight and Dawnforge) and Bastion Press. I don't buy AEG's Spycraft, but have found the material in their Rokugan line to be a great source of inspiration (and I don't run an Oriental campaign).

I'm curious what you bought that put you off so badly - some of the early stinkers are out of business, or have really cleaned up their act (I'll confess to avoiding Mongoose for about 3 years after buying their first few products; but I've begun buying from them again).

Cheers
Nell.

*FFG is having a sale right now on some of their older books. At $5 a pop, you CANNOT go wrong. I just got 7 for $45, including shipping and handling.

 

[Crothian]

*FFG is having a sale right now on some of their older books. At $5 a pop, you CANNOT go wrong. I just got 7 for $45, including shipping and handling.

Bastion is having a similar sale

 

[Mercule]

I've been pretty hesitant to buy 3rd party books, too. I've got Magical Medieval Society in .pdf form (which is a doubly odd purchase for me) and FFG's Wildscape.

Although I'm only about half-way through MMS (.pdf format absolutely blows), I can't recommend it enough. It is absolutely great for building anything resembling a "realistic" world. I've already gotten more value per dollar than any book besides the core three.

Wildscape is a different matter. It is an okay-enough book, and I was impressed enough to buy it after flipping through. It just hasn't paid off in practice -- nothing in it has actually seen play in my game. Dunno what the deal is. *shrug*

Anyway, the point was that those are the only two non-WotC products I own. I'm sure there is some great material out there. Possibly stuff that puts WotC to shame. I just don't have the time/inclination to sort the wheat from the chaffe. And, I don't trust one-off recommendations, because there are some books, that I've browsed through, that get consistant thumbs up from people 'round here that I find to be not worth much to me.

 

[Nightfall]

Which just proves not everyone agrees on everything everytime.

*still thinks Scarred Lands stuff is awesome. *

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Personally, I think most of the 3rd party stuff blows WOTC away. Especially the Scarred Lands stuff. I haven't bought a WOTC product since Complete Warrior, and I doubt I'll buy anything else anytime soon.

 

[Nightfall]

*gives JRR the Pimp's Door prize of the day!*

Thanks JRR

 

[GlassJaw]

I've pretty much stopped buying WotC books altogether. Many 3rd party companies are just more innovative: Midnight from Fantasy Flight, Grim Tales from Bad Axe, etc. They are thinking outside of the box in regards to the game itself - taking it to new levels and looking at it from a fresh perspective. WotC just seems content with churning out the same old books full of races, PrC's, spells, etc. That gets the big *yawn* IMO. Do something new already.

 

[Pants]

I'm curious what you bought that put you off so badly - some of the early stinkers are out of business, or have really cleaned up their act (I'll confess to avoiding Mongoose for about 3 years after buying their first few products; but I've begun buying from them again).

I was in the same situation as Jolly Giant for at least two years. Reason being that I made some questionable D&D purchases early on. Namely, I bought Demons and Devils by FFE, Creature Collection, and Creature Collection II. Creature Collection, while a very inspiring book, just had the wonkiest rules usage I'd ever seen. The CR's were messed up too. Creature Collection II was better... ruleswise, but I never seemed to find a time to actually use the book. Demons and Devils sealed the coffin. Simply a craptacular book.

I didn't really come around to 3rd party until the time when the BoVD and MMII came out. During that time I had made 'questionable' WotC decisions and was looking for alternatives. I've since increased my 3rd party reservoir with titles such as Book of Fiends, Iron Kingdoms Character Guide, Portals and Planes, Dungeoncraft, and Monster's Handbook.

Simply put, I KNOW that publishers put out products that are sometimes of higher quality than WotC, but... looking at the lists of products, many of them don't really cater to me. Book of the Righteous gets rave reviews, but its content simply doesn't interest me. Mutants and Masterminds is supposedly of high quality, but I have no interest in a supers game. Do I really need whole books on Faeries, Airships, Elves, or other things? Frost and Fur looks nice... but I'm not interested in the cultural related stuff, more generic info is better for me... And WotC usually delivers on that. Sometimes they succeed (Frostburn for example) and sometimes they don't (Complete Divine...).

I do know one thing. Privateer Press has earned my support and a purchase of their next Iron Kingdoms-related products. I just wished I had caught onto IK earlier on...

 

[Darrin Drader]

the complete series are no better than the old splats, which they are mostly reprints of anyway.

The Complete series updates much of the material from the old splat books and makes them 3.5 compatible. Even so, 75% of the content from those books is new.

Planar Handbook was nothing compared to Manual of the Planes...

The Planar Handbook was not ever intended as a replacement for Manual of the Planes. It is a player oriented companion to the Manual of the Planes as well as an attempt to appease the ranting disenfranchised Planescape fans.

In general, though, to answer your question, yes, third party publishers are light years ahead of where they were four years ago. Originally there was a massive rush to the press while the designers were still trying to get a handle on the 3rd edition rules. Now there are a number of designers out there whose game knowledge is right up there with most of the Wizards RPG R&D department. In addition, as most of these companies have become better established, they've been able to afford better art, better cartography, better editing, and more playtesting. There are several products on the market that can go toe to toe with most WotC products, including Tome of Horrors I & II, Hamunaptra, Midnight, the Babylon 5 RPG, and Arms & Armor 3.5.

 

[Alzrius]

an attempt to appease the ranting disenfranchised Planescape fans.

I'm having a hard time with this statement. While the few faction PrC's were nice, beyond that, the PS material was a description of Sigil we already had. Likewise, giving the Lady of Pain an alignment was just asking to rub the PS group the wrong way.

Don't get me wrong, but it doesn't seem like this was much of an attempt at all.