RPG books you returned...

[Treebore]

How many RPG books have you returned due to publisher screw ups (not post office or vendor issues)? What were the issues, and how good was the publishers customer service?

(My brother has a similar post on RPG.net that he posted for me. So if you answered there you don't need to here, but if you do let me know that you posted to both.)

If your a member of the Facebook Old School Gamers group, and you post info there and here, let me know that as well.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I boughtthe Dark Sun Creature Catalog from Amazon Japan, and it was fine on the outside, but the pages were badly cut inside.

Amazon was great about letting me return it for free and getting me a new one.

 

[IronWolf]

I don't think I've ever returned an RPG book.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I've returned one once. Nearly a decade ago now. I had a similar problem with a book Dice4Hire had, the page cut wasn't complete, half of the pages were connected with each other because the printer missed cutting the pages.

I brought it back to my FLGS where I bought it, didn't even need my receipt, they just swapped it out like for like. They said they'd return it to the distributor.

 

[SiderisAnon]

Honestly, from my experience, either my friends and I just have really good luck or gaming books don't have the kinds of problems that require them to get returned a lot.

I remember having one gaming book that was either badly cut or badly printed because pages weren't right and stuff was missing. I would have returned it to the FLGS at the time I would imagine. It was probably 20 years ago, so I don't really remember the details other than the pages were screwed up. (I don't even remember what system after all this time.)

Generally, I buy all my physical books from the local gaming shops, so I know when I pull it off the shelf that it's in good shape. I've never had a special order come in bad, though the shop could have caught a problem and reordered before I knew about it. The advantage there is that there's a person with eyeballs on the book when it comes in, so it's not the impersonal warehouse. (I've only ordered direct from the game company itself once, and that was because they were having a big sale on Mutants and Masterminds right when I wanted to pick up the game. That went smoothly.)

I know the FLGS I used to frequent (not around anymore) was excellent about returns. I've seen or heard about them doing several returns on defective merchandise. (I gamed with one of the managers.) Printing defects do sometimes happen and you occasionally get a bad run of books with poor bindings. The shop took them back and replaced them without a problem. They wanted to keep their customers happy and they could probably just send it back to the distributor anyway.

I've had a few PDFs I'd like to have returned, however. Not because they were defective but because they turned out to be so terrible. Unfortunately, you generally can't return those. However, the one time I had a problem with my RPGNow account, their customer service was fast, helpful, and polite. (It wasn't a return; it was a corruption or something in my wishlist.)



I'm interested to see what others have to say in this thread because it doesn't seem like there's a lot of defects in gaming books from the local shops I've frequented. (Or maybe they're just weeding them out before the customer sees them.)

 

[Achan hiArusa]

A Werewolf the Wild West book, about a dozen pages were repeated and a dozen pages were missing.

 

[Weregrognard]

I had one Star Wars RPG (d20) book I had to return because of mismatched pages.

Another D&D 4e book I bought once had smudged ink and weird wrinkling on some pages. I was glad I opened it before leaving the store (it was shrink-wrapped.)

Otherwise, I've had pretty good luck with the quality of RPG books I've bought.

 

[the Jester]

Only one- the 2e Players Handbook, whose binding started to fall apart literally before I got home with it.

When I picked up mine, I was with a friend who was buying one as well. The same thing happened to him, too.

 

[SnowleopardVK]

I bought the second part of Pathfinder's Jade Regent Adventure Path a few days ago, and though the cover was correct, the contents were part 3 of the adventure path, which I already have (though even if I didn't already have it I would've wanted to get a correct-looking copy of part 3 anyways).

I only got a block of the way away from my FLGS to the bus stop before I noticed it though, so I went right back and they switched it for one that wasn't messed up.

 

[Stormonu]

Back in the 2E days, I got a Monsterous Compendium (the hardbound monster book) that had about 30 pages repeated. No missing pages, just an extra 30 pages repeated in it (starting at Beholder midway through the giants). Oddly, I didn't discover this oddity until after 2E's days were over, so I never was able to return it - but until I realized what was happening in that book, I always hated trying to find monsters in that thing ("Where the heck are the dinosaurs? This skips right from Catoblepas to Firbolg..." *closes book and reopens* "I mean, look here - Catoblepas ... Dinosaur - wait a minute, they weren't there a minute ago...")

In 3E, I got a bad copy of Libris Mortis from a Books-a-Million; the interior of the book literally fell out from the covers after only having it a few hours. I was able to trade it back in with no fuss or muss.

In 4E, my group had bad luck with the books.

My copy of the DMG has red smears through several pages and I've pulled my hand away from the MM a couple of times to find black letters copied onto my fingertips. (I did not attempt to return the books however). After that incident, I just used my PDF copies and the books have sat on the shelves relatively untouched.

One of my other gamers went through 3 PHB in as many weeks; on the first, the binding fell apart in the middle of the game, scattering pages everywhere. On the second, about 1/2 inch of the outside page had gotten cropped (at an angle) off. On the third, the ink smudged on several of the pages (still readable, but noticeable). Sadly, he was one of my players who was the most hyped about the new 4E, and these issues really lessened his enjoyment of the game.

Lastly, the copy of Keep on the Shadowfell I borrowed from my other player to run our first game didn't escape problems either. After my first read-through of it, I closed the booklet to find my hand peeling away from the cover, taking a lot of the ink with it and leaving a (un)lovely handprint on the cover. That was extremely embarrassing considering how careful I try to be and how wary I am with others handling my own stuff .