The book you were all excited to get... and now gathering dust...

[Teflon Billy]

My whole Exalted line. They are great reads, but by and large (and I know it's because I'm an old fogie) I find the game largely unplayable. The characters are just too awe-inspiringly powerful to be properly challenged in a way my GM-ing background allows me to comprehend.

Characters who can only be challenged by others like themselves (whom the official setting number at about 50 worldwide) and can destroy armies. blot out the sun, topple kingdoms all at basically a whim is not somehting that it very playable in my mind.

But I'm a low-power GM at the best of times (constantly bitching about how powerful spellcasters are in D&D)

 

[Davelozzi]

Kingdoms of Kalamar Campaign Setting & Player's Guide. I wanted to like Kalamar, based on what I'd heard it sounded like something up my alley but it just didn't grab me at all.

Likewise I haven't got much use out of my Scarred Lands stuff (gazeteer & campaign hardcover for Ghelspad) , although I purchased them more to find out what all the fuss was about than for any intent to actually run a campaign there. The gazeteer was pretty good in my opinion but I thought that the hardcover would have been a lot better if it pulled some of the more essential info from other books (races info from DM's screen and some of the key prestige classes like Vigil).

Of my stuff from 2e and earlier, Spelljammer collects the most dust. All of the other campaigns occasionally get dusted off either for nostalgia value (Mystara, GH, FR, DL), actual use (Dark*Sun), or other for ideas/reference (Planescape).

 

[War Golem]

Good, heavens, the list is too huge to post. I don't mind books collecting dust, as long as I'm able to read them when I want them, though. And I do tend to be very kitbash in nature, taking elements from a widely disparate group of books and incorporating them into a single setting.

This describes both my collection and DM/campaign style exactly. I have a ton of books that I may have only taken a feat, an NPC, or an idea from, and I consider those worthwhile additions to my collection. Albeit expensive, on a penny-per-word used basis.

But there are still a few that I was looking forward to and in actual gameplay have gotten zero use out of at all: Wheel of Time, Dragonstar, Tome of Horrors, Book of the Righteous. I'd even have to throw Monsternomicon and Epic Level Handbook on the list as books that are collecting dust, but that's only until the IKCS is released someday, and until my regular campaign reaches epic levels (currently around 14-15 after 3 years of gaming).

But at the top of my list has to be the Psionics Handbook. Would love to incorporate psionics into my game more, but this book really wasn't innovative in any way, and didn't interest any of my players in the least (unfortunately). That said, I have very high hopes for the revised book next spring - let's hope it won't be on this same list a year from now!

 

[Nifft]

d20 stuff gathering dust:
ELH -- but I do have use planned...
D&Dg -- no use planned.
Arcana Unearthed -- sadly, as it seems like a very cool world.
Book of Challenges
FRCS
Magic of Faerun
MM2 -- not nearly as useful as my Fiend Folio, BoVD, MotP, Legions of Hell & Armies of the Abyss.

Other Gaming Systems:
Werewolf -- still unplayed
Vampire, Mage -- no longer played



Now, for an additive hijack:

Books I've Gotten More Out Of Than I Thoght I Would:
Exalted
MotP
Fiend Folio
BoVD

-- N

 

[rowport]

d20 Modern and Urban Arcana for me. Don't get me wrong: I love the game, I just do not have time to play it in my regular group. Oh, well.

 

[Wycen]

Oh yeah, my Scarred Lands CC1 is collecting dust, in fact, it is collecting dust at another friend's house. Scarred Lands, though I've played a character in it, is Greek to me, literally, if I want titans vs. gods, I'll play a Greek style campaign.

Mechwarrior rpg was a disappointment, as if you take away the mech, I just couldn't seem to get an interesting game going.

 

[Pseudonym]

Let's see...

d20 Call of Cthulhu. I was so excited to get this, bought it as soon as it hit the shelves, and has remained unused since.

Several WotC 3E books, such as the Greyhawk Gazateer , the Epic Handbook and the Psionics Handbook.

Fantasy Flight's Seafarer's Handbook. I really wanted to like this book, the same for Spells and Spellcraft.

Jade and Steel. I bought this to supplement the Rokugan and OA stuff I bought. I suppose it and the Rokugan material don't really count as gathering dust, as after several months I finally foisted them off on a local game store for credit, with which I turned around and bought...

Decipher's Lord of the Rings game. This has gone from collecting dust on my bookshelf to collecting dust in my basement.

To this list I can add Relics and Rituals, which has never seen use, aside from proping up a wobbly leg on our miniatures table.

I suppose the biggest non-d20 collection of dust gathering books would be the metric ton of GURPS Traveller stuff I have. Everyone either wants to play MegaTraveller or T20.

 

[psychognome]

d20 Modern. Such a pity, I love the game, I love the rules, I love everything about it, but I just can't get enough time to run a game. Fortunately, NiTessine and I have been tossing around the idea of me running a one-shot game with our regular group, and then seeing how it'll turn out.

 

[psychognome]

d20 Modern. Such a pity, I love the game, I love the rules, I love everything about it, but I just can't get enough time to run a game. Fortunately, NiTessine and I have been tossing around the idea of me running a one-shot game with our regular group, and then seeing how it'll turn out.

 

[Kichwas]

I suppose the biggest non-d20 collection of dust gathering books would be the metric ton of GURPS Traveller stuff I have. Everyone either wants to play MegaTraveller or T20.

That's interesting.

I bought GURPS Traveller and felt "Finally GURPS gets a setting that fits it, and finally Traveller gets a system that fits it."

The two seem like a perfect match for each other. If I ever did GURPS science fiction again it would either be Traveller or Transhuman Space. Likewise if I ever did Traveller again the only mechanics I would ever consider for it is GURPS. That said, I find GURPS really fails in Sci Fi elsewhere, and Traveller's own mechanics always felt clunky to me.


I'm noticing some trends over all in these posts - certain items appear a lot. A good percentage of the posts here mention the same books over and over. Along with individual tastes, there are patterns.

They tend to be the items that get a lot of hype in the community, that everyone says will be great, and then come out and we see the hype die down...

Seems like we really like to pull the wool over our own eyes.

Perhaps we should look at this list, and also make a list of "what did you buy expecting to hate but end up getting a lot out of anyway", and use those lists to figure out what we really ought to be hyping...

If I went out to my entire gaming collection I would find a lot more stuff...

Going back to my d20 collection, this thread is making me consider a trip to the local store to sell back a few items that I 'remembered' after reading through here and thinking "oh yeah, that's on the bottom shelf isn't it?"