The Tidal Wave of Junk...
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Derulbaskul
Adventurer
My recollection of that time is different but I think that was because I learnt before I wasted any money that FFE and Mongoose were indeed producing junk. As two of the biggest publishers at that time, avoiding those two meant that I was avoiding a large chunk of 3pp product.
I largely confined my 3pp purchases to Green Ronin's excellent Freeport adventures and Legions of Hell and some great adventures published by Atlas Games. Those products have, IMO, stood the test of time.
I largely confined my 3pp purchases to Green Ronin's excellent Freeport adventures and Legions of Hell and some great adventures published by Atlas Games. Those products have, IMO, stood the test of time.
DaveMage
Slumbering in Tsar
The release of 3.5 saw the end of the boom, and with the collapse of Osseum, only the strong survived.
Nightchilde-2
First Post
More well thought out products began to be more prominent than the junk? I do not remember this...
Olaf the Stout
Legend
I think this is true for print products to a certain extent. If you avoided Fast Forward Entertainment and Mongoose's (Mongoose's early releases at least) books you were generally ok. Sure, there were other publishers putting out some books that weren't great, but those 2 publishers seemed to cop the most complaints.
PDF's (once that market developed) were more of a crapshoot. Sometimes you got lucky, sometimes you didn't. At least that was my experience.
Olaf the Stout
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diaglo
Adventurer
i remember wotc got scooped for the first monster book. it was for the scarred lands. and beat the monster manual to release.
i also remember it wasn't any good.
i remember thinking the pocket grimoires divine and arcane did a decent job of sorting out most of the wheat from the chaff
i also remember it wasn't any good.
i remember thinking the pocket grimoires divine and arcane did a decent job of sorting out most of the wheat from the chaff
jdrakeh
Front Range Warlock
The Creature Compendium. . . still often cited by posters here (and elsewhere) as one of the best non-WotC monster collections
To actually answer the OP's question, though: Most of the really bad stuff (e.g., Swashbuckling Adventures, FFE books, D20 Afghanistan, etc) was gone by the time that 3.5 appeared, or within the following eight month period. So, it took a few years.
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CaptainChaos
First Post
I thought there was some decent stuff out early. Then when people realized there was money to be made, it was a free for all. I don't think it really cleared out until after 3.5 came out and then there was a culling. It's interesting that of the two biggest producers of crap, Fast Forward and Mongoose, one of them is still actually in business. And pursuing the exact same strategy, just spread out over a bunch of games. Maybe they just have deep pockets.
frankthedm
First Post
Best? Maybe for the months of June 2000 and July 2000. Some of the errors in the book were pretty bad because they were working off older playtest rules wotc had supplied them, but IMHO it had plenty of worth none the less and a nice helping of flavor.The Creature Compendium. . . still often cited by posters here (and elsewhere) as one of the best non-WotC monster collections
Power Hungry Player buys the Book of Broken Splat hoping the DM will allow it out of pity since power hungry player already bought the book. "After all, a friend wouldn't want another friend to have wasted money would they?"
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Storminator
First Post
This is how I remember it as well. There was a bunch of interesting stuff, perhaps interesting because it was new, perhaps because a lot of house game ideas saw the light of day -- stuff that had 10 years of thought behind it. Then there was a mass of junk that seemed to developed the same week it went to print.
Then 3.5 flattened a lot of companies. And now is seems pretty barren.
PS
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