D&D General Troll Lord Games reprinting Gygax's world-building books; any one have the old ones? Are they good?

[MNblockhead]

Troll Lorg Games is reprinting Gygax's world-building books in a new series or re-released books they are calling The Gygaxian Fantasy Worlds,

WHAT IS The Gygaxian Fantasy Worlds Series?

Sign Up For Early Bird Rewards! View as Webpage Craft Your World From Minutiae To Multiverse. The Encyclopedia of World-Building Returns in all 7 glorious volumes. These books contain everything you n

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The books include:

• The Canting Crew (creating criminal organizations & detailed guide of the Undercity)
• World Builder (advice for creating items, geography, and dwellings)
• Living Fantasy (essays on architecture, transport, magic, different structures of society, etc.)
• Extraordinary Book of Names
• Insidiae: The Brainstormer's Guide to Adventures (adventure toolbox covering Events, Story Roles, Characters, Drama & Conflict, and Objectives)
• Nation Builder (geographer's guide to nation building)
• Cosmos Building (covers planes, planar travel, and magic relations among planar realms)

Tempted to impulse buy just to have to enjoy reading and because I like collecting many of these older books. But, at the same time, I've been trying to only buy books that I'll either actually use or just really enjoy reading and paging through. I'm not a collector. I just buy books that have a strong nostalgic connection to (which I don't for these books--never used them and don't remember hearing about them), or because they are aesthetically attractive, or because they are useful.

Does anyone have the originals or remember them? Did you find them useful or interesting? How well did they age? With so many great, innovative books and tools in the TTRPG space, I find some of the older books to be rather uninteresting beyond being historical artifacts.

Anyway, if you are familiar with these books, let me know what you think of them.

 

[Retreater]

I know several people who swear the Book of Names is the best product of that type ever released. Since going out of print, it's been highly collectible, selling for hundreds of dollars on auction sites.
I don't know about the others.

 

[Shiroiken]

World Builder, Living Fantasy, and Insidiae are all interesting reads, but I question if they were really worth the money. Extraordinary Book of Names is worth its weight in gold.

 

[Reynard]

I own Living Fantasy. If you like minutiae, it's great. I don't, so...

 

[MNblockhead]

Thanks. I don't know if I'll back the Kickstarter. I'll wait and if I can buy the books separately from their website, I may buy the Extraordinary Book of Names.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What is special about the Book of Names? Since its publication, it seems more and more publishers have realized that including random lists of names is a big help you can give to DMs. Is there something special about these names in particular?

 

[Retreater]

What is special about the Book of Names? Since its publication, it seems more and more publishers have realized that including random lists of names is a big help you can give to DMs. Is there something special about these names in particular?

Well, this was before the widespread presence of gaming information online. Or at least me having access to Internet at the game table. I had a mythology dictionary that helped with names.
Don't know how essential it would be today.

 

[Reynard]

Well, this was before the widespread presence of gaming information online. Or at least me having access to Internet at the game table. I had a mythology dictionary that helped with names.
Don't know how essential it would be today.

It came out in 2004. The internet was a thing then.

 

[Retreater]

It came out in 2004. The internet was a thing then.

Not in my pocket at the gaming table when I needed it immediately.

 

[Reynard]

Not in my pocket at the gaming table when I needed it immediately.

Irrelevant. We were here, arguing about he evil of 3.5.