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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Darrin Drader" data-source="post: 418097" data-attributes="member: 7394">Well, quite honestly, I have to disagree with disagreeing on Mongoose. I really don't like taking isue with publishers, but I think the quality of their books just isn't there with the others that have been named, and they're thriving off the sheer quantity of their releases rather than the quality.I could point to so many examples of where their products fall flat, but I'll just take the one that has been the largest let-down for me. When they announced their book on demonology, at first I was happy. I thought that it was about time a publisher did a book on this subject. Then I looked at the book. Yes, there were prestige classes, yes there were feats and spells, and rules for summoning, but then I flipped to the monsters section, which was the section that interested me the most, all that was there were reprints of some of the demons and devils already released to the SRD in the form they were released, with some illustrations to go along. What a waste of space! I already have the Monster Manual, as should anyone buying a D20 supplement. Why would I want to see these again? AEG's Evil, which was released at the same time covered the same ground, and so much more, while focusing on a broader range of topics.Why do we need a slayer's guide for every monster in the monster manual. I'm sorry but gnolls are not interesting enough to merit an entire book.The other issue, and I find this to be one of the most serious issues surrounding Mongoose is the sheer number of D20 releases they are releasing each month. Now I'm going to cut them some slack on the Judge Dredd stuff because it is almost a separate game, but it seems that their marketting practice is to have a product that competes with similar products from the other top 5 publishers. In all honesty, if I see a book by Mongoose on the shelf next to a book by Green Ronin dealing with the same subject matter, I'm taking home the Green Ronin book every time. I have much more respect for a company that puts out 1 quality release per month than one that puts our 5 books of questionable quality. This is a bit of a predatory marketting practice, and I'm sure that some of the companies that are competing with them have to be feeling a negative impact. Bottom line, I don't think their strategy is good for the industry in general, though I'm sure its doing wonders for their bank accounts.However, since I am a nice guy, I will give credit where credit is due. I am very happy that I bought the Slayer's Guide to Dragons by Gary Gygax, and I do think that they have a good series going with Cities of Fantasy. I will be happy if they continue to release more of those, and I would like to see fewer but higher quality releases from them each month in general.</blockquote>

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