What RPG books/manuals do you really regret buying?
- Thread starter Captain NeMo
- Start date
Ao the Overkitty
First Post
Decipher's Star Trek RPG and Romulan setting. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but we quickly realised that Star Trek doesn't really work as an RPG. Makes a good setting for a collective writing group, but not a tabletop game.
d20 Oriental Adventures & Rokugan setting. Bought them when i thought a guy in our gaming group was going to run the setting, but he never did. No use for them whatsoever. Don't think I've cracked the books since my first readthrough.
Most of my FR collection (FRCS, Magic of Faerun, Races of Faerun, Lords of Darkness, Silver Marches, Unnaproachable East, Faiths & Pantheons, City of the Spider Queen). Bought back when I was running D&D. I don't completely regret them, but the books are mostly useless to me now and don't even offer the enjoyment of reading value.
Savage Species. Not a bad book, but really not a necessary book and could have used the money elsewhere.
Draconomicon. The last D&D book I purchased. I commonly refer to the DM's chapter as '100 ways to TPK a party.'
Now, there are books I get no use out of, but love them for their reading value. I'll never use my Farscape RPG or my Mummy: The Ressurection, but they are fun reads.
d20 Oriental Adventures & Rokugan setting. Bought them when i thought a guy in our gaming group was going to run the setting, but he never did. No use for them whatsoever. Don't think I've cracked the books since my first readthrough.
Most of my FR collection (FRCS, Magic of Faerun, Races of Faerun, Lords of Darkness, Silver Marches, Unnaproachable East, Faiths & Pantheons, City of the Spider Queen). Bought back when I was running D&D. I don't completely regret them, but the books are mostly useless to me now and don't even offer the enjoyment of reading value.
Savage Species. Not a bad book, but really not a necessary book and could have used the money elsewhere.
Draconomicon. The last D&D book I purchased. I commonly refer to the DM's chapter as '100 ways to TPK a party.'
Now, there are books I get no use out of, but love them for their reading value. I'll never use my Farscape RPG or my Mummy: The Ressurection, but they are fun reads.
Bront
The man with the probe
Amazingly enough, I regret the 3.0 Monster Manual. Never used it as a DM, tried not to use it much as a player, and once 3.5 came out, I've used the SRD. It's still usefull for art, but not much else.
I got Doomstriders for free (Won it at an EN gathering near Chicago), and it seemed barely worth it. Wasn't that it was bad, just not usefull in anything I intended to do.
As a roleplaying aid, Wheel of Time D20 wasn't usefull. I did like it for background info on the book series though.
I got Doomstriders for free (Won it at an EN gathering near Chicago), and it seemed barely worth it. Wasn't that it was bad, just not usefull in anything I intended to do.
As a roleplaying aid, Wheel of Time D20 wasn't usefull. I did like it for background info on the book series though.
I enjoyed reading Savage Species, Manual of the Planes and Deities & Demigods. They haven't been much use in my campaign (ok, they have been no use whatsoever) but they gave me things to think about.
I also like the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, but only as a guide as to what my own campaign setting book ought to include. It also didn't cost me anything (my brother bought it) so I can't complain. I've used some of the domains, so it has been some use in my homebrew.
Most regretted purchases were all from Fast Forward. The Green Races campaign setting, Monstrous Fighter and Monstrous Wizard were full of errors. I don't know what possessed them to put black text on a grey background, either. I paid nothing like full price for them, and still regretted it. I feel guilty for selling them to some poor sod on eBay, but maybe he'll have a higher opinion than I did.
Their Villains book, Demons & Devils II and Rings of Power were better, but still not worth the shelf space they were taking up.
I quite like Cloud Warriors, Treasure Quests and Dungeon World Catacombs, but by that stage I had very low expectations of FF (which was reflected in the price I paid).
The $5 book referred to by an earlier poster is the Mastercraft Anthology from the Legends and Lairs series. Its bits of their first 10 books, and I'm amazed there wasn't something in it of use. Personally, I liked the "fighters spending XP to gain special combat routines" bit, which I think is also in various Legend of the 5 Rings books.
I also like the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, but only as a guide as to what my own campaign setting book ought to include. It also didn't cost me anything (my brother bought it) so I can't complain. I've used some of the domains, so it has been some use in my homebrew.
Most regretted purchases were all from Fast Forward. The Green Races campaign setting, Monstrous Fighter and Monstrous Wizard were full of errors. I don't know what possessed them to put black text on a grey background, either. I paid nothing like full price for them, and still regretted it. I feel guilty for selling them to some poor sod on eBay, but maybe he'll have a higher opinion than I did.
Their Villains book, Demons & Devils II and Rings of Power were better, but still not worth the shelf space they were taking up.
I quite like Cloud Warriors, Treasure Quests and Dungeon World Catacombs, but by that stage I had very low expectations of FF (which was reflected in the price I paid).
The $5 book referred to by an earlier poster is the Mastercraft Anthology from the Legends and Lairs series. Its bits of their first 10 books, and I'm amazed there wasn't something in it of use. Personally, I liked the "fighters spending XP to gain special combat routines" bit, which I think is also in various Legend of the 5 Rings books.
Meadred
First Post
While I, like some others in this thread, enjoy reading a RPG book and may have it collecting dust on the shelf for a few years without reagarding it as a bad buy, I have done a few purchases that afterwads made me think: "Why?"
1. The thin Greyhawk booklet that WotC put on the market when D&D 3.0 was new.
2. The Book of Eldritch Might I & II. Some nice ideas, but none of them works for me.
3. Several of the clan books to Vampire: the Masquerade. They tend to crash all character concepts I come up with after reading the core book. They always have to twist the basic concept around. :\ The same goes for the guild books to Wraith: The Oblivion too!
4. Psionics Handbook - I bought it and tried to play a psychic warrior in a campign where the DM was too lazy to include any psionics.
Cheers,
Meadred
1. The thin Greyhawk booklet that WotC put on the market when D&D 3.0 was new.
2. The Book of Eldritch Might I & II. Some nice ideas, but none of them works for me.
3. Several of the clan books to Vampire: the Masquerade. They tend to crash all character concepts I come up with after reading the core book. They always have to twist the basic concept around. :\ The same goes for the guild books to Wraith: The Oblivion too!
4. Psionics Handbook - I bought it and tried to play a psychic warrior in a campign where the DM was too lazy to include any psionics.
Cheers,
Meadred
Emirikol
Adventurer
Voadam said:
Speaking of how this could have been actually useful..I'd have done the following:
Great art of the gods (yea, it's there)
Description of the god in context of the pantheon.
A prestige class or new character class for each god or pantheon (or both)
A low, medium and high level stat block for a cleric of each god or pantheon (both).
Gee, that's it. They really pissed this product down their legs. Great art, but who the hell needs god stats.
I WON'T BE FOOLED TWICE WOTC.
jh
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