What RPG books/manuals do you really regret buying?

[Wombat]

Regret?

Riddle of Steel is top of the list, followed by Midnight. Both of them sounded great, but are utterly wrong for my tastes. The 3.x version of Unearthed Arcana is also in this group -- all the material in it was either not useful to me or I had found better versions for free on the 'Net; to top it off, I felt I had been guilted into buying it. The original Vampire (WW) -- sounded intriguing, but the whole vampire-as-superhero-with-existential-crisis was just ... silly. GURPS, but I didn't actually buy that -- it was a gift. ARIA because I still have no idea who it is supposed to be played (if, indeed, it is). And there are probably some others that I bought years ago and gave away or sold (like Space Opera, a game with a title that really didn't fit...)

Anything else on my shelves that I have that I regret is due to gifts, not purchases.

 

[Arnwyn]

I've always been careful, so the only book I've regretted buying is FFE's Encyclopedia of Demons & Devils.

After that, I'm now very careful, so I've been able to see a bum book from a mile away (e.g. WotC's Deities & Demigods) and steer clear.

 

[kenobi65]

I bought one of those little adventure booklets (third-page format, maybe 16 pages long) that came out shortly after 3E hit. (I know AEG did some, and someone else did, too...can't remember who did the one I bought, or its name.) It wasn't bad, so I bought several more...and they were all atrocious. Awful writing and editing, incredibly contrived plots, text that didn't match up with the maps, etc., etc. IIRC, one of them dealt with a dragons' graveyard, and 80% of the encounters would be bypassed by any party who had working brain cells and access to fly.

The only saving grace was that they were cheap...and I guess I got what I paid for. :\

 

[Luce]

Torn assunder(not what I expected),DungeonWorld(useless to me),Savage Species(is not bad, but not for full price),Chaositech(that book make me very unconfortable, it also breaks the balance of my game so I sold it 2 days latter)

 

[rom90125]

Dundjinni Platinum (plus expansion) was a complete waste of $96.

I wish I could have that choice back again.

I second this vote...

 

[Crothian]

Most of them I've given away or traded by now so don't really recall them. But a lot of them were on this list.

 

[francisca]

Honestly, about 85% of the d20 stuff I bought, and about 40% of the prior edition stuff.

The stuff I really regret, or at least what is cropping up in my head right now:
d20: Dieties and Demigods, Arms and Equipment Guide, Creature Collection I, Manual of the Planes, Epic Level handbook, Mongoose's Ultimate prestige classes, and on and on...

earlier editions of D&D: Shady Dragon Inn, X3, X7, X8, Immortals Boxed set (both actually), Wilderness and Dungeoneers Survival Guides, WG7, Oriental Adventures

 

[Pramas]

There's only been 1 D20 book that I've bought that I thought was a complete waste: Dragonlords of Melnibone. Even in the early days of D20, with my understanding of the rules not quite what it is now, I could tell this was completely fouled up. I sold it a week after I bought it.

Yeah, that book had so much promise. As a big Elric fan, I offered to help Chaosium out on the mechanics side of things, but they did not take me up on that...

 

[Kanegrundar]

Yeah, that book had so much promise. As a big Elric fan, I offered to help Chaosium out on the mechanics side of things, but they did not take me up on that...

That's an extreme shame. I had high hope for DloM, but Chaosium just couldn't follow through.

Kane

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

Deities and Demigods- I now agree, not a very useful book, even though it has flown around my gaming table quite a bit in one campaign where the DM used the Norse pantheon. Still, a list of domains for each deity and a copy of Bullfinch's would have done just as well.

ELH- I like the monsters, and having levels scaling for above 20th is nice. Have I ever used it in a game that's lasted more than one session before being scrapped? Nope.

Enchanted Locations- The most worthless 3e book I'd ever purchased. Not useful at all. Typical FFE.

FFG's Way of... series- I loved these. My players didn't, and insisted on using WotC's cruddy splatbooks instead. I conceded. Though now that WotC has released much better splatbooks that follow the exact same pattern as FFG's (which they should have made in the first place!), they're basically obsolete.

Manual of the Planes- never really had a chance to use it, as I used my own cosmology, and nobody wanted to do planescape.

Creature Collection I- I liked the monsters, even if they were messed up and poorly edited. But I'd use the revised version instead of the initial one.

Arcana Unearthed- Loved it. Never used it. Sold it. I'll buy Arcana Evolved and use it to run a campaign this summer, with a new group.

Star Wars: Dark Side Handbook: Most of the worthwhile material was in the Revised Core Rules- otherwise it was pretty much a beastiary of dead Sith Lords. About as useful as Deities and Demigods...