What RPG books/manuals do you really regret buying?

[Darth K'Trava]

However, the book I was really angry to have bought was, above all other things: Beyond countless Doorways. I made it available for sale in my gaming group (others may enjoy it after all), but told them to get a thorough look to it first (I am no deceiver after all). One of them initially thought that my review of the book (on Enworld) was really harsh, but then after looking at the book carefully said he in fact agreed with me. It seems that I will never get rid of this book...

Perhaps you should try to find a used book shop to trade it at.... I don't know how many of those are where you live but there's one abt 1/2 hour away that takes game books on trade. Or you can try ebay.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

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.



Kane

heck. You could've taken it back to the store.....

 

[scourger]

GAMMA WORLD d20 is the one that springs to mind. I bought it one weekend, read it the next, and sold it on eBay immediately.

I have purchased many books that I later regretted having, but I have or will divest them.

The good news is that there is always some nugget of value in even the worst books.

 

[fusangite]

The D&D Arms and Equipment Guide - I've used a total of once, and even then there were only 3 useful pages. It's not even fun to read. BLEH!

Damn! You stole what I wanted to say. What a decadent useless piece of crap; and they didn't even give us colour prictures despite the incredibly high number of cents per page. And then one can read From Stone to Steel and see what should have been in the AEG.

 

[Saeviomagy]

How much memory do you have and what OS? The Demo seemed to run OK on my four year old Mac iBook with 640mb of memory. Of course if you want a real memory hog, try PCGen (I have to shut just about everything else down on my system to run it). Is Java's memory management really that bad or is the problem with how the standard container classes use memory or just the way this software is programmed? Anyone have a clue?

It's the coding. They've got a big leak somewhere and they don't seem to have clue on how to track it down. I've seen fast java programs that handle a lot more than this one does.

Outside that... stuff I regret buying.

Hunter: the whatevering. Really, this was yawn city. Lucky it only cost me $20

The earthdawn companion (the 2e one). Yay! Rules for summoning spirits that appear to be a random collection of rolls with no real rhyme or reason! Especially when they could have just added in spirit summoning talents and spells...

I think that's pretty much it.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

OH...I forgot one... AEG's Feats. Aside from the feats found in the 3.0 SRD, nearly everything in that seemed more broken than a chandelier on a paint mixer.

 

[Crothian]

OH...I forgot one... AEG's Feats. Aside from the feats found in the 3.0 SRD, nearly everything in that seemed more broken than a chandelier on a paint mixer.

That's odd, we've gotten great use out of that book and never had any problem with feat balance at all. :\

 

[Psion]

• Book of Exalted Deeds
• Sheoloth - WORST. NPCS. EVAR.
• Rings of Power
• Complete Warrior - Okay, maybe it's not totally useless, but man the Samurai torqued me.
• Stronghold Builder's Guide
• Miniatures Handbook - Only a tiny little sliver of it was useful, and half of that was reprinted!
• Deities & Demigods - What where they thinking? This is one lesson that TSR learned that did not get taken forward to WotC. Faiths & Avatars was a knockout seller even among non-FR fans, because it was flavorful and relevant to PCs and activities in the campaign. To be fair, the non-stat block material was not bad. But there were so many stinkin stat blocks, and various surveys show that the proportion of campaigns above 20th level is very small, and even very few enough of those are high enough level that challenging a god is credible.
• Modern Weapons Locker - After the Menace Manual, I wast expecting something awesome. What I got was a fairly dry weapons listing. Dull.

Chalk me down as still getting great use of out Shady Dragon -- not just for the map, I've even nicked some NPC concepts. Also chalk me down as someone for whom S&P made AD&D worth playing, once tweaked.

 

[Kanegrundar]

heck. You could've taken it back to the store.....

I ordered it online and didn't want the hassle of sending it back. A guy I knew wanted it, so it worked out for me since I got back all that i put into it!

Kane

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

That's odd, we've gotten great use out of that book and never had any problem with feat balance at all. :\

Chalk it up to differing opinions, I guess. The first time I offered this 'round to my group, it was pretty soundly trounced. A couple of the guys borrowed it for a few days and really gave it bad reviews. Since then, it's sat on my shelf without being opened.

But in the best tradition of second chances, open minds and what not, I'll haul it down from the "not so much" shelf and give it another look.

As far as the Player's Option books go, we loved them. When I first heard 3e was coming out, I really had hopes that it was going to go to this format (but with a better eye toward balance). We recognized how completely munchkin it was, and reveled in it.