What's the best and worst D&D book you own from any edition?

[Celebrim]

Funny... but then I opened page 30 out of foolish curiosity, and now I regret laying eyes on this so much!

How in the world....

Seriously, what was anyone involved in this project thinking?

There has been a ton of useless poorly written crap written for D&D over the years, but this goes straight to the bottom of that stack for being not only useless and poorly written but tasteless and offensive.

I can't even... I have no words. People's ability to imagine and create evil continually leaves me astounded.

 

[Arnwolf666]

I think domains of dread for 2nd edition ravenloft is the best setting book ever made. Followed by the al-qadim sourcebook. And that is purely for the fluff and the way they presented the material. I have not seen as good of a presentation for a setting since those two books. Although there are several others i still love.

The worst was skills and powers and that entire line of books.

 

[Ath-kethin]

I recently bought the Conan 2e rules book, and it is amazing. I don't know when we'll find time to actually run a Conan adventure, but I'm now intrigued by the books that you've mentioned. Could you share more details on what's great about them?

I don't want to derail this thread, but shortly:

1. The incredibly simple class progressions, as befits a retroclones, coupled with the incredibly evocative subclasses. Different wizard specialities have different spell selections; you can tell a necromancer from a cryomancer just by what they cast.

2. The book is, indeed, compleat. At 700 or so pages, it covers everything you need. Think Rules Cyclopedia complete.

3. The art is incredible, and incredibly evocative in and of itself. A nice mix of colors plates and them atic black-and-whites.

I could go on.

My only real gripe is that classes top out at 12th level; it's probably just 30 years of D&D talking, but a class-based system that doesn't go to 20+ just feels wrong to me.

 

[uzirath]

For best I'd have to go with the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. As others have said, many problems, but I pored over those pages for years. The appendices alone were worth the price of the book.

For adventures, from the old days, I loved the Desert of Desolation series. I've run portions of it in three versions of D&D and two editions of GURPS.

Worst... hmm. It's been long enough since I've played much D&D that I don't remember the worsts very clearly. Someone upthread mentioned Castle Greyhawk, though, and I clearly remember my disappointment when that came out.

 

[Arnwolf666]

For best I'd have to go with the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. As others have said, many problems, but I pored over those pages for years. The appendices alone were worth the price of the book.

For adventures, from the old days, I loved the Desert of Desolation series. I've run portions of it in three versions of D&D and two editions of GURPS.

Worst... hmm. It's been long enough since I've played much D&D that I don't remember the worsts very clearly. Someone upthread mentioned Castle Greyhawk, though, and I clearly remember my disappointment when that came out.

Everyone should read the 1E dmg Just to read Gygaxian prose. It was so different and really still is. I just liked his style.

 

[aramis erak]

What's yours?

Best: D&D Cyclopedia. A thick all-in-one, excellently presented and run to run.

Worst: AD&D 1E DMG. This pile of steaming excrement is almost unusuable, with rules buried in bad places, some of the worst GM advice ever written. Not to mention unpleasantly bad line art in the older editions. (I totally freaking hate the gygaxian spew.) Even BoVD is better. It's right on par with FATAL for "needlessly bad ideas"...

 

[Maxperson]

That is mind blowing.

Also, I have got to stop reading this book any further, before I start punching the screen. Anyone that voted for any other book as 'The Worst D&D Book', including 'The book of Erotic Fantasy', is now officially wrong. Even the book of erotic fantasy is a masterpiece compared to the 'Slayer's Guide to Female Gamers'.

I don't consider third party books to be "D&D books." I'm going to keep my votes for best and worst confined to official D&D books.

 

[Son of the Serpent]

@Imaculata so I'd never even heard of the book "slayers guide to female gamers". Curious to see just how bad it was i looked it up and read some of it. I didnt really get the impression of it being close to "worst". Boy was it weird though. Real weird...

 

[Arnwolf666]

Best: D&D Cyclopedia. A thick all-in-one, excellently presented and run to run.

Worst: AD&D 1E DMG. This pile of steaming excrement is almost unusuable, with rules buried in bad places, some of the worst GM advice ever written. Not to mention unpleasantly bad line art in the older editions. (I totally freaking hate the gygaxian spew.) Even BoVD is better. It's right on par with FATAL for "needlessly bad ideas"...

I love this list just to see what people are saying. I so agree with the d&d rules cyclopedia. Your assessment of the 1E DMG shocks me. But to each his own. Love this thread.

 

[Arnwolf666]

Best? That's easy, my 1e DMG

Worst? Also an easy pick. Anything 4e I own. Since 4e is not a single book, the PHB will represent them all.
I dislike 4e so much that these books don't even rate shelf space or the effort to give them away/sell them. Since 2010 theyve resided in a cardboard box in the attic & the last time I checked even the mice had rejected them.

Eh. I see where u r coming from. I didn’t like the rules. But I did like some of the setting stuff and thought the nentir vale was great.