Worst 3.5 publishers?

[Vocenoctum]

Good in theory, but I don't care for the Mystic Theurge. Dreadfully dull. And I don't like FR stuff in the core. I thought Greyhawk was the default setting?

I also don't care for the MT, I understand it's place, but don't like it.
the FR stuff was an example, so I don't have a problem with it. I'd have prefered if they'd put a harper type in their that was more overall useful, but that's just because the Red Wizards are very specific.

To be honest, if I were to get any of the 3.5 books it would be the Monster Manual. Those changes don't really bother me as much.

the MM3.5 is great, if for no other reason than me not having to figure out a Grapple mod for all the monsters!

Don't worry, I'm not one of those for whom game version is a religion, no matter what they say about me on Dragonsfoot. . And it isn't just me that would need to rebuy the books, but all of my players.

All I asked from my DM's was to go chapter by chapter, i.e. "we're using Classes, Combat, Races"
But most are doing the "pick & choose" and it's a bit irritating to have to ask every time something comes up.

 

[Pants]

I think he did a good job, but some of the prestige classes and feats (the areas I pay most attention to) were a little pedestrian. Diplomacy bonuses to villains don't really do much for me.

The rest of the material was much better, though.

Exactly my feeling on the matter. I'm not a big fan of 'updating material for 3.5' but I think the BoVD would benefit greatly from it. It has some great ideas, some good mechanics, but overall it's a little slim and I'm not too happy with some of the other mechanics.

As for the Worst 3.5 Publishers, I don't buy enough 3rd party stuff to have a good opinion on it, but while I may not agree, WotC's credability has taken a massive hit from the release of the edition. Some hated it before it even came out, others ignore the problems of 3.0 and focus on the problems of 3.5 (and there are some...), and many have very legitimate problems with it. Far be it for me to judge who has 'legitimate' problems (as I believe that would result in me getting turned into burnt toast ), so I'll just stay away from that.

 

[Merova]

Quality vs. Quantity? Bogus!

What amazes me is how few D&D products WotC are actually producing each year. I greatly appreciate that.

Hi all!

Yeah, my pocket book is happy too, but Darrin's comment of "quality vs. quantity" expresses a level of ignorance that needs to be challenged.

First of all, I'm not a 3.5 enthusiast, but neither am I a nay-sayer. I still use 3.0 in most of my games, but am slowly drifting them into 3.5. Games that I've started since October have all been 3.5.

Likewise, I agree that 2003 WotC releases have all been of dependable value. I don't like most of them, but the quality both in terms of actual mechanical implementation and production values is undeniable. The one book that I really love is Ghostwalk; I think this product is wonderfully imaginative and sets up games of exploration in an area that hasn't been overdone in previous D&D play. Unapproachable East is another very good book, a must buy for Realms enthusiasts.

Overall, I think that WotC is a good company that puts out good products, even if the vast majority of them are not to my liking.

However, the TSR release list was stuffed with product, of wildly variant quality and utility. In terms of setting, they were fantastic. The Dark Sun products listed contain some great stuff, including "Road to Urik" and "Valley of Dust and Fire." Anybody who disses the Al-Qadim line is betraying poor "gamer" breeding; "Golden Voyages" is a marvelous look at constructing an explorationist seafaring campaign and building the encounters based upon player incentive. This degree of passive player narrative currency was unheard of at the time.

How about Ravenloft? It was a banner year. Islands of Terror and the Forbidden Lore set each gave greater campaign depth and narrative width to the setting. The VR Guide to Ghosts remains the classic book for constructing "ghostly tales" for D&D play ever printed; nothing else comes close. As for adventures, "Thoughts of Darkness" and "Night of the Walking Dead" are both fun and frightful.

I'm no fan of the "Complete" splatbooks, but it's absurd to deny the fun and utility that countless players gained from the Elves book. The Bard book wasn't as popular at the gaming tables, but it had some valuable social simulationism, like the rules for setting up concerts or having a fan base, as well as having a huge listing of instruments. I had problems with both books, but I also have problems with the BoED and the Complete Warrior, so design choices that do not fit my style of play can be found on both lists.

Then there's the historical supplements. Mighty Fortress, Celts and Charlemagne's Paladins are all exquisitly written. For fans of "historical" roleplaying, their value vastly exceeds anything recently put out by WotC, or even the d20 market as a whole, although I do think that Mongoose's Slaine does a great job with a magical celtic setting, and I have high hopes for the upcoming Medieval Player's Handbook from Green Ronin for replace my "Charlemagne" book; I have faith in David Chart and the GR folks to put out a great product.

BTW, let's look at the writers for that obscure Maztica adventure "City of Gold." Yup, Laws and Tweet, who are those losers?! "City of Gold" is one of the unrecognized gems of D&D. Anyone who has a love of well written adventures or games of exploration should do themselves a favor and hunt down a copy of this module.

I can go on through the list; Menzoberranzen, "From the Ashes," "Tales of the Lance", Strongholds, these products have stood the tests of time and actual play utility. Yes, there is some garbage in the mix, but let's not get into the "3.5 hating" here.

My apologies for the rant, but Darrin's statement was so offensive that I couldn't allow it to stand. It's shocking to me that an actual game writer would hold such an ignorant position on one of the most creatively expressive years of D&D's history.

Was there too much product? Yeah, but nothing compared to the d20 market today. Nobody was making me buy TSR's Dragonlance stuff then, just as nobody is making me buy Sovereign's Dragonlance stuff now. I was free to buy as I wished to buy.

ON TOPIC: I'm still not a fan of Fast Forward.

Thanks for reading.

---Olivia

 

[johnsemlak]

Hi all!

BTW, let's look at the writers for that obscure Maztica adventure "City of Gold." Yup, Laws and Tweet, who are those losers?! "City of Gold" is one of the unrecognized gems of D&D. Anyone who has a love of well written adventures or games of exploration should do themselves a favor and hunt down a copy of this module.

---Olivia

Thanks for the tip Olivia. I'll look for that one. I'm always interested in a good adventure.

[back to discussion of worst 3.5 publishers]

 

[Turjan]

City of Gold is a free download on WotC's official page .

 

[Darrin Drader]

Yeah, my pocket book is happy too, but Darrin's comment of "quality vs. quantity" expresses a level of ignorance that needs to be challenged.
....
My apologies for the rant, but Darrin's statement was so offensive that I couldn't allow it to stand. It's shocking to me that an actual game writer would hold such an ignorant position on one of the most creatively expressive years of D&D's history.

Excuse me? Ignorance?!?!?!

I think this comes down to a matter of personal opinion, and if anyone's opinion here is offensive its that of someone who thinks its better to flood the market with a bunch of D&D crap rather than focus on the core products with a high production value and let the 3rd party publishers release the marginally interesting stuff. Of the list you brought up, only Menzoberranzen, "From the Ashes," and "Strongholds" has any promise of standing the test of time and of those, really, only Menzoberranzan and Strongholds are truly worthwhile. Maztica has no place on my game shelf and I don't know of anyone who even bothered with it. Ravenloft and Darksun were second tier worlds at best, and of the two, only Darksun was even mildly interesting, in my ever so humble and obviously ignorant opinion (nevermind the fact that I've actually owned all the settings in question since their original release as well as a fair number of products on the list).

In fact, the majority of DMs actually run their own worlds, so you can promote Darksun, Maztica, and Ravenloft all you want, but the fact is that there are very good reasons that WotC isn't making books in those lines or similar ones anymore. The main thing thats going to be the most utility are products that give players more options for character customization. That's what 3rd edition is about. How many good DMs can't take a basic setting book and produce their own material to fill in the necessary blanks? Sure, it won't be nicely bound and go on for 100 pages more than is necesary, but it will fill the need they have at the time.

If you want more books, go buy D20 stuff. Midnight stands head and shoulders above Maztica and Darksun. Go buy the 3rd edition Ravenloft stuff produced by Sword and Sorcery Studios. They're still making it, so it isn't like its not available. I guarantee you that my statement was not based on ignorance. Because of the OGL you have more choices now that you had then, and many of the campaign setting material from these third party publishers is more innovative than it was back in the early '90s anyway. If you haven't checked it out then I recommend doing so before crying ignorance. If you have and you've decided not to like it, then you're one of those people still hung up on the fact that the logo on the cover is D20 rather than D&D.

Oh yeah, welcome to my ignore list.

 

[JeffB]

if anyone's opinion here is offensive its that of someone who thinks its better to flood the market with a bunch of D&D crap rather than focus on the core products with a high production value and let the 3rd party publishers release the marginally interesting stuff.

AFAIC, WOTC is making far more of this "marginally interesting stuff" than most D20 companies, and also AFAIC, most of it is hardly interesting at all, despite being in a pretty package (i.e. having a "high production value"). IMO, WOTC has not released a really good book since MotP, or the FRCS.

The main thing thats going to be the most utility are products that give players more options for character customization. That's what 3rd edition is about.

eh...those products may make great sales (for now), but they are of no use to me as a DM...I don't utilize them at all. Unfortunately, you are correct...3E & D20 is centered around such material. Hopefully there will be a breaking point for this problem..the oversaturation point is already here.

 

[Darrin Drader]

eh...those products may make great sales (for now), but they are of no use to me as a DM...I don't utilize them at all. Unfortunately, you are correct...3E & D20 is centered around such material. Hopefully there will be a breaking point for this problem..the oversaturation point is already here.

So as a DM you don't enjoy creating NPCs with unusual prestige classes or powers and then seeing how your players react to them? You don't see the possibilities in creating actual organizations around the various prestige classes and then incorporating them into your campaign world? How about using spells or equipment they've never seen before? I think that sort of information is quite valuable to DMs since it helps keep the game from getting boring. The know-it-all power gamers who think they're prepared for everything can still be put in a situation where they too get to feel mortal.

I'm not saying that books that appeal to DMs aren't good, but since DMs make up such a small percentage of the overall market, if your products cater only to them they will probably not sell very well. This is something that most publishers have come to realize, which is one of the reasons that there aren't a lot of adventures being released for the D20 system anymore. The products that seem to be doing well are the ones that have a bit of everything. You have the character options, including new feats and spells for the players and then you have campaigns setting information, including numerous quantities of adventure hooks, and new monsters for the DMs. They might even have room for a short adventuer in there as well. You'll see this in everything from the Forgotten Realms, to Midnight and Oathbound. I like the fact that numerous different types of information can all be included in one product.This all comes down to the crunch vs. creamy argument that raised its ugly head about a year and a half ago, and I personally think that the new products that contain a mix of information is far more interesting than books that contain nothing but fluff.

On the other hand, I definitely agree with you on one thing. There is a glut in the market, and the D20 pie is only so big. But that's an entirely different problem.

 

[Darkness]

My apologies for the rant

I can understand that it's not always easy to stay calm if the topic at hand is something you feel strongly about. And a 'worst 3.5 publisher' thread can certainly be the source for much vehement disagreement.

Nonetheless, please do stay calm and play nice, everybody. Thank you.

- Darkness (moderator)

 

[Treebore]

Darrin,

I would guess that his real problem with such books is that so many of them were/are broken. H eprobably creates his own stuff, since it is nearly the same amount of work to re-write a broken PrC, and doing your own will be completely tailor made to that particualr DM's campaign.

I think that is why I buy a lot of stuff, why anyone in this hobby buys a lot of gaming material. We know very well that we are going to ignore as much as 100% of it. Sometimes you find that one idea that makes the whole book worth buying. Fortunately, i typically find a lot more ideas than that. I don't think there is a single non-module product out there that i have used more than 70% of, other than probably the PH and DMG.

Take Oathbound for instance. I like it. I will eventually use it. I doubt I will use more than 30% of the original concept in my version though. That is fine with me. I buy everything expecting less than half of it being something I will use.

Another example. Those items of power books for swords, rings, etc... Overall, they sucked, IMO. However, I liked enough of the background histories and enough of the actual items to make it worth my while to have two of the books.
Otherwise they had lame background histories and/or the items were too powerful for a game below 15th level. A lot of them seemed to be for an Epic level game. Some were useless/unacceptable to me.

Even modules are the same for me. I expect to rewrite a large amount of their content. There have been a fair number of them, especially from Necromancer, where I have re-written less than 10% of the original content.

So, i guess I am easier to please than most.

But I am also very critical of crappy material and practices. My biggest problem with 3.5 is that WOTC's very first announcement about it was an outright lie. I don't like liars. I definitely don't like to give money to people who lie to me. That is why I have bought nothing 3.5 that would go into WOTC's pocketbook. Any purchase I have made was from someone's personal stuff. As it is I have only purchased two 3.5 products, and none of them are the core books.

Besides, everything in 3.0 that was broken was already fixed by me. I didn't, and don't, need WOTC to tell me how to fix game mechanics. Only those who participate in the Cons and other official games would need to have the 3.5 books. I am not one of those. I have the SRD. I have printed out what fixes I want to use, which is mostly just the class fixes.

All the other fixes are handled by me to my own satisfaction. If I ever decide to participate in "official" games I will consider buying the 3.5 books then. By then I should be able to easily find used books somewhere.

I am happy with most of what is put out by the other publishers. What I don't like I don't buy. That is the most meaningful expression of our opinions anyway.
Of course that leaves the ones who put out good material but aren't bought by me in the dark as to why, though. Their "style" and mine do not mesh well. For an example that is why I do not buy Monte's stuff. It is good and very mineable. But our styles are far to different for me to mine much of his ideas. I did buy his eldritch book for Bards, though.