Worst Purchase Ever?

[TheCosmicKid]

I want to say 3E Deities & Demigods, because I never once used a solitary thing from it in game, but it did have some pretty cool art for the gods. So probably one of the early 3E shoddy paperback splats: Sword & Fist, Tome & Blood, or Masters of the Wild.

 

[Zardnaar]

3.0 doesn't seem to have redeemng splats. 3.5 had good ones.

 

[Schmoe]

All of my 4e books. I bought them hoping to get into the system, couldn't do it, and dumped them all at half-priced books for like 5 bucks.

For a system I've actually used, either Savage Species or the Epic Level Handbook, both for 3e. They were filled with so much uninspiring, unplayable dreck that every time I pulled them down hoping to find inspiration, I put them back filled with sadness and disappointment. The ELHB at least had a few interesting opponents, even if the mechanics were all whacked.

 

[delericho]

So I though I'd start a thread where people could discuss the absolute worst D&D products they have every purchased. What were they? And why?

Well... I'd kinda prefer to discuss my best ever purchases, but since you asked...

The absolute worst was "Scourge of the Howling Horde", a 1st level adventure for 3.5e. This was incompetent on just about every level - a very linear dungeon filled with boring fights, showing off the very worst of the old Delve format. Plus, it was clearly designed for full-colour but then printed in black and white, meaning it had sidebars with dark grey text on a slightly lighter grey background.

And, to add insult to injury, that was also the product WotC chose to introduce a new, higher set of prices.

And, have you had a bad 5e purchase, and if so, what was it and why?

The worst of those, so far, was "Storm King's Thunder", which was the point where I stopped buying the adventures (unless and until they do one for Eberron, Spelljammer, or Dark Sun). But, as you note in your post, it's not bad, just disappointing.

I would cite "Xanathar's Guide" as being very poor value for money (though the content is fine), except that I somehow ended up with a free copy. So I can't really complain about that.

 

[Gradine]

3.0 doesn't seem to have redeemng splats. 3.5 had good ones.

Truth.

I want to say 3E Deities & Demigods, because I never once used a solitary thing from it in game, but it did have some pretty cool art for the gods. So probably one of the early 3E shoddy paperback splats: Sword & Fist, Tome & Blood, or Masters of the Wild.

Me and my friends were always disappointed that the Rogue/Bard supplement wasn't called Lutes & Loots

 

[Azzy]

If any of you want you send me your unwanted D&D-related stuff, I'll be happy to give them a new home.

 

[Wiseblood]

Kingdoms of Kalamar it seemed awesome... so detailed..soooo godawful boring to read and the art.....
3e Deities and Demigods
3e Manual of the Planes
4e Forgotten Realms Campaign...setting book?
4e 2nd books
But the worst and stupidest purchase was Pathfinder .....but not because it is bad. But because I had 3e and 3.5e and it was the same stuff.....damn I am dumb sometimes.

Plus Wayne Reynolds art style is like fingernails on an eyeballboard to me.

 

[Ezequielramone]

Here are my fumbles (I already sold them):
Tiles: shiny and pretty but a pain to actually use them
3e Dragonlance....
2e Maztica box and The Horde box and adventures (just not my taste at that moment)
3e Hero Builder'd handbook: just where it is the content I pay for?
MERP: looked like a classical piece of history for me when I bought it.
Dragon Age dice set: the first set makes impossible to read the numbers.
3e forgotten realms books: just a lot of weird ideas all mixed together (some are good, really good, but the whole doesn't get me). Some adventures are great. I tried to embrace the setting but for every step my players make I have to do a research through books, novels, pdfs, forums, tweeters and phone calls to greenwood to know who is the NPC they just meet. That's why Im moving to tal dorei after my dark sun campaign ends.
4e core books: this edition has some good stuffs like menzoberranzan. But the system is too structured for me.
5e princess of the apocalypse, some sweet ideas here and there but a lot of things don't make sense and hurts when you try to run this campaign.

I almost forgot! The worst thing. The Randal Morn trilogy, railroad where players see the Randal's adventures, I got tired of that crap and for the last scene I closed the adventure and gave "free will to my players". They protected the city in a "kind of civil war" like the heroes they were, there were caos and mayhem and for all of us that was the (almost only) good part.

 

[Tallifer]

All the Rolemaster Companions after #1: truly awful books. I think I bought about seven of them. No good reason to buy them: I am simply an obsessive completist when I get interested in anything. I never even had a chance to play or run Rolemaster after I bought all those books.

 

[Coroc]

Some word on Castle greyhawk which i also own but never played:

If you expect a balanced pregenerated adventure which will work for most parties like many of the 5 e adventures nowadays, it just did not work that way back then! I did a lot of 2nd ed and the buyable stuff was TPK if played as printed. You would not need ToH for that, no matter what you could simply not play these adventures as written. The Mobs were overpowered if not by stats but by their sheer numbers. Magic items on the other Hand were given out without thought of the power Level of the Party. But still you would not survive, because you did not have the hitpoints or healing resources, or the mob Groups were to large or their tactics to deadly.

I dunno how i can give a short example, but it was like that all the time: ...blah blah if the Party succeeds in killing underboss so and so the whole dungeon will be on Alarm, and you will Encounter wandering patrols every 10 minutes on a roll of 1-5 on a d6. Additionally if any Party member took so and so's magical +3 sword of doom with him, the party member will be targeted by a revenge fury demon of ultimate destruction the next day which will fight to the dead and gate in 1d4 additional demons if reduced below 50% health....

So, you can see a lot of homework was to be made by the DM to adjust for his players. Castle Greyhawk was an extreme example of this style.
It's dungeon microcosmos was designed bad, the factions in there did not make logical sense and it was a deathtrap. But i can still remember reading through this and burst into laughing, when i came to the place where some faces or so in different corridors would grant the Players permanent stat increases (very rare and valuable in 1e 2e)
but there was that one ugly grimace giving the Player a -2 to his Charisma permanently while his face turned into that depicted grimace.