Blackmoor wrote:

Zippanthropus wrote:I didn't like the DL books either. The only reason I read the first three was due to the fact that I was stuck in bed in Belize for a week or so.

Worst Product: Player's Screen. Told a player to take a walk when he insisted that he roll his dice behind his screen. Also, many of those "Complete X" books. How many times did I hear, "But on page X it says that I have the ability to Y!"?

The complete books really sucked.  As a DM I was unable to keep up with everything in them so the players which specialized in classes always had the upper hand.  I ended up banning all but the core books for 2nd ed!  A few players were really chocked and quit the game, no matter people were lining up to play in my campaign at the time.

Even worse than those books were the Players option Books; really they started the end of 2nd ed being playable for me!!

J

My fellow collectors, players, and dungeon masters,
    You gotta turn the tables on the players.  Sure the Paladin in the game wants to use the new non-weapon proficiencies like "Diagnostics" or "Bureaucracy" for his character.  Yeah the Ranger has a cool kit, which gives him more spells.  (By the way I always though that the Complete Paladin + Ranger Handbooks were among the best supplements ((although the Ranger one had sepia tone spills covering a few pages in my copy.))  But it's not like the NPCs are forbidden from having them.  Remember in the DMG from the original edition how Gygax explained why he didn't include a Critical Hits component to combat.  He wrote that if you include it will be used against the players and they won't like it.  Some complain about Psionics, (since I love that handbook) let me type a Second Edition game scene...
DM:  As you all cross the field you catch the murder approching the river.  He's only two yards from the boat.  Once he's on it the current will take him out of range.  You look at him, he's your age, same experiences, yet he has chosen a strange path of evil.
Group Leader:  I'll have the elf shoot the arrows.
DM:  You used them up, remeber? Gotta keep these things in mind.
Leader:  I tell Delanora to get her Magic Missle spell ready to uncut the boat's tether or blast a hole in the side.  Then I shout, "Surrender! We can dislodge the barque or put a hole in it!"
DM:  The young killer has already stopped.  He stands there looking at his dirk.  He's doing nothing so you wonder is he praying? (Pauses but the group is not with it so they do nothing.)  Suddenly he vanishes.  He's gone.
Leader:  The spellcasters will cast Detect Invisibility.
DM:  (Rolls behind the screen thrice with different dice.)  Delanora's been feeling weak this last round.  (Looks at the player herself.)  You keel over and bite the dust.  Your eyes see the blood pool beneath you and you finally notice the pain in your back.  (Back at whole group.) Whirling 'round you notice the youth with a bloody weapon in hand.  (Rolls one last time behind the screen.)  Surprised, he fades from sight again, only to appear again in the watercraft heading off.
      So as you can read.  A young Psionicist and Thief uses Dimension Door, available to all low level Mind Warriors but only mid-level mages.  he then backstabs (silently) with a poisoned blade.  Then having the initiative he uses Dimension Door again to get away.  And one poor gal has lost a character, for now.  
      Sure your players use new equipment, spells, weapons, and so on, but so can their enemies.  A group of mine once quit (not because of the above scene but) because the villains were just as much power gamers as them.  Another tip is handicap your players with the armor proficiency rules from the Complete Fighter's Handbookand suddenly its harder to use chain mail when your players are used to studded leather.  Knowing about new magic items also comes with other prices.
Verily,
Thomas

One of the worst TSR modules I've ever read is WG9 Gargoyle.  Two gargoyles have lost their wings and need the players to help them... say what?!?!  It's astounding they couldn't come up with a better plot involving gargoyles than that... I know the powers that be said they weren't purposely trying to kill Greyhawk at that time but looking at the modules that were coming out then.... well...

MShipley88 wrote:I never liked the *Complete* books....mostly because they only caused problems.

Have to agree with this 100%. I'm not a edition junkie ( like em all ) and actually enjoy 2nd edition ( I'ts all in the DM anyways ) but these books really caused more BS than anything else. Two words: Breach Gnomes  

On the subject of DL, I enjoyed Chronicles, the Legends and like three other books. Everything else associated with DL was degrees of shabby. The modules outright hugged it, big time, IMO. But I had two players who loved them (as they did everything DL), so I ran them. After the third I suggested they just do it themselves as there really wasn't a need for a DM.

red_dawn wrote:Deities & Demigods...

Giving stats to gods only encouraged years of PC's wanting to go god-hunting.

Ridiculous. I never allowed it in my campaigns, but a casual perusal of letters & forum posts in Dragon Magazine indicates the problem was rampant.

One of the many problems with 1st edition that we'd all like to forget.

Yes I remember when I went away for holidays one summer and upon returning found out that one of the characters had killed Death and taken his sword for himself!!!(He won initiative don't you know)  Gods were mere playthings for the PC's at that point!

Here Zues, come on boy fetch the sword..............

Xaxaxe wrote:

red_dawn wrote:Deities & Demigods

Wow, that surprises me. I always thought that Deities was a great product — there was lots of cool artwork, some educational stuff about some religions I knew nothing about, and, of course, lots of bitchin' power-gaming stats. And, remember, the edition with the Cthulhu and Elric listings is really Super-Mondo-Way-Rare ... you can get, like, $1,000 for one. It was "banned," you know ...

But your point about the runaway munchkin-ism is dead-on. That book just seemed to bring out the worst in everyone (bitch-slapping Elric and getting my hands on an official AD&D version of Stormbringer was one of my goals). I would argue that that sort of rampant power-gaming was more of a reflection on the players rather than the book, though. YMMV, of course.

FWI,. I really like Deities & Demigods.  I alos loved UA, except for it may have been the worst bonded book in the history of mankind.     Nothing like it when you 12 and a book you really like falls apart in your hands for no other reason then you had the audacity to open it.

Dude.  You weren't supposed to sick Zeus on the party.  Some DM's could not understand that....they were kids, afterall.  

    However, it was EGG who went with the idea of a killable god.  He even set her up with a high AC and a glass jaw to make the killing that much more certain but still dramatic.


    I learned a lot from Dieties and Demi-gods.  And, yes, I got Elric and all.

    I think that Oriental Adventures must have been the worst binding job in history.  We used to joke that you had to turn your head away the first time you opened it or the pages could blow up in your face like a grenade.  

Mark  

No worries about me throwing out any books.  The only way I could bring myself to throw out a D&D book is if it has some irremovable bodily fluid such as the 3 Ps.  I was going to be witty and say that if someone gave me a 3rd edition D&D book, I would throw it out, but that wouldn't count because thats not really a D&D book anyway.

bclarkie wrote:No worries about me throwing out any books.  The only way I could bring myself to throw out a D&D book is if it has some irremovable bodily fluid such as the 3 Ps.

God help me, but I'm going to ask — there are three Ps?