| 10 |
| AD&D First Edition Dungeon Masters Guide | 10 | One of the best toolkit/houserule books ever, if put together in a random fashion. Not really a book to teach dungeonmastering, but a set of tools for a dungeonmaster to use or not use in his games, and one of the best ever. |
| An Echo, Resounding | 10 | Great supplement for Red Tide with brilliantly simple rules for domain play and even continuing the dungeon crawl while utilizing domain play. |
| Carcosa | 10 | Beautiful, non traditional, highly Lovecraftian setting for Lamentations of the Flame Princess (well, sorta. It changes the rules quite a bit) |
| Charnel Houses of Europe: The Shoah | 10 | Probably my most prized supplement for Wraith. Details the holocaust in a mature way, and is poetically brilliant. Try not to cry when you read it, I dare ya. |
| Dragonlance: Fifth Age | 10 | While it practically forces the need for houserules, the gem of a game contained within is worth it. |
| Isle of the Unknown | 10 | A beautiful, nonstandard, completely portable, wacky little island. I am hard pressed to find anything I dislike about this product. I wish more adventures were created with such clear goals, artistic vision and presentation, and usability/toolboxability |
| Lamentations of the Flame Princess: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing | 10 | Finally, B/X D&D done right. This is the game I wish I had wrote, in fact it has many ideas in it that I have been considering for years. The Grindhouse edition has more polish and more stylistic, graphical artwork that seems to be a bit contraversial. Truly one of the best of the non-retroclone old school games. |
| Mastermind's Manual | 10 | Kicks M&M up a notch in every possible way. The point is not in using all the optional rules within, but using the few that will make your M&M the most perfect version of M&M for you. It is highly versatile in this regard. |
| Old World Bestiary | 10 | One of the best monster books ever put on paper. |
| The Order of the Stick: Dungeon Crawlin' Fools | 10 | Whether you like D&D or hate D&D, this comic will tickle your funny bone until you choke. I should know, I've choked twice reading it. |
| Paranoia: GM Pack | 10 | The beautiful and showy GM screen and oh-so-useful Mission Blender (as it really doesn't matter what the mission is in Paranoia) makes this one of the most awesome GM Screen/Booklet sets ever. |
| Pars Fortuna Fantasy RPG: Complete Rules | 10 | An interesting experiment, used random tables and intruiguing house rules to generate an alternate Swords & Wizardry game that is still very recognizably D&D, save with all racial classes and non-vancian magic. |
| Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting / Inner Sea World Guide | 10 | 2011 edition: Very interesting setting, useful even for those who hate Pathfinder with a violent rage (see my Pathfinder rating) |
| Planescape Campaign Setting | 10 | One of the best settings of all time. It seems like a game is as doomed as it is interesting in this market. |
| The Random Esoteric Creature Generator for Classic Fantasy Role-Playing Games and Their Modern Simulacra | 10 | The ultimate monster manual supplement or replacement depending on your point of view. |
| Red Tide | 10 | Honestly, I can't think of a campaign setting that helps the GM do his job of conveying the setting to the players. And it's a very interesting setting to boot. |
| Smallville Roleplaying Game | 10 | This is the future of game design. |
| Swords & Wizardry Complete Rulebook | 10 | I think it captures the spirit of OD&D very well, as well as bringing a few modern sensibilities to it without sacrificing the flavor of it. My preferred D&D (with a few houserules) |
| Tome of Horrors Complete | 10 | The best monster manual ever. I speak of the S&W version, the lairs make the book. |
| Ultimate Power | 10 | Useful handbook that not only expands the available powers, but breaks open the power creation process to give players and GMs the tools to go wild with their characters. Great art. |
| Wilderlands of High Fantasy | 10 | Great big book of encounters and a map keyed to them. The only way this could have been made better is having plots that involve multiple locations in the book. As is they are all self-contained and somewhat exist in a vacuum, which does mean for good portability to any campaign world. |
| Wraith: The Oblivion | 10 | Tragedy and loss concentrated into a RPG. Wraith was the finest of the oWoD and it's a shame they didn't reprint it in the nWoD. |
| Wushu Open | 10 | Game Balance. Genre Emulation. Speed of Play. For the pinnacle of these, look no further. |
| |
| 9 |
| A Saga Companion | 9 | An astounding companion any way you slice it. It adds some truly supplemental material and even rewrites the core in some places. |
| AD&D Second Edition Monstrous Manual | 9 | Due to sheer depth and variety of creatures, this is THE tome of monsters. |
| All Flesh Must Be Eaten | 9 | Great concept, easy formula and rules fall into the background. I see this as Eden's longest surviving (har har) gameline, including the upcoming City of Heroes RPG, due to it's accessibility. |
| Angel Roleplaying Game | 9 | Good game to play all sorts of lower end supers. It's given campaign world is not my cup, but some could see it worthwhile |
| ASE1: Anomalous Subsurface Environment | 9 | Very fun module/campaign setting, Gonzo post apocalypse setting with overarching mad wizards in a magocracy riding in flying cars across a blasted hellscape. With six shooters and dinosaurs. |
| Bearers of Jade: The Second Book of the Shadowlands | 9 | If not for a few systematical errors and the inclusion of the (broken) Lost Hiruma Bushi School, this Shadowlands supplement would have a perfect score. It is depreciated by these. |
| The Bestiary | 9 | This is the precursor to the great format in WFRP2's Old World Bestiary. As such, it is probably my second favorite "Monster Manual" of all time, right behind the OWB, with all the others I've seen leagues behind. Sadly, it's actual game statistics are where it falls, but that's to be expected of Dragonlance Fifth Age. |
| Dark Ages: Mage | 9 | Awesome book, much better than the other Mage lines. |
| Dark Ages: Mage Grimoire | 9 | The ultimate supplement for Dark Ages: Mage. Lucky, because it was the only one produced for Dark Ages: Mage |
| Dictionary of Mu | 9 | One of the most interesting setting books I've ever gotten my hands on. This book and Sorcerer & Sword make Sorcerer a very worthwhile purchase. Higher on style than substance, those who want a geography of Marr'd will find the setting lacking. |
| Everway | 9 | Few imperfections mar this brilliant, literally visionary RPG. It's production values are second to none, it's world alluring, it's system the best diceless I've ever seen (yes, I've seen Active Exploits, Amber, Nobilis, and Theatrix). Magic rules bite, though. I just use it's Powers system for everything, and it hasn't failed me yet. |
| Faery's Tale | 9 | Very good game for kids and parents. |
| Flashbacks | 9 | Awesome compliment to the core, Paranoia XP's only other hardcover "flashbacks" to the time when some awesome Adventures were written and edits them to fit the new edition seamlessly. |
| Grifters & Masterminds | 9 | MWP does it again with a fun book devoted to two of their Roles. Each chapter gives a rundown of how to "fake" being a criminal mastermind of each of the titular Roles, an interesting take on how to use the various statistics with these roles (Strength and Grifter? You bet), new Talents, and several pregenerated non-standard versions of each role. Also this volume features a Fixer chapter which rounds out the series and gives additional support to the last player role. |
| Hitters, Hackers, & Thieves | 9 | MWP does it again with a fun book devoted to three of their Roles at once. Each chapter gives a rundown of how to "fake" being a criminal mastermind of each of the titular Roles, an interesting take on how to use the various statistics with these roles. (Strength and Hacker? You bet), new Talents, and several pregenerated non-standard versions of each role. Also in this volume are three jobs meant for a crew comprised of hitters, hackers, and thieves. |
| In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil | 9 | Great info on Sigil and it's environs, some of the stuff in this book was actually reproduced in the videogame which was an added treat. |
| Leverage: The Roleplaying Game | 9 | Brilliant caper RPG. Time to start paying attention to MWP. They are bound to surprise. |
| Mazes & Minotaurs Players Manual | 9 | Best Greek Myth inspired RPG that exists - and this somewhat surprises me. |
| Mutants & Masterminds | 9 | I give 1st edition a 4. 2nd edition is quite an improvement, surpassing most expectations and solidifying itself as the best supers roleplaying game in the industry. It still has a few warts, however, which keep it from a perfect score. |
| Mystery Codex | 9 | This book is THE Witchcraft sourcebook. All sorts of crazy-badass stuff within, a must for all WitchCraft GMs. |
| The Order of the Stick: No Cure for the Paladin Blues | 9 | After Xykon got Knocked Down (using Toon terminology), the series got a bit slower, but not much. |
| Player's Guide to High Clans | 9 | One of the best supplements for Dark Ages: Vampire, just because of how much extra information it adds to all the Clan backgrounds. |
| Player's Guide to Low Clans | 9 | Like High Clans, one of the better supplements for Vampire because of the histories. |
| Prince Valiant | 9 | The most underappreciated game of all time, bar none. Was innovative in presentation, GM/Player power distribution, and overall style. Plus, anybody can learn the system in 5 minutes. |
| RuneQuest II / Legend | 9 | Has taken the reign of "Best Fantasy RPG on the Market" from WFRP2. |
| Scum and Villainy | 9 | The best supplement for SAGA, because it does something no other book, not even the campaign guides, do: It helps the GM come up with plotlines.
I am annoyed that the bridge of Bounty Hunters from Empire Strikes Back isn't actually present in this book, Boba Fett is in the core rules (which is fine, you should have the core to play the game), Bossk is in the Threats of the Galaxy, 4-LOM/IG-88/Dengar are in the Rebellion Era Campaign Guide (for no real reason), and finally Zuckuss is in this book. |
| Slayer's Handbook | 9 | My favorite Buffy supplement, especially if I could only choose one to deal with canon materials. It as very useful and interesting expansions to the Core rulebook (yes, even Revised) including in-depth info on the Slayer (Not Buffy, but any Slayer), Slayers in Training vs. Surprise! Slayers, different Buffyworlds, and even hints on getting the original Cast's various personality's right. A true supplement, as in nothing here is REQUIRED for play, but also a groovy addition and a merit to any Buffy RPG collection. |
| Sorcerer & Sword | 9 | Best of the Sorcerer supplements (other than Dictionary of Mu). This game and Dictionary of Mu make Sorcerer a fairly worthwhile purchase. |
| Stonehell Dungeon | 9 | Very fun dungeon, put together in a modular style that is easily portable and malleable to both use as a megadungeon in and of itself or break into smaller dungeons, each with a theme. |
| Swords & Wizardry: Monster Book | 9 | Fun product, greatly expands the monster manual entries in the core of Swords & Wizardry Complete |
| Tome of Adventure Design | 9 | Very fun book for adventure design, one of my personal favorites. While it says for S&W or Pathfinder on the cover, it's actually systemless and can work with any D&D or D&D style game. |
| Toolbox | 9 | Brilliant off-the-cuff GM aide. One of the best books AEG has ever published. |
| Weird New World | 9 | Very nice sandbox, dense for the page count |
| Zombie Smackdown | 9 | While the setting in an RPG sense doesn't appeal to me, I can see the awesome behind it's system (as a fan of old-school pro wrestling from the 80s and newer stuff in the 90s). A must for any Wrestling and Unisystem fan. I actually think this was one of the best done AFMBE sourcebooks, it's just a pity I'll never use it. |
| |
| 8 |
| A Guide to the Astral Plane | 8 | This is a very short splat - like the ethereal plane book I think it could have been expanded more. It attempts to make the Silver Void a viable place to life and/or adventure, and I think succeeds better than Inner Planes did. |
| A Guide to the Ethereal Plane | 8 | My favorite of the Plane guides, a must for anybody traveling the plane of possibilities in Planescape. |
| All Tomorrow's Zombies | 8 | Continues AFMBE's tradition of brilliant genre books. Really does do everything from Blade Runner to Firefly to Star Wars in one book. |
| Angel Roleplaying Game Director's Screen | 8 | Very good screen, and pretty. |
| Atlas of the Walking Dead | 8 | Great expansion to real world undead myths. |
| Book of Magic | 8 | One of my favorite of the softcover sourcebooks, belongs closer to Mecha & Manga and Warriors & Warlocks, as you're literally turning M&M into a Dresden Files-like game. |
| Buffy the Vampire Slayer Roleplaying Game | 8 | Revised - In comparison to the original, the revised edition is a marked improvement. An extra 25 pages of material (rewriting the Cast to show Season-by-Season advancement) and the additional material for seasons 6 and 7 make this book a great revision. Other than a few editing mistakes, a brilliant RPG and fan guide. |
| Children of Lilith | 8 | A great set of adventures, which opens up several doors in my mind. My favorite possibility so far has been what if somebody played Lilith? An outcast and messiah. Scorned and worshiped. Probably a perfect one-on-one Tribe 8 scenerio. |
| Classic Organizations | 8 | One of the best sourcebooks for Champions. It updates some of the older HERO adventures. Lots of characters and plenty of adventures to use. Art is great, as usual, with one notorious exception. |
| Dark Ages Storytellers Companion | 8 | The info on minor roads is awesome |
| Dark Ages: Europe | 8 | Very useful supplement on time period for DA: Vampire |
| Dark Ages: Vampire | 8 | One of those great setting combos - gothic vampires in gothic times. |
| DC Adventures: Hero's Handbook | 8 | Few statblock flubs in the back of this book mar it's perfection, and missing utility of the previous edition causes me to drop it a couple pegs until like support come out for this edition. |
| Dead Inside | 8 | Rules were a little bland for my tastes, but Chad's writing make this setting very thought and even emotion provoking. |
| Devil's Due | 8 | Dark Ages: Demon, including all necessary info for crossovers with the other lines. |
| The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game, Volume Two: Our World | 8 | Very good info on the world, production values are great. I still don't see myself playing the game because of the complicated, lackluster system, though. |
| Dungeons and Zombies | 8 | I think the example settings are worth the price of this book. The rest of the stuff presented within serves to create any gritty fantasy world you can think of. |
| Enter the Zombie | 8 | Kung Fu and Zombies mix. The "Big Trouble in Little China" homage Deadworld is especially cool. |
| Faces of Evil: The Fiends | 8 | One of the best supplements for Planescape, the definitive guide to Fiends. Info on all three types of fiends within. |
| The Factol's Manifesto | 8 | One of the better supplements, details the factions in a lot of needed depth. |
| Flight from the Dark | 8 | This book hooks the reader into the world of Lone Wolf almost instantly. It sets up his heroism and wisdom, as well as those nifty Kai Lord powers (Think Ranger-Jedi). |
| Golden Age | 8 | Great sourcebook for running adventures in WWII. It has a detailed history of Golden Age comics and an overview of WWII. Detailed equipment section and a useful rules section for field battles. Contains solid insights into what the homefront was like during the war. Lots of NPCs and new archetypes. Art varies from great to below average. |
| Horrors of the Z'Bri | 8 | One of those sourcebooks that sorta make me go "Whoa!?" Very good fleshing out of the stock adversary for Tribe 8. |
| Into the Outlands | 8 | A book that adds about 1000% more space to the original setting. Finally, you know what happens if you cross the South Tier bridge in Hom heading south! |
| JAGS Have-Nots | 8 | Post-apocalyptic mayhem! |
| JAGS Wonderland | 8 | A very well thought out dark version of Alice's Wonderland. |
| Mecha & Manga | 8 | Yet another great addition to M&M2E's bid for being a universal system. |
| Night's Dark Masters | 8 | Very good resource on the subject. |
| On Hallowed Ground | 8 | One of my favorite splats for Planescape, detailing gods, proxies, and really how the D&D cosmology works with Planescape. |
| One of the Living | 8 | Great resource for post-apocalyptic games. |
| The Order of the Stick: On the Origin of PCs | 8 | Very Good, but why B&W? |
| Over the Edge | 8 | System was revolutionary for it's time, but it's showing some age now. Setting was always really just campaign notes for this spooky little island in the Mediterranean. |
| Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix | 8 | Probably the best of the Planescape bestiaries, as it had a lot of ground to cover and there was no indication the second and third appendices would be created. |
| Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix II | 8 | This edition was aimed mostly at filling up the Outer Planes with strange and exotic creatures. If you're planning on mostly adventuring there, I'd pick this one up in a heartbeat. |
| Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix III | 8 | This monstrous compendium was targeted at mostly filling in gaps in the ethereal, astral, and inner planes. If your campaign was set to take place there, I'd pick this one up in a heartbeat. |
| Road of Heaven | 8 | Very respectable and versatile splat book. Better set up and execution than the old clanbooks series. |
| Road of Kings | 8 | Not only a great road book, but really brings home the feel of the War of Princes |
| Road of the Beast | 8 | Another great Road book for Dark Ages: Vampire. |
| Shadow Players Guide | 8 | Very good supplement for Wraith, highlighting the Shadow only serves to give the game more angst and tragedy. |
| Spoils of War | 8 | The big war supplement, works hand in hand with Right of Princes. New weaponry, a massive combat system, etc. |
| Star Wars Gamemaster Screen | 8 | Folds out into a C, landscape format, and the front has everything you'd want on it save the Millennium Falcon and Darth Maul.
Very good screen. |
| Starships of the Galaxy | 8 | Pretty indispensable, the big book of Starships.
Pretty much any Star Wars starship you can think of is in these pages. |
| Tome of Salvation | 8 | Very nice fleshing out of the cults and followers of Warhammer's religions. |
| Toon Tales | 8 | Very Good supplement for toon in the same vein of the Tooniversal Tour Guide. |
| Tooniversal Tour Guide | 8 | Toon is a better, more viable game with this book. |
| The Traitor's Manual | 8 | Another book I think is practically essential for some serious hijinks in Paranoia XP |
| Tribe 8 Player's Handbook | 8 | 1E: Great because I was pretty lost in the text of Tribe 8 without it.
2E: Also Great for it's updates, revisions, and complete explanation of the overarching metaplot of Tribe 8. |
| Vimary Sourcebook | 8 | Best setting for Tribe 8, one of the essential supplements for the game. |
| Warriors & Warlocks | 8 | This addition makes M&M2E one of the best fantasy RPGs on the market. Screw beating around the bush, this is M&M's first bid toward being a truly universal system, and it succeeds with flying colors. |
| The Zodiac Conspiracy | 8 | Perhaps one of the best books in gaming to flesh out the motivations and backgrounds of a supervillain team. Good art and deep characters makes this a great Champions supplement. The only drawback is that the adventure hooks provided are mediocre. |
| The Zorcerer of Zo | 8 | Very good treatise on Fairy Tale gaming, a slim and sweet system to play Fairy Tales by, and Fairy Tale campaign world set up in one little book. |
| |
| 7 |
| The Black Monastery | 7 | Very impressively detailed haunted house, the SW version is riddled with a few dozen spelling errors, mistypes, and information that was forgotten to be updated from the Pathfinder version, hence a lowered score. |
| Blackmarsh | 7 | Fun little hexcrawl, and the price can't be beaten. |
| Blowing Up Hong Kong | 7 | Good core setting for Feng Shui games. |
| Classic Enemies | 7 | Great compilation of villains with varying abilities and power levels. Contains teams and individual bad guys. Good art. |
| Cold, Hard World | 7 | Good sourcebook for the Dead Inside real world |
| Dark Sun | 7 | Other than the "Psionics instead of Magic" attitude, a good alternate setting for D&D. |
| DC Heroes | 7 | My second or third favorite superhero RPG. For several years it was my favorite. |
| Doomslayers: Into the Labyrinth | 7 | A good supplement for Wraith that helps answer the question: What do Wraiths do with eternity? |
| Fistful o' Zombies | 7 | Spaghetti Westerns and True Grit Westerns covered. Singing Cowboys a funny, but not particularly gameable option IMHO. |
| Freedom City | 7 | Not quite as good as I originally speculated. This book self-contained a setting, but also pretty much self-contained all the characters and villains. Daedalus gets a rogues gallery, in particular, that seems hard to divorce from him and add to the PCs. He doesn't really need PCs help either, being an analogue of Iron Man and all. All in all, I think the book has some spectacular locales and a couple decent open entries in the Hero roster (Megastar, Foreshadow, Dr. Tomorrow), but it doesn't spend enough time actually discussing how to integrate the above into games. |
| G.O.R.E. | 7 | While I personally am not a fan of the system, I applaud Goblinoid Games for making these games able to be seen by a new audience. |
| Galaxy at War | 7 | Does what it says on the tin, focused for military games in Star Wars. |
| Hellbound: The Blood War | 7 | Not quite as good as it's predecessor Faces of Evil: The Fiends, this is still a decent treatise on the Blood War, the Fiends, and the various hells they inhabit, as well as their motivations. |
| Hunter: The Reckoning | 7 | Ignoring the videogames and most of the supplements, this game is one of the best of the oWoD. |
| The Inner Planes | 7 | How this got a bigger splat than the Ethereal Plane is beyond me (the Inner Planes are within the Ethereal Plane). It does cover the elemental, quasielemental, and paraelemental planes and attempts to address the concerns of party survival, as well as answer the question of just what do you do in planes made of elemental energy. I don't think it completely succeeds, and can't see more than a short trip to any of the planes mentioned within. |
| Instant Superheroes | 7 | Very useful for those who want heroes on the run, even has Wolverine and Martian Manhunter analogues. There's also a nifty chapter of PL 6 sidekicks. |
| Iron Age | 7 | Not quite as good as Golden or Silver age, but treats it's source material with a bit more respect than most comic fans do. Some of the characters in Force Ops are more interesting than anything seen in those other two books. |
| Labyrinth Lord | 7 | While I personally am not a fan of the system, I applaud Goblinoid Games for making these games able to be seen by a new audience. |
| Legend of the Five Rings | 7 | 1E = 9. 2E = 4. 3E = 6. 4E = 9 |
| The Magic Box | 7 | Honestly this book is a good reference, but I haven't seen much use out of it. It's rarity and softcover-ness make me hesitant to beat it up at game sessions. On the plus side, Witchcraft is badass and Witchcraft + Cinematic Unisystem is more badass. |
| Mind Games | 7 | Good supplement detailing a team based almost solely on mental powers. Even though the team is a bit one-dimensional, PSI will give the average super team a difficult time. It has some very well-thought out adventure hooks as well.
|
| Mortal Coil | 7 | A combination of Universalis and a diceless bidding system unlike those I've seen come before. Fairly well done, with great artwork despite the "Indie" stereotype. |
| Mutant Future | 7 | Clunky and old school, but that's the intention. I have a lot of respect for those that refurbish/recreate old school games for a new generation. |
| Nine Worlds | 7 | With how highly touted Nobilis is around these parts, it's surprising that this game got swept under the carpet. I found this game to be an easier to understand and reference alternative. Being tied to a real-world cosmology also helped me digest the setting. |
| O.S.R.I.C. First Edition | 7 | While not my personal taste, I applaud those who published OSRIC for bringing back a classic from a bygone age. |
| Paranoia | 7 | XP: The style this book was written in, and it's price-per-wordcount makes it a good buy regardless of whether one plays it or not. It's just a brilliantly written book. I question it's sustainability as an ongoing campaign, but like Toon, I'm sure it'd be hilarious for one shots. Luckily, it only takes 5 minutes to roll up a character. |
| Pulp Zombies | 7 | Pulp flavored zombies, extra cheese. |
| Right of Princes | 7 | Want to rule a castle in Vampire, Mage, etc? Then this is your book. |
| Road of Humanity | 7 | Another good Road book for Dark Ages: Vampire. |
| Road of Sin | 7 | While I question the merit of this Road, the book is as well done as the rest in the series. |
| Roanoke | 7 | I love the system, this setting looks pretty good. |
| Sigmar's Heirs | 7 | Info completes the missing Empire stuff from the core book. A bit dry to the read, but it's made up for by having really interesting history. |
| Silver Age | 7 | It is self-admittedly more Bronze age than Silver, so many of it's elements come from the seventies. Other than that, it's better than Iron Age but not quite as good as Golden Age. |
| Star Wars Core Rulebook | 7 | Saga edition is a worthy successor to d6. Perhaps not my favorite version, but then I've never gotten a chance to play SAGA. |
| Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game | 7 | While the rules may be busted in places, this game is the only one I've ever seen truly emulate the Star Wars feel. While my best sessions evAr were not from this system, this system consistently gave me good results. |
| T1-4: The Temple of Elemental Evil | 7 | T1 really shines as this product's centerpiece, and it's possible the PCs will just walk right past it and head straight for the titular dungeon. If there were just a few more hooks to keep the PCs in town a while longer, you could really grow to like Hommlet and actually want to save it, rather than merely pilfer the dungeon. |
| Tribe 8 Companion | 7 | Good info book on Keepers and tribal cycles. |
| True20 Adventure Roleplaying | 7 | The Revised Version: Opens up versatility and resourcefulness of the system, and cuts the awful campaign worlds. Those worth keeping end up with their own books, so it's all good. |
| Truth & Justice | 7 | Good reference for supers campaigns and rules to emulate supers style play. |
| Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay | 7 | Probably the best fantasy RPG on the market right now. Well, unless you own M&M2E and Warriors & Warlocks. |
| The Way of the Crane | 7 | Other than the rules for Mizu-do (which should be burned then buried), This is one of the books the others should have lived up to. Good material all throughout. |
| The Way of the Phoenix | 7 | Very good history and fiction, rules for Ishiken are actually pretty balanced, with few tweaks needed for the new ring of magic. |
| The Way of the Scorpion | 7 | Everything here is great, except the Shosuro Assassin, which was a bit of a let-down (not really a playable type). |
| |
| 6 |
| Abomination Codex | 6 | Great groups, Immortals are cool. The rest is a bit munchkinish and really has to be overseen by a GM closely. |
| Adrift on the River of Dream | 6 | One of those essential Tribe 8 supplements everybody should own. Loses some points because the magic system is a bit funky. |
| The Burning Wheel: Monster Burner | 6 | Monster-building system puts this book above the pack of monster manuals. |
| C.J. Carella's Witchcraft | 6 | Mechanical hiccups aside, WitchCraft is an interesting alternative to the World of Darkness. Not just a Mage ripoff, but the ability to play Vampires, Werewolves, Ghosts, Mortals, and even Immortals (a la Highlander) makes this game like the WoD, but better due to better crossover potential (you're supposed to play the various supernaturals together here, unlike WoD) |
| Call of Cthulhu d20 | 6 | Honestly, I found it to be better written and better rules than it's BRP counterpart. One of the few d20 variants that I stand behind. |
| Chronicler's Shield | 6 | Average screen, cool picture on it's face. |
| Conspiracy X | 6 | 2.0: Decent version of traditional Unisystem. Can game Conspiracy Theory through X Files, and is a decent Modern ruleset besides. |
| Dark Kingdom of Jade | 6 | Shame they didn't bring out more Shadowlands setting books for Wraith. |
| Deadlands | 6 | Setting - 10; System - 2. |
| Demon Hunters Role Playing Game | 6 | Not bad production values, except for the rather silly pictures (which are a part of the charm after you view the DVD). The Cortex iteration has several problems with balance, which means I'd more likely take the setting provided and use Cinematic Unisystem to play in it, with few additional powers provided from the assets/complications list. Overall, a very fun book, though. |
| Divus Ex | 6 | A very well-packaged, innovative, emulative game. Being free is just a bonus. |
| The Dying Earth Roleplaying Game | 6 | Great production values, good rules, bad presentation. But I hear that's part of the charm, so maybe I just don't get it. |
| Fighting Fantasy | 6 | If only it could have caught on... |
| Golden Comeback | 6 | Good expansion of the core rules, some broken hence -1 point. |
| HârnWorld | 6 | One of the prime examples of how to write a fantasy setting well. By today's standards, an ugly product (save the maps), but no less useful. |
| Hero High | 6 | Overall a good sourcebook, save not really delving into the Claremont Academy enough. |
| Heroes of Steel | 6 | Helps detail combat better than the core rules. |
| In a Wicked Age | 6 | Nice use of random tables. Parts of the system are hard to follow (while it has many examples, he sometimes forgets to explain how the mechanics are supposed to work and thus you have to fiddle through the example to find out), and while the game says it's good for long-term play, this ends up being a long-term of one-shots with few recurring characters (not a "level 1 though level 36" type of game). I do like the character creation bits and Particular Strengths, but as before it's a chore to leaf through the book and find out how it all works. I also think the game would be more interesting if there were some GM advice on building your own Oracle, as using only the four presented limit the possible scope of the game severely. |
| Jedi Academy Training Manual | 6 | Very nice, if sparse book on the Jedi tradition. Many new Force powers, I liked the ones based around Lightsaber Forms. |
| Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide | 6 | Decent retelling of the game stats and whatnot, for some reason the Ebon Hawk stats are in the Starships book rather than this book. |
| Lockdown | 6 | Good sourcebook, but rather limited setting. One of the enjoyable parts of this book is that a superhero is actually in Lockdown. |
| The Metabarons | 6 | Fairly average system, fairly nice setting and the artwork is top notch. Book is a little too big, though (not in terms of pagecount but in terms of physical height). |
| Midnight Realm | 6 | Underdark + Hell. And done well. |
| Monster Smackdown | 6 | Very nice monster book, one of the better ones I own. Has a few more little bonuses in the back as well. |
| The Mutant Experience | 6 | Expands on Mutant Powers from the core, and does so fairly well. |
| Perfect 20 | 6 | Despite my hatred of "wealth" systems in traditional gaming, a nicely packaged product and a lighter version of d20 without sacrificing most of the quirks of d20. |
| Plundered Vaults | 6 | Several good adventures, a few stinkers. Great art and hardcover presentation. |
| Prime Time Adventures | 6 | Game seeks to capture and emulate it's source material: Good Television, and does the job, no more and no less. |
| Prose Descriptive Qualities System Core Rules | 6 | Obviously a lot of thought went into this game system. While it's marvelously simple, it has breadth and scope that many others can't match. Being a relatively traditional (action-based, wound levels, etc) trait-based game and having as many core rules as Risus is quite a feat. In fact, I would probably call this the version of Risus I like. |
| Realms of Sorcery | 6 | 2E: A decent sourcebook for WFRP magic, even reprinting the original core materials so you don't have to shuffle books. Some of the setting bits were rather dry and uninspired, though. |
| Sorcerer | 6 | I'd have to agree that this is one of the games that game designers need to be familiar with. While it's playability is questionable for most groups, It's design and supplements would be worthwhile for any system guru to take a look at if they want to attempt better play. |
| Talislanta | 6 | Big and impressive and scary. |
| Toon | 6 | Game is perfect for emulation of zany cartoon characters. And like zany cartoons, should only be played sparingly. |
| Tribe 8 | 6 | Great, brilliant setting marred by a sadly average, lackluster system. |
| Vampire: The Requiem | 6 | Good rewrite of a mediocre original game. The physical style and presentation bring it above the pack, the setting (or lack thereof) and system (or lack thereof) bring it back down. |
| Vanishing Point | 6 | Decent obscure game. A bit trippy setting. |
| The Way of the Crab | 6 | Few mechanical hiccups (Crab Hands shouldn't exist) aside, not a bad sourcebook for the Crab. |
| The Way of the Lion | 6 | Good history and fiction. Bad Ikoma Bards. |
| Wire-Fu: A Wushu Game of High-Flying, Hong Kong Action! | 6 | One of the best places to start playing Wushu. Sadly Wushu's reputation to only do action movies comes from this game. |
| Word of the Dancers | 6 | Decent splatbook detailing two of the Fatimal tribes: Agnes and Dahlia |
| Word of the Fates | 6 | Decent splatbook detailing the three eldest Fatimas: Magdalen, Eva, and Baba Yaga. |
| Word of the Pillars | 6 | Decent splatbook detailing the fatimal tribes of Joan and Tera Sheba. |
| The World at War Sourcebook | 6 | This book is packed with characters who operated during World War II in the DC Universe. Plenty of NPCs with commentary from the various characters within the book. However, no adventure ideas and a real lack of artwork bring down an otherwise great supplement. |
| |
| 5 |
| A Player's Primer to the Outlands | 5 | |
| Advanced Dungeons & Dragons CD-ROM Core Rules | 5 | |
| Adventure! | 5 | The system doesn't fit the setting in either case. |
| Agents of Freedom | 5 | This book really felt like it was all over the place. I honestly think it was the worst of the M&M2 line merely due to it's "blah"-ness |
| Al-Qadim: Arabian Adventures | 5 | |
| Alternity Player's Handbook | 5 | I've seen many swear by this game, but when I had it I thought it was quite average, and in some places complicated. |
| Armageddon: The End Times | 5 | Pretty hardcore version of Unisystem, the version I'd get if I were just starting out. Lots of options in this book for characters, moreso than WitchCraft, AFMBE, Terra Primate, and ConX 2.0. Not as much thought went into the balance of this game as most of the current Unisystem releases. |
| Artesia: Adventures in the Known World | 5 | Average game, pretty pics/layout, no index. |
| Barbarians of Lemuria | 5 | |
| BASH! Fantasy Edition | 5 | |
| Big Eyes, Small Mouth (BESM) | 5 | I'm commenting on 3rd edition. Very helpful with Anime stylings and user-friendly, marred by several editing flubs (I grit my teeth every time I open to page 66) and a continued ease to imbalance that has plagued BESM throughout it's editions. Some very useful info on Anime, but no mechanical support for any sort of anime-style play, though. |
| Blood & Honor | 5 | I'm giving it a 10 because my name is in it, I'm the guy who entered it into the index, and because it's fucking awesome.
No bias at all. ;) |
| Blood of Heroes | 5 | Update for one of the best supers systems, DC Heroes. Bad news is that the art and setting of this new book are laughably bad. The system alone keeps this book at an even Average. |
| The Book of Archetypes | 5 | |
| Book of Legends | 5 | |
| The Book of Nod | 5 | |
| Broken Pact | 5 | |
| The Buccaneers of Shadaki | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| Buffy the Vampire Slayer Director's Screen | 5 | Leaves out some stuff that the Angel screen possesses. Otherwise, average. |
| Bunnies & Burrows | 5 | |
| The Burning Wheel: Fantasy Roleplaying System | 5 | A very innovative, if counterintuitive, game. |
| Call of Cthulhu Keeper's Screen | 5 | |
| The Captives of Kaag | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| Cartoon Action Hour | 5 | |
| Castle Death | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| The Caverns of Kalte | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| The Chasm of Doom | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| Chill 1st Edition | 5 | |
| Citadel of Light | 5 | |
| City o' Gloom | 5 | |
| The Clone Wars Campaign Guide | 5 | |
| Conspiracy of Shadows | 5 | |
| The Curse of Naar | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| d20 Apocalypse | 5 | |
| D6 Adventure | 5 | |
| The Darke Crusade | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| Dawn of the Dragons | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| DC Technical Manual | 5 | Good sourcebook for DC Heroes detailing much of the equipment used by the heroes and villains of the DC Universe at the time. The art is functional but very plain, which is inexcusable considering the source material. |
| Dead Gods | 5 | |
| Deadlands: Reloaded | 5 | Awesome setting paired with terrible rules (as bad or worse than it's original rules). Beautiful layout and style, but lower wordcount. |
| The Deathlord of Ixia | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| Deathtrap Dungeon | 5 | As far as CYOA books go, it's a decent one with a few worthless items (which I consider a good thing) and a few arbitrary decisions that lead to death (which I consider a bad thing). |
| Don't Rest Your Head | 5 | Great premise. The idea behind Discipline/Exhaustion/Madness dice is nice, but you wind up with too many color-coded dice pools. The Mad City is also just a little too goofy for how dark the game is. The juxtaposition is really off-putting, and I think hurts the game. |
| Donjon | 5 | |
| Dragon Warriors | 5 | Old school, but not without charm. |
| The Dungeons of Torgar | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| Dust Devils | 5 | |
| Eberron Campaign Setting | 5 | |
| Epic Role Playing Atlas of Eslin | 5 | This book bothers me because it's 124 pages while the Rules were 140 and Magic was another 140. The writers had much more to say about rules and magic than the world the game is based in. Other than that minor quirk, it's pretty average fantasy. |
| Extreme Paranoia | 5 | |
| Fading Suns | 5 | |
| The Fall of Blood Mountain | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| Fate: Fantastic Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment | 5 | |
| Fates Worse than Death | 5 | Sadly average game system tacked on to a very interesting, dynamic, and innovative look at cyberpunk. |
| The Fellowship of the Ring Sourcebook | 5 | |
| Feng Shui | 5 | OK system, nothing to write home about. The Action Movie genre was never covered better! |
| Fire on the Water | 5 | The start of problems in the series, some encounters were impossible to get through if you didn't go through Flight from the Dark first and transfer your character over. If you do, this book is better. |
| The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide | 5 | |
| Formless Collaborative Roleplaying | 5 | |
| Four Bastards: A Feng Shui Scenario Sourcebook | 5 | |
| Freedom's Most Wanted | 5 | I put this title very low in the totem pole because there are some characters that are very samey, such as three different Mr Freeze analogues. There are gems here and there, but overall I would call this a rough book you'll find a few diamonds within. |
| Friends Of The Dragon: A Guide to Player Character Groups | 5 | |
| Fudge | 5 | After years of questioning it, I've come to the conclusion I think Fudge is a good system, but not a good game in and of itself. It only bothers detailing mechanics, and doesn't bother with dealing with how one plays the game. |
| Galaxy of Intrigue | 5 | |
| Ghostbusters | 5 | Still a fun little game after all these years. |
| Godsend Agenda | 5 | |
| The Great Maze | 5 | |
| The Great Modron March | 5 | |
| Guide to the Technocracy | 5 | The worst and best book for Mage, all at once. |
| Heroes of Hope | 5 | |
| Heroes of Sorcery | 5 | |
| HeroQuest | 5 | Average game, new iteration doesn't really help much, but is a bit more cleanly explained. |
| The Hierarchy | 5 | |
| House of Hell | 5 | |
| The Hunger of Sejanoz | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| Icar Elements | 5 | |
| Icons Superpowered Roleplaying | 5 | Considering it's writing credits, it should be a lot better than it is. I found it very ho-hum. |
| InSpectres | 5 | Picks up on octaNe's failure to sustain long-term play a bit. A great game for those who like Ghostbusters, Reality TV, or want to play a hybrid of the two. |
| Jovian Chronicles | 5 | |
| The Jungle of Horrors | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| King Arthur Pendragon | 5 | A bit D&Dish. |
| The Kingdoms of Terror | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| Kult | 5 | Evocative setting, rules are sub-par. |
| The Last Tower: The Legacy of Raistlin | 5 | |
| The Legacy of Vashna | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| Little Fears | 5 | Exceedingly average, if limited, horror game. Nice art. |
| The Masters of Darkness | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| Mazes & Minotaurs | 5 | Average game, average production values, gives away it's satirical nature rather early on. All in all, not a bad alternative to old-school D&D. |
| Mazes & Minotaurs Creature Compendium | 5 | |
| Mazes & Minotaurs Maze Masters Guide | 5 | |
| Midway City | 5 | |
| Mouse Guard Roleplaying Game | 5 | Good production values, bit too complicated for the target audience, unless the target audience was Burning Wheel fans. |
| The Mutant Epoch Hub Rules | 5 | The system isn't great but the artwork is nice and plentiful. |
| Mutants & Masterminds Gamemaster Screen | 5 | |
| Mydnight's Hero | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| Mystery Men! | 5 | |
| Nebuleon SFRPG | 5 | All the benefits of this game cancel out the hindrances. It's roughly average. |
| Ninja Burger | 5 | |
| Nobilis | 5 | Utterly torn. Brilliant system, like the prose. Layout and book dimensions (in Hogshead version) could use some work. Also, the fact that it turns most off with the size and prose just kills the game for me. I can't even bear to look at it. |
| Otherkind | 5 | |
| Paladin | 5 | |
| Palanthas | 5 | |
| Paranoia | 5 | I can't believe 5th gets lumped in with 1st and 2nd. 1st/2nd get 9, 5th gets 1, average is 5 |
| PHBR1: The Complete Fighter's Handbook | 5 | The only of these books I recommend, as it gives Fighters near the power of the other classes. Don't let Paladins and Rangers take the kits. |
| The Plague Lords of Ruel | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| Planes of Conflict | 5 | Very nice for it's info on Carceri and the Beastlands (and a bit of Gehenna). The rest of the box is rather boorish. The exterior art isn't very good, either. |
| The Prisoners of Time | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| Puppetland: A Storytelling Game with Strings in a Grim World of Make-believe | 5 | My only complaint is the lack of support for long term play, and a slightly morbid but goofy setting (but the price is right). |
| Questers of the Middle Realms | 5 | |
| R1: Rappan Athuk: The Dungeon of Graves: The Upper Levels | 5 | Fairly average, if brief. It bothers me that this adventure is cut into several small pieces. |
| R2: Rappan Athuk 2: The Dungeon of Graves: The Middle Levels | 5 | Fairly average, if brief. It bothers me that this adventure is cut into several small pieces. |
| R3: Rappan Athuk 3: The Dungeon of Graves: The Lower Levels | 5 | Fairly average, if brief. It bothers me that this adventure is cut into several small pieces. The end is somewhat longer, but then you have to buy the two other books leading up to it, doncha? |
| Red Dwarf | 5 | |
| Reign | 5 | Finally rounded out ORE into a passable game system. Good company rules, bad physical book (chapters are in a strange order, too). |
| Revanche | 5 | |
| The Riddle of Steel | 5 | |
| Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering | 5 | Some good GM advice here, but I could do without the incorrect player stereotypes that plague the book. |
| Rune War | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| RuneQuest | 5 | |
| Scavenger's Guide to Droids | 5 | |
| Service, Service! | 5 | |
| The Seventh Seal | 5 | Very strange World of Darkness-esque supernatural splat game. Hardcover is pretty slick, art is average, system is rather average as well. |
| Sex and Sorcery | 5 | The most disappointing sourcebook for Sorcerer. |
| The Shadow of Yesterday | 5 | |
| Shadow on the Sand | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| Silver Age Sentinels | 5 | |
| Simple20 | 5 | |
| The Sorcerer's Soul | 5 | |
| Spherewalker Sourcebook | 5 | Ultimately, not a very good or bad product. I wouldn't buy it for over cover price, though ($20). It's vastly overrated. |
| Spirit of the Century | 5 | Average RPG bolstered by it's current status as a RPGnet Darling. |
| Star Frontiers | 5 | |
| Tales of the Space Princess Sci-Fi Adventure Game | 5 | |
| Terra Primate | 5 | Sadly, this was basically just AFMBE - zombies + apes. Good artwork, production values, and support for the genre though. I admit it's the worst of the Classic Unisystem titles. |
| Theatrix | 5 | |
| Titan: The Fighting Fantasy World | 5 | |
| Toon Ace Catalog | 5 | |
| Toon Strikes Again | 5 | |
| Trail of the Wolf | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| Traveller | 5 | |
| Trial by Fire | 5 | |
| Tribe 8 Map Pack | 5 | Pretty, but worthless without corresponding books. Truly an item for the guy who has EVERYTHING Tribe 8. |
| Tribe 8 Weaver's Screen and Assistant | 5 | |
| Trollbabe | 5 | While the actual "Trollbabe" aspect of the game limits the audience quite a bit and characters are statistically ill-defined for a game that is supposed to be easy for mainstream gamers to get into, the conflict resolution is worth the price of admission. |
| True Sorcery | 5 | |
| True20 Worlds of Adventure | 5 | |
| Tunnels & Trolls | 5 | I give the versions by Outlaw Press a 0, and must recommend that whatever you do, do not buy copies of these editions (currently only the 6th edition), because the bastard who "owns" Outlaw Press illegally produced the game without Ken St Andre's consent. |
| Unhallowed Metropolis | 5 | An absolutely brilliant setting marred by absolutely average rules. I'm at a loss whether to leave this at five or rate it a four due to the disappointment. |
| Unknown Armies | 5 | Great style, great substance, paired with slightly flawed rules. A bit of a problem in the "Now what do I do with it?" territory. |
| The Unknown Regions | 5 | |
| Vampirium | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| Vimary Burns | 5 | |
| Voyage of the Moonstone | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| vs. Monsters Deluxe Edition | 5 | |
| Warrior Unbound | 5 | |
| The Way of the Dragon | 5 | |
| The Way of the Ratling | 5 | |
| The Way of the Unicorn | 5 | |
| Wayfarers | 5 | |
| Weapons of the Gods | 5 | Errata and confused mechanics mar this beautiful book. |
| Weep | 5 | |
| Wings of Fury | 5 | |
| Witch Hunter: The Invisible World | 5 | Pretty production values, absolutely run-of-the-mill game. |
| Wolf's Bane | 5 | The Lone Wolf series, as a whole, are quite average. The first few books of the series really hit it out of the park, but afterward I got to the point where I actually wanted to narrate the character going on vacation. He's constantly moving and saving the world, and it just gets old after several books. |
| The World of Darkness | 5 | Relatively decent rewrite of the mediocre WoD system, set apart by tone and prettiness. |
| Wraith: The Great War | 5 | |
| Zen and the Art of Mayhem | 5 | |
| |
| 4 |
| 7th Sea Game Master's Guide | 4 | Would be average if not for it's system getting in the way at times. |
| 7th Sea Players' Guide | 4 | Would be average if not for it's system getting in the way at times. |
| Ars Magica | 4 | Average system (a bit too complex in places), rules/setting too dry for me. |
| The Authority: Role-Playing Game and Resource Book | 4 | Brilliant artwork, mostly or entirely taken from the licensed comic. The system herein is SAS Tri-Stat, but the lack of specific help GMing supers makes this game somewhat less viable than SAS. |
| Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game | 4 | d20 3.5 simplified, fixed, then re-broken. |
| Basic RolePlaying | 4 | For a universal, multi-genre game it holds over a lot of the CoC/Runequest eccentricities. |
| Blue Rose | 4 | Nearly as refined as True20, which is an average game. |
| The Book of Archetypes II | 4 | While the Book of Archetypes 1 had ready to use PCs for the base setting, this one includes more for supplemental settings introduced in sourcebooks, making the game less viable for those who only have the corebook, or even those who only have a few supplements. |
| The Book of Hod | 4 | Bit of a let down due to it's blah-ness. |
| Buttery Wholesomeness | 4 | Just like HoL, not funny enough to warrant a purchase at it's cover price. It's random chargen works, but it's also so hideously complicated that it's obviously written in a joking manner. |
| Capal Book of Days | 4 | Not a very big fan of Capal, Vimary seemed brimming with more ideas. |
| Castle Falkenstein | 4 | Good art, decent setting, decent writing/editing, innovative but ultimately complicated method of conveying the system/setting. I've never seen a copy where the binding didn't die horribly. |
| Castles & Crusades Players Handbook | 4 | First printing was utterly horrible.
Skip ahead 3 printings, now it's passable.
The core issue I have with this game is the Primes system, as it attempts to fix the problem of ability scores = class ability and manages to break it worse: many classes pretty well spell out what primes you need to not suck at them (Playing a Ranger? Good idea to be Human so you can Prime in the Ranger's 3 needed high/prime ability scores: Strength, Dexterity, and Wisdom). Also the Prime bonus does nothing for combat, meaning unless you're very lucky you still won't be able to play a passable Fighter. |
| Cyberpunk | 4 | Mediocre system, cool-ish setting. The "alt-80s-future" RPG if there ever was one. |
| D6 Space | 4 | The Star Wars system with all the serial numbers filed off. |
| Dark Heresy | 4 | Would be better if it wasn't a shoddy WFRP 2 port. |
| Demon: The Fallen | 4 | A retreaded tire. |
| Dogs in the Vineyard | 4 | Was a darling. Kinda blah and uninteresting. |
| Dragon Fist | 4 | Ultimately not enough chargen options for a sustainable game, nor enough setting info, but I'd really like to see this baby fleshed out in the future. |
| The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game, Volume One: Your Story | 4 | Very good production values, but the character creation and system seem to require a bit too much buy-in on the part of the players. This game is awful to chargen with people new to the hobby. I give it the highest rating I can give a game I don't consider playable by average hobbyists, a 4. |
| Dungeons & Dragons 3-Volume Set | 4 | By today's standards, it's a poor (and unfinished, requiring DM interpretation for the game to really work) RPG, bad art, writing, editing, production, not worth commercial distribution. It's also what started the hobby. Go figure. |
| Earthdawn Second Edition | 4 | Confusing system, otherwise average. |
| Epic Role Playing Bestiary | 4 | Could have used more/better art. |
| The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen | 4 | Closer to "drinking game" than "RPG" |
| Godlike | 4 | Very Simple: Hard Dice Suck! |
| HardNova II | 4 | IMHO same problems as Iron Gauntlets |
| Harvest of Thorns | 4 | Not really connected to the big storyline, and suffers a bit from that. |
| Heaven & Earth, Third Edition | 4 | Ultimately unsustainable game world. |
| Hero's Banner: The Fury of Free Will | 4 | Sometimes innovation comes at the cost of building something nobody wanted to begin with. Nice attempt, though. |
| Heroes of Defiance | 4 | Weak Professions in comparison to the rest of the boxes |
| HoL: Human Occupied Landfill | 4 | Yes, it's playable. No, nobody will ever play it. Yes, it's a funny read. No, it's not funny enough to warrant a purchase at cover price. |
| Iron Gauntlets Expanded | 4 | Roughly "average" fantasy RPG. Drops a point due to it's complete lack of balance in design (not a "dis" per se; Brett made this public himself). It would rate a 5 if I didn't care about balance. |
| Liberation | 4 | Takes us toward Capal, which was not an improvement in my eyes... |
| The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game Core Book | 4 | Doesn't quite fit it's source material/inspiration. Bad balance (to be expected with LotR), but still doesn't feel like LotR, much more like a standard ill-balanced fantasy game. |
| The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game Narrator's Screen | 4 | Adventure is bad, screen is adequate. |
| Low Life: The Rise of the Lowly | 4 | A game set at the extremes, both good and bad. Ends up below average because the concept seems too wacky to play. |
| Marvel SAGA | 4 | Has many broken/missing rules, much like DL5A. When fixed, it makes a passable supers game. Unlike DL5A, I couldn't see a gem of a game contained within. At best, I only saw an average one. |
| Marvel Super Heroes | 4 | Simpler than the Advanced set, so I'll give it an extra point. |
| The Mountain Witch | 4 | Many cool thematic elements adorn this game, the only problem is bringing all of them together to play the game |
| Mummy Players Guide | 4 | Doesn't quite make up for Mummy's required supplements (see Mummy comment). |
| My Life with Master | 4 | Inspired, but little replayability. |
| octaNe | 4 | Good design concept except for no motivation set up for continued play. |
| Orpheus | 4 | A remake of Wraith from the perspective of an aware mortal. And not very interesting in comparison to Wraith. |
| Pokéthulhu | 4 | Bad system/setting, but cute and funny/zany. Most likely unplayable as more than a one-shot (if that). |
| Polaris | 4 | Perhaps just a bit too wacky for it's own good. |
| Rebellion Era Campaign Guide | 4 | Bit underwhelmed by this book, as I think the Rebellion Era deserved a bigger splat. It felt like the writers thought "I guess we've got to do a rebellion book" and the attitude shows. |
| Rune | 4 | Gains points for being fresh and trying something new, but loses due to bad playtesting and, in some cases, stuffing a system where it doesn't belong (the Ars Magica system seemed ill-suited for the... concepts of this game). Doesn't seem like it would hold up an extended campaign, sadly (I bought it for Viking campaigns). Good production values (Atlas Games is great about that). |
| Sengoku | 4 | Mix a dryly written history book and a lackluster, run-of-the-mill game system, I give you Sengoku. While the setting choice is admirable, couldn't they have picked a more interesting way to convey it than a history lecture? |
| Serenity Role Playing Game | 4 | Great setting, but barely expanded from what we know of the series/movie. Most elements from the series are presented with the serial numbers filed off. The system, while light, is incomplete. This book does not make Serenity/Firefly game-able. Well above average production values, though, with many stills from the movie. |
| Shadowrun | 4 | Newest edition of the game has risen it's rating a few points in my book. Chargen is unbalanced and gearing-up is a total chore, which places the game firmly in the "almost average" category for me. |
| Stuff | 4 | Equipment book, well written but designed to be practically worthless for anything but flavor (Equipment in Paranoia isn't known for working well). |
| Trail of Cthulhu | 4 | Very good take on the Mythos, rules are somewhat lacking in the ability to hold up traditional play. |
| Universalis | 4 | The very essence of a storytelling game, with great amount of book keeping required. But also a lot of "what do I do with it" going on... |
| Villains and Vigilantes | 4 | Dated and clunky, but has a certain charm. |
| Wild Talents | 4 | Stats are not geared toward supers play, probably held over from Godlike. There is too much bloat in the skills as well. ORE (specifically Hard and Wiggle dice) have some revision, but it seems rather half-baked for the years of playtesting that supposedly went into it. Hard dice basically need to be deleted to make this game viable, and various special dice should probably be limited as well. I did like Ken Hite's chapter, though (and could have done with more of it and less Godlike rehashing). |
| WMD | 4 | More info on how to facilitate "straight" style play would have been better. Without these missions could pretty much be played in any of the styles. |
| Word from the North | 4 | Suffers from it's lack of connection to the core metaplot. |
| Wraith Player's Guide | 4 | Supplement has some things that were missing from the core, some things not needed/necessary. |
| |
| 3 |
| Aberrant | 3 | Bad editing, bad rules. Passable setting, nothing to write home about. |
| Action! System Core Role-playing Game Rules | 3 | No art, dry text, average otherwise. |
| Army of Darkness | 3 | Worst book I've ever gotten from Eden (This is a hard rating to make). As a lover of the film, I actually felt the book was far too centered on it and it's chief characters (it also over-used quotes from the film). The lamination is coming off the hardcover as well, bad production values compared to Angel and Buffy. It reminded me of the Serenity RPG in it's missing the point of it's own existence: to expand the universe to make it game-able, not just retell it. AoD just barely did any expanding with the few variant Deadworlds in the back. |
| Basic Role-Playing | 3 | Pretty blah and uninspiring. |
| Birthright Campaign Setting | 3 | A good effort, but ultimately broken and not a sustainable game setting without a lot of GM moxie. |
| Bride of Portable Hole | 3 | I laughed a couple times. Then deleted it. |
| Burning Empires | 3 | Bad setting + Mechanics crazy glued to that setting. Some flaws, to say the least. |
| Bushido | 3 | Pretty terrible ruleset, by today's standards. |
| Call of Cthulhu | 3 | An overrated, aged, average system paired with dry textbook-esque setting info. Absolutely boring to read anything but the Lovecraft stories/quotes. |
| Capes | 3 | This game seems more mechanically bound to what is going on around the table rather than what is going on in the game, which I believe is quite counterintuitive. As a superhero game, it lacks support for it's genre. As a storytelling game, it is somewhat hard to understand, and once I did, I realized I didn't want it. |
| The Cauldron of Fear | 3 | This is where I started noticing that if you didn't play through ALL the books (as in, have the Sommersword and other items), getting through books was going to be impossible. |
| Champions Universe | 3 | It attempts to link the characters and storylines from the various Champions products into a coherent universe. Has some updated NPCs. However, the book is virtually useless unless you have at least Classic Enemies and Classic Organizations. |
| The Cheap & Cheesy Fantasy Game | 3 | Half-hearted attempt at a viable fantasy game. |
| Chivalry & Sorcery | 3 | Has quite a few flaws by today's standards. |
| The Complete Druid's Handbook | 3 | One of the better Complete books. Still bad kits. |
| Conan The Roleplaying Game | 3 | Broken system around a brilliant setting. Too bad the book is more inclined toward it's rules half than it's setting half. |
| d20 Past | 3 | A game about the past stapled to a modern game, and not a game about, say, the Renaissance Era or another Era, but three cherry-picked timeframes. Also, d20 can't do swashbucklers. |
| Dark Reflections: Spectres | 3 | Decent enough for what it was trying to do, but it should be damned for what it was trying to do. Wraith is not a game to play the bad guys with. The fact that you actually do play a "good guy" was one of it's good points over the other WoD titles. |
| Day of the Destroyer | 3 | Not a bad "Save the World" scenario and contains foundations for some good ideas, but a GM needs to do extra work to really make it a classic adventure. The art is average, and the ending is a bit anti-climatic. |
| Domains of Dread | 3 | I could never see the draw to the "everything and everyone is Evil with a capital E" setting. |
| Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia | 3 | With over a hundred pages of errata/clarifications, this book definitely has some flaws. |
| En Garde! | 3 | By today's standards, ancient and broken. A legendary RPG, regardless. |
| European Enemies | 3 | Terrible editing and uninspired characters. Art is good, but even that can't salvage some of the goofy characters. |
| Ex Machina | 3 | Bad system, alright-good settings, not worth the price. |
| Exalted | 3 | Has good intentions, and a genuinely interesting setting, hampered by terrible mechanics. |
| Executive Decision | 3 | From what I can tell, it's downright impossible to get a group to sit down and play it with any kind of vigor. Perhaps it's just my experiences |
| The Four Winds: The Toturi Dynasty from Gold to Lotus | 3 | A quite sub-par setting for L5R, but of course I'm quite biased. |
| Fuzion | 3 | Average RPG, few system glitches. Clunktastic |
| Guardian Universe Core Fuzion | 3 | Half baked. |
| GURPS Basic Set | 3 | Complicated toolkit that didn't work well for some genres despite it's "universal" moniker. |
| Hellboy Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game | 3 | Great setting attached to rules that don't emulate that setting well. |
| Kobolds Ate My Baby! | 3 | I suppose good for a couple hours, but I couldn't see it surviving past one session (hell, one session might be stretching it's bounds a bit) |
| Lacuna Part I. The Creation of the Mystery and the Girl from Blue City | 3 | Unlike others, I found it utterly average. Most disagree with me, but I can't see anything different/innovative/new in the game. As far as the "big mysteries" are concerned, it explains about half the answers, not completely leaving the GM in the dark (basically handing him a book of matches). I can't see how a campaign of this game could be sustained past a one-two sessions. The book is quite pretty, though. |
| Legacy Era Campaign Guide | 3 | I think this particular era is really not a good fit in the Star Wars universe. |
| Little Red Book | 3 | I already have the core book, thanks. |
| Lone Wolf The Roleplaying Game | 3 | Decent redrawing of the d20 system for Lone Wolf's purposes, with plenty of inspiration to play the story. Bad art and most classes unplayable when less than 5th level (magicians will KO themselves with spellcasting easily). Also unbalanced classes (but when has that been uncommon with the d20 system?). |
| Marvel Super Heroes Advanced Set | 3 | By today's standards, it has several flaws in design. |
| Microlite20 | 3 | I don't give good ratings for gimmicks. |
| The Morrow Project | 3 | By today's standards, a very flawed game. |
| Mummy: The Resurrection | 3 | Would be average if it didn't practically require Mage and Vampire to play it. Also, Egypt isn't that big of a campaign world (and there is an in-game reason why Mummies have to say in Egypt) |
| Nexus the Infinite City | 3 | Mediocre system and fairly implausible setting. Hard to sell to groups. |
| Now Playing | 3 | Not much specifically ties it to TV style play. Mostly just a pre-made version of Fudge. |
| Ork! The Roleplaying Game | 3 | Good art and layout, bad price for what it contains. Useful for one shot games only, and even those would be tenuous at best. |
| PHBR11: The Complete Ranger's Handbook | 3 | One of the better Complete books, despite it's terrible kits (again). |
| PHBR3: The Complete Priest's Handbook | 3 | One of the few AD&D books I applaud, as it tried to build diverse priests. Ends up being quite twinkable, though. |
| PHBR6: The Complete Book of Dwarves | 3 | Good info on dwarven culture, bad kits and worse kits. |
| Prophecy | 3 | Some work to be made here, including overhauling the system and deleting the catgirl race (or perhaps just making it a cat race). The boxed set itself is solidly put together, though. |
| Rifts | 3 | Incomprehensibly bad system and editing. Great looking setting, cheaper books, and a die hard fanbase. These two extremes set it at Average in my eyes. It's splat-tacular nature makes me drop it a point. The painful power-creep from those splats makes me drop it another point. |
| Risus | 3 | Pretty at six pages. The game is rules-light (obviously), but I also found it to be terribly wonky. One of the few rules-light RPGs that I actively dislike. |
| RuneQuest | 3 | Like Runequest 3, only more d20-fied and put in expensive-yet-tiny hardcovers (which seems to be Mongoose's new MO). |
| Scion: Demigod | 3 | Adds the other half of the WoD system that Hero lacked. Still just a small chunk of Armageddon's setting, though. |
| Sector Zero | 3 | Tiny and overpriced, like most of the post-Extreme Paranoia books Mongoose has produced. |
| Shadow Knight | 3 | I liked the synopsis of the amber novels, and the extra characters, but there was a lot of useless info in there. Some of the art was terrible. Ended up using it only as a source for more NPCs and the Broken Pattern power. Very ambiguous book. |
| Silhouette CORE Rules Deluxe Edition | 3 | Good production values. Nearly average system, missing definitions/examples of important elements in it. Writing was also dry. DP9 is much better with settings than systems. |
| Supplement VI: The Majestic Wilderlands | 3 | Author builds an admittedly unbalanced game incompatible with Swords & Wizardry, Also gives a bog standard setting with the name of a hexcrawl.
Lowered rating because it's nothing like what it says on the tin |
| Tales From The Floating Vagabond | 3 | Bad system, funny doesn't translate well over time, apparently. I'd be more apt to use the Floating Vagabond (multidimensional tavern) in a Toon game to transfer PCs from one zany location to the next. |
| Threats of the Galaxy | 3 | Massive editing problems mar this book. There are half as many pages of errata for this book as there are pages in this book. |
| Torment | 3 | Play the videogame, don't bother reading the transcript. |
| The Walking Dead | 3 | Many mediocre-bad elements within, well, basically made me want to go play AFMBE instead. |
| The Way of Shinsei | 3 | Everything that isn't rules in this book isn't bad. Most of the rules are broken, though. Especially the new Advantages. |
| The Way of the Wolf | 3 | Being a ronin has it's advantages and disadvantages in the original rules. This book eliminates the disadvantages |
| With Great Power... | 3 | Takes a very limited stance on superhero gaming, card based system is clunky in play (and you have to play with several decks of cards). |
| Worlds of the Dead | 3 | So many missed opportunities. Very few gems contained within. |
| Zombie Master Screen | 3 | Ugly screen, sadly. The adventure that comes with it is about average, but I just can't get over how much the screen screams at me to make my own. |
| |
| 2 |
| Guide to the Camarilla | 2 | Other than info on Camarilla traditions, a worthless book. Any game stats added (especially Gargoyles) pretty much had to be trashed to maintain any sort of balance. |
| AD&D First Edition Players Handbook | 2 | Using today's standards. |
| Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Player's Handbook | 2 | Still a technically functional Player's Handbook (in the case of chargen and leveling up). Otherwise, very little on the skill of roleplaying. By today's standards, a poor book. |
| Amber Diceless Role-Playing | 2 | Bad GM advice, bad editing. The idea was innovative but the book doesn't give a GM much help when it came to player disputes. The powers are ill-defined and contradictory. Stats are unbalanced. IMHO the worst commercial diceless game on the market. |
| Aria Worlds | 2 | Nearly as worthless as it's predecessor. |
| a|state | 2 | Bad editing, bad art, vague setting, average system, average production values, big price tag. A poor book in all. |
| Book of Exalted Deeds | 2 | Boring and imbalanced. A poor book. |
| Cadillacs and Dinosaurs | 2 | Archaic system methodology. |
| Changeling: The Dreaming | 2 | Most out-of-place of the WoD, new or old. Goes against the premise of WoD in all, forcing me to rate it as I do. |
| Children of the Sun | 2 | Archaic design philosophy of more = better. Not even a Fantasy Heartbreaker, as it has no redeeming qualities. |
| The Chronicles of Ramlar | 2 | Same as D&D. |
| Clanbook: Assamite | 2 | By the time I got done deleting or houseruling the powers and rewriting the metaplot, this book was basically a book of several NPCs. |
| Clanbook: Brujah | 2 | By the time I got done deleting or houseruling the powers and rewriting the metaplot, this book was basically a book of several NPCs. |
| Clanbook: Gangrel | 2 | By the time I got done deleting or houseruling the powers and rewriting the metaplot, this book was basically a book of several NPCs. |
| Clanbook: Giovanni | 2 | By the time I got done deleting or houseruling the powers and rewriting the metaplot, this book was basically a book of several NPCs. |
| Clanbook: Lasombra | 2 | By the time I got done deleting or houseruling the powers and rewriting the metaplot, this book was basically a book of several NPCs. |
| Clanbook: Malkavian | 2 | By the time I got done deleting or houseruling the powers and rewriting the metaplot, this book was basically a book of several NPCs. |
| Clanbook: Nosferatu | 2 | By the time I got done deleting or houseruling the powers and rewriting the metaplot, this book was basically a book of several NPCs. (And I copy/paste because all the *V:tM Clan splatbooks* had the same problems, unfortunately. And I did in fact own, read, and attempt to use all of them.) |
| Clanbook: Ravnos | 2 | By the time I got done deleting or houseruling the powers and rewriting the metaplot, this book was basically a book of several NPCs. |
| Clanbook: Setite | 2 | By the time I got done deleting or houseruling the powers and rewriting the metaplot, this book was basically a book of several NPCs. |
| Clanbook: Toreador | 2 | By the time I got done deleting or houseruling the powers and rewriting the metaplot, this book was basically a book of several NPCs. |
| Clanbook: Tremere | 2 | By the time I got done deleting or houseruling the powers and rewriting the metaplot, this book was basically a book of several NPCs. |
| Clanbook: Tzimisce | 2 | By the time I got done deleting or houseruling the powers and rewriting the metaplot, this book was basically a book of several NPCs. |
| Clanbook: Ventrue | 2 | By the time I got done deleting or houseruling the powers and rewriting the metaplot, this book was basically a book of several NPCs. |
| The Complete Barbarian's Handbook | 2 | Great descriptions and info on Barbarians, terrible kits. |
| Council of Wyrms | 2 | Details the ways to create Dragon PCs, fails at making them a game-able alternative. |
| Crash Priority | 2 | Honestly, the worst Paranoia XP supplement I owned, and I owned nearly the entire line. The adventures were tedious and/or uninteresting, the opposite of Paranoia's style. |
| Cyberspace | 2 | By today's standards, a poor game. |
| D02: Know No Limit | 2 | Worthless, but funny enough to be rated higher than 1 |
| d20 Future | 2 | Attempts to tackle all realms of Sci-Fi. Fails horribly. |
| d20 Modern Roleplaying Game | 2 | Bad wealth system, very generic class system (to the point I wonder why they bother with it). Most of the game was printed in Polyhedron. |
| Dark Ages: Werewolf | 2 | Tired retread, tired rehash, just plain tired. |
| Dead Reign | 2 | Kevin Siembieda's weak attempt to rewrite 90% of the quality manuscript given to him by Josh Hilden so he could save a few bucks. Ended up not being the product advertised, hence the low score. |
| Deliria | 2 | If you can find a game in there, you tell me... |
| DUDE Role-Playing Game | 2 | Bad writing, bad system. |
| Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition Monster Manual | 2 | 2E Monster Manual: 400 monsters. 3E Monster Manual: 150 monsters. Same price. And they didn't add anything to compensate, even took some away here and there. |
| Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition Player's Handbook | 2 | This game is the most popular in the industry, and it is a system to emulate video game behavior. The sad thing is that video games are better at this because they are a visual medium and don't have the requirement of any real world friends. I simply can't rate this game any higher, as it breeds powergamers and munchkins in my experience. |
| Epic Role Playing Rules Manual | 2 | 140 pages of pure rules? Fantasy Heartbreaker? Inability to play the game without 4 books? Ugh. |
| Epic Role Playing: Book of the Arcane | 2 | 140 pages of pure magic rules? Fantasy Heartbreaker? Inability to play the game without 4 books? Ugh. |
| Fantasy Wargaming | 2 | Well, at least it's the only game out there where you can kick God's ass (or asses, depending on your faith). I'll rate it the same as HoL, but drop it a point due to it's archaic system. |
| Forward... to Adventure! | 2 | Same as D&D. |
| Gamemaster Guide | 2 | As a guide for GMing, it's a very poor book. |
| HackMaster GameMaster's Guide | 2 | Takes AD&D to the Nth degree. Ultimately not a good tool for GMs new or old. Mostly just more rules to further complicate Hackmaster. |
| HackMaster Player's Handbook | 2 | Has good production values for a softcover, but within is a nearly unplayable mess of rules (it actually is unplayable without the GM Guide, IIRC). It takes AD&D to the Nth degree, adding complication upon complication to the rules. Many of these are in an attempt at humor, but most of it is very dry (and in some cases flatly unfunny or uninteresting). |
| HARP: High Adventure Role Playing | 2 | Like D&D, only more complicated. |
| Hearts & Souls | 2 | Almost systemless, and not in a good way. Bad art, no real chargen rules, and it's settings aren't even remotely fleshed out. One of the few rules-light games I don't like. |
| HERO System Fifth Edition | 2 | This ancient system has seen better days, days when other Supers systems around it weren't better than it. Days when it could scoff at them for not being as rules-intensive as itself. Those days are no more. It's only conceivable use now is as a sizable doorstop. |
| Heroes Unlimited | 2 | Battles with MURPG for the title of worst commercial Supers RPG I've ever seen. |
| In Nomine | 2 | System is practically useless, setting doesn't seem to know what it wants to be. |
| Mage: The Ascension | 2 | Bad rules, bad philosophy, bad setting, and no direction. Attached to a good premise. I speak of all editions. |
| Manual of the Planes | 2 | Regarding 3E: Too much teasing. Not a good book for those wanting 3E Planescape. Will only make the loss that much more painful. |
| The Marvel Universe Roleplaying Game | 2 | Battles with Heroes Unlimited for the title of worst commercial Supers RPG I've ever seen. |
| Palladium Fantasy RPG | 2 | By today's standards, a poor game. |
| Pathfinder Roleplaying Game | 2 | You ever wonder what would happen if somebody decided not to take this "new edition" shit and make their own, lovingly crafted, nearly identical version of the same game? Me neither. I had enough of this back when all the AD&D clones sprang up.
I scanned a copy and saw that they didn't fix Fighters vs. Mages and then proceeded to make Rangers and Paladins kick even more Fighter ass, and even invalidated Humans by powering up the non-humans. If I wanted all that, I'd play AD&D2E. |
| PHBR2: The Complete Thief's Handbook | 2 | Only 40%-60% of the kits here are broken. |
| PHBR4: The Complete Wizard's Handbook | 2 | Not overly very useful at all. |
| PHBR7: The Complete Bard's Handbook | 2 | Another very twink-worthy addition to the Complete series. |
| PHBR9: The Complete Book of Gnomes & Halflings | 2 | Unlike other Complete books, this one features useless kits (rather than uber kits). Otherwise, nice reference on Gnome and Halfling culture. |
| Player's Option: Spells & Magic | 2 | Best of the three, but that's not saying much. Spell point system was terrible. |
| The Players Guide to The Sabbat | 2 | Everything was broken in this book. Sabbat were no more playable with or without this book. |
| Ravenloft | 2 | Never could figure out the draw for the setting where everyone is evil. Who is the hero trying to save? |
| Robotech: The Role-Playing Game | 2 | By today's standards, a poor game. |
| Rokugan Oriental Adventures Campaign Setting | 2 | A good solid step above Oriental Adventures 3E, if only because they put Rokugan on the cover. |
| RuneQuest Game Master's Screen | 2 | (RQ2 screen, first printing) Very nice hardcover. Doesn't have all the charts needed IMHO, and wastes one of the panels with product info rather than making it a separate sheet. Also, the cover of the screen pictured is actually one of the faces of the outside of the gm screen, rather than an insert. This detracts from the art opposite it, which is actually very dark. |
| S1: Tomb of Horrors | 2 | Left or right? Right? Too bad, you died. |
| Savage Worlds | 2 | The demographic seems to be those who want a game faster than d20/GURPS/HERO, but with more emphasis on minis. A rules-light game that has feats (and a billion prerequisites), ultimately cancelling out it's rules-light nature. I am not a member of that demographic. To me, Savage Worlds is not fast, nor furious, nor fun. |
| Schauermarchen | 2 | The back cover blurb hooks a reader/gamer, but the contents are very underwhelming. Not horrifying or even really interesting. |
| Scion: Hero | 2 | It's like a very small chunk of Armageddon's setting attached itself to roughly half of the WoD system. Played it recently, my opinion didn't improve. |
| Sla Industries | 2 | Bad editing, bad rules, "Evil for the sake of evil" setting, which I found quite uninteresting as far as gaming goes. Keeps secrets ("The Truth") of the setting from the GM as well as players. |
| Song and Silence | 2 | And the power just keeps on a creepin'. |
| Sovereign Stone Game System | 2 | Average system, bad editing, little abilty for long term play, slightly below average fantasy setting. |
| Spycraft | 2 | Great premise hampered by too many rules and (arguably) the d20 system. This is the game that might make people who love Rules-Heavy reconsider. Editing also stinks for the 2002 and 2005 editions. |
| Subsidiaries: A Guide to Pentex | 2 | Mostly a book for laughs rather than anything else. Not very useful in a campaign unless your focus was comedy. |
| Theatrix Ironwood | 2 | Bad premise. You can only say "niche of a niche of a niche" so many times before you've excluded everybody. |
| There Is No Spoon | 2 | One of the few Rules Light games I dislike due to it's clunkiness. |
| Thirty | 2 | If it had anything to do with the Thirty knights of the templar that went missing, perhaps it would have been interesting. I'm afraid it's only about that at the initial stage of the book. The rest is filled with a silly plot which nobody would run for a serious game in their right mind. It's mostly a campaign in a box, and the campaign isn't very insightful, accurate, or useful. |
| Transhuman Space | 2 | Dry text and "What do I do with it?" are big offenses to me. Much like Rifts: a nifty setting concept and virtually unplayable game attached to poor rules. Has a lot of intelligence and thought put into it, but I'm rating a game, not a book or essay. |
| Tri-Stat dX | 2 | This book is so bad it actually colored my opinion for all of Tri-Stat for quite some time (I wouldn't even look at anything Tri-Stat). Missed a couple good games because of it. |
| The Underplex | 2 | Well, this is where Mongoose decided to switch the Paranoia XP line to tiny little books with not so tiny prices (50 pages for $15). And frankly, I don't think the supplement is worth the price. |
| Vampire: The Masquerade | 2 | Unlike others (it seems), my rating reflects my own experience with VtM. I won't elaborate, the number is good enough of an explanation. |
| Victorian Age Vampire | 2 | Not much here in the way of a setting. |
| Violence: The Roleplaying Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed | 2 | Not really a RPG, but funny enough not to be lumped in with FATAL and the like. |
| The Way of Shadow | 2 | Most of the book is fiction, and not particularly good fiction. The entire "living darkness" ninja retcon is silly and contrived (it makes it hard to generate motivations for this adversary as well, GMs). They had to make ninja inhuman to make them mysterious, and I don't like that. The Dragon Clan are perfectly mysterious and nearly it's entire body is made up of humans. |
| The Way of the Minor Clans | 2 | Most Clans within are broken, a few are even underpowered. While there seems to be little rationale for Great Clans to work together, it can be said even more so for Minor Clans and Great Clans. The book doesn't seek to aid GMs at all in this manner. |
| The Way of the Naga | 2 | Terrible history that undermines the existence of the humans of Rokugan, as the Naga are older and contradict (among other things) the core religion of humans in the setting. And the Naga rules here are broken, anyway. |
| Way of the Ninja | 2 | Ninja: still terrible as presented by the setting. Hard to game with or against. |
| Werewolf: The Apocalypse | 2 | I've never played a good game of WtA. It's always devolved into a power fantasy style of play I'm not comfortable with. I see a good game there, what with the politics and whatnot that could come with the various tribes, but I've never seen a session not devolve into pro wrestling (lip service to plot, mostly ass kicking). It may be higher rated to some, but to me it's worthless. |
| Werewolf: The Wild West | 2 | It's Werewolf in the Wild West! Only, it doesn't change how Werewolf is played, or how Werewolves act, at all. The Wild West becomes a slight flavor change in the background, nothing more. Hell, Werewolves don't even have a good reason to carry guns! |
| WG7: Castle Greyhawk | 2 | It's humor doesn't age well. Perhaps it wasn't even funny when it came out. |
| The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game | 2 | Bad mix of system/setting. A poor game for emulating the novels. |
| The Window | 2 | Barely there system, no setting, bad writing, and big blotches of black making the text unprintable. |
| World of Darkness: Demon Hunter X | 2 | A haphazard stapling of anime tropes to the WoD setting/system without rhyme or reason. |
| World of Darkness: Mummy Second Edition | 2 | An attempt to have the entire Monster Mash gamut of creatures jammed into the WoD somewhere, with very little reasoning behind it. |
| World of Darkness: Sorcerer | 2 | Rated as such because I've never seen it used in a WoD game. Ever. |
| Xcrawl | 2 | Apparently someone got the idea that what works for marketing corn nuts would work for marketing RPGs. |
| |
| 1 |
| Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide | 1 | As a GM manual, a manual for GMing, it's worthless. |
| The Adventures of Indiana Jones | 1 | Abysmal. |
| AM1: Amazing Engine System Guide | 1 | A total waste of money and time for anyone who purchased and/or read it. |
| Aria Roleplaying | 1 | I eagerly await the English translation. |
| BESM D20 | 1 | The world's first unrevised Revised Edition! |
| Book of Vile Darkness | 1 | "Book of Mild Darkness" |
| Brave New World | 1 | Bad metaplot. Bad system, bad chargen, splat-happy, and bad price. Good premise, but premises don't make RPGs |
| The Chaos Factor | 1 | The various games in the oWoD were never meant to all be played at once. Any attempts to do so ultimately ended in campaign destruction or something that didn't even remotely resemble the oWoD. |
| The Complete Ninja's Handbook | 1 | One of the worst of the Complete books. |
| The Complete Paladin's Handbook | 1 | Bad reference for Paladins. Bad, nearly identical kits. |
| Cyborg Commando | 1 | Utterly terrible. |
| Defenders of the Faith | 1 | What's that creeping up behind you! It's power! Power... creeping... Mwahahaha! |
| Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand | 1 | The "Skills & Powers" of VtM. The book that broke the game completely. |
| Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide | 1 | A GM guide should probably contain something about GMing. Oh, and a GM is a DM. Same thing. |
| Dungeons & Dragons for Dummies | 1 | Pure, uninteresting, useless drek. If somebody needed this to learn to play D&D, I wouldn't want them to learn to play RPGs. I'm guessing this book was mostly written with the intent that those who already knew how to play D&D would buy it for a conversation piece. |
| Dungeons & Dragons Player's Kit | 1 | If you bought a PHB and a set of dice (including 3 extra d6s) at a hobbyshop you'd pay around $3 less than buying this. If you went online, savings could be up to $15 more. Plus, your PHB would be hardbound in either case! |
| Empire of Satanis | 1 | Bad game. No biscuit. |
| Epic Level Handbook | 1 | Everything in the book is broken. |
| ESCAP FROMZ EV1LGOBL1NT0WN | 1 | Worthless and uninteresting. |
| Expendables | 1 | Good premise, bad everything else. |
| Fantasy Imperium | 1 | A bad D&D variant? The hell you say! |
| FATAL | 1 | It's actually so bad I wouldn't recommend ever looking it up, even car-crash-curiosity will burn you. You have been warned. |
| Forge: Out of Chaos | 1 | I can SO make AD&D better than they did! Puh-leaze. |
| GURPS for Dummies | 1 | Pure, uninteresting, useless drek. If somebody needed this to learn to play GURPS, I wouldn't want them to learn to play RPGs. I'm guessing this book was mostly written with the intent that those who already knew how to play GURPS would buy it for a conversation piece. |
| HYBRID | 1 | Funny, I thought this index was for RPGs. Who's played Hybrid? |
| Imagine Masters Manual | 1 | Imagine pretension, tied to yet another fan version of D&D. Imagine the worst of the "more is better" RPGs. Imagine if Hackmaster were written by the IRS. |
| Imagine Player's Guide | 1 | Imagine pretension, tied to yet another fan version of D&D. Imagine the worst of the "more is better" RPGs. Imagine if Hackmaster were written by the IRS. |
| Immortal: The Invisible War | 1 | Yep, "Highlander 2: the RPG" minus serial numbers (barely). |
| KABAL | 1 | EEK! |
| Legacy: War of Ages | 1 | Highlander rip off, and not a subtle one. |
| Middle-Earth Role Playing | 1 | Rating given due to setting emulation by game mechanics, or lack thereof. |
| The Official Price Guide to Role-Playing Games | 1 | Pretty much useless for it's intended function, even when it was originally printed. |
| Oriental Adventures | 1 | It's L5R's Rokugan with everything good about the setting torn out and what's left stapled to a game about mindless dungeoncrawling. And no, I'm not talking about D&D, I'm talking about this setting. |
| Pages of Pain | 1 | Honesty it undermines the entire purpose and existence of the Lady of Pain in the Planescape univese, and is a rather poor story to boot. |
| PHBR10: The Complete Book of Humanoids | 1 | Most munchkiny Complete book that exists, with the possible exception of the Psionics handbook. |
| PHBR5: The Complete Psionics Handbook | 1 | Annoying and useless. Powergamers delight. |
| PHBR8: The Complete Book of Elves | 1 | Good info on Elf culture (and how it's better than all other cultures, naturally), terrible kits and rules. |
| Player's Option: Combat & Tactics | 1 | Want to know how to make a wargame/RPG more like a wargame? Combat and Tactics. Many rules here contradicted or overwrote rules from other references and the core. It made many more headaches than it alleviated. |
| Player's Option: Skills & Powers | 1 | While there are many contenders (Fighter's Handbook, Dwarves Handbook, Elves Handbook, etc), this is by far the book that broke AD&D 2nd into little-bitty pieces. |
| Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil | 1 | ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz... |
| Rolemaster Fantasy Role Playing | 1 | I dislike D&D. This is worse. |
| Senzar: Roleplaying For The Next Millenium | 1 | I guess in the next millennium gamers will be playing mediocre AD&D clones. Luckily, that's not this millennium. |
| Sword and Fist | 1 | And so began the power creep of the new edition of D&D. If the phrase "Monkey-Gripped Mercurial Greatsword" sounds stupid to you (as it does to me) avoid like the Bubonic. |
| System Reference Document | 1 | Stupid and useless. For a while it was Borg, and a metric fuckton of mediocrity flooded the industry because of it. Now that the rage has died down, most game companies that were based around it died, including a few good ones. |
| Tome and Blood | 1 | That's the power of creeping. |
| Universe | 1 | By today's standards, a terrible game. |
| Vampire: The Requiem for Dummies | 1 | Pure, uninteresting, useless drek. If somebody needed this to learn to play Vampire, I wouldn't want them to learn to play RPGs. I'm guessing this book was mostly written with the intent that those who already knew how to play Vampire would buy it for a conversation piece. |
| Wings of the Valkyrie | 1 | A superhero adventure designed in the vein of -saving- Hitler. Stupid.
Also: the premise is that apparently Hitler's death causes the Nazi's to win and Fascism to spread like a plague. Ask a historian, the Axis had about as much chance of winning as the Confederates in the US Civil War.
That being, not a chance in hell. |
| The World of Synnibarr | 1 | I don't need to eat dog poo to know it tastes like shit. |
| World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game | 1 | This is where D&D is heading: RPGs trying to be MMOGs rather than the other way around. Ugh. |
| |
| Unsorted |
| Houses of the Blooded | 0 | I'm not really sure how I feel about this one. It has a lot of elements I enjoy, but doesn't seem to have much direction to it. |
| Mongoose Traveller First Edition | 0 | Tiny expensive hardcover. Being B&W, with no cover art and no setting information, I just can't see justifying the price. If they were trying to evoke the feel of the 1970s version, they also should have tried to evoke the 1970's price. |
| Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Core Set Third Edition | 0 | I'm not rating in, only saying I believe it to be the most unnecessary new edition I've ever seen. I'm not rating because I like many WFRP2E players feel somewhat left out in the cold. |
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