The Gaming Den

I've got the red box Ravenloft (as well as the older one, somewhere) and could do it with Frank, but I'm currently in the middle of an OSSR and am pretty unable to keep up with Frank's review pace in general. Still, I'd do it if people wanted it.

Emerald wrote:

Lord Mistborn wrote:So since noone has done it yet and I actually own the book I thought "hey what the hell" Who wants to see me do a terrible review of the ELH/D20 joke book

I'm surprised it wasn't done before the wave of recent OSSRs. Go for it.

Two or three people have already said they were going to, and haven't. Please do this already.

If anyone is interested I can do an OSSR or drunken review of Magic of Incarnum. I can't be as funny as some others, so I'll mostly be focussing on how terrible fluff, terrible names, terrible editting and a terrible layout can ruin a decent idea.
Since the most common comments about MoI is: "it looks nice, but how does it work?"
- Edit: Or since there appears to already be quite some old quick guides to MoI I could do the AD&D Dark Sun Campaign Setting too. Since I need to read through that one anyway. Though I don't really know the AD&D rules, but who needs those anyway right?

Can someone do a review of the Book of Ex-salted deeds and it's counterpart the Book of Vile Darkness?

Really, the only thing I've ever used the BoED for is the celestial stats.

Wiseman: I'm pretty sure someone has reviewed Book of Exalted Furries. Vile Darkness though, not so sure. Because it wasn't actually bad. I mean, it had plenty of broken things (options for infinite loops and stuff), and has a stupid view of what makes something evil, and has about as much disappointing stuff as most books, but it has some stuff people would be willing to use at all.

Which just means it'd be an interesting review that disects it and looks at the individual options and rules.

ishy wrote:If anyone is interested I can do an OSSR or drunken review of Magic of Incarnum. I can't be as funny as some others, so I'll mostly be focussing on how terrible fluff, terrible names, terrible editting and a terrible layout can ruin a decent idea.

Mention the Blue!

AD&D Dark Sun Campaign Setting too. Since I need to read through that one anyway.

Was it here or on WTFD&D? that there was the article that points out the stupid unique crap that people can maybe turn into and everything?

From the link, it looks like the Book of Vile Darkness was not done.

If no one objects, I'll do it.

A K review? I don't think I've seen one of those before. Color me interested.

My 1000th post!

Koumei: Frank did a review of Dragon Kings, which provided options to turn high level characters into the titular creatures (which are obviously Fairy Princesses from my description.)

Not sure if that was what you were thinking of.

K: I'd be interested in a review of the BoVD too.

Aha, Dragon Kings was the one, yeah! Basic Dark Sun could be interesting.

And I'd like to see K tackle the BoVD. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Either BoVD or has anyone ever heard of Infernum?

Also, can someone link me to the BoED review?

Someone enlighten me, what does OSSR stand for?

Old School Sourcebook Review. The limit for old school being apparently about ten years, which is the length of the average edition cycle. Prior to the aborted 4e, at least.

That's just me ballparking it. I really don't care if it's nine years old. Or five.

As long as stuff's shifted since then, I guess.

Just do it K!

Wiseman wrote:Also, can someone link me to the BoED review?

http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=54030

If SW d6 needs doing, I'll do it. I'm pretty sure I have the first edition, so that's what I'll be doing.

I'll support:

K vs BoVD
ishy vs Magic of Incarnum

Anyone do the 4e DMG?

squirrelloid wrote:If SW d6 needs doing, I'll do it. I'm pretty sure I have the first edition, so that's what I'll be doing.

It needs doing.

If anyone even has it - and you should feel bad if you do - I'd like to see Orpheus* get seven layers of shit beaten out of it reviewed objectively.

*It was released very late into the life of oWoD, in fact it might have actually been released afterwards, as a theoretically separate thing. But it uses one flavour of oWoD rules, and it's supposed to be Wraith 2.0 - you have people who go into trances and project ghosts for hours at a time, you have people who go into cryochambers and project ghosts for weeks at a time, and you have people who are dead and project ghosts forever. You belong to a corporation which fucks you in the (rear) end, and have literally one power each. It is so fucking awful that I recommend it only be run for people like Rupert Murdoch to play.

RobbyPants wrote:At some point, I'd love to see Heroes of Horror, but it looks like SS is winning the vote so far.

In the face of Frank and K's current Ravenloft review I very much support this request. Also, what about the d20 Raveloft version (S&S, wasn't it?) I heard lots of stories from a gaming buddy about it, but given what materials from 3E's early period I've read so far, I am not so sure.

K and I have the rest of the Ravenloft box to tear through, although the Domain and Denizens book is just a series of horror plots that run the gamut from cliche to stupid.

There are of course, other settings from that period. We've done a bit on Darksun, Ravenloft, and Planescape, there's also Birthright, Spelljammer, Mystara, and various Forgotten Realms adjuncts like Al-Qadim and Mazteca. And of course, there's plenty of 2nd edition batshit that isn't exactly a setting - like Council of Wyrms and Thunder Rift.

And of course, TSR wasn't the only company going crazy in the early 90s. We could talk about more White Wolf products. Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand is probably the craziest, but it wasn't close to their most offensive work (that would be World of Darkness: Gypsies). I don't think we've gone into the madness that was any of the other lines such as Werewolf or Wraith.

The turn of the century also comes with lots of crazy as all the gaming companies had to compete with the fact that D&D was back in a big way. Shadowrun shot itself in the dick with Year of the Comet and White Wolf killed their own golden geese with the Time of Judgement books. And everyone and their mom tried to make d20 compatible books, and many of them feature prominent and inappropriate camel toe.

There are many options for the next review. What would people like to read?

-Username17

I kind of liked DSotBH, in a 'yep, this setting is just insane enough for this to actually work'. Being a member of a secret organization inside a secret organization inside a secret organization that's controlled by an alien virus? You know that's either an X-files plot or something WW did.

Honestly, I'd do a Mage: the Ascension review, except I'd spend most of the time ranting about how the writers didn't actually know any science, so their spheres are incoherent (electricity is a different level of Forces than Magnetism? WTF. And the life sphere is *not even wrong*, just incoherent), and how they spend all this time wanking about consensual reality but fail to reach the logical conclusions of *what that means*. The only thing worse than a philosophy major is a philosophy major with commitment issues.

I'm curious about Mazteca. I have no knowledge of that setting, just the gut instinct that a Mesoamerica+Forgotten Realms mashup would have the heady stink of failure all about it.

FrankTrollman wrote: There are many options for the next review. What would people like to read?

-Username17

Do you have access to anything from the Historical Reference Series?

Well, Frank's review of the Complete Book of Elves was pretty much the quintissential OSSR that all other OSSR's should be measured against. I don't know if there are any other books with that combination of pants-on-head retarded fluff and balance-what-balance mechanics, but if there are I'd love to see them reviewed.

...I can think of worse books, but mainly those are offensive (Wraeththu, World of Darkness: Gypsies, Charnel Houses of Europe: the Shoah, the World of Species); stupidly worse is difficult. Tir na nOg for Shadowrun would probably be closest, and that's another elf book. I think Frank's OSSR: Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand was better, though.

I never heard of Wraeththu.

What's the short version?