by Theogal
Ask any roleplayer from the "old" (pre-Wizards of the Coast) days of Dungeons and Dragons if they knew someone with too many rulebooks, and most will answer "yes". Odds are, they were guilty of the same, to at least some degree. Especially where Advanced Dungeons and Dragons is concerned, TSR's (the original owners) strategy to making money was to constantly print and reprint the next "necessity" -- there were the "Complete Class Handbooks", the "Complete Guide to" race books, and of course the yearly "Monstrous Compendiums." Which is to say nothing of the pleather (in this case paper leather, not plastic leather) extravagance of the Encyclopaedia Magicka or the wealth of detail for certain campaign settings, most notably Planescape and Faerun.
Much of this ended with WotC's purchase of TSR, which introduced what is known as D&D 3.0. The carefully timed release of the "core" rules as well as the careful doling out of supplemental information has been keeping us relatively content with fresh, new information. While the supplements are not strictly necessary, the stuff inside them has gotten smaller and less original, while book prices have gone up.
| Feats |
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| Prestige Classes |
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| Spells |
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| Items |
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| Creatures / Races |
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| Rules |
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| Setting |
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| Art |
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| Layout |
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| Ease of Use |
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| Relevance |
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| Consistency |
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| Overall Content | 100% |
| Overall Intangible | 100% |
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| Review Score | 100% |
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Publisher
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Author(s)
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Publishing Date
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System
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Other Resources
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Times have changed -- really, things have just reverted to how they used to be -- and it is with some regret that I have to declare many of the new releases simply useless.
And with my long-winded introduction out of the way, it's time for the main thrust of this little article -- I'm going to start reviewing books.
It's been noted that there are only a few categories that really make a 3.X D&D book stand out from the crowd -- feats, classes, spells, creatures or races, rules, and the setting. Other things make a book, though -- the art is better in some books than in others, for example. The layout in one book (the monster manuals?) could be terrible. Other books may be without indices, or items and feats may be scattered throughout the book in sidebars. Or a book may merely reprint feats and classes from books you already own.
With that in mind, I've set up this review bar. It's got a lot of little details that combine to form some easier to understand scores -- intangibles, like can you use it? Is it the same stuff over again? -- is the stuff inside any good? -- and is the book any good? The individual ratings will be given via "orbs" (or stars, of course) -- from 0 to 5. More important overall categories will be rated from 1 to 10, in whole numbers.
Hopefully this will be easy enough to understand, and will add a new dimension to the Realm. Most importantly, I hope it lets people make better buying decisions.