Anime Are there any Actually Good D&D books?

[Werdna's Revenge]

Death's Gate is better than any of the official D&D stuff from what I remember. If you want to do D&D reading though, I also highly recommend going through Appendix N stuff it's just so much better and even more D&D in how it feels than most of the official D&D books.

 

[Gyor]

Death's Gate is better than any of the official D&D stuff from what I remember. If you want to do D&D reading though, I also highly recommend going through Appendix N stuff it's just so much better and even more D&D in how it feels than most of the official D&D books.

When was the last time you read a D&D novel?

 

[Fedora Master]

25 books about Halo. Twenty. Five.

 

[Fedora Master]

I started on the first book of the Prism Pentad and it's actually... pretty good. At least the characters are interesting. I like Rikus.

 

[Erebus]

would also suggest the Death's Gate series by the same authors of the good Dragonlance books.

The Death Gate series is an entertaining read. The characters are pretty good and the worlds are quite creative. The ending is however kinda weak (a problem that is found in other series by Weis and Hickman).

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

On the subject of non-D&D books by Weis & Hickman, their single best work is Darksword Adventures, which presents RPG rules for the setting created in their Darksword trilogy (their first novels after parting ways with TSR) as well as a survey of the Darksword world and various other material, written in an entertaining manner.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

If you're jake with comics the fell's five ain't half bad. It's also stopped so you just got like 20 issues to read.

 

[Bara]

I still remember after they finished their second adventure how they announced the next part would be about Fell's past and his suspected pirate origins with the sailors cutlass and all.

But then nope canceled ah well least we had two good adventures of it and a dwarf reciting poetry.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

a dwarf reciting poetry

And Dwarven work.

 

[Erebus]

Darksword trilogy (their first novels after parting ways with TSR)

A good example of the problem I was talking about : the ending of the trilogy tries to be original and only manages to be meh. Though I guess it's not as ridiculous as the ending of the "Rose of the Prophet" trilogy...

In their "Sovereign Stone" trilogy, the suckitude appears a lot earlier. The first book is pretty decent and does a good job with its evil protagonists. But the second book is such an unoriginal piece of shit that I didn't even consider reading the third one.

 

[Jason Liang]

We've got like three previous threads on this topic.

How "gamey" do you want your d and d novel?

If it doesn't matter,

- Ravenloft: Carnival of Fear is a favorite
- The Spelljammer books
- Like you referred to, the Dark Sun books
- Birthright novels? Were ok?

 

[Bara]

I don't know where to put this and it's at least based off the books so this thread is good enough.

There was a Russian musical of some of the Dragonlance books



It has english subtitles.

 

[mondblut]

Very-very good, no.

Pretty fine: yeah, there is a fair number of these. Troy Denning (I notice he's already namedropped a lot in this thread) and James Lowder are solid. Their sequels to the original Avatar trilogy (which was meh), "Prince of lies" and "Crucible", are tops. Probably the best Realms fiction.

The "Azure bonds" trilogy is light-hearted D&D adventuring fun and a necessary companion for playing goldbox games (so you finally get it who the fuck all those NPCs you're supposed to care about are, and wtf is that "Moander" thing that keeps popping up through the series).

For your kinky black bitches fix, "War of the spider queen" is pretty good. 6 novels of backstabbing and sexy dominatrisses, and no insufferable "dark elves with the heart of gold" in sight. It got a bunch of spinoff trilogies later on, but I haven't read them yet.

Also, some Ravenloft novels are good, although they tend to be fantasy pastiches of classic gothic horror stories. I loved "I, Strahd" as an edgy teenager.

 

[Fedora Master]

Oh yeah I read War of the Spider Queen, that one was pretty good.
Started on the second Prism Pentad book and it already gets kinda stupid.

 

[Luckmann]

I've read the Drizzt stuff when I was a dumb kid. The War of the Spider Queen was alright too. But looking around for more cheap novels to consoom it seems that most of them are just straight up dime store trash with a heavy dose of fetishism.

Which of the books are actually worth reading? Im interested in Dark Sun but the Prism Pentad apparently shits all over the established lore of that setting.

As someone that read the Prism Pentad (I stopped somewhere in the last book, though, iirc) fairly recently (maybe a year ago?), it comes down to what you consider to be the "established lore". In a nutshell, the events of the books end up causing some major changes to the world as described in the first campaign world materials, with consequences that were never really accounted for properly (and which begs the question why the fuck all of this is centered on such a small part of the entire planet, which pissed me off due to how absurd it was).

So it's not so much that it shits on established lore and more that it continues the established lore and takes it somewhere it really shouldn't have gone. I think it still does a fairly good job of portraying the setting and a variety of facets within in.

The whole thing was just handled poorly and I have no idea what they were thinking.

I also recently read Fire and Dust, which is a Planescape book that was written and finished, but never actually published. It was perfectly OK, albeit not amazing by any measure, and I found myself wanting more when it was over, and it did a good job to "humanize" the Planescape setting for me. Unfortunately, the tentatively planned sequels never happened.

 

[Fedora Master]

Im really enjoying Fire and Dust, thank you!

 

[rusty_shackleford]

"I, Strahd"

This one right here

 

[Stella Brando]

(weird Ed's transgender fantasies)

Absolutely disgusting, can you tell us more?

 

[Rincewind]

I'm am looking for some good D&D themed books to read before I embark on a great quest to play through the SSI Gold Box games. I started reading some of the Witcher short stories halfway through my Witcher 1 playthrough a few years ago, and I found it greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the game. So I'm interested in doing something similar with the Forgotten Realms setting.

But you guys got me confused: half of you seem to think some of the D&D books considered "best" are actually decent, the other half says they're all garbage.

While I'm not exactly a connoisseur of world-class fine literature, I enjoy solidly written sci-fi and sci-fi/fantasy stories, but haven't read much pure fantasy apart from the Witcher stories and Robert E. Howard's Conan short stories (which I liked quite a lot). I enjoyed most novels from the SF Masterworks series; science-fantasy that I liked was The Lord of Light (Roger Zelazny), Lord Valentine's Castle (Robert Silverberg) and The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. Le Guin).

Very-very good, no.
The "Azure bonds" trilogy is light-hearted D&D adventuring fun and a necessary companion for playing goldbox games (so you finally get it who the fuck all those NPCs you're supposed to care about are, and wtf is that "Moander" thing that keeps popping up through the series).

If I were to read one Forgotten Realms D&D book before starting to play the Gold Box games, would you recommend the first book of the Azure bonds trilogy? I'm a bit wary of the series giving away the plot too much, but perhaps it's a non-issue?

Looks like this guy was in the same boat as me, and gave the book a favorable rating on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-...ef=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0880386126

I am replaying the old Gold Box classics. I decided to read this book before I got to Curse of the Azure Bonds. Admittedly, I was worried, these sorts of books can be either trash or treasures, with little in between. I'm pleased to say it is more treasure than trash. [...] Overall a very good read. And now when I encounter Alias, Akabar, Dragonbait, and Olive their appearances will mean more to me then when I was twelve.

Ok, so this is where I got a bit confused:

Death's Gate is better than any of the official D&D stuff from what I remember. If you want to do D&D reading though, I also highly recommend going through Appendix N stuff it's just so much better and even more D&D in how it feels than most of the official D&D books.

Had a look at the Appendix N catalogue and it's very confidence inspiring indeed with Tolkien, Poul Anderson, Robert E. Howard and Roger Zelazny on the list.

As in actual D&D? I would suggest (re)reading Tolkien if you haven't, or if you're really committed to reading about D&D, read 1st ed AD&D source books. The player's guide, GM's guide, and monstrous manual are wonderfully evocative, without the dime store fetishism you're talking about. Of course it isn't a narrative, but it'll scratch a D&D itch more than those hacky books.

This seems like a solid advice; reading the AD&D books (for the first time) is on my list too to understand the rules a bit better. I'm wondering about your preference of the 1st edition, though. The Gold Box games are based on 1st ed (all of them, I think?), but my superficial understanding is that 2nd ed is not that much different... or is it? Also, is there a substantial difference in the style of writing or amount of details included in 1st ed sourcebooks vs 2nd ed, apart from the difference between the rulesets?

Another question, some people recommend against reading the GM guide and the monster manual if you are a player. But I'm only ever going to play cRPG games (plus I have a shit memory), so I'm guessing this is not much of an issue?

Thanks

 

[Poseidon00]

Some of the Planescape lore books and source material is so good, it is worth reading all on it's own. It doesn't hurt that some of them are narrated in the settings distinct lower class dialect.

Most of the novels, not so much, but some of them are okay for light reading. Some in the Elminster trilogy are notable imo.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I'm am looking for some good D&D themed books to read before I embark on a great quest to play through the SSI Gold Box games. I started reading some of the Witcher short stories halfway through my Witcher 1 playthrough a few years ago, and I found it greatly enhanced my enjoyment of the game. So I'm interested in doing something similar with the Forgotten Realms setting.

But you guys got me confused: half of you seem to think some of the D&D books considered "best" are actually decent, the other half says they're all garbage.
...
If I were to read one Forgotten Realms D&D book before starting to play the Gold Box games, would you recommend the first book of the Azure bonds trilogy? I'm a bit wary of the series giving away the plot too much, but perhaps it's a non-issue?
...

Reading The Curse of the Azure Bonds novel first will probably enhance your enjoyment of the computer game based on it, and it's also the only novel set in the Forgotten Realms that wouldn't immediately induce laughter if someone claimed it to be "good".

Before playing the Dragonlance trilogy of Gold Box games, you should certainly read the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy of novels (and probably the sequel Legends trilogy), as the events of the computer games occur later and introduce characters from the novels. These were the first D&D/AD&D novels, published starting in 1984 and written to accompany a series of 12 linked adventure modules providing a Tolkienesque epic fantasy experience, and they are also the best written, as the average quality only declined over the years after the success of this initial foray into D&D/AD&D novels resulted in an eventual deluge of books taking place in one or another of the expanding number of AD&D settings.

 

[Ysaye]

Some of the Planescape lore books and source material is so good, it is worth reading all on it's own. It doesn't hurt that some of them are narrated in the settings distinct lower class dialect.

Most of the novels, not so much, but some of them are okay for light reading. Some in the Elminster trilogy are notable imo.

I found all the Elminister ones pretty disappointing; it felt like Ed Greenwood was just trying to find how many different ways can Elminister (or Elmara in female form) have sex with either Mystra or her other disciplines spanning over several books (eg. the second book is like the first, except with Elminister rooting / being rooted by Elves). Maybe it is just a forgotten realms problem but on the actual story side it always feels so monotonous; there is always some generic prefix bunch of mages than Elminster that is going to cause "problems" but because he is the chosen of Mystra he gets to use super powers to overcome them.

There are better D&D stories that follow (arch) mages, the Dragonlance Chronicles (The initial setting) and particularly the Dragonlance Legends (Following Raistlin and his attempt to become a God) are probably the best one. Part of what works with this is that Raistlin actually starts out pretty weak, but his ambition clearly keeps driving him to further and further highs and lows.

 

[Rincewind]

Reading The Curse of the Azure Bonds novel first will probably enhance your enjoyment of the computer game based on it
[...]
Before playing the Dragonlance trilogy of Gold Box games, you should certainly read the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy of novels (and probably the sequel Legends trilogy)

Thanks for helping a brother out, it's exactly the type of response I was looking for! Your knowledge of (and good taste in) cRPGs continues to amaze me.

I think with these older games where your imagination plays a much greater role than with the newer stuff that has more "literal" (no pun intended) and realistic graphics, the backstory can really enhance the overall experience.

 

[mondblut]

If I were to read one Forgotten Realms D&D book before starting to play the Gold Box games, would you recommend the first book of the Azure bonds trilogy? I'm a bit wary of the series giving away the plot too much, but perhaps it's a non-issue?

Certainly, Azure Bonds is infinitely better choice than the Pool of Radiance companion novel. The game is set years after the novel (the eponymous "azure bonds" being a second set after the one in the book), you don't need to worry.

 

[mondblut]

These were the first D&D/AD&D novels

"Quag Keep" weeps in silence, forgotten by many and wanted by no one.