RPG Books that Surprised You (For Good or Ill)

[Wofano Wotanto]

The Merchant's Guide to Rokugan

That's funny, I saw the thread title and came over specifically to mention this one. It was an even more effective deception than you make out - I was working at a game store when the "Merchants' Guide" released (complete with the fakeout continuing on the first page or two) and all of the trade solicitations played the joke straight with no mention of the Kolat. Needless to say we didn't order many copies, but when I flipped through one and realized what it actually was we bumped it up some and stuck a notice on the rack about what it really was. None of the sales reps at Alliance knew anything about it either until I called to up the restock and told my guy, who spread the word.

A great troll by Alderac, but a terrible way to sell books.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

4E surprised me as well, but neither good nor bad... just... totally not what I was expecting of D&D.
4E plays just fine IMO, but it doesn't feel like D&D to me.

I was all ready to hate D&D 4e based on the pre-release publicity myself, and then we played it and I realized I really enjoyed it. Not just as a player, as GM too. Still by far my favorite edition of D&D to actually run, at least in the later era when they'd fixed the monster math and come out with DMG2.

But yeah, it doesn't feel like any previous edition of D&D and would probably have been better received if it had been called something else. Games like Lancer, 13th Age and Orcus are all descended from 4e and they don't take the kind of vitriol it did.