HackMaster jumped the shark with Lord Flataroy's Guide, which was a HM version of the AD&D Castle Guide (with maybe some bits from others in that AD&D series). It was the poorest HM book to date, and the line has yet to recover.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalOoooooh.  Good one.  It served only to complete overshadow the Cyberpapacy and the victorian horror one.  What was it called?  Orrosh?

Orrorsh. It was "horrors" with the "h" put at the end.

I thought Tharkold was interesting in and of itself, and I dug the monster book for it. I think I'd rather have had Tharkold as a game setting all to itself, on the parallel Earth it was on, rather than one of the invading realms. Personally, I thought TORG as a setting jumped the shark with the Core Earth sourcebook (whatever it was called). Not a bad book itself, but it just wasn't all that interesting concept-wise. As poorly put-together as most of the TORG setting books were, virtually all of them had some cool bits and pieces, except the one I mentioned.

Quote from: Mr. AnalyticalHaving said that, I was never a huge fan of the living land.  I thought it missed its target quite comprehensibly.  Was it not supposed to be a kind of "Land that time forgot" type thing?  instead it was just a jungle... with lizards.

The setting itself was, indeed, something like a "land that time forgot" type of thing. Or "Land of the Lost," specifically, with the sleestak and everything. It was my least favorite of the invading realms.

Quote from: Abyssal MawThe Living Land had the most hilariously bad art of any of them. I kinda liked it as a realm though, just because it was crazy and had dinosaurs.

Yeah, that art was horrible, like the art in some low-rent fanzine. Like I said, it was my least favorite of the invading realms. It could have had a certain charm to it, but there was an overload of oddball stuff in it - intelligent starfish among the things that stuck out.

Quote from: blakkieI agree that YotC was totally wacked out goofiness (thus almost consistant with the setting ). But you do realise that YotC was actually produced by FASA. Fanpro inhereted the finished manuscript.  Now it could be argued that Fanpro should have just killed it, and are guilty by compliance. But they didn't create it.

I liked YotC. *ducks*

What bugs me a bit is the book's format. I'd rather have something more focused (Super Tuesday, Universal Brotherhood or Portfolio of a Dragon).

DnD is going to jump the shark fairly soon.
Complete Mage.
After Complete Arcane, Spell Compendium, Tome of Magic, Magic of Incarnum... you get the idea. It's freaking MAGIC. We get the POINT.

Quote from: beejazzDnD is going to jump the shark fairly soon.
Complete Mage.
After Complete Arcane, Spell Compendium, Tome of Magic, Magic of Incarnum... you get the idea. It's freaking MAGIC. We get the POINT.

I was scratching my head wondering if Magic of Incarnum was 3e's shark-jumping. That was the point that I first seriously started asking "Do I need this? Will I ever use this?"

Quote from: Caesar SlaadI was scratching my head wondering if Magic of Incarnum was 3e's shark-jumping. That was the point that I first seriously started asking "Do I need this? Will I ever use this?"

Possibly, but I ran out of spending money before it came out, so I wouldn't know. And I really have only had access to DnD thus far, so I probably wouldn't believe it if I did know. And I'm writing my own system in the hopes that I will no longer need to care.

Wow, I just noticed nobody has yet mentioned this doozy. I still recall flipping open to a random page, reading an entry about +3 eggbeaters, and thinking "W...T...F?"

QuoteI liked YotC. *ducks*

Get him!!!

Hehe, yah I know there are a number of people that live silently in their guilt about enjoying Shadowrun Fury-ized.

Well, the way I see it, there are two primary ways that most RPGs jump the shark:

1. Metaplot. Any game with a metaplot will experience a fatally-sucky twist in said metaplot at some point. It's just a law of nature.

2. Designers working on follow-up products in a line either forget or deliberately ignore what made the game so successful and beloved in the first place. Gamma World d20 comes to mind as one of these. If you ever fail to ask yourself "What do people like about this game, anyway?" bad things will result.

Quote from: YamoWell, the way I see it, there are two primary ways that most RPGs jump the shark:

1. Metaplot. Any game with a metaplot will experience a fatally-sucky twist in said metaplot at some point. It's just a law of nature.

2. Designers working on follow-up products in a line either forget or deliberately ignore what made the game so successful and beloved in the first place.

Traveller: The New Era exemplifies both of those to me.

"Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand"

I don't mind the book.  The book itself has some absolutely wonderful ideas.  But what WW did to try to distance themselves from it (up to and including nuking the site from orbit (and that's probably the first time I've used that quote appropriately)) damaged a setting that already had huge problems

Quote from: Hastur T. Fannon"Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand"

I don't mind the book.  The book itself has some absolutely wonderful ideas.  But what WW did to try to distance themselves from it (up to and including nuking the site from orbit (and that's probably the first time I've used that quote appropriately)) damaged a setting that already had huge problems

In that book the thematic seeds were sown for the eventual nuking of Ravnos.

Terrible, terrible stuff. I now look back on my old WoD collection and wonder what the hell they (and I) were thinking.

I'd say that Rifts jumped the laser equipped sharks  with Juicer Uprising.  That book explicitly put metaplot ahead of gameplay for the entire gameline, and emphasized that PCs could do nothing of consequence.  It was a pretty big change for a game line whose corebook described the PCs as "larger than life heroes."  But, then again, the trend of deprotagonizing the PCs had been going on for some time before that in Rifts books anyway.

Coalition War Campaign proved to anyone who was paying attention that the entire setting was just Kevin Siembieda's fanwank over his nazi creations, as they were catapulted to extreme power levels regardless of the extreme damage it did to the logic the setting had.  Of course, everyone probably knew that already too, because every damn worldbook had to have a section of what that area thought of the podunk little Coalition States, even though they had no way of knowing they existed.  The best part was in one of the South America books where, after we've been through a long segment of text about how no one from North America has made it down there, there just happen to be a CS embassies sprinkled about.

Rifts has no advenutres or campaigns, so the metaplot is not very intrusive. There is no common baseline, so everyone's playing in his home universe anyway.

Quote from: SettembriniRifts has no advenutres or campaigns, so the metaplot is not very intrusive. There is no common baseline, so everyone's playing in his home universe anyway.

No offense, but this statement shows a complete ignorance of the gameline.

Juicer Uprising, for example, is an adventure book where the PCs are either led along by the nose to follow the metaplot, or are forced to adventure "behind the scenes" to do nothing of consequence.  The entire Siege of Tolkeen series is one big set of adventures which are part of canon and, once again, the PCs are explicitly only along for the ride.  There are adventures in the Rifts Indexes which are more or less canon to the proceedings in the setting.  There are TONS of pre-set adventures.

As for the metaplot, from what I've read of Vampire, I'd say that Rifts's metaplot is even more intrusive.

QuoteNo offense, but this statement shows a complete ignorance of the gameline.

Well, I own every book of the Rifts line, except Dinosaur Swamp.
And if you wanna call Juicer Uprising an adventure, go ahead. It is in my opinion, just a collection of illustration and ideas, like any Palladium product. Even the two indices have only HL&S or rough outlines. Those are not adventures. YMMV, of course.

QuoteOriginally Posted by Caesar Slaad
I was scratching my head wondering if Magic of Incarnum was 3e's shark-jumping. That was the point that I first seriously started asking "Do I need this? Will I ever use this?"

I dunno. I haven't gotten Magic of Incarnum (and feel no urge to buy it), but I know a couple people who like it. It's just an alternate magic system/add-on.

That said, I totally loved the Tome of Magic which had three more alternate magic using classes and systems that support them. Like the Binder is my favorite. It's basicly like the old Dragonquest demon-summoner guy who binds demons and then manifests powers based on what demon he has managed to bind. Not at all necessary, I realize, but still an interesting and cool take on a type of magic user.