Least useful book Options

[Gilthanis]

Out of all the SR3 books out right now, what book (rule book or source book) would you rank as the least useful and why?

Then, what would be you top 3 list?

[Kagetenshi]

Hard to say. Of the ones I can remember off the top of my head, I might have to go with Sprawl Survival Guide, but if I hadn't read Shadowbeat before that wouldn't be true.

Top three is also hard.

~J

[Kanada Ten]

Rule books or sourcebooks?

[Cynic project]

It all depends on what you want in your game. I mean any book that is largely based on one area is largely useless unless you are going to playing that area. But on the whole, I would have say that the dragons of sixth world is the least useful one. THis is not to say that it is a bad book, but rather that is it is largely dealing with parts of the world, that the players should have nothing to do with. Dragons are both few in numbers and powerful.This means most runners will not see or deal with any of them, let alone a great one.

Now in my game the matrix book is useless, because no one on the team is a real decker.Or at least none of the PCs are.

[toturi]

Least useful assuming 3rd Ed, it is Target Matrix.

Most useful

1) BBB
2) MITS, M & M, CC (joint seconds)

[Ezra]

Don't know about least useful, but the most boring one is the Germany Sourcebook.

Most useful books:
1) BBB
2) MITS
3) CC

[mfb]

huh. i think T:Matrix is great, i use it all the time. least useful... i guess i'd have to go with DotSW. i mean, don't get me wrong, i enjoy reading it. but i never find any real reason to use it.

[Ol' Scratch]

The Sprawl Survival Guide is a great book for the Lifestyle and Fake SIN chapter alone.

For me, the least useful rulebook would be Target: Wastelands simply because I rarely ever have any use for most of the material in there. For sourcebooks, most any of the run packages (Wake of the Comet, Brainscan, Renraku Arcology Shutdown, etc.). Can't stand 'em.

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Wake was a great book. How else would I know there's a KN: Orbital Black markets skill, or a KN: Megacorp Special Forces skill, or that even on a Firewatch team, the mage still only carries a damn light pistol.

BTW, I think it sucks that FireWatch went from uber-elite commando badasses to glorified merc SWAT teams.

[Tai-Pan]

[Canid13]

Least useful book? Well, for me that's gotta be Shadows of Europe because I find it too much of an update to be useful.

I actually rate DotSW as quite a useful book, but then I have a dragon plot in my campaign and am running Survival right now so it's to be expected :o)

I couldn't posibly chose my top three books, way too many to decide between :o)

[Stumps]

Least Useful Book.

Cannon Companion!

(not really, but damn...I'm sick of some of the headaches that come from people being sticklers about that book...mind you I realize it's importance and I like that book myself very much. Don't order me a crusifix.)

[Nath]

Top3
1) Big Black Book (obviously)
2) Sprawl Survival Guide (a lot mor consistent about SR universe by itself than the BBB)
3) Corporate Download (especially useful to actually understand what's going on in most other sourcebooks)

Bottom
3) Target:Awakened Lands (some question the use of books that describes a dozen of countries, groups, or storylines... what about a book wo describe only one country, with half the page used to demonstrate that characters cannot reasonably survive in two-thirds of the said country ?)
2) Mr. Johnson Black Book (if you're experienced enough as a GM, that's it)
1) Year of the Comet (except for SURGE and Shedim, everything in that last for more than six months in SR timeline have been or will be described in another relevant book)

[Shockwave_IIc]

Like quite a few people here i go with DotSW as the least usefull But it's still a very good book.

Most usefull......
SR3- Hey it is the main rule book!
SComp- Bp system, Edges and Flaws, Meta varients just to start..
M&M, CC and MitS- are all good books, but the main rules have a lot of it anyway....

SSG- Good background reading, and the Lifestyles and fake sin rules.