What third-party products have you used for your favorite RPGs?

[Alzrius]

Tabletop RPGs have had third-party products made for them since the dawn of the hobby, ranging from classics like the Palace of the Vampire Queen for Original D&D to new products like Armaments of the Damned for Mörk Borg.

Given that, I wanted to start a thread where people can share some of the third-party products they've found most useful, for any game or system. Is there a particular adventure that you enjoy running for different groups of players? A supplement with character options that you've put to good use over the years? A book of monsters that are your go-to for when the usual baddies are too familiar to your players? What third-party products have a place of honor on your shelves, physical or digital?

 

[payn]

Those Paizo magnetic combat trackers are good for just about any game. Help ya manage info during the session.

 

[Theory of Games]

White Dwarf's Fiend Folio 1st edition which was filled with reader and fan created monsters that could really mess with even experienced parties.

 

[Distracted DM]

• Tower of the Stargazer was one of my favorite things to drop into a D&D game.
• I love Skerples' Monster Overhaul book. I also enjoyed that they included within MO the undead snake-man from their earlier (also great) Tomb of the Serpent Kings. He's in the Lich section.
• As far as MCDM goes I actually use Strongholds & Followers more than I do Kingdoms & Warfare or their monster book. I prefer LU A5e's Monstrous Menagerie for my (A)5e games.
• An older book, The Mother of All Treasure Tables, is pretty awesome for when you want to really present a treasure "horde" to your players.
• I've used Kobold Press' Peculiar Towers, Prepared! 1&2, and MCDM's Where Evil Lives for drop-in adventure locations.
• OH MY GOSH I almost forgot THE BEST adventure location product: Trilemma Adventures! Michael Prescott is a genius, I adore his 1-2 page dungeons and they're almost all available for free on his blog.
• I try to reference the Gygax Books of Names whenever I can to keep peoples' names "consistent" by region, but it can be a pain to have that open and available all the time.

I'm sure that there are so many others that have slipped my mind. I go to Dungeon Crawl Classics for inspiration, though I'd love to run a game of that sometime. I wish that there was way to see which PDFs I opened the most frequently!

 

[Emberashh]

I can't say I used it much for the game it was designed for, but I fully endorse Arora: Age of Desolation.

Its primarily a 5e setting book, but what I adore it for is its exceedingly clever, it simplistic, take on Exploration and Survival rules, which I so dearly love they formed the basis for substantive parts of my own game.

But beyond that, its a great setting thats only held back by how relatively short the book is.

 

[kenada]

Those Paizo magnetic combat trackers are good for just about any game. Help ya manage info during the session.

I used the hell out of mine when I ran Pathfinder. It’s also how I can remember that I ran a twenty round combat (because the round tracker went off the right side of the board).

 

[kenada]

I’m going to suggest Kevin Crawford’s games as a supplement to other games. Sometimes you get stuck, and rolling up a few tags can be what it takes to get your creative juices flowing.

Otherwise, I’m a big fan of Necrotic Gnome’s adventures. I don’t think I’ve run any of them for Old-School Essentials. I ran Winter’s Daughter in PF2, Halls of the Blood King in WWN, and The Incandescent Grottoes in my homebrew system.

 

[MNblockhead]

The only two games where I run long campaigns where I find third-party content helpful are D&D 5e and Warhammer Fantasy.

With Warhammer, it is mostly material on fan blogs and posted to the Ratcatcher's Guild Discord an their periodical, Ratter. I mainly scour these sources for adventure material and maps.

With 5e, I've used quite a bit of third-party content.

I have bought a lot of Frog God Games Material, including all of their setting books and many of their adventures. I've also bought and used their Tome of Alchemy, but I have mixed feelings about this book. I much prefer FGG's adventures and Lost Lands setting books than their bestiaries or rule sub-systems.

I heavily used MCDM's Strongholds and Followers book in my last campaign.

My favorite third-party bestiary is Tome of Beasts by Kobold Press, along with the Book of Lairs supplement and their cardboard standee miniatures for it. I also bought their Creature Codex, but didn't make much use of it. I really like their Flee! Mortals bestiary, which has some great ideas for new mechanics for spicing up enemies in 5e, but I got the book just as I was ending my last campaign and taking a break from 5e. If I start running 5e again with the 2024 rules, I hope to revisit and use this book.

I've used a lot of stuff from the early issues of EN World's EN5ider.

When I ran games in person, there were a lot of physical game aids I enjoyed. In particular Alea Tools Magnetic Status Markers and Paizo's combat tracker.

I've cycled through a lot of software over the years, but they are not really game specific.

 

[jdrakeh]

White Dwarf issues 42-47 for Irilian, their AD&D-compatible city. A bit more British than official AD&D cities.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Do index cards count? Because boy, do I use a lot of them. Can't beat cereal box cardboard for counters, too. Just remember to recycle it all when they aren't needed any more.