What TTRPG Is Perfect and Complete In One Volume?

[Reynard]

In your opinion, what TTRPG is perfectly well mde and totally complete in one volume? That is to say, not only is the game good, but you don't need anything else to play it even long term.

NOTE: it is not required that the game does not have supplements, just that you feel that it does not need any.

I am tempted to say Champions 4E (the Big Blue Book) but the fact is it needs more example villains to be truly complete (so IMOP Classic Enemies completes Champions 4E, even though there are ots of other books I love).

I think my real answer is All Flesh Must Be Eaten. There are supplements for it, but they aren't necessary at all. That game is a real toolkit for all kinds of games, not just zombie survival.

What do you think? What game(s) do you think is totally perfect and complete in one volume?

 

[monsmord]

Amber Diceless (1991). The later supplement was fine, but not needed to fully enjoy the game.

 

[Enaknomolos]

Classic Traveller in the form of The Traveller Book. It has everything you need to play for years : character gen, combat, starship gen, starship combat, world and sector generation, a trade system, still the best animal generation system in an rpg, random encounters...

It's an amazing piece of work, never equalled. Mongoose's Core Update 2022 is a worth successor, though.

 

[Velderan]

As a teenager, we got a ridiculous amount of play out of the TSR Marvel Superheroes Advanced Set box. I never bought any of the supplements for the game, because the Judges book had enough NPC hero and villain characters to use and the Players book had everything you needed to make basically any kind of superhero you wanted to make.

 

[overgeeked]

Huh. That's an odd one to me as outside of the D&D-like genre-model, most games are complete in one volume. It'll be the perfect part that's the sticking point. I'd also argue that complete in one release, i.e. including boxed sets, would be required as there are many perfect games released as a boxed set rather than a single book.

My incomplete list. Classic Traveller in the original boxed set release. Marvel Superheroes Advanced. Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. Ghostbusters. Top Secret in the original TSR boxed set. Monster of the Week in any of its main book releases. Blades in the Dark. Old-School Essentials Classic Fantasy. Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. Mutant Crawl Classics RPG. Xcrawl Classics RPG. Over the Edge 3rd Edition. Kosmosaurs RPG. Lasers & Feelings. Doctor Who RPG, 1E or 2E. Wushu Black Belt Edition. The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, any edition. Eat the Reich. Paranoia XP or Troubleshooters. Risus. Toon. Fiasco. Pirate Borg. Dread. Mothership 1E boxed set. Hard City. Knave 2E. Shadowdark. Black Sword Hack. Into the Odd. Electric Bastionland. Havok Brigade. Kobolds Ate My Baby. Lair of the Leopard Empresses. Monsters Monsters 2E. Atomic Robo RPG. Fate Core. Fate Accelerated. Fate Condensed. Spirit of the Century. Outgunned. Outgunned Adventure. Tomorrow City. Cortex Prime. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2E. Barbarians of Lemuria. Everywhen. Cthulhu Dark. Call of Cthulhu, pick any edition. En Garde. Labyrinth RPG. EZD6. HeroQuest 2E. Index Card RPG. Spirit of 77. Star Wars WEG d6, pick any core book. X-Treme Dungeon Mastery, either 1E or 2E.

 

[kronovan]

The Dragon Age Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. That's mostly because it combines the original box sets' 3 Player and 3 Game Master guides into 1 book. I have some issues with that edition of the AGE rules, but that doesn't detract from the completeness of the book. It contains very thorough character creation rules, a bestiary (adversaries), 3 decent length adventures, an almanac-like chapter, rules for Player realms and organizations and 5 chapters dedicated to Game Mastering.

 

[coralwave]

Lots of great suggestions, i'll add another: if you're okay with DIY- ICRPG.

I'm over 1.5 years into a campaign and we haven't even covered one country in Alfheim.
BUT- most of it is what you put into it. the frame is super solid, lots of tables for loot.

another one is Burning wheel

 

[CorvusCarpus]

-The Nightmare Underneath
-Hell Night
-Warpland
-Godlike
and a few purely French ones :
-Bloodlust Metal
-A Coeur Vaillant
-Nanochrome (in my humble opinion the best cyberpunk RPG on the market)

 

[Umbran]

What do you think? What game(s) do you think is totally perfect and complete in one volume?

Hr. I feel perfection is denied us in this world - it is an aspirational goal, not one we will reach in practice.

That said, I'll say - Fate Accelerated Edition.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Shadowdark.

And I don't have personal experience running it yet, but all available evidence says that Mothership works fine with just the 64-page (free!) Players Survival Guide.