What TTRPG Is Perfect and Complete In One Volume?

[TheSword]

There are no monsters in the book. I don't think it qualifies.

I don’t think that is required for a really satisfying game. Plenty of games don’t require monsters they use NPCs and there is more than enough in the core book to be able to have really satisfying foes. The structures of an NPC or foe are there and that’s plenty for me.

 

[TheSword]

I’ll follow up with 1e WFRP still one of the best game books ever because it contains a full system, that isn’t just a simplified abstraction but actually has complexity and depth. Plus huge amounts of world building (including monsters) and sample maps, and a sample adventure which is still recognised as a classic today. The Odenhaller Contract, WFRPs equivalent of Lost Mines. There are also some serious punk haircuts in the art!

 

[Kromanjon]

It's interesting that a number of recommendations here are 'generic' setting-agnostic systems such as FATE and Savage Worlds. What makes these an easy recommendation is that they don't include settings, so there's no need for supplements. The assumption is the GM is doing the hard work of establishing settings to play.

So my recommendation for the most 'complete' game in terms of mechanics and setting is Blades in the Dark. It's all there inthe book, and I never felt like I needed an expansion. Alternatives that come close are games such as Thirsty Sword Lesbians, where the book is both setting and game.

Honestly when I started playing setting wasn't even a thing at first. The genre of fantasy was setting enough. My group even made a name for that kind of world when we played D&D 3.5. We called it Generelicum.

 

[Reynard]

I don’t think that is required for a really satisfying game. Plenty of games don’t require monsters they use NPCs and there is more than enough in the core book to be able to have really satisfying foes. The structures of an NPC or foe are there and that’s plenty for me.

To each their own, but that doesn't ring true to me for a D&D-like.

 

[PrunellaUK]

Honestly when I started playing setting wasn't even a thing at first. The genre of fantasy was setting enough. My group even made a name for that kind of world when we played D&D 3.5. We called it Generelicum.

Which is fair enough. However, as someone who latched on to RuneQuest's world of Glorantha some 42 years ago, I've found that settings are incredibly important to me. Large chunks of my shelf space are devoted to setting books. (My Glorantha shelves are measured in metres!) Increasingly, I will either buy the rules set because of the setting (say, RuneQuest or Star Trek Adventures), or I'm buying a setting-agnostic system with a view to bolting on a setting (say FATE or QuestWorlds).

Of course, this is just my little fetish.

 

[Velderan]

I don’t think that is required for a really satisfying game. Plenty of games don’t require monsters they use NPCs and there is more than enough in the core book to be able to have really satisfying foes. The structures of an NPC or foe are there and that’s plenty for me.

Out of curiosity, did you actually just stick with the Core Rulebook for PF1e and never buy anything else? No Bestiary or Gamemastery Guide?

This entire discussion is obviously subjective so it's possible you could pull that off. When my teenage AD&D 2e group first got started, we didn't have anything beyond 1 PHB for the 4 of us to share and we managed to play some games using just that to see if we even would like the concept of a TTRPG. I have no idea how we calculated the experience point value of a bandit, but it wasn't a great experience and the moment one of us had the money to buy the Monster Manual it was a noticeable upgrade to the play experience. Meanwhile something like Shadowdark with a bunch of common monsters right in the rulebook doesn't feel like a book where I am missing something without buying another book or set. To me at least, that's the measuring stick of a perfect product.

IMO, IME, YMMV, etc, etc, etc

 

[Thomas Shey]

Still my favorite iteration of the game.

Unless I'm misremembering, its odd but that was probably my least favorite, because it was so obviously shoehorning the concept into a D&D knockoff (technically the version that used D20 Modern sort-of did that too, but at least D20M was theoretically designed partway for the job).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don’t think that is required for a really satisfying game. Plenty of games don’t require monsters they use NPCs and there is more than enough in the core book to be able to have really satisfying foes. The structures of an NPC or foe are there and that’s plenty for me.

Not what most people expect from a fantasy game, however, and usually games with mostly NPC human opponents provide plenty of examples of those too.

 

[Aldarc]

It's interesting that a number of recommendations here are 'generic' setting-agnostic systems such as FATE and Savage Worlds. What makes these an easy recommendation is that they don't include settings, so there's no need for supplements. The assumption is the GM is doing the hard work of establishing settings to play.

So my recommendation for the most 'complete' game in terms of mechanics and setting is Blades in the Dark. It's all there in the book, and I never felt like I needed an expansion. Alternatives that come close are games such as Thirsty Sword Lesbians, where the book is both setting and game.

I did recommend the first Numenera book. Also, Dragonbane, Worlds Without Number, and Fantasy Age 2e come with micro-settings focused on a region.

 

[innerdude]

My "desert island" RPG is hands down Ironsworn: Starforged. It's the first game I think of in terms of "perfect and complete in one volume."

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