High-quality systemless books [+]

[paradisebunny]

Just to add to system neutral adventures: there is the dark of hot springs island, a dark tropical island hexcrawl sandbox and the great collection of one page Trilemma adventures

 

[Elvish Lore]

Ravensrook is a great system-neutral city setting book. It very much calls to mind dangerous cities of fiction such as Sanctuary and Lankhmar. I've personally used it as a stand-in for the Free City of Greyhawk when I wanted a city with a slightly more grungy feel and also as a city "core" for the City League in Pelinore.

I've never heard of this book. It looks great... thanks for pointing it out.

 

[Elvish Lore]

Greg Stolze's Spherewalker Sourcebook is among the hobby's greatest volume of fantastical ideas. It was written for Everway back in the day but really it's just a cornucopia of amazing bits and pieces - lore, factions, geography, ecology, etc. Whenever I world build over the years, I've taken out my print-copy and flipped through it... I can always find something new and awesome to add to my own campaign.

I could swear that it was available as a pdf a few years back but I can't find it on drivethrurpg if that was the case. Stolze mentioned about 20 years ago on a forum that he doesn't have rights to it. I know since then there's been a new publisher of Everyway from a couple years ago but I don't think this book is involved with what they're doing.

 

[Arakhor]

The obvious choice for me is A Magical Mediaeval Society: Western Europe, which goes into great depth about how mediaeval society actually worked, with pointers on feudalism, inheritance, farming, the church and so on. Although nominally produced for 3rd Edition, the historical stuff is system-neutral and even the various tables for NPC distribution and the like could be easily adapted for a non-D&D game.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I could swear that it was available as a pdf a few years back but I can't find it on drivethrurpg if that was the case.

It doesn't appear to be legally available online, and the few physical copies I could find are far too expensive.

On a distantly related note, WotC's old (pre-Magic) Primal Order books were all systemless. Chessboards was probably the most useful for inspiration and odd ideas, but they're all worth a look - and unlike the Spherewalker Sourcebook they are all on DTRGP, with a bargain bundle for all four books even.

 

[dbm]

The Guide to Glorantha Vol 1 & 2 are system-less books about that world.

I often get setting bibles for good IPs where I would want to run games in those worlds and either they don’t have an official RPG adaption or I where I think one of my go-to systems is already a good fit. I have setting bibles for Song of Ice and Fire, Wheel of Time, and also several of the Star Wars movies. I also have a set of books on Hyrule covering different aspects of the Legend of Zelda.

All these are great sources of info. Some settings have fan wikis which probably give you all you need to know for a world if you are comfortable with adaption to your system-of-choice.

 

[Autumnal]

So many great suggestions! I will make actual replies this afternoon. In the meantime, thanks! You can’t see me suddenly smiling in the middle of a very stressful time, but I am.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The obvious choice for me is A Magical Mediaeval Society: Western Europe, which goes into great depth about how mediaeval society actually worked, with pointers on feudalism, inheritance, farming, the church and so on. Although nominally produced for 3rd Edition, the historical stuff is system-neutral and even the various tables for NPC distribution and the like could be easily adapted for a non-D&D game.

This is a great book, but it is dense. But if you've ever wanted to create a fantasy setting where you weren't handwaving where all the crops were or what all the NPCs do when they're not waiting to be part of the PCs' story, this is it.

 

[Jd Smith1]

There is also all the books by Charlie Ferguson-Avery and Alex Coggon: namely Into the Wyrd and Wild, a fantastic book to create wilderness adventures; Ave Nox, a spooky underdark themed Mega-Dungeon; Into the Cess and Citadel, similar to the wilderness book, but this time geared at city adventures and finally the Vast in the Dark, a dark plane setting focused on exploration. All of these are truly great and the very first page in these has a page called “System neutral and what it means”. Highly recommended!

They are most just Judges Guild-eque collections of charts, cryptic seeds, and general color. Useful only if the GM wants to put in a lot of work.

 

[Autumnal]

Eyeballing it, looks like about 50/50 random ambience and moments stuff (which I do find useful) and the resources for building up an overall map of the area, factions at work in it, and such, which I also find useful.