Best Five RPG Books You Own

[JediSoth]

Top 5, eh? Way easier than top 10 (the core 3/SRD notwithstanding):

Ptolus
Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved
Draconomicon
Complete Book of Eldritch Might
Libris Mortis

These are the books I've found most inspirational or never once thought "I can't believe I spent $XX on this!"

JediSoth

 

[Flynn]

My top five RPG books at the moment are:

1. Grim Tales
2. Unearthed Arcana
3. Traveller T20
4. Star Wars Saga Edition
5. Tome of Horrors Revised

Hope This Helps,
Flynn

 

[wedgeski]

My top 5 recent(-ish) products, INPO, are:-

1. Ptolus (Malhavoc). I doubt I'll transplant Ptolus directly into any of my campaigns but I'll be picking morsels from it for 20 years I expect. As far as I'm concerned this solidifies Monte Cook as the most influential and important designer of the 3rd Edition era.

2. Draconomicon (WotC). There's a lot of love in this product, it is about as good as it could be. Entire campaign ideas have sprung from its pages.

3. The Dragonlance Key of Destiny/Spectre of Sorrows/Price of Courage adventure trilogy (Sovereign Press). It's not perfect by any means, but it evokes the spirit of all of the old DL modules in one modern, balanced, imaginative package. Cam Banks has done a lot of great DL stuff but this is his magnum-opus.

4. Spycraft 2.0 (Alderac). Ironically this game turned out to be too crunchy for my players' tastes but this is the densest, most innovative non-D&D game I've ever seen, and ironically I've nabbed countless subsystems and ideas for the d20 Modern campaign which they seem to prefer.

5. Chaositech (Malhavoc). I don't really know why but I loooove this product. I think it just filled a hole in D&D I never really knew was there.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

1. Call of Cthulhu (6th ed) - A classic and complete game in one book.

2. D&D Rules Cyclopedia - Best version of D&D ever, complete game in one book.

3. Star Wars Saga Edition - Best d20 purchase I have ever made. Mostly complete
game in one book (there is room for more gear and ships but otherwise a complete book).

4. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying 2E - Awesome. Pure win.

5. Fading Suns 2E - Awesome setting and a decent game system.

edit: Remembered things and made changes.

 

[jinx crossbow]

Here they are:

- Engel, Monsternomicon
- Wheel of Time
- Qin
- Children of the horned rat
- DnD Player HB 2.5 (for most used)

Jinx

 

[Crothian]

In no particular order the first that comes to my mind is

Dread: I think it is the best horror game I've ever played.

Dawning Star/Helios Rising is the best sci fi setting I've seen

Magical Medieval Society Western Europe is still just awesome


I can only liest three. Nothing else right now is coming to mind as the Best.

 

[BOAZ]

1. The Great Pendragon Campaign

2. Ptolus

3. Burning Wheel

4. Star Wars Saga

5. Midnight (d20)

 

[The Lost Muse]

1) Ptolus
2) Chaositech
3) Call of Cthulhu d20
4) Eberron Campaign Setting
5) Mutants and Masterminds (1e)

 

[HellHound]

Transhuman Space: My all-time favorite SF setting (and I'm not just saying this because I wrote for the line). It doesn't have intelligent aliens, faster-than-light space flight, psionic powers or anything else that violates the laws of physics as we know it, and pretty much everything is an extrapolation of current technological and social trends. But that doesn't keep it from being one of the most alien SF settings out there, in addition to one of the most thought-provoking. From human genetic engineering to sapient artificial intelligence, from the colonization of the solar system to the settlement of the oceans, this setting has it all. And descriptions of the settings have called it both "extremely optimistic" and "highly dystopian", which should show you how complex this setting is... See this page for my review of the setting.

I wasn't aware you wrote for the line, but I've definitely got your back with regards to how awesome this setting is. I'm in the process of running a CyberPunk 2020 campaign that is moving towards the TS setting, and the game will end when the first FTL ship takes flight.

I bought the majority of the TS books at the $5 tables at GenCon in the past two years - and each year I found myself back in my hotel room reading them voraciously.

 

[Wystan]

Okay, here is my list (but I cannot promise to be complete I own a lot that I never use, but would be gold to someone else)

1. Spycraft 2.0 - I can see so many things in this book. I am discussing running Mechwarrior with this as the base game. (Battletech still rules for mech combat for me.)
2. Ptolus - This is a Great resource for ideas. I could not run the city as it is as the dungeon makes no sense to me, but the ideas are ripe.
3. Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved - Almost what I think D&D should have been. Different yet the same.
4. Top Secret S/I - This is the way a spy/combat game should be created. A little too easy to run the rules in your favor, but a great game none-the-less. (also has superhero rules in it's Freelancers addon)
5. Various and Sundry supplements that I have gotten over the years...