Favorite Old Supplements you Still Use

[smbakeresq]

All of the Greyhawk stuff. Probably have everything in one form or the other, been switching over to digital.

You cant lose anything in the digital age, its always out there....

 

[StormbringerAUS]

I still regular use Deities and Demigods from around 1980 (has Melnibone and Nehwon mythos). I also have books of Islands and Castles from Judges Guild which were just blank maps but I find very useful, also City state of the Invincible Overlord which gives me a handy city map and some quite easy NPCs to grab, also have a Lankhmar city map which I have used once or twice before as well (cant remember the publisher).

Plus have kept various town/village layouts from modules even if I don't have the module itself.

 

[the Jester]

Mostly I convert from older material- I have converted literally thousands of magic items, along with hundreds of monsters and spells. But some stuff I use more-or-less as is, reading straight out of the book and converting on the fly, especially adventures. I have run the following adventures in this way since 5e dropped, using 5e as the system in play each time:

H2: Thunderspire Labyrinth (4e)
S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks (1e)
Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (2e)

I'm pretty sure that I have converted a monster or two, a magic item or two, and a bunch of other random material (e.g. traps) on the fly, too.

 

[The Thrasson]

I still regular use Deities and Demigods from around 1980 (has Melnibone and Nehwon mythos). I also have books of Islands and Castles from Judges Guild which were just blank maps but I find very useful, also City state of the Invincible Overlord which gives me a handy city map and some quite easy NPCs to grab, also have a Lankhmar city map which I have used once or twice before as well (cant remember the publisher).

Plus have kept various town/village layouts from modules even if I don't have the module itself.

TSR published Lankhmar with Fritz Leiber's direct assistance. There was a whole series of Lankhmar supplements. "Lankhmar, City of Adventure" is the supplement you mentioned, circa. 1985. I've never run a Lankhmar campaign before. I use it when I create the seedy part of town.

I don't think any other characters had as much fun as Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Or, maybe, I didn't have as much fun reading about any other characters.

 

[StormbringerAUS]

TSR published Lankhmar with Fritz Leiber's direct assistance. There was a whole series of Lankhmar supplements. "Lankhmar, City of Adventure" is the supplement you mentioned, circa. 1985. I've never run a Lankhmar campaign before. I use it when I create the seedy part of town.

I don't think any other characters had as much fun as Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Or, maybe, I didn't have as much fun reading about any other characters.

Cheers for that, I have also never run a Lankhmar Campaign but the maps are just useful for a city I don't want to put a lot of time into. Fafhrd and the Mouser were great fun (I also liked some of the horror that Leiber wrote) though recently reread some and didn't quite get into like I use to, I still enjoyed the characters however.

Also went back to some Moorcock and Elric is still the one though the Castle Brass stuff also holds up well, which getting back to the thread also gives me inspiration for stuff I run even if not technically a D&D product.

 

[The Thrasson]

Also went back to some Moorcock and Elric is still the one though the Castle Brass stuff also holds up well, which getting back to the thread also gives me inspiration for stuff I run even if not technically a D&D product.

Elric is my favorite anti-hero, by far. I don't have the original six paperback novels anymore (late 70s). I do have the whole 15 book "Eternal Champion" series. I enjoyed Corum too. One of my old RPG group ran the first edition Stormbringer game. I loved it. There weren't so many class restrictions as AD&D back then. I had a multi-classed illusionist13 + Druid12. Many, many spells. Much fun.

 

[Azzy]

I can't say that I have any favorites, but I do mine a lot of older books for inspiration. Since I rand (and now play in) a Greyhawk campaign, older Greyhawk material got/gets referenced quite a bit.

 

[Imaculata]

I forgot about that line; I remember enjoying it immensely (I believe the other two were Sandstorm and Frostburn. According to Wikipedia at least, Cityscape and Dungeonscape were also part of that line. Pretty great supplements; I should give them a re-read when I've got the chance.

Sandstorm and Frostburn are both fantastic books, which I still hope to get my hands on some day.

I do own Cityscape, but that one is a bit poor in quality and contents.

 

[Gradine]

Sandstorm and Frostburn are both fantastic books, which I still hope to get my hands on some day.

I do own Cityscape, but that one is a bit poor in quality and contents.

Huh. Cityscape is perhaps the one I've spent the least time perusing. I remember loving Dungeonscape, though that may have been entirely due to the Factotum class.

 

[Imaculata]

Huh. Cityscape is perhaps the one I've spent the least time perusing.

Well, maybe "poor" is a bit too harsh. Its just not as useful as Stormwrack, Sandstorm or Frostburn. Those three are books that you could build entire campaigns around... but Cityscape... not so much. I always felt that they could have done a lot more with that book. Just the theme of city adventures alone should be food for a wealth of ideas, but there's not much of note in Cityscape for running adventures in the city. That is why I rarely ever pick it up from the shelves. A much better book is the Red Dragon Inn Guide to Inns and Taverns for Pathfinder. It is such a complete book on anything related to taverns and inns. From just a ton of ideas for interesting locales, to a good old tavern brawl, or games of chance, or beverages... heck it even lists the costs, weight and damage of various objects found in taverns. So if you need to know how much damage a barstool or a broom does, it's in that book.