Must have book per edition

[Viking Bastard]

I have much love for the Rules Cyclopedia. I have read it through multiple time. No other book informs my view of D&D as much, even though I haven't actually played it since I reached puberty.

For 4e, I'd actually probably recommend Dungeon Delve. It's obscure and flawed (requires Dungeon Tiles?!), but it is an encyclopedia of neat little encounters, which 4e needed and any D&D game can benefit from. I would not hate a 5e Monster Manual that was Dungeon Delve + the 2e Monstrous Manual, with a few modifications (actual dungeon maps, not dungeon tiles; social encounters).

Dungeon Delve is a great book that gets no respect. No 4e book has gotten as much use (on the DM's end, at least) as Dungeon Delve. Need an impromptu fight? Voila!

I don't know how much use one would get out of it for other editions.

But: You need dungeon tiles? You mean they drew the maps using them? Isn't that a general 4e thing? (I hate the 4e maps.)

 

[olshanski]

1E - DMG (so many great tables and charts)
2E - Planescape Campaign Setting Box Set
3E - PHB OR Ptolus Box Set OR Rise of the Runelords hardcover.
4E - ? no clue

 

[I'm A Banana]

Dungeon Delve is a great book that gets no respect. No 4e book has gotten as much use (on the DM's end, at least) as Dungeon Delve. Need an impromptu fight? Voila!

It's the promise of 4e's "easy DMing" delivered in bite-sized chunks!

I don't know how much use one would get out of it for other editions.

It's hard to find a 4e book that's useful for other editions. The fiction changes combined with the high crunch-to-fluff ratio means that there's not a lot that's portable. Bits and pieces here and there, but not a lot.

I think DD works OK for other editions, if you take it as "a book of basic encounter ideas." Not great, but not as bad as some others.

But: You need dungeon tiles? You mean they drew the maps using them? Isn't that a general 4e thing? (I hate the 4e maps.)

I don't believe it's a general 4e thing, but dungeon tiles were the new hotness at the time and in a fit of cross-promotional marketing pique, they figured it'd be a good idea to greenlight a book that required you to buy more stuff to get much use out of it. Since I mostly play 4e online via electronic table-top, I whipped up a few image files and used those instead.

 

[Viking Bastard]

It's the promise of 4e's "easy DMing" delivered in bite-sized chunks!

Exactly. 4e mostly delivers on it's promise of easy DMing, but suffers for that while it's easy to throw together a decent fight, for the system to really shine you need to put some forethought into it. Which makes this perfect for someone like me who likes to pull things out of my arse as I go.

It's hard to find a 4e book that's useful for other editions. The fiction changes combined with the high crunch-to-fluff ratio means that there's not a lot that's portable. Bits and pieces here and there, but not a lot.

Well, I'd list the fiction changes as the thing that is most useful. Not because it's better, but because it's largely the same but different. Like the BECMI cosmology vs. AD&D cosmology (now we can add a 'vs. 4e cosmology').

I don't believe it's a general 4e thing, but dungeon tiles were the new hotness at the time and in a fit of cross-promotional marketing pique, they figured it'd be a good idea to greenlight a book that required you to buy more stuff to get much use out of it. Since I mostly play 4e online via electronic table-top, I whipped up a few image files and used those instead.

Well, I've never used tiles or electronic tabletops, but the maps don't get in my way other than that they're fugly. All my 4e books use those tile designs.

 

[Obryn]

dungeon tiles were the new hotness at the time and in a fit of cross-promotional marketing pique, they figured it'd be a good idea to greenlight a book that required you to buy more stuff to get much use out of it. Since I mostly play 4e online via electronic table-top, I whipped up a few image files and used those instead.

It was cross-marketing meets sales pitch.

I have no use for dungeon tiles. They're too fiddly by half. My chessex mat is my best friend. (1" graph presentation pads are a close second for elaborate setpieces.) But it's not like they were required for Dungeon Delve - it just used them on its floorplans.

-O

 

[Tony Vargas]

What single book per edition is a must have? Why?

I think that the AD&D 1st edition "Dungeon Masters Guide" is a must have book for any D&D fan even if your not playing AD&D because it's a good resource for other games and it's a wonderful artifact of the history of D&D.

I have to agree. As much for the impression it gives you of D&D's co-creator as for the content. While obviously not written as a retrospective, it works as one.

I wonder what book from each edition is also a must have?

OD&D, I'm tempted to say Blackmoor, because it contains the first published adventure (Temple of the Frog).

2e is tough, because it was such a large yet stodgy edition. The one book I found memorable was the Complete Priests Handbook, by Aaron Alston. Alston worked a lot on Champions! and it showed in the CPH which was less a list of kits and stuff and more a toolkit for the DM (or player) to create faiths (cleric variations). A level of customization D&D had never tried before, and wouldn't try again until 3e.

3e, I'm going to stray slightly and say the SRD. Though 3e had some great stuff in the rules (modular multi-classing, feats, the Fighter class design) and other materials, it's single biggest contribution to the hobby was legitimizing open-source RPGs (open source RPGs like FUDGE or Fuzion had already been tried, but lending the D&D name to the concept was a big deal).

4e, the PH1, because it had the biggest, seemingly impossible, innovation in D&D history: classes that actually balanced, not to mention the first new class in a long time to really click for me: the Warlord.

Essentials, the Monster Vault, mainly because I didn't say MM3 for 4e. The MM3 refinements that finally got monsters working just-right, plus expanded fluff, plus pogs, and a module as a bonus.

 

[edemaitre]

Favorite D&D books by edition

1. oD&D/BECMI: Rules Cyclopedia -- Kind of a cheat as a compilation, but still a very nice repackaging of this edition.
   
2. AD&D1: Wilderness Survival Guide -- For showing me how to approach sandbox-style worldbuilding.
   
3. AD&D2: Vikings Campaign Sourcebook -- Before I discovered GURPS, this (and AD&D1's Oriental Adventures) showed how to adapt real-world historical settings to fantasy and began opening the door to cross-genre role-playing that D20 would develop.
   
4. D&D3.x: Cityscape -- This showed the versatility of D20/OGL for more specific campaign building and complemented third-party sourcebooks, of which there are too many to mention here.
   
5. Pathfinder: Core Rulebook -- This is the D20 version of the Rules Compendium, even if it's a stretch to include it here.
   
6. D&D4e: Underdark -- More bang for the D.M.'s buck.

 

[SageMinerve]

My personal all-time favorite is 1st ed. Legends & Lore.

A book with Asgardians AND Arthurian heroes? Count me in!

 

[Randomthoughts]

I wonder what book from each edition is also a must have?

For 4e I think it'd be a toss up between the Dungeon Masters Guide or the Dungeon Masters Guide 2.

I answered this question for someone who is just getting into 4e. My response was the Rules Compendium. It's a handy book that contains the updated rules for 4e. It's the only book I have at the table when I play or GM.

 

[delericho]

I'm going to avoid core rulebooks, and stick only with editions I've played more than once...

BECMI: The Companion rules. Mostly for the War Machine mini-game. (Though it's been a long time...)

2nd Ed AD&D: "Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide". Taught me more about DMing than any other sourcebook, and is entirely edition neutral. Pretty much all of this should have been in the DMG - that way, the DMG might not have been useless.

3e: A tricky one, this. "Frostburn", maybe, or the "Eberron Campaign Setting", or "Lords of Madness". I'm going to give the nod to "Frostburn" - it's one of very few RPG books that truly wowed me.

4e: Rules Compendium, simply because it's the only non-adventure book I own outside of the core.

Pathfinder: Beginner Box. Best introduction to the game since the old Red Box. Every gamer's nephew (and neice - let's not be sexist) should get this for their 10th birthday.