My collection of TSR products...

[Lanefan]

In my view these aren't very inspiring - if I'm remebering rightly, one of them has a wizard's stronghold with vacuum-cleaner golems and disintegrate latrines for example - but I have seen others post in favour of them.

I've run both.

C4 can be a blast if done right, but it is pretty whacked out and certainly not for everyone. And it's the little golems that have disintegrate - they turn what shouldn't be on the floor to dust and then vacuum it up. Note that this includes backpacks, corpses, etc.

C5 didn't inspire me. If memory serves it's part 1 of 2, the other being C6; and between them they're a long slog through various mini-adventures to a dubious payoff. That said, C5 has one redeeming feature: it introduces a robber baron who can either a) make an excellent opponent should the party decide to storm his castle (like mine did) or b) make a fine long-term foe of the party as they go along should they be foolish enough to leave him alive.

Lan-"and C4 also gave us the legendary little metal model wogglebug"-efan

 

[Derulbaskul]

(snip) Lan-"also trying to collect Judges Guild 1e stuff though I'm not sure why"-efan

Caverns of Thracia and Dark Tower were superb.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Everything I'd recommend is highly conditional. I can't see the database from the link provided, but here's what I consider essential to 2e. If there's anything you already have in your collection, I apologize.

The Player's Option series, including Skills & Powers, Combat & Tactics, and Spells & Magic. Whether you allow players access to these books or not, they're an invaluable tool for customizing your campaign world. You can use the standard point-buy rules to design your own subraces of all of the standard AD&D races and the Priest rules in Spells & Magic provide more robust guidelines for building specialty priests than even the Complete Priest's Handbook. I consider the proficiency systems to be better than the standard proficiency rules and use the weapon mastery and martial arts rules in Combat & Tactics.

The Complete Book of Humanoids contains rules for all of the major humanoid races to be used as PCs and contains a good amount of material for dealing with them other than as PC races are disposable enemies.

The Complete Ninja's Handbook contains mystical martial arts rules that can be converted to the Combat & Tactics system with little trouble.

If you'd like to expand the cultural diversity of your D&D source material, the Kara Tur, Al Qadim and Maztica boxed sets provide a wealth of material for cultures derived from East Asia, the Middle East, and Mesoamerica respectively. With the exception of Al Qadim they are, in my opinion, too fixated upon real-world history and not enough on the folklore of the regions they're based on, but they're a good start.

On that note, the basic boxed sets for each campaign setting are good.

If you like Planescape, the Planeswalker's Handbook is essential and the the Dead Gods, Well of Worlds, and The Great Modron March are some of the best adventure modules available.

For Spelljammer, the Complete Spacefarer's Handbook is an essential resource, and the three Known Space sourcebooks-- Greyspace, Krynnspace, and Realmspace-- provide enough material to keep you going for awhile, especially if you have a lot of stuff for the settings individually.

If you like psionics, regardless of whether or not you like Dark Sun, The Will and the Way is an excellent sourcebook. Thri-Kreen of Athas is one of my favorite AD&D books of all time, but it's kinda niche outside of Dark Sun.

 

[MerricB]

Everything I'd recommend is highly conditional. I can't see the database from the link provided, but here's what I consider essential to 2e. If there's anything you already have in your collection, I apologize.

Not a problem. The actual link to the list of TSR products I own is this one: Merric's TSR products. (For those interested in how I got the list, it was "Advanced Search -> clicking on "Own: MerricB" and "Publisher: TSR".

The Player's Option series, including Skills & Powers, Combat & Tactics, and Spells & Magic. Whether you allow players access to these books or not, they're an invaluable tool for customizing your campaign world.

I do own these, and I did enjoy them very much when I ran my last 2E campaign: they were the basis of one of my very best campaigns, which led off the current sequence of Greyhawk games that continue to this day.

and the Priest rules in Spells & Magic provide more robust guidelines for building specialty priests than even the Complete Priest's Handbook.

To be fair, almost anything is better than the Complete Priest's Handbook - one of the few RPG supplements I've rated 2 out of 10. I find it absolutely dreadful.

The Complete Book of Humanoids contains rules for all of the major humanoid races to be used as PCs and contains a good amount of material for dealing with them other than as PC races are disposable enemies.

The Complete Ninja's Handbook contains mystical martial arts rules that can be converted to the Combat & Tactics system with little trouble.

Interesting. Don't have either of those.

If you'd like to expand the cultural diversity of your D&D source material, the Kara Tur, Al Qadim and Maztica boxed sets provide a wealth of material for cultures derived from East Asia, the Middle East, and Mesoamerica respectively. With the exception of Al Qadim they are, in my opinion, too fixated upon real-world history and not enough on the folklore of the regions they're based on, but they're a good start.

TSR really went through a phase of "real world" supplements for the Realms, didn't it? It's one of the chief reasons I became a non-fan, and up until then I was rabidly in love with them. The Horde was just so, so, so out of place, and Maztica likewise. I picked up Maztica for $10 in a bargain bin at a local bookstore which never ever had RPG books for sale. Of course, I don't own Al-Qadim!

If you like Planescape, the Planeswalker's Handbook is essential and the the Dead Gods, Well of Worlds, and The Great Modron March are some of the best adventure modules available.

I've never liked Planescape that much, though I have heard really good things about Dead Gods. Thanks for the suggestions!

Cheers!

 

[fanboy2000]

My only suggestion is Monster Mythology. Great book about the gods of various monster races. Lots of fluff, not a lot of statistics. Great source for fleshing out the mythology of a campaign world.

 

[TerraDave]

We have similar stuff, though you have more...(sadly, I don't I have the Hs, happily, I don't have the DLs...)

The "letter-code" AD&D/BECMI D&D products I *don't* own (plus a few 2E Greyhawk things) are...

B10: Night's Dark Terror
.
.
.
DA1: Adventures in Blackmoor
DA2: Temple of the Frog
DA3: City of the Gods
DA4: Duchy of Ten
.
.
.
X10: Red Arrow, Black Shield

B10 is supposed to be one of the best of its era, and has a battle element. As does X10, which has both War Machine and Battle System tie ins. The DAs are of course Arnesons return to TSR (Gygax brought him back just before Williams forced Gygax out) and would probably be worth getting just for that.

In terms of products I do own: The four or so volume Magic Item Compendium, which covers all pre 2000 editions and is something I still regularly reference.

 

[Jasperak]

I've used B10 as the basis for my 4e campaign. I think it's an interesting module that converts pretty well. I have no idea how much it sells for online - I got my copy years ago on the second-hand rack at Mind Games.

B10 was one of the hardest modules for me to get second hand, but it is well worth it.

 

[Lanefan]

Caverns of Thracia and Dark Tower were superb.

Unfortunately both of those are still on my get list.

Maltese Clue looks good, though I've never run it; and Sword of Hope (desipte its oh so many glaring flaws) and Tower of Ulission are on my list of all-time favourites.

That said, there's some serious dreck among the Judges' Guild offerings. I seem to have brought a fair amount of it home from the last GenCon I was at.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

B10 is supposed to be one of the best of its era, ...

Many people seem to think this. In counterpoint, I ran it many years ago and absolutely detested it. I'm giving it another run out right now and 23 years later am much better able to see where both I and the module went wrong the first time. That said, I'm still not overly impressed so far...

In terms of products I do own: The four or so volume Magic Item Compendium, which covers all pre 2000 editions and is something I still regularly reference.

Agreed, though I only have one volume of the four.

Lanefan

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Not a problem. The actual link to the list of TSR products I own is this one: Merric's TSR products. (For those interested in how I got the list, it was "Advanced Search -> clicking on "Own: MerricB" and "Publisher: TSR".

There we go. I can make a few more specific suggestions based on what I've seen.

You've got Spelljammer. If you like it, I really can't speak highly enough of the Complete Spacefarer's Handbook; I know I've already mentioned it, but it's one of the few books that actually treats Spelljammer like a setting in its own right. In addition, the Planescape accessory A Guide to the Astral Plane gives you more information on the Githyanki than anything else in 2e. Thri-Kreen of Athas, which I mentioned under Dark Sun, is a wealth of information about the Thri-Kreen which can be applied to their Spelljammer cousins, the Xixchil. Dragon Annual #1 has the Skills & Powers rules for Dark Sun and Dragon #235 has them for the main Planescape races, which is handy for Githzerai and for any planetouched you might include in Forgotten Realms.

You've got Rules Cyclopedia and the Wrath of the Immortals boxed set, which I'd kill to get my hands on. The Gazetteer series expands upon the Mystara setting and upon the rules of the D&D game itself. GAZ 10: The Orcs of Thar gives you humanoid PC rules for several races, from Kobolds to Trolls, and new D&D rules for everything from sub-standard equipment to multiclassing. Others expand the options for the demihuman classes and I believe some of them give optional rules for the standard classes. Everything I've personally seen from this line is of uniformly superb quality and I've heard very good things about the rest; the guy in charge of hiring freelancers for TSR hand-picked the people he allowed to work on it.

I have to say that you've got a breath-taking collection, and I'm more than a little envious. I made the mistake of giving my D&D collection away to a friend when 3e came out, and I regret it every time I see how much it costs to replace it a piece at a time.