Old books used in the new game

[Wombat]

Heck, I've even used material from older editions of different games!

Good fluff is good fluff. An interesting rule idea can be modified.

Gaming scavengers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but blind edition/system loyalty!

 

[der_kluge]

I find that many of my 3e WoTC books are just so crunch-heavy that I doubt I will find much use for them. There are a few exceptions. I've got lots of great fluff-heavy books from 2nd edition though - Legends and Lore, Book of Artifacts, Aurora's Whole Realm's Catalogue - and some of these will continue to be useful even into 4th edition.

 

[The Lemon Merchant]

While I'm getting rid of most of my stuff (see what remains at the Ebay link in my sig), I couldn't bring myself to give up my old modules. I don't know if I'll ever use them again, but Keep on the Borderlands, A1-4 (slavers), Giants, Saltmarsh all have a special place in my heart.

 

[HellHound]

I use rules from different games in my games all the time. Been doing that since I discovered there are other games out there. I use my 3.0 books in my 3.5 games, I also use stuff from the Palladium RPG (right out of the book, not even converting the rules) at times, and have also brought over rules from Underground whole cloth, no conversions.

But then again, Crothian, you knew that I was that kind of rules-monkey.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm still using the BD&D Shady Dragon Inn and 1E Rogues Gallery. I fully expect to be using, say, Redhurst in whatever edition exists 20 years from now.

 

[Voadam]

Old Edition stuff

1e Roleaids Dwarves sourcebook for a dwarven kingdom and king.

1e Manual of planes for planar info.

1e Monster Manual, FF, and MMII for monster descriptions.

1e modules for use in 3e games.

1e Dragonlance Adventures for campaign info

2e Guide to Hell for diabolic info

2e Planescape CS for planar info

2e Planes of Law for info on Acheron and planar creatures

2e Guide to the Outlands for info on the Outlands

2e MC compendium Outer planes and Dark Sun, for info on monsters.

2e Ravenloft Campaign Setting as the campaign setting.

2e ravenloft modules for source info.

2e Dwarves deep for FR dwarf info

2e P&P, F&A, and DD for FR god info

2e monstrous manual for monster descriptions

Other games

I have used the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Warhammer,

In the past I have used Ars Magica, Earthdawn, and Palladium stuff in my older edition D&D games.

 

[Oryan77]

I keep seeing people saying that 4e will make all the 3.x book obsolete and useless. I find this amazing since I've been using much of first and second edition books in my 3.x game.

Well, if I switched to 4e, then my 3.5 PHB, DMG, MM1, MM2, MM3, MM4, MM5, FF, Spell Compendium, ect ect ect aren't going to be very useful.

There are a few books that I may be able to salvage...probably the Magic Item Compendium with lots of tweaks being done. Adventures can always be used but they require a lot of monster/NPC updating and tweaks done to traps and effects. But overall, most 3.5 WotC books are full of stats & crunch and not a whole lot of fluff as compared to AD&D material.

I still use a lot of AD&D stuff for fluff. Since creature fluff is pretty piddly in 3.5, I like to refer to my old AD&D books to help spice up my roleplaying. The Monstrous Arcana books got a lot of use in my 3.5 game. I've even referred to my old AD&D MM. My Planescape books get the most use though.

The thing is, converting adventures takes a long time to do. And the amount of work I've prepped and found online for 3.5 rules really keeps me from wanting to switch to 4e just yet. If they had enough resources for 4e quickly enough where I could make the transition smoothly, I'd be all over 4e. But I've done too much 3.5 work right now to waste it all.

 

[Sunderstone]

I've tried....but I've found it to be (mostly) pointless. Sure, the older editions might have great ideas...but I need mechanics and written-up stat blocks! I want *less* work, not more, thanks!

qft. I dont want all that work either.
Example... at one point I was re-statting all of City of the Spider Queen super module to run in my last FR campaign. I abandoned the project after 2 weeks of work in my spare time, and I was not even halfway through.

 

[Wik]

I occasionally take stuff from older editions and update it (my favourite is still a spell from Complete Druid that turned a large number of low-level targets into trees).

Really, though, I use other books only for fluff. The Glory of Rome 2e book is my current fave, and has been thoroughly mined for ideas in my Drasconis campaign.

 

[Calithena]

The AD&D1 DMG continued to see heavy use in my 3e play, mostly for the encounter tables, which are very nice 'core fantasy' creature lists. Also a few other things.

Other than that, of course I retooled old adventures, but I used very few actual rules resources from other versions of the game - converting bits, sure, but not actually referring to other rulebooks.