RPG books that inspired your D&D campaigns

[Obergnom]

What are the most inspiring rpg books you read in recent years? The ones that made you run or want to run a D&D campaign?

Most of my inspiration comes from D&D books, not all though.

3 years ago, I got my hands on Against the Giants. It inspired a whole campaign. No conversion, rather a campaign in the same style with similar enemies.

The only 4e books that really made me want to run a campaign are the preview books. Worlds & Monsters inspired my most successful 4e campaign to date. I was eager to explore the Shadowfell and the Feywild.

Then, there are the Warhammer Fantasy books. They heavily influenced my current Chaos Scar campaign.

Rappan Athuk will allways make me want to run it, though I know better, and never will

 

[Iron Sky]

The only campaign I can think of where an RPG book made me want to run a game was the d20 Modern game I ran. I hadn't even read the book, I just saw the guy with dreads and a cool looking sword and thought "I want my players to become that guy!"

Instead of the monster-hunting Blade-style I was originally envisioning, it became an political/conspiracy/apocalyptic/survival-horror game(that ended up being one of my favorite campaigns ever).

 

[Khairn]

Some of my favorites include the 2nd World Sourcebook which is packed with inspiration for a D20 Modern game, Airships from Bastion Press, and Elements of Magic: Mythic Earth from EN Press.

But I would have to say that in recent years the most inspirational books have been actual RP settings such as Iron Kingdoms World Guide, Etherscope, Scion, Rocket Empires and the entire Scarred Lands line. Truth be told over the past decade there have been so many great RPG's and inspirational books its hard to focus on just a few.

 

[Stormonu]

L5R (the 1st edition book) is the one that hit a nerve with me. It was so rich in a way that drew me in like D&D books had never done.

 

[arthurhoneyhill]

The novel, "The Lies of Locke Lamora" did a lot for me. It was set in a low-magic city sort of like renaissance Venice. So cool.

And most of the 3.5 supplement books have been really inspirational, too. The Races books, and the Complete series.

 

[knightofround]

There has are 4 books that have inspired me to run anything other than a homebrew campaign. Most of the time I just steal pieces I like from the books I get.

1. The Freeport adventure path, by Green Ronin
2. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, by WotC
3. The Drow War, by Mongoose
4. Sharn, City of Towers, by WotC.

Some runners-up including 2E Against the Giants, and Keep on the Borderlands...but in truth back then I ran them more because I didn't know how to make my own campaign, and the only reason I think highly of them is the nostalgia factor of my first D&D experience.

 

[Jhaelen]

D&D 4e: The Plane Below and Hammerfast - The former was a great inspiration for my current 3e adventure involving travel to a githzerai monastery fortress and each of the four elemental planes. Whenn googling for random stuff I also found quite a bit of interesting stuff about the elemental nodes in 'The Temple of Elemental Evil'.
I loved Hammerfast, but I probably won't be able to use it in the near (and not so near) future.

D&D 3e: City of Stormreach - probably going to use this as a base for my upcoming 4e campaign

War of the Burning Sky campaign: very intriguing. Almost made me reverse my decision to run my next campaign in Eberron.

 

[JeffB]

Secrets of Xendrik inspired me to pull an old homebrew name & idea I'd mothballed circa 1983-ish, and build an entirely new version of it. Its the only 3.X era book I still own, and I don't plan on getting rid of it.

In recent years I've gotten more inspiration from classic fantasy/sci-fantasy fiction (ERB, Howard, Lieber, etc) than RPG books- but 4E's fluff has been quite inspiring to me as well- I've got a Nentir Vale campain (on hiatus) that I converted over to S&W WB after the players decided 4E was too rule intensive for them (and for me at times too, even though I love 4E)

 

[questing gm]

Sharn: City of Towers (Eberron) - Makes me want to run a campaign in the city itself. It's look great to be a sandbox.

Five Nations (Eberron) - A political intrigue campaign especially set in Breland.

Silver Marches (Forgotten Realms) - One of my favorite supplements from the Realms and I'm currently trying to build a sandbox out of it.

Monster Manual (any one of them really) - An episodic campaign where each episode is about killing one monster from the book.

 

[karlindel]

The Eberron RPG books really make me want to run an Eberron campaign. Particularly Sharn: City of Towers, Five Nations, and 4e's Eberron Campaign Guide.

Desert of Desolation looked like a fun campaign to run, I'll probably convert it to 4e sometime soon.

The Kingmaker Adventure Path from Paizo is another adventure that I would like to convert to 4e and run.

Bloodsand Arena (the Dark Sun free RPG Day adventure) is one that I plan to run soon.

I am currently running a 4e home campaign that eats up most of my DMing time, and it has used ideas from many 4e books, most notably the Manual of the Planes and Plane Below: Secrets of the Elemental Chaos.