What Are the 5 or 10 Best DM Resources ---USABLE REGARDLESS OF EDITION?

[joethelawyer]

Besides the 3 core rules books, what are the top 5 or 10 DM resources?

I don't mean splat type books just listing more spells, skills, gear, and prestige classes.

Nor do i mean campaign setting books.

Nor do i mean modules/adventures.

What i am looking for are books (either PDF or print) that help a dm create, whether that creation be worlds, campaigns, skills, npc's, sagas, or anything else a DM needs to do well. resources that give helpful information and/or inspire.

The books can be anything, from Gibbon's decline and fall of the roman empire, to Plutarch's lives, to a book on economics of the iberian peninsula in the 8th century, to the magical medieval society books, to a novel by fritz leiber.

If you were limited to the 3 core books, plus 5 or 10 more resource books, what would the 10 resource books be?

looking forward to your answers...

 

[JeffB]

Off the top of my head (assuming you mean: usable regardless of edition, and not- "systemless")

1E DMG
Ready Ref Sheets

will have to get back to ya on the rest

 

[darjr]

Robin's laws.

edit: sorry, I do think reading Robin's laws is a good idea... but I see it's not what you meant.

 

[The Little Raven]

Here's nine essentials for me, one of which is usually always present on my nightstand.

Chronicles of the Barbarians
Hero with a Thousand Faces
History of Western Philosophy: The Medieval Mind
The Art of War
Journey to the West
The Arabian Nights
The Bible
The Rigveda
Super Heroes: A Modern Mythology

 

[Tewligan]

Here's nine essentials for me, one of which is usually always present on my nightstand.

???

 

[joethelawyer]

those are cool books. some of them i dont recognize. it might be helpful if you all could also give a one line summary of the non-obvious books as to what they are and what you use them for.

thx!

 

[T. Foster]

• 1E AD&D DMG by Gary Gygax (for the essays and "Schott's Miscellany"-esque lists of random stuff)
• First Fantasy Campaign by Dave Arneson (the first DM's DM notebook -- a disorganized, amateurish mess to be sure, but IMO more inspiring than anything else before or since)
• Cities by Midkemia Press (the first part is a huge, awesome random encounter table, the second a solid system for designing and stocking fantasy cities -- this same book was later re-published by Chaosium, and by Avalon Hill (as RuneQuest Cities -- even though there's almost nothing RQ-specific in it))
• The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
• Classic Dungeon Designer's Netbook #4: Old School Encounter Reference by Kellri

 

[Treebore]

Magical Medievel Society: Western Europe
Silk Road (both by Expeditious Retreat Press)
The World Builder series by Gygax and Troll Lord Games, buy whats left by December 31st.


Book of the Righteous, simply because the flavor is fantastic, and can carry over to any edition. Much like the Faith and Avatar books from 2E can be.

Those are my biggest recommendations.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Put me in for 1e DMG as well.

 

[knightofround]

This is an awesome idea for a thread. I'm hoping to see more material in this thread that is not published by gaming companies.

Some useful material I've gleaned from creative writing courses are "How to Write a Damn Good Novel" by James Frey and "Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint" by Nancy Kress. "Improv Wisdom" by Patricia Madson is a fantastic book to counterpoint the write-an-adventure-like-a-novel style.

I've found "Getting to Yes" by Roger Fisher and William Ury to be surprisingly useful for DMing campaigns that have intra-party conflict.

I have somewhat of an ancient history fetish, and the book "Roman Warfare" by Adrian Goldsworthy is a lovely quick briefer on ancient warfare. The website The Roman Empire goes much more in-depth.