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

[Treebore]

Pretty much any history book I have picked up and read has been a great inspiration for adventure and campaign ideas. Whether its European, Mexican, Chinese, Religious, History of Diseases, etc... Lots of interesting things have happened throughout history that make for great gaming ideas.

 

[Crothian]

Gurps Horror and Gurps Mysteries are the best for those genres

 

[AllisterH]

Hmm...hard and tricky question.

I'd say the 4e DMG on teaching HOW to be a good DM and the 1e DMG on providing the tools you might need.

I would also nominate the WORLD BUILDER's GUIDEBOOK that was released in the latter half of 2e by TSR.

Outside of that, I'd go with any of the GURPS worldbooks. They provide lots of well-researched information and presented in a manner that any DM irrespective of system could use. Never been unhappy with GURPS in that regard.

 

[howandwhy99]

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.

I'm going to come out and say that DMs should not use this book as most everything in it is poor design. Robin Laws seems like a helluva nice guy, and I know he is very intelligent and very well regarded in the RPG community, but most of what he writes in this book is faulty. I'll grant you, when it came out it was on top of my must-have list, but it took about 6 months to drop off to don't-buy. I don't believe it can do much more than further frustrate DMs now.

On the other hand, Little Raven prescribes a very good list of DM resource material:

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

 

[mattdm]

The Bible

Particularly, a Roman Catholic version or other edition with the Books of Maccabees, Tobit, Bel and the Dragon, and so on. There's some great stuff with war elephants in Maccabees:

Then Judas and his host drew near, and entered into battle, and there were slain of the king's army six hundred men. Eleazar also, surnamed Savaran, perceiving that one of the beasts, armed with royal harness, was higher than all the rest, and supposing that the king was upon him, put himself in jeopardy, to the end he might deliver his people, and get him a perpetual name: wherefore he ran upon him courageously through the midst of the battle, slaying on the right hand and on the left, so that they were divided from him on both sides. Which done, he crept under the elephant, and thrust him under, and slew him: whereupon the elephant fell down upon him, and there he died. Howbeit the rest of the Jews seeing the strength of the king, and the violence of his forces, turned away from them.​

And, y'know, Bel and the Dragon features an actual dragon.

 

[Scott_Rouse]

Wikipedia
Google
Dice
ENWorld
Netflix
Any history book about ancient civilizations
Library card
Chris Perkins

 

[S'mon]

Re Hero With a Thousand Faces - there's an awful lot of Hindu & Buddhist stuff in there I find unuseable. George Lucas seems to have got a nice streamlined Heroes' Journey out of Campbell, but for most GMs a simplified primer would be more useful.

 

[darjr]

Oh man, how could I ever forget The Big List of RPG Plots, by S. John Ross

 

[Crothian]

Chris Perkins

How do I get me one of those?

 

[thedungeondelver]

MASTER OF THE GAME by Gary Gygax
ROLE-PLAYING MASTERY, ibid.
HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES, Joseph Campbell