D&D 5E What books from previous editions do you tend to mine for material?

[Ezequielramone]

I have been selling all my 2nd and 3rd ed books but the setting ones. I remember looking at my library and always looking for the Manual of the Planes. But I never reach to point in which my players go to the Planes. Still I enjoy telling them about the planes.

Beside that I keep more setting material than rule books (actually only the books). I'm running official adventures, so having all 3e forgotten realms books helps me a lot.
Last material I used was 4e dark sun books to run a one shot in Athas.

 

[Shiroiken]

1E Player's Handbook and DMG have been vital for my campaign, not to mention MM, FF, and MM2. I'm running all 1E adventures, so I need to update a lot of things

 

[gweinel]

Ι have extensively used from Planescape and Birthright series. There are way too many cool ideas to use in your homebrew world!

 

[TerraDave]

The original DMG remains the ur-source. The things you can find in there...

 

[manduck]

I use a lot of older books from previous editions. So let's see...

AD&D/2E:
Any of the "Handbooks" like Paladin's Handbook, Fighter's and so on. They have great flavor that can work in any campaign or interesting cultural information. The Complete Book of Eleves or Dwarves still have great racial flavor. I love how the class books have those day in the life of segments or info on keeps and strongholds.

I also use a lot of the blue books like the Complete book of Necromancers or the Villains Handbook. They have great ideas on fleshing out a villain's personality and motivations. The books on Castles and Keeps is also pretty handy.

3E:
Traps and Treachery: I think this was from Green Ronin, if memory serves. It's an entire book on various traps to throw at your players. Whenever I want to really surprise the group, I update one of these nasty entries.

"The Quintessential..." books. Similar to the handbooks of 2e (even in look) they offer lots of flavor and ideas. These books were from Mongoose Publishing. I really like The Quintessential Paladin, as it gives advice on writing paladin oaths and vows along with fleshing out some of the ideas in those vows. These books have lots of flavor to them.

4E:
Open Grave: A great book with tons of ideas on using undead in your adventures. It also offers some ideas on running an entire campaign based on the undead. I ran a zombie apocalypse D&D game based heavily on the ideas in this book and my players still talk about it in hushed tones. If you want fun ideas for undead in your campaign, this book offers a lot.

Manual of the Planes: Another good reference book for some info on the different planes. I actually have 2E and 3E planar books that I also use, but I can't seem to remember what they're called.

Any edition:
Campaign books or books dealing with select areas of a campaign world. I still use the 3E Forgotten Realms campaign book. It's insanely details, right down to trade routes and importing/exporting in various cities. I have yet to find a campaign book that compares to the 3E FR book. I also used the Scarred Lands campaign book from White Wolf. Though I did back the kickstarter for the 5E Scarred Lands, so we'll see if that shows up.

 

[Greg K]

3E:
Traps and Treachery: I think this was from Green Ronin, if memory serves. It's an entire book on various traps to throw at your players.

It was from Fantasy Flight Games

 

[Dorian_Grey]

Mostly 2nd Edition material:
- The Brown Books which were the Complete [Class/Race] Series for Players
- The Blue Books that expanded the DMG such as Creative Campaigning, Castle Guide etc
- The Green Books that were D&D in some historical time period
- All of the Player's Option books (Especially Spells & Magic and Combat & Tactics).
- The Encyclopedia Magica series (1 - 4), which should be mandatory to own if you like magical items!

I used to have a lot of other material but have sold it off over the years. I remember liking the FR grey box set, the Elminister's Guide or whatever it was. Inside it had the booklets and each booklet had a different color theme. I think Corymer was purple. I thought that the descriptions of the kingdoms and such were nice. If FR had just stayed to that, it would have been a great campaign setting.

 

[Mercule]

The 1E DMG is, of course, at the top of the list. Still awesome and has seen use through all editions I've played. It was the first AD&D book I purchased and is in pretty sad shape -- held together by a 3-ring binder and those little disk things that reinforce the holes I punched in it after the binding broke. I've also referenced my 1E PHB and UA, but not as much as the DMG.

Lots of 3E Eberron stuff. I sold off some of my stuff after hanging up 3E. I ended up rebuying that and more when 5E came out. A lot of it is now digital, but I still feel dumb. I think I actually spend more time in the Eberron books than I do in the 5E core books.

I still occasionally reference http:\\d20srd.org for a variety of things. A lot of this has been to help convert some Eberron stats, especially getting a baseline for price lists. I have grabbed a couple of crunchy bits, though.

Dragon and Dungeon magazines running from the mid-1980s to the just into the digital age. These aren't referenced frequently, but I have pulled them down several times since picking up 5E and can honestly say they still earn their space on my shelves (they share a full shelf of a standard width bookshelf with my 1E DMG and about a ream of hand-written notes from my AD&D home brew setting).

Otherwise, most of what I care about from previous editions is minimal, but still in my head as far as inspiration requires.

Books I wish I still had and think I'd use would be the 3E Tome of Magic, Magic Item Compendium, and (maybe) Spell Compendium. I see the 5E Warlock as being a blend of the 3E Warlock and Binder and would love to do a bit more with vestiges. The shadow caster was also kind of neat and could be an interesting Wizard or Sorcerer kit.

 

[manduck]

It was from Fantasy Flight Games

Ahhh, thank you!

 

[Parmandur]

The original DMG remains the ur-source. The things you can find in there...

Yeah, this: I also have 1E MotP, Greyhawk Adventures, and the 3E FRCS. Great resources.