What TTRPG Is Perfect and Complete In One Volume?

[Eyes of Nine]

Psh, one volume. Lasers & Feelings just needs an index card.

Lasers & Feelings by John Harper

One page, one-shot, easily hackable rpg

johnharper.itch.io

 

[Gannaeg]

Agone (a french game). Alas, not sure it was translated in english...

Agone

 

[Crusadius]

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition. None of the following editions' core rulebooks feels as complete as the 1st edition core rulebook.

Other games I feel that you could get away with just the core rulebooks are: Metro: Otherscape (Tokyo: Otherscape being a setting expansion of the core game), City of Mist (technically true given the first release was one massive tome that was later re-released as player and game master books), and Exalted Essence.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Huh. That's an odd one to me as outside of the D&D-like genre-model, most games are complete in one volume. It'll be the perfect part that's the sticking point. I'd also argue that complete in one release, i.e. including boxed sets, would be required as there are many perfect games released as a boxed set rather than a single book.

My incomplete list. Classic Traveller in the original boxed set release. Marvel Superheroes Advanced. Marvel Heroic Roleplaying. Ghostbusters. Top Secret in the original TSR boxed set. Monster of the Week in any of its main book releases. Blades in the Dark. Old-School Essentials Classic Fantasy. Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. Mutant Crawl Classics RPG. Xcrawl Classics RPG. Over the Edge 3rd Edition. Kosmosaurs RPG. Lasers & Feelings. Doctor Who RPG, 1E or 2E. Wushu Black Belt Edition. The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, any edition. Eat the Reich. Paranoia XP or Troubleshooters. Risus. Toon. Fiasco. Pirate Borg. Dread. Mothership 1E boxed set. Hard City. Knave 2E. Shadowdark. Black Sword Hack. Into the Odd. Electric Bastionland. Havok Brigade. Kobolds Ate My Baby. Lair of the Leopard Empresses. Monsters Monsters 2E. Atomic Robo RPG. Fate Core. Fate Accelerated. Fate Condensed. Spirit of the Century. Outgunned. Outgunned Adventure. Tomorrow City. Cortex Prime. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2E. Barbarians of Lemuria. Everywhen. Cthulhu Dark. Call of Cthulhu, pick any edition. En Garde. Labyrinth RPG. EZD6. HeroQuest 2E. Index Card RPG. Spirit of 77. Star Wars WEG d6, pick any core book. X-Treme Dungeon Mastery, either 1E or 2E.

Wow! Nice list. Lot of good choices there.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1e
Marvel Superheroes Advanced boxed set
ACKS 1E
Cyberpunk 2020
D&D Rules Compendium
Legend of the Five Rings 4e

To name a few. All great games with everything you need to play in one book.

 

[dbm]

13th Age was another game where the core book was very complete. We played a full campaign off just the core book and it was great fun. I know there is a second edition coming but I don’t know if that will also have a similar philosophy.

 

[Autumnal]

Ironsworn and Starforged are astonishingly complete volumes. Shawn Tomkin writes with a a compact clarity that makes me want to eat his brain in hopes of absorbing some of it.

Mythic Russia remains a jewel of a game, very complete, full of stuff nobody else is trying anything like. I was startled to find that Mark Galeotti has gone on to be a world expert on Russian organized crime and related topics.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I feel like the majority of games outside D&D are usually good in one volume. They may have supplements but you can often play the game with the rulebook alone. Call of the Cthulhu, Feng Shui, Savage Worlds, GURPS, etc. And for D&D you can always use the rules Cyclopedia if you want one volume.

 

[aramis erak]

Of the many games I've gotten, none of them are "evergreen" for me.
No game, expanded or not, holds my interest for more than 9-12 months of play.

I don't think I've hit more than 6 months on any game without at least one supplement to expand it being needed for me.

The ones I find are complete enough to run from core set alone for at least 4 months without expansions? Alien, MegaTraveller, Ars Magica, Advanced Marvel Super Heroes (TSR), Twilight:2000 (GDW 1e & 2.0e, & Free League's 4e), Sentinel Comics. Of those, the only ones I've done recently are T2K 4 and Alien.
Megatraveller RAW no longer appeals, Ars Magica is better with the Faerie sourcebook, and AMSH? Well... yeah. I prefer Sentinel Comics. But I can cross-polinate twixt the two...

And as for FFG Star Wars? I've never run FFG without supplementation, but that's because I had so much WEG that FFG never got run without WEG influences.

Too many games, too little energy, too few players.

 

[Thomas Shey]

13th Age was another game where the core book was very complete. We played a full campaign off just the core book and it was great fun. I know there is a second edition coming but I don’t know if that will also have a similar philosophy.

I can see the argument. I don't think I'd have wanted to run it without the first Bestiary and 13 True Ways, but I can see someone not feeling that need.