What's your most surprising go-to DMing resource?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yes, yes, you use the core books/SRD/True20 rulebook/C&C Castlekeepers Guide all the time. We expect that.

What's the resource you use regularly -- or to especially good effect -- that would surprise everyone if they saw it at your table?

 

[theredrobedwizard]

I've used Ptolus to great effect in my Savage Tide game.

Me: "If you don't stop bickering about (insert issue here), I'm going to beat both of you to death with this [holds up Ptolus menacingly]."
Players: "Ok, we'll stop."

In all seriousness, Legend of the Five Rings 3e's section on crafting challenging encounters is a great help.

-TRRW

 

[Chris Tavares]

Yes, yes, you use the core books/SRD/True20 rulebook/C&C Castlekeepers Guide all the time. We expect that.

What's the resource you use regularly -- or to especially good effect -- that would surprise everyone if they saw it at your table?

I've gotten a tremendous use out of, of all things, my college commencement program book.

Mix needing an NPC name with a huge graduating class from a state university with lots of foreign students listed in one convenient book. Simple and easy.

 

[phindar]

I find anytime I flip through a National Geographic, I come away with ideas for my game. Prehistoric sea monsters, historical and modern day cultures, ice age mummies, tons of beautiful photographs; I always come away with useful stuff.

 

[Peni Griffin]

Because games are so various, there isn't anything we consult every game, but one reason our house is the preferred gaming location when the weather is tolerable at all is our huge reference library. We've used field guides to various things, history of the longbow, foreign language dictionaries, baby name books, animal encyclopedias, guides to Nelson's navy, Fox-Davies on heraldry, guides to weapons and armor, atlases, history and archeology books, mythologies, tables of weights and measures, Roman cookbooks - it's all good.

If you ever run a game set in 1930s America, you need a WPA guide to the area you're setting the game in. They're reprinted periodically, but go to E-bay if you have to. These things are gold.

When it doubt, check books out!

 

[HolyGrenadeFrenzy]

POCKET REF by Thomas J. Glover> Incredibly useful book of info that would require a large number of Academic Text and other references to replace...I use it allot in game terms and it settles math questions and aurguments......being good with page numbers I can just throw it to/at the player and tell them what page....Works well.

Information on everything you have trouble finding on the spot....If you also have a PC or laptop available with internet access your set.

Of course we have plenty of the other books around too....but you are asking for what may surprise people. A huge collection lends me to think that the things that surprise people will be non-gaming books.......Patterns in Culture by Ruth Benedict perhaps?

Tough to say, I would rather play in my own home or my neighbors most of the time.

-HGF

 

[Aeolius]

What's the resource you use regularly -- or to especially good effect -- that would surprise everyone if they saw it at your table?

A saltwater reef aquarium?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

A saltwater reef aquarium?

You are very tough on your players.

 

[Aeolius]

I suppose it would be easier to transport the Blue Planet series on DVD, or Ocean , with a foreward by Fabien Cousteau.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Yes, yes, you use the...C&C Castlekeepers Guide all the time. We expect that.

It isn't out, yet; the 1E DMG is a common fill-in. I also use Gary Gygax's World Builder on a regular basis. The Mother of All Encounter Tables gets some use, too.