Good PnP RPG books for reading

[asper]

It has been decades since I played a PnP RPG session
However, I still very much enjoy reading various tabletop RPG books. I enjoy settings being fleshed out, descriptions of cities and characters, and cool/unusual adventures. I love losing myself in the setting, thinking of stories, etc, even as a non-player. Preferences for PlaneScape, Vampire, Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green, similar outre settings.

The books I like are:
PlaneScape:
- Guide to Sigil - delving deep into the city
- Faces of Sigil - character descriptions, very creative

Dark Sun setting books

Now, my question is: which other books would you recommend? No novels/fiction please, I mean actual tabletop RPG books which are fun to read for someone who cannot play anymore!

I have been wanting to get more books of Call of Cthulhu (lookig at this one: Berlin: Wicked City) , and Vampire: the Masquerade. Which ones would you suggest?

Are there any D&D books with creative or unusual adventures?

Thanks!

 

[Sacibengala]

Hyperborea is a pretty cool 1e retroclone with 2e style kits and a very nice Sword&Sorcery setting .

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Now, my question is: which other books would you recommend? No novels/fiction please, I mean actual tabletop RPG books which are fun to read for someone who cannot play anymore!

The Known World (a.k.a. Mystara) Gazetteer series in general, but especially GAZ3 The Principalities of Glantri, written by Bruce Heard himself, especially the "Adventures in Glantri" section.

 

[Gahbreeil]

Malkavian Clanbook. Vampire: The Masquerade. Fun read.

 

[FritzedProcess]

Heavy Gear's "Life on Terra Nova" sourcebook. All fluff, no mechanics. One of the best sourcebooks ever made for any RPG.

 

[Optimist]

Greg Stafford's Guide to Glorantha. It's not a splat for any specific system, but more of a faux-mythologist introduction to how Glorantha (that we rpgCodex nerds know from King of Dragon Pass or Six Ages) operates.

I love the FFG Rogue Trader books for their purple prose and attempts to do something fun with the Warhammer system, but they were out of print for a while and are not coming back.

Also, on a more meta level I recommend 2D's Shadowrun storytime as something to browse with your morning coffee
https://img.4plebs.org/boards/tg/image/1441/82/1441824803216.pdf

Edit: Right, just re-read the OP and noticed the "no novels" point. Well, FFG Rogue Trader still stands.

 

[Lagi]

I have the same itch, but for boring tolkienesque fantasy. I could play some DnD but i choose not to, as from my experience its waste of my time - board games ALLLL the way.

warhammer 4 ed is great, i really enjoy the new edition. its 1ed remaster basically. There are great depiction of empires Reikland, races interaction. Mechanical rules are cool, even though i think there is too much type of Fate points. Reading archetypes to play is a great joy too. You immediatly feel like you roleplay this characters. I read this book in pdf before, but having it as a hard copy in hand is different experience.

for my taste, the best campaign is Icewind Dale Rime of Frostmaiden. Its starts as a bunch of mundane, down to earth quests, and nicely develop to be more epic. Great description of things that happen in each location with the connections between them, it create a cohesive world, instead of random disconnected places.

Forbidden Lands is very nice. It really create this good vibe, how the rpg could look like if the peoples minds were not warped by DnD. I actually yesterday recieved Bitter Reach and RavensPurge because I wanted more of this.
From reading Free League product i love lots of description, minimal amout of stats. Great monster attack tables for almost every encounter - this make you wonder how the combat with monster could look like - instead of a i roll dice i hit and do x damage.

I have Alien Rpg from Free League - but looking at it now, its just fantastic quality of product (all page are black). Inside its rather hmm... dry? Dont get me wrong, I read the description of faction time line attached adventure etc. its all good stuff, I would buy this book 2nd time if I already didnt have it. Rule wise Year Zero system is great, i even roll the dice with myself and i really like how it goes. Roll bunch of d6, you need single '6' to success. If you fail you can reroll but then the "1" on reroll is a bad stuff. Probablitiy is neatly balanced. Even with 7 dice and reroll is not autosuccess, and the '1' create great narrative option for "shit hit the fan". The panic mechanic utilise it great.

Neuroshima is superb to read but rather not to play. Rules are shit IMO, i play it as a kid, you treat you character sheet as suggestion what you could do.

one more thing that i buy recently was Spire (and Strata supplement) I like reading it. Dark Elves rebels against high elves overlord in urban setting.

I wanted to buy SibirPunk but they run out of books in my local store.

from OSR stuff i enjoyed most reading ShadowDark. Low Fantasy Gaming by Grodzicki was neat too (i pay for his patreon years ago and received great dungeon crawling adventures... short with some theme, stuff to do, nicely and clearly present, with all stats - decorated with few amazing arts).

 

[Caim]

Demon: The Fallen has some nice stuff to supplement the World of Darkness. The main story is told in the core book, even though the main introduction is framed as a quartet of short stories (if you're familiar with the early 2000s WoD books, you know what to expect). From there pick up Houses of the Fallen for that sweet faction lore (it's seven mini-splatbooks wrapped into one), Earthbound for the villain lore, City of Angels for a book more in line with those two Sigil books to introduce the "main" city and its characters and a few chapters in the Storytellers Companion (note that the rules for the Earthbound in that book are supplanted by the ones in the standalone Earthbound book). For esoteric stuff I also recommend Days of Fire, which is part lore part prop book (so pretty much Demon's version of The Book of Nod), and the final scenario in Time of Judgment is pretty nice as well.

If you want to approach Demon from the other side you can pick up The Infernal from Hunter: The Reckoning, and if you want something a bit more niche take a peek at the Demon Translation Guide for how to approach the setting from an entirely different angle.

Oh, and give the Vampire: The Requiem book Damnation City a shot for some really interesting stuff on how to run a game set in a city and the politics that come with it. Probably one of the best books coming out of Requiem, and only a small chunk of it is only usable within Requiem.

 

[L'ennui]

Any of the GURPS setting books, pick a subject you like and enjoy reading a meticulously researched primer on the topic, condensed into a very readable book that can be enjoyed as a gaming supplement or on its own.

Some of the books

 

[Optimist]

Any of the GURPS setting books, pick a subject you like and enjoy reading a meticulously researched primer on the topic, condensed into a very readable book that can be enjoyed as a gaming supplement or on its own.

Some of the books

Wasn't SJG raided by FBI while working on the Cyberpunk splat at some point? Supposedly they tripped too many alerts while gathering data for the book.

 

[L'ennui]

Any of the GURPS setting books, pick a subject you like and enjoy reading a meticulously researched primer on the topic, condensed into a very readable book that can be enjoyed as a gaming supplement or on its own.

Some of the books

Wasn't SJG raided by FBI while working on the Cyberpunk splat at some point? Supposedly they tripped too many alerts while gathering data for the book.

It was actually the Secret Service that did the raid, they thought it was a handbook for cyber crime lol... and they didn't return the manuscript after the raid, which delayed the book's publication as the author had to resume working from earlier draughts.

 

[Erebus]

Planescape has plenty of good books. The Factol's Manifesto is another nice book focused on Sigil. Harbinger House and Something Wild are very creative adventures.

The three boxed sets that describe the Outer Planes in details (Planes of Chaos, Planes of Law and Planes of Conflict) are pretty good on average, but not all planes end up being equally enjoyable to read about. Gehenna and the Gray Waste are excellent. Acheron, Arcadia, Arborea and Pandemonium are really good. Elysium, the Beastlands, Mechanus and Ysgard are quite decent, but could have been better in certain ways. Mount Celestia and the Abyss are not hugely original, though they do a reasonable job with the concept they're given. The chapters about Baator and Carceri are quite disappointing considering the interesting concepts they had to work with. Limbo is surprisingly boring. And Bytopia is even more boring, though less surprisingly.


In Dragonlance, I'm mostly fond of the books focused on the continent of Taladas (completely neglected compared to Ansalon, though much more interesting). The boxed set Time of the Dragon and the book Taladas : The Minotaurs are pretty good reads.


In Ravenloft, the five Gazetteers are very enjoyable to read. They really give a lot of flesh to the setting.


In Birthright, the many "Secrets of" books (each of them focused on a specific domain) are pretty enjoyable.

 

[mastroego]

It has been decades since I played a PnP RPG session
However, I still very much enjoy reading various tabletop RPG books. I enjoy settings being fleshed out, descriptions of cities and characters, and cool/unusual adventures. I love losing myself in the setting, thinking of stories, etc, even as a non-player. Preferences for PlaneScape, Vampire, Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green, similar outre settings.

The books I like are:
PlaneScape:
- Guide to Sigil - delving deep into the city
- Faces of Sigil - character descriptions, very creative

Dark Sun setting books

Now, my question is: which other books would you recommend? No novels/fiction please, I mean actual tabletop RPG books which are fun to read for someone who cannot play anymore!

I have been wanting to get more books of Call of Cthulhu (lookig at this one: Berlin: Wicked City) , and Vampire: the Masquerade. Which ones would you suggest?

Are there any D&D books with creative or unusual adventures?

Thanks!

I know it's not ideal, but why don't you try joining an online group?
Playing with Tabletop Simulator can be almost like the real thing. In some ways, even better.
It all comes down to finding the right people, which, I know, it's just that minor detail, right?
But one never knows, if you persevere you might just find them.

 

[NecroLord]

Star Wars D6.
A lot of adventures, campaigns and modules to be played.
There is even an Old Republic Era campaign!
http://d6holocron.com/downloads/wegcore.html
https://rancorpit.com/forums/downloads/index.html?
http://d6holocron.com/downloads/rancorpit.html

I also like Gygax's work on Greyhawk.

 

[Azalin]

I would second the five Ravenloft Gazetters for 3/3.5.The Kargatane did a great job there, pure gold

Also City of Lies for L5R is one of the best city supplements ever IMHO

For WOD I would say Children of the Night and Children of the Inquisition for some interesting characters, Chicago chronicles 1-3 were good for a detailed city,Mexico and new York by night were good too.
Constantinople by Night and Transylvania by Night were good for Dark Ages Vampire

 

[Lagi]

what you dudes think about new werewolf? 5ed?
which werewold rpg is the best?

(as a book to read)

 

[FritzedProcess]

what you dudes think about new werewolf? 5ed?
which werewold rpg is the best?

(as a book to read)

Considering the AIDS-infested shit that is V5, I'd rather recommend getting W20, or the old Werewolf: The Apocalypse book.

I would second the five Ravenloft Gazetters for 3/3.5.The Kargatane did a great job there, pure gold

Also City of Lies for L5R is one of the best city supplements ever IMHO

For WOD I would say Children of the Night and Children of the Inquisition for some interesting characters, Chicago chronicles 1-3 were good for a detailed city,Mexico and new York by night were good too.
Constantinople by Night and Transylvania by Night were good for Dark Ages Vampire

The Second City for L5R 4th edition is also good, but yes, City of Lies for 1st edition is the best. Also the individual clanbooks and assorted sourcebooks from 1st edition. In 4th it should be all there in "The Great Clans", "Enemies of Rokugan", and so on, but there's no fucking way you can cram every bit of those in "The Great Clans", plus all of the post-Scorpion Clan Coup metaplot, which is quite a bit and not as good in quality after the Four Winds. All in all, mechanics and looks-wise the best edition is 4th, but setting-wise it's 1st, there's almost none of the CCG metaplot in there.

The "Gaïa Volume 1: Beyond the Dreams!" supplement for "Anima: Beyond Fantasy" was fun to read, although I read it back in 2007, so I don't have any recent impressions. It's one of those setting sourcebooks that has little to no mechanics, an atlas of the game's New World of sorts. If you are unfamiliar with the game, imagine a JRPG with Rolemaster/MERP (closer to MERP, since it doesn't have as many tables as Rolemaster) mechanics but with a lot more magic, and a lot less likely to maim the characters for stumbling on a rock or looking at a longbow the wrong way. The 1st edition of the game was a bit of a mess in that things tend to go ballistic after the characters have gained a few levels and that it was easy for a new player to generate a character that was useless for any purpose, specialization is recommended.

 

[Azalin]

I would second the five Ravenloft Gazetters for 3/3.5.The Kargatane did a great job there, pure gold

Also City of Lies for L5R is one of the best city supplements ever IMHO

For WOD I would say Children of the Night and Children of the Inquisition for some interesting characters, Chicago chronicles 1-3 were good for a detailed city,Mexico and new York by night were good too.
Constantinople by Night and Transylvania by Night were good for Dark Ages Vampire

The Second City for L5R 4th edition is also good, but yes, City of Lies for 1st edition is the best. Also the individual clanbooks and assorted sourcebooks from 1st edition. In 4th it should be all there in "The Great Clans", "Enemies of Rokugan", and so on, but there's no fucking way you can cram every bit of those in "The Great Clans", plus all of the post-Scorpion Clan Coup metaplot, which is quite a bit and not as good in quality after the Four Winds. All in all, mechanics and looks-wise the best edition is 4th, but setting-wise it's 1st, there's almost none of the CCG metaplot in there.

Yeah the L5R Clan books were good,the follow ups for D20/2nd edition were good too. Time of the Void was great too since we talking about L5R

Also I forgot to mention Carnival for Ravenloft 2nd edition, that one was pure gold too

 

[Gostak]

The older Paranoia (XP and such) stuff (even if it's some slapstick-y akin' affair).

For the thinking of stories part:
For creative one-off contained stuff Dread is a cool system (not pen&paper but bricks&shaker :D )
or Ten Candles.