The Thieves' Guild supplements (including The Free City of Haven) from Gamelords were excellent. Never used the rules, which were a D&D knock-off.

The Zocalo for Babylon 5.

I do a lot (entire game designs) of gaming around life beyond combat. The Zocalo is a reminder of some of the different categories of things that the world may be filled with. I've never had the urge to pick up the game itself, though.

GURPS books. I have 5-6 on the shelf and I have used them more for games than sourcebooks designed specificly for those games.

Ancient Kingdoms: Mesopotamia.

I enjoy just reading through that book because it gets my imagination racing. Lots of interesting and Pulp/Conan flavored ideas in there.

ETA: Ah, I have played D20, however, so I misunderstood the idea of the thread. My bad.

Nightmares of Mine. In theory, it came out under the Rolemaster Standard System, but it's entirely system and setting-neutral. It's an exceptionally good examination of horror as a genre in general, as well as an analysis of running horror-themed RPGs.

Sidewinder: Recoiled for d20 Modern.  I don't have d20 Modern, but I use the book as a resource for Coyote Trail games.

The Book of Erotic Fantasy?






What?

Quote from: joewolzA book for Millennium's End  called "Ultramodern Firearms" has worked for me for a long time...and I've never run Millennium's End.

Me too.  Great gun guide.  Also the GURPS genre books.

Quote from: KazAncient Kingdoms: Mesopotamia.

I enjoy just reading through that book because it gets my imagination racing. Lots of interesting and Pulp/Conan flavored ideas in there.

Oof, wow, what a great and unexpected choice! A very underrated book. I've played enough d20 that I wouldn't have included it on my list for the purposes of this thread, but it's a damned fine book, regardless.

I'll have to say Planescape.  Never played the thing, wasn't a huge fan of 2nd edition, and didn't really know how to balance the immensity of it at the time but the ideas, and artwork, were really inspiring as a layout to take D&D to another level that I hadn't imagined before.  It provided a model to allow other influences to be easily adapted to a game I knew.

Quote from: ColonelHardissonOof, wow, what a great and unexpected choice! A very underrated book. I've played enough d20 that I wouldn't have included it on my list for the purposes of this thread, but it's a damned fine book, regardless.

Totally. I haven't actually used it yet, but it's the kind of book which I can read only five pages at a time because so many ideas are popping up in my head I have to put it down. Thanks to Haffrung, who refcommended it.

On a different and probably surprising note, I've found Spherewalker, and Everway in general, a great source for inspiration. I don't even *like* the tone. But if you twist the material a little you've got a metric ton of very pluggable and awesome vignettes.

I haven't run D&D for ages, and have no desire to, but when I gave away my D&D stuff, I kept two books - A Mighty Fortress and Vikings. The green front books are fantastic resources for running historical or quasi historical games, which I do all the time. I used AMF running Blood Games II in the Thirty Years War just last year.

Of course the GURPS Supplements! I have a bunch, and they are all great! I have no desire to run GURPS, and do not have the rules, but the supplements? Awesome stuff!

-clash

As noted in another thread, the RDF Field Manual for Palladium's Robotech.  I never did get around to playing that game, but I'll be damned if I didn't enjoy the heck out of the field manual.

!i!

Runequest Vikings provided a lot of scenarios and pre-typed campaign packet material for my faux-Viking RM2 campaign of a few years back.

Quote from: SpikeThe Book of Erotic Fantasy?

Well yes, I suppose BoEF aka Penthouse letters could be useful in roleplaying but I doubt in gaming

I've also found the Ravenloft boxed (TSR) set a good guide to horror gaming but the setting itself does not interest me. (Although I do like the whole Mist concept)

Regards,
David R