Quote from: Benoist;452366

Quote from: The Butcher;452362Looks like the perfect opportunity to ask around for some input.

What are the best monographs? Toolkits, settings, adventures, whatever, you name it.

Holy shit! I want to ask too. Deserves its own thread, amigo!

So, here it is.

Bring forth your recommendations, impressions, rants and raves.

Recently picked up Chronicles of Future Earth and Dragon Lines.

Chronicles is a nicely put together introduction to a far-future setting where technology and magic have merged together. It has a definite Dying Earth feel with elements of Elric and the other Eternal Champrions thrown in for good measure. It gets a little sketchy on the background, but a GM could certainly begin a campaign with what's in the book. I'm also happy to see that there is already a supplement available for the setting so it looks like the author is interested in continuing production.

Dragon Lines is a good look at over the top heroic gaming in a mythic China. I've not read Celestial Empires, but my impression is that Dragon Lines is the high fantasy alternate to that setting. It does a good job of creating a believeable take on an ancient China with the serial numbers filed off. Players can be human or several alternate races (even undead) and will find themselves gaining powerful magical abilities based on their chosen style of martial arts. There are several sample styles in the book as well as a good solid foundation for building more on your own. My only complaint is that the listings of the odd-ball martial arts weapons are kind of limited, but I'm guessing that was about space considerations and its nothing a decent GM can't fix.

I'm definitely looking at getting a copy of Celestial Empire as well. Eventually I want to try to run a game that's kind of a riff on the ancient China depicted in the Master Li and Number Ten Ox novels.

Chronicles of Future Earth is damn cool.  It reminds me of Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun more than anything -- but with sorcery.

Pete Nash's Rome is, hands down, the greatest single RPG 'Rome' book ever written.  It's helpful for any system, but includes all necessary BRP information.

Classic Fantasy is quite interesting for a BRP version of 'Gygaxian' (1e) AD&D.  It obviously differs from AD&D in many ways (a single hit can still kill even a 'powerful' character), but translates many 'AD&D-isms' into BRP form.  (I doubt that I'd ever use it, though, as I'd just run AD&D if I wanted that kind of game.)

Of the ones I've picked up I'm particularly fond of 'Aces High'... weird Western but without the wild n' wacky alter-history of Deadlands. The default deadliness of BRP is slightly turned down to encourage gunplay.

Also, 'Berlin '61'... which is a CoC setting but I'd drop the Mythos stuff and use it for a pulpy cold war spy game... with some supernatural overtones. It's an uneven book... it's got a detailed equipment section (3 pages about gas masks) and a short section about dropping low-powered superheroes into the setting. It makes up for its imperfections by being useful and unique.

The Witchcraft book has been useful to me when I was setting up my current fantasy campaign... and will be even more use when we get into the fairyland stuff. Lots of info on different sorts of witches and their ilk.

I've also got 'Ashes To Ashes' (dark apocalyptic low fantasy) and 'Agents of the Crown' (a 'League of Extraordinary Gentleman' sort of setting)... but haven't read through either yet.

For the new BRP golden book, I only have BRP Rome and Crusaders of the Amber Coast, which are third party products (Alephtar Games), and that's it. BRP Rome is probably the best RPG supplement about ancient Rome. It's even better than GURPS Imperial Rome, and GURPS Imperial Rome is excellent!

Crusaders of the Amber Coast is pretty interesting, it puts a lot of emphasis on the pagan Latvian culture, although Prussians, Lithuanians and Estonians are also discussed.

I'd like to get Val du Loup, which looks pretty cool, and Mythic Iceland once it's finally released.

(Not Chaosium).

I like the MRQ2 Empires book.

It can be used to generate a behind the scenes "world metaplot" for just about any rpg game, which is constantly changing and evolving.   Cults, organizations, states, countries can destroy and/or take over one another.

Quote from: Simlasa;452420The Witchcraft book has been useful to me when I was setting up my current fantasy campaign... and will be even more use when we get into the fairyland stuff. Lots of info on different sorts of witches and their ilk.

Ah yes, I forgot about Witchcraft.  It's very good!