So, here's the game: Pick an RPG of your choice, and then imagine what would have been the ideal sourcebook for that game. The key is that it has to be a sourcebook that was never actually released for the game (though if you like it can be a sourcebook that was rumoured/planned/in the works).
RPGPundit
For Dungeons and Dragons:
A supplement in the same line as Frostburn or Stormwrack, but for jungles and things.
Any continuation on the Heroes series. I'm really not sure how one would go about continuing that, but there you go. I loved Heroes of Horror, and I've got friends that like Heroes of Battle stuff, though that's not as much what I'm into.
Each monster type almost got its own supplement. I wasn't a huge fan of the draconomicon, and the decision to split fiends between two supplements was off-putting, but I loved Libris Mortis and Lords of Madness. Especially Lords of Madness. I would have loved it if they had put out a book for fey, giants, and magical beasts. Hell, they could lump the whole lot into one book if they liked.
There need to be more books like Unknown Armies.
GURPS: The Amtrak Wars
Droool.
Traveller: Expedition to the Core.
A D&D Forgotten Realms module called "Just Desserts" where the party kidnaps Eleminster and Drizzt and slowly tortures them to death...
Quote from: walkerpGURPS: The Amtrak Wars
Droool.
I lurve those books! Well, apart from the sucky ending anyhow. They're on my by-yearly re-read list.
Planescape 3e
Dark Sun 3e
Magus and Faerie for World of Darkness 1.0
Because Mage and Changeling sucked.
Would have been keen to see what LUG would have done with the Star Trek franchise in general.
I always thought they had some very, very pretty books and I would have been in orgasmic rapture had they been able to put out specific fleet books for the various powers (and yes, I know about the stuff that's out there online that never made it to print but I need artwork to look at as I mull over this ship and that).
AD&D: Castle Greyhawk.
The real thing, that is. And not the bloody village either.
GURPS Robin Hood is one of the few GURPS supplements I don't like. Maybe the only one. The part about Robin Hood is fine, but I couldn't make me like the rest, despite it wasn't that bad, because the other settings were invented. Because of it, I thought how cool it would have been if they had done a kind of GURPS Rebels, compiling different historical settings with real life or mythic rebels. For example, besides Robin Hood we'd have other rebels such as Spartacus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus), Stenka Razin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stenka_Razin), Ishikawa Goemon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishikawa_Goemon), Geronimo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geronimo), Tupac Amaru II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%BApac_Amaru_II), etc.
Quote from: Pierce InverarityAD&D: Castle Greyhawk.
The real thing, that is. And not the bloody village either.
Well, we
might soon see something very close to it (viz., EGG's 'Castle Zagyg' for C&C, which is a snap to convert to 1e AD&D).
I hope ...
D&D: Giants in the Earth
Quote from: Akrasiasoon
How soon is soon, though? Did TLG announce a schedule? I haven't been following it for a couple of months.
Quote from: One Horse TownI lurve those books! Well, apart from the sucky ending anyhow. They're on my by-yearly re-read list.
Aren't they awesome! They are like a campaign sourcebook ready to be made right there. All the info you need is in the books. Too bad about the ending, though (or lack thereof) but that's what you could play out in a campaign.
BAMA: The Sprawl Trilogy for Cyberpunk 2020
Tired of your players making love to the gear charts? Looking for an old-school cyberpunk experience? Looking stats for Molly Millions? Then you need this. BAMA: The Sprawl Trilogy gives you everything you need to play Cyberpunk 2020 in the world that got cyberpunk its name -- William Gibson's world. Zeiss-Ikons, The Villa Straylight, 3Jane Tessier-Ashpool, the matrix unfolding like a neon orgiami trick...yeah, you know you like it.
GURPS: Absolut-Aufgeklärt!
SJG´s RPG of Frederick the Great´s Prussia
I wanted to type something, but after
Quote from: Dr Rotwang!BAMA: The Sprawl Trilogy for Cyberpunk 2020
, there can't be a sourcebook that can hope to be even half as awesome. Especially if they would have managed to get William Gibson as much on boat as Walter Jon Williams with Hardwired.
True20: Iron Heroes. A straight conversion for the True20 ruleset.
Warhammer 4000: The New World becomes the Old West as gunslingers, gamblers and magicians stake their claim on the wild and chaos haunted frontier.
The Exalted Basic Set: A stripped down, rules lite version of the crusty behemoth that allows players to do all the cool stuff they always wanted to without flipping through hundreds of rules-based exceptions.
WFRP: Lustria. I've wanted to see this since the Second Citadel Compendium.
GURPS: The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (http://web.archive.org/web/20020204120648/http://www.nondescript.f9.co.uk/hiker/).
I guess it kinda does exist... but in that limbo of dead internet sites.
The Temple of Elemental Evil as it existed in my imagination after playing Hommlet in grade school, rather than as it actually was.
Over the Edge - Burning Gaslight - A supplement on the sewers and secrets of Victorian London.
Unknown Armies - Maniac Street Preachers - A guide to urban religions & heresies
Pendragon - Kshatriya Dharma -
"Have you never heard the Kshatriya Dharma: Stand straight and never bow down, for this alone is manliness. Rather break at the knots than bend!" - Mahabharata
Sorcerer - Smokeless Fire - A supplement on The Djinn
In Harms Way - The Great Game
Regards,
David R
Quote from: Pierce InverarityAD&D: Castle Greyhawk.
The real thing, that is. And not the bloody village either.
Yep. This is truly one of the great missed opportunities in gaming history. Gygax amd Kuntz really should have gotten this together back in the early 80s, but failing that, they and the Troll Lords should have gone straight to the heart of the matter and tried to expedite the putting together of Castle Zagyg itself rather than doing the regional sourcebook first.
Quote from: AkrasiaWell, we might soon see something very close to it (viz., EGG's 'Castle Zagyg' for C&C, which is a snap to convert to 1e AD&D).
I hope ...
I hope Gygax left enough material to ensure such a release is truly his. I know Kuntz dropped out of the project due to "creative differences," but maybe he'll jump back in - he's generally cited as being as principle a source for Castle Greyhawk as Gygax.
Quote from: DeadUematsuD&D: Giants in the Earth
Interesting. Are you thinking of a compilation of legendary and literary characters, like those from the Dragon column of the same name? I'd love such a book. It's always interesting to me to see how the designers of a game stat up well-known characters for any given game system. It also makes for a good source of pre-fab NPCs.
The book I'd've liked to see was B.A. Felton's Campaign Notebook for HackMaster. Jolly Blackburn was working on it, and it was on Kenzer's release schedule for a while a few years back, but Jolly dropped the project. He said he just couldn't come up with a a way to make it an interesting book. Personally, I'd like to see a book that collates all the material that is revealed about B.A.'s version of Garweeze Wurld, or Aldrazar, in the Knights of the Dinner Table comic. A lot of elements have already been in print - statted-up monsters and items have appeared in both the HackMaster core books, as well as the comic. Add in a timeline and a roster of NPCs, as well as the PCs of the comic's characters, and I think you'd have a pretty good chunk of the book done.
Yep. I would definitely love to see a "Giants in the Earth" book. Several volumes if possible.
Action!System: SPACR (Supernatural Powers and Abilities Creation Rules)
SLA Industries: White Earth- covering the most terrifying world in the SLA universe.
Atomik Martial Arts - hypothetical generic Atomik plugin on creating your own martial arts maneuvers and styles..(hint hint.. Are you reading this Brett?:p )
nWoD: Wraith...
Quote from: CalithenaThe Temple of Elemental Evil as it existed in my imagination after playing Hommlet in grade school, rather than as it actually was.
Yeah.
I actually preferred Monte Cook's take on it in
Return.... It felt more awe inspiring and epic.
Call of Cthulhu: A guidebook to designing cults, from tiny cliques to world-spanning conspiracies, stuffed with cultist-specific careers and skills and other goodies for designing CoC villains.
Runequest 2E: Details on what the hell actually happens in the Hero Wars, and for higher-level play. Hints at becoming "Heroes" and "Superheroes" and "Heroquesting" abound, but we never got to see how that actually worked in RQ.
Advanced Fighting Fantasy: An updated monster manual to reflect the fact that most Fighting Fantasy monsters were optimised to stand in combat against a single basic FF character, not a team of Advanced characters.
A|State: most of the products announced at the back of the core rulebook...
Quote from: WarthurAdvanced Fighting Fantasy: An updated monster manual to reflect the fact that most Fighting Fantasy monsters were optimised to stand in combat against a single basic FF character, not a team of Advanced characters.
My God, AFF. What a blast from the past.
The Book of Erotic Advanced Fighting Fantasy.
(edit: by Steve Jacksoff and Ian Livingbone)
GURPS: Tom of Finland.
Quote from: WarthurAdvanced Fighting Fantasy: An updated monster manual to reflect the fact that most Fighting Fantasy monsters were optimised to stand in combat against a single basic FF character, not a team of Advanced characters.
I'm still disappointed that Myriador's license for Fighting Fantasy d20 went tits up. The module conversions of the gamebooks they released were pretty good.
The Primal Order - Chessboards II
Would have been nice had they made a planar supplement that allowed you to devise all sorts of untraditional (non-AD&D style) multiverses.
Delta Green: Homeland Insecurity
(...or, the post-9/11 sourcebook. There's no actual title (i made the above up), and iirc they were actually tossing the idea around...i for one would love it!)
Oh, a M&M Hellboy adaptation.
Okay, I've got the M&M core book and the GURPS: Hellboy sourcebook, so I can't complain, but man that'd be cool.
It would have been nice to see WEG's sourcebooks for the Star Wars prequels...
Mekton Z: Robotech
or
Mekton Z: Macross
:mad:
Quote from: Gabriel2Mekton Z: Robotech
or
Mekton Z: Macross
I should have wrote this. :p
Man, would that have been awesome.. Much better than the official Palladium version.:mad:
Would be even better still if it were to also incorporate a merits/flaws system like FUZION's.
Quote from: beejazzOh, a M&M Hellboy adaptation.
Pick up Nocturnals - a Midnight Companion (http://www.amazon.com/Mutants-Masterminds-Nocturnals-Midnight-Companion/dp/1932442022).
It's pretty damned close, and would be easily usable for Things-that-Go-Bump-In-The-Night-vs-Things-That-Bump-Back campaigning. It focuses on Brereton's series, but the overall book - rules and advice for spooky pulp-inspired action in M&M campaigns - is 100% Hellboy.
That looks pretty nifty. I may have to pick it up after my next paycheck.
WoD: Persona
Mage: Secret Magick College that You Get to By a Secret Traintrack.
Gurps: Call of Cthulhu
Quote from: KrakaJakWoD: Persona
Mage: Secret Magick College that You Get to By a Secret Traintrack.
Gurps: Call of Cthulhu
To be fair, you could reverse-engineer that one pretty handily by stripping the cyberpunk elements out of GURPS: Cthulhupunk. (ISTR it even had guidelines for converting CoC material to GURPS).
WFRP: Epic Level play - for people who want power with their warts.
Quote from: Age of FableGURPS: Tom of Finland.
That strikes me as more of a HERO systems product, really.
GURPS : TRAVELLER , IMPERIAL NAVY Both myself and one of my players would very much like to have tjhat book.
GURPS: THE DHARMA INITIATIVE Weird Hippie utopian plans of the 1970s clash smack dab with Eletrocmagnetic temporal anomalies, International conspiracies - and oh yeah a crazy guy that wears glasses.....and then trhis plane crashes.
Fresh Polar Bear meat anyone??
- Ed C.
Savage Worlds: StarCraft - just for the skirmishes
RIFTS Chi-Town World Book - serious WTF? It's the home of the Coalition States and info is scattered everywhere except in one damn book.
Splicers: Great Houses - Splicers is Bioguvyer + Dune + Terminator and the game is just aching for a supplement to give more detail to the Great Houses and their machinations both internal and external.
RIFTS Wormwood 2 - it's LotR on Acid so we need more shiznack
Tunnels & Trolls: Ken St. Andre Setting book - I can't believe we never got a book where KSA went hog-wild to describe his own game world in detail and show us some fun stuff like we got with Blackmoor, Greyhawk, Arduin, and Palladium Fantasy.
Cyberpunk 2020 version of Snowcrash (to go along with Doc R's WG love), with a fully statted Hiro Protagonist, and rules/stats for the frickin kick-ass skateboards
Quote from: SpinachcatTunnels & Trolls: Ken St. Andre Setting book - I can't believe we never got a book where KSA went hog-wild to describe his own game world in detail and show us some fun stuff like we got with Blackmoor, Greyhawk, Arduin, and Palladium Fantasy.
I'll take 2, please.
Quote from: One Horse TownWFRP: Epic Level play - for people who want power with their warts.
Definitely. A short pdf. on Epic Talents would probably suffice. Set them around the same power level as Vampiric blood gifts and you'd be good to go.
Amber Diceless RPG: Rebma Sourcebook.
Amber Diceless RPG: 2nd edition.
L5R: the Exhaustive and Complete History sourcebook.
BESM: Blame! the RPG (or a supplement to play in a sprawling dark futuristic city)
I'm sure there are others, but yeah...
LUG Trek: Klingon Boxed Set
Castle Falkenstein had books for magic and for faeries, but never had a book for dragons. It was an amazingly complete set of books except for that one hole.
Of course, any GURPS historical supplement they haven't published. :cool:
I thought my Pacific Northwest sourcebook for Rifts was pretty awesome. But it sits here, unloved, on my hard drive. :) It's a very "not a lot of people, wilderness" early Rifts feel to it. There's more than one way to be f'in metal, I say. :p
1. Trinity 2.0.
2. The First Age of Exalted began as the modern world. So, Exalted (Second Age) has more of a Thundarr the Barbarian feel to it. I've really been tempted to run this one. But, I'd probably use OWoD rules, because I'm not crazy about the Exalted system. But, a book (alternate reality or some such)/supplement for this would be very neat. Maybe the Primordial Wars were with the supernaturals of the World of Darkness. And, we wouldn't have to wait seven years plus to get the First Age boxed set (much as I'm patiently waiting for it)! :haw:
Pete Schweighofer pitched a "Star Wars revised & Expanded"-style all-D6 Indiana Jones game, but it never came to pass (http://www.westendgames.com/forum/showpost.php?p=28390&postcount=22).
Having just seen all the new Indy toys at Target, I'm suddenly jonesing for thi--
Huh huh, huh. No, not intentional.
RuneQuest 3 : Rome and Greece
2300AD : Deep Oceans
Quote from: Mithras2300AD : Deep Oceans
Say...would that have been a Pentapod supplement? Interesting.