DAY TWENTY-TWO: BEST SECONDHAND RPG PURCHASE
A large portion of my Tabletop RPG library is secondhand. I own and run so many different types of games that it’s rather rare for me to purchase something brand new. I have plenty of games sitting around, waiting to be played. So this question presents a varied field of choices, but I feel I have a good solution. Two complimenting supplements, bought secondhand, that I use more than anything else in my library, Cityscape and Dungeonscape.
CITYSCAPE
Unless you are actually playing 3.5 D&D &/Or Pathfinder there are going to be things less than useable from Cityscape, character class choices or certain rules for terrain. This isn’t what I use the supplement for though. I’ve long loved the tips and tools it gives you for crafting well designed cities.
A big complaint many had when Cityscape came out was that it was billed as a reference guide for both PCs and DMs and then upon execution it was plain to see they put way more work into the DM sections and left the PC stuff scant. Fine by me though, it has helped the book retain a bit of a timeless quality of usefulness for any Dungeon Master looking for Citybuilding tools and even a good number of City styled NPCs. There’s a reason its priced pretty highly on Amazon and the like.
DUNGEONSCAPE
Dungeonscape (not DungeonScape) is also a fine product. When it came out the additions for Player Characters were actually much better than the Cityscape stuff. I remember there were even some variant core classes (i.e. rules for an “Underground” Druid). I found all of this to be a nice addition, even if I never used any of it. I was in it for the dungeon crafting tools.
It gives new concepts for interesting terrain variants, and using its offerings you could really come up with some lively dungeon delving experiences. Granted there are options that are somewhat outdated, like its kindred spirit above, but I still crack it open from time to time if I’m needing some good reference material to really put the fear of God into a dungeon crawl. Which, shamefully, I haven’t done in a while. Maybe I need to flip through some pages here and work up a crawl for the boys. Maybe I’ll make a few walls crafted from souls…
-Melvs
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