Are there any pencil-and-paper games that are completely self-contained? - that is, the rules, tables, bestiary and even an entire campaign setting are all jammed into a single sourcebook without the need for any additional supplements.
The only example I can think of is the D&D Rules Cyclopedia that compiled a lot of material from the earliest D&D sets.
Rules clones and other non-commercial works are also welcome. Although I'm already well aware of any early D&D clones like Labyrinth Lord or OSRIC.
Sebastian Sanchez
Maelstrom (the original, not sure about the recent reprint)
Adam Green
There are shitloads of games like that, but if they're successful they always end up putting out supplements because why not.
Eli Green
Yes, every game but D&D/PF.
Evan Rodriguez
Shinobigami, Ryuutama, Golden Sky Stories, Double Cross, Tephra, Anima, Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Monsterhearts, 13th Age, Eoris Essence, Last Stand, Maid RPG, Dungeons the Dragoning, Fantasy Craft, Ironclaw, Nechronica, Splittermond, Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, Kobolds Ate My Baby, Numenera, Log Horizon, Ratten!, Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, Chuubo's Marvelous Wish Granting Engine, Super Console and I left out a lot of games because of and in spite of technicalities.
Jason Perry
D20 Modern has the rules, a bestiary, optional magic and psionics, and 3 different campaign settings all in 1 book. Unfortunately, it's D20 Modern.
Noah Lewis
>Eoris Essence Technically that needs two books, the rules and the fluff
Brandon Adams
FATAL fits the bill, too, doesn't it?
Nathan Thomas
I chose to ignore that technicality because the rulebook contains enough fluff to run the game and the other book is more of an optional interpretative bonus LSD trip put on paper.
Aaron Roberts
Also, both books come in the same box and cannot actually be purchased separately.
Wyatt Thompson
Technically yes, but it's as long as 3 normal rulebooks.
Grayson Robinson
The Player's Handbook, DM Guide, and Monster Manual being all separate books is pretty exclusive to D&D and its derivatives, honestly.
Nolan Torres
This sounds interesting enough, but I can't find a free PDF anywhere. I would strongly prefer to preview anything before I actually go out and buy it.
Austin Rogers
You could probably find a copy sitting in a second-hand shop for $1
Joshua Rivera
FATAL has an expansion. Yes, someone looked at it and thought "the world needs more of this."
Easton Hill
Loved that book, got it as a plane book along with the second Cretan adventure game book. Totally changed my opinion on how to make and run games.
Camden Taylor
I would kill for the supplements and Domesday to actually be uploaded somewhere.
Can never find them anywhere online.
Aiden Gonzalez
bump
Gabriel Lewis
The 40k RPGS are all like this.
Anthony Wright
This list only account for 'playable out of the box' and things I remember on top of my head. Sure they are inevitably better with more options but I'm pretending their other books don't exist as of writing this: -Any 40k RPG -Any Old World of Darkness (assuming your game has no crossover between different supernatural critters) -Gamma World (the D&D 4e-derived version) -Dungeons: The Dragoning -All Flesh Must Be Eaten -Kult -Doublecross -Most OSR games
Lucas Taylor
>Any Old World of Darkness
I don't remember these being complete references. For instance, I think some editions mentioned that characters could cast spells, but didn't provide a list of spells, or rules for how spells might be created.
They also lacked a bestiary / encounter tables, and some editions might have had only vague details about the campaign setting. You most certainly needed to grab additional supplements.
Jordan Stewart
>For instance, I think some editions mentioned that characters could cast spells, but didn't provide a list of spells, or rules for how spells might be created. What, old Mage? Yeah, that was intentional. Magic could do literally anything you could convince your DM fit within the dots.
>They also lacked a bestiary / encounter tables They lacked them because those by and large didn't exist for oWoD. It's not that you needed a supplement, it's that they weren't part of the game at all.
I think all of like 10 enemies got statted up for all of Werewolf, for example.
Evan Murphy
I thought something like that might be the case, but I still prefer rulebooks to provide *some* example material to work with instead of requiring the DM to make up everything as they go along.
Ethan Cox
>They lacked them because those by and large didn't exist for oWoD. Yeah I'm looking at my 1st edition oMage and there's about 20 pages of monsters and statted NPC's in the back but even then the NPC's take up about 2 per page for half of that.
>Doublecross >MFW I want to own this but it's out of print and super expensive to find. Sure I could get a PDF but I prefer books in my hand when possible.
Robert Carter
Don't bother with Double Cross. The concept is neat, but the execution is rather garbage, even before the translator fucked it up further. Not to mention that you wouldn't get any coherent errata if you bought the book, like I did.
Jeremiah Jenkins
There's the answer you want, OP
I think most games have "supplements" but the game can be run out of one book, almost every time
Matthew Cruz
It also has a second edition. Admittedly it fixes nearly half the problems, but at what cost?