Don’t be intimidated if something says it’s for a game you don’t run.

As a Game Master of 40+ years, I have become a bit of a pack rat. I have a huge eclectic collection of books from games no longer in print, magazines long gone, and PDFs that take up a lot of memory. I leave no stone unturned in my quest for more GM resources. Depending on the game, everything is a potential GM resource.

There are a ton of examples I could give. I recently picked up The Quest Builder’s Handbook from Spectrum Games. While it’s made for HeroQuest, a game I don’t even own, it’s still got some value as a fantasy TableTop RolePlaying Game resource. I can always create my own statistics for Dragonbane and still use the Non Player Characters and so forth.

I have files full of house designs that I keep handy for modern games. I own a worn out copy of Shadowrun Sprawl Sites that I’ve used for lots of things. Thank goodness for PDFs. The same goes for the James Bond Thrilling Locations book. I also use and abuse the art templates for HERO System Character Templates collection. You young people have it so easy with the PDFs.

Fantasy games are the ones I seem to have the most bizarre and eclectic collection of books for. Space games are easy because you can grab nearly anything from other genres and shoehorn it into your setting or location. Horror and near future games are much the same. Post apocalyptic uses modern stuff just ruined.

Fantasy is probably the hardest one, but also the easiest to find/create. I have system guides to other campaigns. I pick up monster books for tons of games and Dungeons & Dragons 5E in particular. Amongst 3/3.5E, 5E and Pathfinder alone I have more monster books than someone would probably ever need. World of Myrr arrived last year and the Cawood monster books for 5E are outstanding!

Even though I don’t run 5E any more, converting monsters and NPCs into Dragonbane is pretty simple. That’s the fantasy game where most of my attention is these days. I generally love various universal game engines because it’s easy and fun to pop in elements from other games. 5E was kinda headed that way at one time. D20 Modern is another one that covered tons of ground.

I also recommend some of the World of Darkness sourcebooks for various things. If you can still find them, Vampire: the Requiem’s Damnation City and Requiem Chronicler’s Guide are excellent for any GM. They’re full of advice that works for a lot of games, not just the WoD stuff.

There are also a lot of general GM advice books out there. So You Want To Be A Game Master by Justin Alexander  and The Secret Art of Game Mastery by DM’s Lair are two that I would recommend if you want great GM advice. There are also some outstanding splat books from AD&D 2E that are worth checking out.

I also visit Half Price Books and other second hand bookstores when I find them. Much like public libraries you can find all kinds of things on medieval cultures, religion, geography, and so forth. Then we get into Science Fiction, fiction, biographies, and tons of other non-gaming books to draw from.

Of course, the biggest resource for any game is right here at our fingertips- ye olde World Wide Interwebs. Wikipedia covers a lot of things however reliably. Fan sites exist for almost ever game and fantasy trope imaginable. Search carefully, though. Plenty of sketchy sites out there, too.

Please take it all in, my fellow GMs. The world is your oyster. The pearl is the knowledge of everything related to your game.