Topic: "Best" RPG Citybooks

[egdcltd]

Morrowind is an interesting place.

[egdcltd]

I use the City of Carse as my default backdrop city to start with.

I've read a chunk of Carse now. It looks like it details every building in the, fairly small, city, and the majority of the NPCs. Not bad for a small book.

[BeggarKing (Thomas)]

I love city adventures and seem to collect these - my favorites for inspiration are Flying Buffalo's Citybooks (although they are out of print and hard to find). Gre3en Ronin did a city Quarters series (Thieves Quarter, Temple Quarter) which were also good.
I have most of the Lankhmar material and Thieves World materials TSR and others put out in the day, and lots of materials on Waterdeep, but I like the supplements above best for adventure planning.
Couple posts mention products that I haven't looked at yet, looking forward to scrounging those up.

[intothatdarkness]

Lankhmar was pretty good. GW put out some good stuff for Warhammer FRP back when they still owned it...don't know about the newer stuff.

[egdcltd]

The Flying Buffalo books look to be (mostly) available from their 90s-era website in print. The delivery costs are pretty high, though, unfortunately, making them much more expensive than the second hand books on Amazon UK. It's a shame they aren't available digitally on RPGNow.

I've also got most/all of TSR's Lankhmar stuff, although I can't find the map for the second edition book.

[Old Man]

One of my favorite topics. My go to is Runequest cities for generating content (http://www.amazon.com/Runequest-Cities-Explore-Fantasy-Communities/dp/9990397562).

For pre-made cities, I'd go with Harn - Cities of Harn (http://www.amazon.com/Cities-Harn-Paperback-Robin-Crossby/dp/0920711146/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403354566&sr=1-1&keywords=cities+of+harn), Son of Cities and even Castles of Harn.
If you run across it, the old TSR Lankmar boxed set had a pretty detailed city if I recall correctly. (http://www.amazon.com/Lankhmar-Adventure-Advanced-Dungeons-Dragons/dp/0880382473/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=15XHSX5Y774EEJ8PZBMN)
Thieves' World Sanctuary also is good.

[egdcltd]

I notice that RuneQuest Cities shares an author with Carse (which is really quite an excellent little book). Fortunately, I've managed to find a copy that's rather cheaper than the Amazon one. Like less than 10% of the price.

[Thom @ ICE]

I personally like Freeport city setting, especially with the original set of adventures, it plays really well, and the core setting book offers lots of opportunities for adventures.

[egdcltd]

I personally like Freeport city setting, especially with the original set of adventures, it plays really well, and the core setting book offers lots of opportunities for adventures.

I had a look at Freeport on RPGNow, but what was for sale there didn't sound like the original city. Is it available in multiple editions and, if so, which edition would you be thinking of?

[Thom @ ICE]

Freeport - City of Adventure is the name of the original core setting book
I used the d20 version and translated to HARP on the fly...
The original trilogy of adventures was a lot of fun.

[egdcltd]

Freeport - City of Adventure is the name of the original core setting book
I used the d20 version and translated to HARP on the fly...
The original trilogy of adventures was a lot of fun.

Yes, it looks like that version isn't on RPGNow. Looks like it's going to be second hand.

[vroomfogle]

I love the Citybook Catalyst series by Flying Buffalo.   I've managed to get a copy of all 7 of them now, and although they may technically be out of print you can actually still order a few of them (I, III, and V I believe) directly from Flying Buffalo....at their original prices in fact, making them the cheapest RPG book I think you can buy.  Certainly a great value for what you get. Of course, this may not be practical from outside the U.S.

http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/catalyst.htm

[egdcltd]

I love the Citybook Catalyst series by Flying Buffalo.   I've managed to get a copy of all 7 of them now, and although they may technically be out of print you can actually still order a few of them (I, III, and V I believe) directly from Flying Buffalo....at their original prices in fact, making them the cheapest RPG book I think you can buy.  Certainly a great value for what you get. Of course, this may not be practical from outside the U.S.

http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/catalyst.htm

Yes, the postage costs to the UK from the US mean it's actually cheaper to get most of them from Amazon here. Unfortunately, Amazon don't have them all. Digital versions would be perfect.