Well, I buy just supplements as well. Especially if they are good.

I ran my first D&D games with a Basic D&D Holmes Bluebook, home brewed character advancement tables, custom designed character classes, and the Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets. It was summertime 1978 before I could afford the $12 for the white bookset.

Other supplements in my collection...

Castle Zagyg, Yggsburgh Campaign Setting and Eastmark 17"x22"Map
 
Tekumel Source Book: World of the Petal Throne

Aihrde: A Fantasy Adventure Setting
Codex of Erde

The Judges Guild Wilderlands Campaign Setting. Just for these maps, I'd need more than this much space (taken in 2011 at the Notre Dame RPG Club by Amanda Gray) just for the first actual published fantasy campaign setting.

http://s158.photobucket.com/user/awi1777/media/WilderlandsCampaignSetting_zps7ec6ab21.jpg.html

Judges Guild First Fantasy Campaign.  This is Dave Arneson's original D&D campaign setting as published by Bob Bledsaw at Judges Guild. 17"x22"

The Judges Guild City State of the Imperial Overlord 34"x44 City map.

Harn, the original Columbia Games release by N. Robin Crosby which featured a 22"x34" full color map.

The Greyhawk Campaign Setting, The four large Darlene 22"x34" re-released maps from the Dragon Magazine issues that came out in 2000-2001 or so.

The Original TSR Gamma World 17"x24"map of the United States. I have two additional 11"x17" Homebrewed Post Apocalypse Gamma World Maps to Exhibit with this, One which features Northern California, including San Francisco, Sacramento, The Central Valley and Lake Tahoe, and an East Coast map that features the New England States. I'm working on a new Florida map now too!

The 17"x22" Traveller Spinward Marches Campaign Map that came with the Traveller Deluxe set released in 1980 or so.
Book 5 High Guard
Book 4 Mercenary
Striker
Mayday
Book 6 Scouts
Special Supplement 1: Merchant Prince
Supplement 2: Animal Encounters
Supplement 3: The Spinward Marches
Judges Guild: Navigator's Starcharts
Double Adventure 1: Shadows & Annic Nova


The Twin Crowns d20 Campaign Setting & 18"x22"  Poster Map. Includes Pirates, Broadsides, Agents of Faith, Charge, and Streets of Silver Supplements.

The 11"x17" Twilight 2000 Map.

The Runequest Fantasy Europe map, from the Avalon Hill Runequest Deluxe Boxed set.

Lejend Master's Lore

Farscape d20 Campaign Setting

The Shootist's Guide for Aces & Eights

d20 Alchemy & Herbalists
d20 Torn Asunder, Critical Hits
d20 FBI:Modern
d20 Afghanistan
d20 Modern
d20 Past
d20 Apocalypse
d20 Crime Scene: Forensics
d20 Crime Scene: Police Investigation
d20 Spycraft 1ed & 2.0
d20 Eternal Rome
d20 Blue Rose Campaign Setting
d20 Morningstar Campaign Setting
d20 Centaurs
d20 Way of the Witch
Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
Serpent Kingdoms
Ghost Walk
Expanded Psionics Handbook
Spell Compendium
Unearthed Arcana
Savage Species
Arms & Equipment Guide
Races of the Wild
Complete Adventurer
Sandstorm ( I would have gotten Frostburn as well, but had already done up my own d20 cold weather supplement)
Stronghold Builders Guidebook
Castles & Crusades: Engineering Dungeons

Eberron Campaign Setting
Magic of Eberron
Secrets of Sarlona
Player's Guide to Eberron
Five Nations
Dragonmarked
Races of Eberron
Faiths of Eberron
Explorer's Handbook
Secrets of Xen'drik
Sharn: City of Towers

Star Wars: Galactic Campaign Guide
Star Wars: The New Jedi Order Sourcebook
Star Wars: Arms & Equipment Guide

Extraordinary Book of Names
Worldbuilder
Nationbuilder
Cityworks
Game Mastery Guide (Paizo)


Older D&D Supplements
The Dungeoneers Guide
Fiend Folio
Greyhawk
Blackmoor
Eldritch Wizardry
Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes
The Compleat Arduin
Atlantis, from Bard's Tale Productions
Worldbuilders Guidebook

Dragon Magazine (Mostly through about issue 60, then a bunch of singles from 280 on up, when it started getting really good again), a selection of Dungeoneer, Pegasus, and Different Worlds Magazines.

Gurps
Compendium I
Compendium II
Alpha Centauri
Infinite Worlds
Time Travel
Witch World
Cliffhangers
Magic
Fantasy Bestiary
Fantasy
Ultra-Tech
High-Tech
Low-tech
Special Ops
Black Ops
Undead
Imperial Rome

Everything Judges Guild ever made except for
The City-State of Tarantis
...and
Wraith Overlord: The Dungeon under the City-State of the Imperial Overlord.

Fallback: For the Morrow Project

Top Secret: Dossiers (Player Record Sheets)
Top Secret: Administrators Screen
Top Secret: Operation Executive One
Top Secret: Administrators File 001, Operation Sprechenhaltestelle
Top Secret TS002 Operation: Rapidstrike
Top Secret TS004 Operation: Fastpass

So yeah, a lot of supplements. If they are good quality.

I like self contained games and I like self contained settings, that is to say I like the separation of setting and game.  Ideally a game has a relatively complete core and a setting is relatively complete.  For a game, I don't mind expansions that tailor it to a setting and for a setting I don't mind books that detail specific areas.  I'm not overly fond of adventures, they hang too close to plots and scenes and other such stops along the railroad tracks.  But I do like settings with a sense of history in motion.

So, all in all, I like my rulebooks under 200 pages, and I'd rather the setting be separate from the rules so I don't have to lug it around with me if I don't use the setting and I'd prefer there not be anything essential to the game left to a supplement and the rules should contain the structures used to build the objects so I can check the assumptions behind things like spells and vehicle statistic and also build my own.  If it was a third the size, T5 would be my perfect rule book.  Mind you, the supplement with the errata will also be 600 pages.

With Adventure!, the fact that they said there would be no supplements was a very good thing, in that you didn't have to tie in to the previous (and in-setting, subsequent) Trinity/Aberrant material, which suffered from the usual White Wolf issues.

JG

Quote from: RPGPundit;811851How do you feel about games that have a complete main book but no supplementary material; no adventures or sourcebooks?

Games should all use this Core Rulebook philosophy. It makes them more accessible to people since they do not have to make a huge investment to get started.

Quote from: RPGPundit;811851Does knowing that a game has no supplementary material turn you off from using it, or just the contrary?

Depends entirely upon how well written that Core Rulebook is. Classic Traveller, Mongoose Traveller, Jovian Chronicles, Mekton II, Mekton Zeta, D&D Rules Compendium, d6 Star Wars, and d6 Star Wars Revised and Expanded all do this. D&D 3e Player's Handbook initial printing with the 2000 Survival Guide in back, D&D 5e Basic PDF series, Pathfinder Basic Box with PDF Expansions, and GURPS Lite 3e come close to this same effect. You want there to be just enough rules to allow for about a year or two of gaming on that single item alone.

I'm attracted to standalone central Core Rules that can be built on, but do not need supplementary material to have fun for a year or two.

Lately I buy a lot of cheap pdf supplements/adventures for games I don't run... to mine for idea and any new rulebooks I buy tend to be interesting little things without supplements... such as Wield and Noumenon. So I guess that means it's a plus for me, since I'm not looking to buy into any massive new game systems.

Quote from: GameDaddy;811976Everything Judges Guild ever made except for The City-State of Tarantis ...

Hah, do you want it?  Got a copy.

I like supplemental stuff. If I were super creative, I'd be writing RPGs, not buying them.

And while I can come up with adventures, at the same time, they tend to be along similar lines. My NPCs tend to be similar, often borrowed from books or movies or the like.

Other people's adventures give me completely different ideas and NPCs that I never would have thought of.

Quote from: danbuter;811952Having a good setting with a bunch of supplements for the setting only would be awesome, though (see Golarion for Pathfinder).

The initial batch of Golarion supplements was rules light enough, that it was relatively easy to use in my 4E D&D games at the time.

But after the Pathfinder core books were released, the supplements gradually become more and more crunch heavy.  Eventually I stopped buying any further Pathfinder stuff.

This may sound contradictory, but I like:
(1) Games which are complete in a single volume
(2) Interesting supplements to games

In other words, I prefer to have a game which could be played and enjoyed fully as a single core rulebook. But I also like to have options which I can read and decide if I want to add on or not. What I do not want is a rules set which seems incomplete and requires later add-ons.

The OD&D white box is a great rules set, but I like to add in bits of Supplement I Greyhawk. Amber Diceless is a great rules set, but I like to read Shadow Knight and like to cherry-pick rules from there that I can use in my campaign. (As well as rules from LoGaS and LoO.)

D&D 3E and 4E always seemed like they were designed so that I was supposed to buy the extra books in order to make the game "complete." Not as nice.

Quote from: finarvyn;812055This may sound contradictory, but I like:
(1) Games which are complete in a single volume
(2) Interesting supplements to games

Not contradictory at all. I liked all the supplemental rules for 3rd edition D&D, but also how they could be ignored and the game easily played with the three main books. The real issue with 3.X was the insistence (from A LOT of people I played with) that all those available options meant you had to use them.

Making characters in 3.X and HERO and GURPS and other systems with a lot of options is fun in itself, but it's sort of like rolling up Traveller characters...after a while you want to play the actual game and not worry about generation. Seems like too many 3.X players never got past the character gen; they were always looking to improve their "build" instead of playing.

To address the original question, if a supplement is REQUIRED for play, that is super annoying. But I'm pretty much a completist when purchasing stuff, which means I'll buy every possible book for a system. Still, if you're actually trying to play the damn thing, less is more. I think one of the biggest culprits for needless supplements that cluttered up a game is Car Wars. Blowing the fuck out of other cars on the road, that's the whole game. Add some boats, tanks, helicopters, tons of bs weapons, etc. Pure bloat. Yes, I like Uncle Albert's, but Jesus, how many fucking types of machine guns do you need?

Quote from: Brad;812078But I'm pretty much a completist when purchasing stuff, which means I'll buy every possible book for a system.

In hindsight, I'm glad the 4E D&D product line ended when it did in mid 2012.

Initially I stopped buying any further 4E stuff, after the initial few 4E Essentials books.  (At the time circa late 2010, I was playing in the weekly 4E Encounters games which used the 4E Essentials books).

After the announcement of 5E/Next in January 2012, I ended up picking up the rest of the 4E books released after 2010 to satisfy my compulsive completionist mentality.

So far I haven't purchased any 5E books yet.

Quote from: finarvyn;812055This may sound contradictory, but I like:
(1) Games which are complete in a single volume
(2) Interesting supplements to games

In other words, I prefer to have a game which could be played and enjoyed fully as a single core rulebook. But I also like to have options which I can read and decide if I want to add on or not. What I do not want is a rules set which seems incomplete and requires later add-ons.

That is really where I stand. HERO is complete in it's rules. You can play it easily from just the core book. Most supplements were campaign worlds, sample builds, or villains and monsters. Things that either made something easier or gave ideas.

Quote from: Ravenswing;812023Hah, do you want it?  Got a copy.

Yes, if you are willing to part with. PM me a price, and I'll let you know promptly if I'll take it.

Quote from: RPGPundit;811851How do you feel about games that have a complete main book but no supplementary material; no adventures or sourcebooks?

Does knowing that a game has no supplementary material turn you off from using it, or just the contrary?

It's a turn-off, but not a deal breaker.

I like supplements. I'm an imaginative fella, but other people have different idears and can come up with idears that I might not have come up with and incorporate them into my game.
Same deal with adventures. Even if I never run an adventure module, there may be some great stuff in there for me to part out.

Also, I think adventure modules serve a damn important function for new and newish GMs. Adventures show those types how the game is expected to be played. Well, good adventures do that.

What's wrong with players bringing supplements, or there being supplements in the first place?