Best RPG Books to Read

[Wombat]

Paranoia. It's just that much fun

After that I'd have to say Blue Planet and Over the Edge. I found both of those just interesting (and fun) reads.

Other than those, most books have great parts, but not necessarily whole books.

Personal tastes, expressed only by the ex-management

 

[Snotlord]

Setting books are very often fun to read. I never tire of flipping through the 3e FRCS, IMO wotc's finest book to date.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Gaz 3: Principalities of Galantri for OD&D

Paranoia 2nd ed ... I'm starting to become sold on XP though.

Sprawl Sites for Shadowrun, very limited release, very good book

Listen Up You Primitive Screwheads! for the Cyberpunk RPG

Blue Planet 1st ed ... I'll second this one. I ran it by the resident PhD in geophysics and he said the earth science was solid given that it was for an RPG. Too bad character generation was meant for the amature thespian school of roleplaying.


Hmmm. A lot of sci-fi on my list. I wouldn't have expected that.

 

[Morpheus]

The Cthulhu campaign The Masks of Nyarlathotep is one of the best RPG campaigns ever, great as a read and an actual game.

...Eberron stuff.

I agree on these two completely. Also, anything for the Iron Kingdoms makes for a good read. Midnight, when it first came out, was a great read (I haven't kept up with it since)...

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

d20
1) Book of the Righteous
2) IKCG & WG
3) Draconomicon

2E
Planescape

 

[Gothmog]

By far the most engaging prose and most fun to read are the original Deadlands books and supplements. Great for ideas, atmosphere, and flavor anytime!

Anything Ars Magica- there are tons of really cool ideas there never addressed by any other game, and you might even pick up a few real-world history facts to boot!

Demon: The Fallen- I agree with TB on this one, Demon has the best flavor text of any WoD game so far and were great fun to read.

Midnight- the setting and prose are so evocative, its the only campaign world guide I can literally picture all the locales in my head from just a cursory read.

Paranoia is a lot of fun to read too, but for mostly humerous reasons.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Hmm... for me it would be:

Beyond the Mountains of Madness (Call of Cthulhu)
Horror on the Orient Express (CoC)
Delta Green & Delta Green: Countdown
Anything Planescape (it's flavorful)
3E Draconomicon
A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe (My best PDF purchase, bar none)

 

[Allandaros]

Well, I'm really glad to see that you people are enjoying Paranoia so much!

For some reason, I always enjoy flipping through the 1E DMG and (if this counts) an old edition of the Warhammer tabletop game, for the tiny, almost hidden, cartoons it had inside.

 

[Dagger75]

Earthdawn Sourcebooks. Those were written like they were books in the world. The first half was what we call fluff, then the GM section filled in all the crunch. These books exsited in the game world, you could go to the library in game and read The Serpent River, up to the GM section.

 

[Orryn Emrys]

Y'know... I would've mentioned only one or two books upon first reading the question... but after all of the fine suggestions that have come up since, I have to admit that the list has grown substantially.

I was quite fond of WotC's Draconomicon and Green Ronin's Book of the Righteous and Freeport: City of Adventure. Among 2E supplements, I seriously enjoyed the entire cluster of PLANESCAPE products, but my favorite TSR offering was probably the Campaign Sourcebook and CATACOMB Guide. I was also fond of reading the 1E DMG back in the day.

Of course, I think I actually purchased copies of White Wolf's WoD core rulebooks just for the pleasure of reading them....