Best RPG Books to Read

[Macbeth]

Books that are fun to read are always my favorites. Good rules are just a bonus.

Anyways, let me list some of my favorite reads:

Paranoia XP - This book makes me laugh. Hard. It's the only RPG book that's made me laugh out loud while reading it.

Paranoia XP Traitor's Manual - Commie humor never gets old, comrade.

In Nomine - I'm a sucker for angels in a modern setting, and now I'm working on a d20 game with the same idea, without stepping on In Nomine's toes.

Beyond Countless Doorways - Just too much good stuff

Hamunapatra - Great, great flavor. The races chapter just struck me as being really, really well done. Added a lot to the core races.

Skull and Bones - Again, just a great feel. Take the real world, add some magic, and you've got S&B.

Spellslinger - Does a good job of making the wild west magical, and has a decent amount of flavor without going too deep into it. Only thing holding this book back is the short length.

 

[danbuter]

All the Earthdawn books are good reads. So is just about everything for Planescape. Same with Shadowrun.

 

[Corvidae]

Hey,
if you want some good reading with rules and stuff too, I would highly recomend alderac entertainment groups secrets and relics. Both have dozens of plotlines, characters, creatures, and just fun reading.
They are also great if you are burnt out on ideas

 

[Ed Cha]

Modules and monster books for me.

Unfortunately, I haven't really found many d20 modules very fun to read. They're overall better designed than in previous editions, but just kinda boring and too serious.

My favorite monster book to read lately is Denizens of Avadnu. I love the encounter suggestions! Anything that inspires me to think of ideas for a game and look forward to playing my next game is good reading.

 

[driver8]

Any Monster Book-the 1ED AD&D Fiend Folio a favorite
The Planescape books
The 3e Handbook of the Planes was pretty cool

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

Iron Kingdoms.

 

[Testament]

Eberron Campaign Setting
Anything for Arcanis
Almost anything for Werewolf: The Apocalypse or Demon: The Fallen (why did they end that line so soon? Demon was fruggin' MASTERPIECE!)*
Manual of the Planes

*I make special mention of two of the mini books of fluff that were put out for these games, Days of Fire/Dies Ignis for Demon, and the Chronicle of the Black Labyrinth for Werewolf. Dies Ignis is a great apocalyptic book, while CBL makes my skin crawl, no matter how many times I read that dread book of Wyrm lore.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Whenever I need to use the john, I take something along the lines of horror, like Masque, Ravenloft, Cthulhu or whatever else. It helps make the experience a lot quicker as reading over the parts that terrify me, well you know, help it come out!

 

[Samothdm]

Whenever I need to use the john, I take something along the lines of horror, like Masque, Ravenloft, Cthulhu or whatever else. It helps make the experience a lot quicker as reading over the parts that terrify me, well you know, help it come out!

Remind me never to borrow any of your rulebooks.

 

[Varangian]

My favorite read is Deeds of the Ever Glorious, the legion book for Tekumel. Any of the non-rules stuff for tekumel is fun to read. Next in line is the Midnight books, then Fading Suns. For nostalgia purposes, the original Runequest and the Space Opera space atlases still get read from time to time.

Varangian