Do you read RPG books all the way through?

[Voadam]

I recently finished reading the 4e DMG all the way through straight and got to wondering if other people ever read their RPG books that way as well.

RPG books in general are a combination of reference rule book and inspiration text. Unlike a novel you can skip around and go only to parts that catch your interest and have that make sense and get value out of it from doing so. As a reference book you can look up the parts applicable to what you are doing and go from there.

I've played whole games where I didn't own the rulebooks and relied mostly upon those who did to explain the game with just a quick flip through some character creation parts to make my character and scanning the artwork to enjoy the ambience of the setting. Star Frontiers, Shadowrun, Warhammer FRP come to mind.

The 1e DMG had Gygax's quirky organization which led me to read discrete sections back in the day though looking back I can't say for certain I read every page. I'm pretty sure I did for the red book/purple box basic game but that was a short game book and it was so long ago I couldn't really say definitively that I did.

I've run modules such as the 1e Temple of Elemental Evil without reading the whole thing. I'd read enough to handle what the party was going to be doing immediately for a night or the foreseeable future while just having skimmed the rest. My party left the area after the moathouse so my knowledge of the rest is sketchy to this day, perfect for the game I'm currently playing that is set there.

I think it was in the 2e era when I started reading some straight through consciously instead of just skipping to what caught my interest at the moment. I get more RPG books than I expect I will ever fully read but I do put RPGs on my reading list now and read them straight through.

In 3e I read the PH all the way through but not the DMG or MM, I used those often as reference books and for occasional inspiration flipthroughs but never cover to cover straight. Other books in my collection have been a mix of reading straight through and reference resources.

Do you read any RPG books all the way through cover to cover? If so which ones?

 

[Thanee]

Do you read any RPG books all the way through cover to cover? If so which ones?

Nope. Not even adventures.

I skip around all the time, when I "read" those books. Highly erratic.

I would even guess, that there are some parts in most if not all RPG books I own that I havn't ever read at all.

Bye
Thanee

 

[el-remmen]

Never.

While there are game books I have read every single page of more than once (like the afore-mentioned 1E DMG and some 1E and 2E monster books), never in order or in a number of continuous sittings.

 

[Crothian]

Yes, I'm pretty much expected to because of the work I do.

As for which ones: basically all of them.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Nope, I jump around a lot. The RPG book I probably have read the fullest would be the Promethean: The Created Corebook.

 

[Obryn]

Pretty much never.

I read in "threads." I start from the beginning-ish, try to get a feel for the basic themes of the game, look for stuff that interests me, and then pursue those topics wherever else they are in the book. Then I refer back to previous parts all over the place. I basically read them in a series of questions and answers.

I think it's safe to say I've never read every single word in any RPG book I've ever owned.

-O

 

[timbannock]

Do you read any RPG books all the way through cover to cover? If so which ones?

I have at times (mostly adventures, sometimes campaign settings and fluffy books), but that's almost never the case nowadays. I have a better eye for what I care about, so I skip the useless bits.

I never read core rulesbooks cover to cover. I like rules and study them a lot, but I try to get a "feel" long before I dive into the details.

 

[Serendipity]

Not anymore - once upon a time I felt it was somehow bad GMing to not have read all of my books cover to cover.
Really the only ones I read all the way through are those that are, well, interesting enough to do so (And RPG books very very seldom fall into that category for me. Though the 1e DMG was among them. ) and, sometimes, if I'm running a pre-published adventure, though even that's more to see what needs to be changed to mesh it with my homebrew.

 

[Byronic]

I'll read WoD ones from front to back multiple times. I'd read quite a bit of the DnD books, but not every page. I simply don't find the latter very interesting. They are hopelessly deficient when it comes to fluff.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

After owning a book for a full year, I may have read every single word, but I never read RPGs like I read novels. In the Borders or B&N I'll skim a chapter or two that is most interesting to me, then at home I'll skip around the pages over the next few weeks. Within a month, I'll have usually covered 90% of a book, but I often don't get further than that.

TS