Fanaelialae
Legend
Believe it or not, I build a player character, as if I were going to play in the campaign (I don't actually run it as a DMPC though).I may have even asked this here on ENW before - how do you onboard a new rules set into your brain so that the experience for the players is pretty ok?
(not perfect, but pretty ok)
This forces me to read through the various character options and familiarize myself, which will be important when I have to walk my players through it. It also forces me to read through the various player facing rules, like combat and skills, because I like making effective characters.
Finally, I'll look through the monsters and run a few mock combats in my head to see how they measure up. Sometimes I'll peruse the treasure list to see what kinds of items would work well.
Obviously, I'll still read through the book, but I find creating a character to be the easiest way to familiarize myself with a new system and get a rough feel for it.