People who read games but don't play...are there more than me...

[haakon1]

I know two people who bought RPG books just to read them.

For media-related games (e.g., Star Wars d20, Babylon 5 the RPG, Stargate D20), I'm guessing the share who have no intention to ever play it would be higher.

Myself, I buy tons and tons more adventures than I'll ever use. Partially, it's because they are fun to read. Partially, it's because you have to throw back a lot of fish before you find the one adventure that's just so "right" you want to run it/mess with it and then run it, at least if you are me.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Oh, and I know that there are likely people who bought the 3.5 Dragonlance sourcebooks who do not game at all. Dragonlance has a lot of people who just read the novels, but the gamebooks are great sources of information about the world.

 

[Nymrohd]

As others have said, I also read a lot more than I play. It's not though so much because I don't play enough, it is that there is not enough time in the world to play all the games I'd like to try so I just read through some on my own instead.

 

[ggroy]

I know two people who bought RPG books just to read them.

For media-related games (e.g., Star Wars d20, Babylon 5 the RPG, Stargate D20), I'm guessing the share who have no intention to ever play it would be higher.

I remember back in the 1980's, I knew some hardcore Star Trek fans who picked up the FASA Star Trek rpg books, but who never bothered to play the rpg game. Same story with hardcore Star Wars fans in the late 1980's and 1990's (before the original trilogy re-releases and prequels), who picked up the West End Games Star Wars books, without ever playing the rpg game. These hardcore fans liked reading the rpg books, as if they were compilations of canon.

 

[Kzach]

Heh, funnily enough, I'm the exact opposite. I play more games than I read. I rarely RTFM and only really ever do so as a reference. I am a strong believer in jumping in head first and worrying about the details later.

I learned 1e that way. I learned 2e that way. I learned 3e that way and I learned 4e that way.

Why mess with a working formula?

 

[darjr]

... jumping in head first and worrying about the details later.

I learned 1e that way. I learned 2e that way. I learned 3e that way and I learned 4e that way.

Why mess with a working formula?

Yea, I've learned a ton of games that way. Still do. However, I just really like reading RPG stuff. Board games I hardly ever go back and read... but I must admit to doing that to.

 

[Hussar]

There's been a number of people chime in with geography/time issues getting in the way of playing. Have any of you tried virtual tabletop gaming? I know that if I didn't go the Maptools route, I'd have never played at all in the past five or six years.

What is the major stumbling block to trying out something like Burning Wheel (to use an earlier example) online?

 

[Luce]

Yeah, same is happening to me. Love the books, getting turn off by the actual way people play. Too much off topic discussion and jokes. do not get me wrong some of that is fine and human nature after all. But when I look back at a session and realize that we could have probably finished the adventure in less then 2/3 of the time if everyone just cut off the sexual innuendo humor it really bothered me and the off color jokes breaks my immersion.

I still like to play so I run games for myself using published adventures- modules, Dungeon. I am having fun so no problem there.
Now I also collect rpgs, so there are some games that I have not gotten around to playing. Legend of the 5 rings, BESM, oWoD (especially kindred of the east and werewolf), Endival, Alternity are the ones I could remember of the top of my head. Oh, sure I came with some ideas for scenarios and campaigns, but since they are my own creation I just write them down in case I ever find somebody for whom to run a game in that particular system.

 

[ggroy]

Yeah, same is happening to me. Love the books, getting turn off by the actual way people play. Too much off topic discussion and jokes. do not get me wrong some of that is fine and human nature after all. But when I look back at a session and realize that we could have probably finished the adventure in less then 2/3 of the time if everyone just cut off the sexual innuendo humor it really bothered me and the off color jokes breaks my immersion.

This isn't specific to tabletop rpg games. Eating at a restaurant, watching tv football, hockey, basketball, etc .... with groups of friends, is not much different in this regard.

The only exception I can think of offhand, is when playing something like poker. Though this may be specific to the groups I've played with in the past. Talking too much could give one's hand away.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Amusingly the first RPG book I ever bought I bought because I'd read a sample online and thought it had many interesting ideas (it was the 3.5e Draconomicon). It was only after I actually had the whole text that I discovered there was a game behind it. So my RPG gaming started out by wanting to read a book for its booknes.

I've never been able to game that much: face-to-face issues to start, and now I can't stand sitting on my butt for an online chat game, so I'm left with PbP. Then there's the issue of my just being very picky about things like tone. So I really don't game much. Despite that I have more than a few texts. Thus you can definitely put me in the category of "read more stuff than I get to play".

More interestingly, however, I've now spent several years participating in "games" which are no games at all but collaborative stories: no rules, no GM, no exclusive control of characters or events. I've found after doing that for so long I get annoyed by the thought of going back to the old way. It may not be long now before I give up gaming for story-writing. Yet I'll still like the books for their ideas as well as for how their mechanical approach makes me think about certain things.