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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6386225" data-attributes="member: 42582">What examples do you have in mind?I think that maybe I wasn't clear.I think an RPG book should absolutely be inspiring to read. But not in the way that, for instance, LotR is inspiring to read. My favourite RPG books are Luke Crane's Burning Wheel books - they are written as manuals for play, and they absolutely inspire me to play. I remember reading the 4e MM, and seeing all these creatures that I wanted to use in my game, and envisaging how they would play out.My view, though, is that RPG books that are written to be read by people who aren't looking to be inspired to play are a problem. In rulebooks, it leads to the substitution of narrative description of things (&quot;Kobolds are tricky&quot;) for advice on framing and action resolution (&quot;Here's how you can resolve an attempt by kobolds to trick the PCs in your game&quot;). In modules, it leads to the author narrating a story (I think many D&amp;D modules of the past 20+ years suffer from this) rather than presenting material for the GM to use to run an adventure (&quot;Here's how you might frame this situation, hooking it into the ongoing concerns of your game, and adjudicating the players' attempts to engage with it via their PCs&quot;).These books substitute, for facilitation of running a game that will enable the participants to generate a shared fiction and perhaps a story, the telling of a story. For me, if I want to be told a story I will turn to a novel or a film. I want my RPG books to show me, and show me how to use, techniques for RPGing.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 6386225, member: 42582"] What examples do you have in mind? I think that maybe I wasn't clear. I think an RPG book should absolutely be inspiring to read. But not in the way that, for instance, LotR is inspiring to read. My favourite RPG books are Luke Crane's Burning Wheel books - they are written as manuals for play, and they absolutely inspire me to play. I remember reading the 4e MM, and seeing all these creatures that I wanted to use in my game, and envisaging how they would play out. My view, though, is that RPG books that are written to be read by people [I]who aren't looking to be inspired to play[/I] are a problem. In rulebooks, it leads to the substitution of narrative description of things ("Kobolds are tricky") for advice on framing and action resolution ("Here's how you can resolve an attempt by kobolds to trick the PCs in your game"). In modules, it leads to the author narrating a story (I think many D&D modules of the past 20+ years suffer from this) rather than presenting material for the GM to use to run an adventure ("Here's how you might frame this situation, hooking it into the ongoing concerns of your game, and adjudicating the players' attempts to engage with it via their PCs"). These books substitute, for facilitation of running a game that will enable the participants to generate a shared fiction and perhaps a story, the telling of a story. For me, if I want to be told a story I will turn to a novel or a film. I want my RPG books to show me, and show me how to use, techniques for RPGing. [/QUOTE]

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