D&D 5E Which of the core books have you read cover to cover?

[AaronOfBarbaria]

My money was on people lie.

I agree with this statement, even though I disagree with the details that follow it.

Namely the "everyone" part not being entirely accurate because their are folks who aren't aware of the benefits of a lie for various reasons, the reason you've given that innocent people lie appearing to only apply to idiots because an innocent person that isn't an idiot will tell the truth to not be blamed for something they didn't do because they truly didn't do it, and the guilty having the choice to tell the truth but just not typically taking it because of other factors in the circumstances.

For example, I'll admit any wrong-doings of mine to the police or other authorities if I am caught (because I believe in the adage "if you can't pay the time, don't do the crime" and being honest about why I made whatever violation of traffic law I've made has resulted in me having only ever received a single citation for an offense despite being stopped by police more than a few times, I'll never tell a lie to anyone I consider a friend, and really... I only ever choose to lie to my mother, and that choice is because I spent the first half of my life always being honest to her and having her insist that I was lying - even when I was admitting to having done something I wasn't supposed to do, she'd assume I was lying for some reason - so it has simply become easier to tell her whatever she expects to hear whether it is the truth or not.

Of course, my honest is likely to be a statistical outlier that occurs only as a result of my particular blend of psychopathy.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

as for retaining all of the information, I must confess, I am fallible and have to continually refresh my memory with cursory rule referrencing

Absolutely, same here. The rules that come up basically all session every session are the only ones I am sure I've committed to memory - all the rest my memorization has been of where in the book to find the rule when I end up needing it, and there have still been a few times I had to reference either the table of contents or the index (though that is mostly in the DMG on account of their being multiple sections that I can't help but think of as the same thing despite their separation into different chapters - like how siege weapons are separate from firearms/future weapons and vehicles despite all of those being "equipment you might or might not use").

 

[Lanliss]

I have not played much at all, so I substituted that by reading all three, multiple times. I refresh myself every now and then, to make sure I am prepped if we manage to get all of our schedules lined up with a time that we all want to play.

 

[the Jester]

I've read the MM cover to cover. The others, I've probably read all of at one point or another. Or maybe not quite.

 

[CanadienneBacon]

This is where we're at with voting as of now. "Read all 3" is pulling ahead in the voting.

 

[TwoSix]

Sigh. Yeah. There's that. Though, I'm always hopeful people won't lie. No amount of living has managed to grind out my hope.

Those books cost me enough money that I'm not not going to read them.

 

[Li Shenron]

I'm curious about practice. Which of the core rulebooks have you read in its entirety? I'm not talking about in one sitting. It counts if you're reasonably certain you've read the whole book, even if in multiple disjointed reads spread out over time. Me, I'm pretty sure I've read darn near all of the PHB, but only skimmed or read in full sections of the MM and DMG.

None of them... I am certain I have not read every single spell in the PHB or monster in the MM, and not even half of the DMG yet...

 

[neobolts]

I didn't read any cover-to-cover.

• I probably have spent the most time with the PHB pouring over race, class, background, equipment, and rules extensively. Haven't read the spells until I need them or are considering using them.
• The DMG got a pretty heavy read, although I didn't read the magic items section in it's entirety.
• The MM I've only been reading entries as they relate to session prep.