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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5910544" data-attributes="member: 42582">I think there are (at least) two different ways in which an RPG book can inspire.It can present compelling fiction. Planescape pesonally doesn't do much for me, but I know it does something for some. For D&D(-ish) material that I find inspiring as fiction, I would put forward Dark Sun and Arcana Unearthed. These are settings and story elements the I can enjoy thinking about and imagining playing in.The other way that an RPG book can be inspiring, I think, is to make me want to play, by giving me a good feel for the sorts of compelling episodes it might produce in play. The 4e books had this effect on me. So do the Burning Wheel books. 3E doesn't do this for me. B/X and AD&D did, but personally I found a bit of a mismatch between what they promised and what the delivered. Oriental Adventures (the AD&D version) did deliver for me: a promise of compelling play that it delivered on.These two ways of being evocative can interrelate, because part of what can make an episode compelling in play is the story elements it involves. This is part of the explanation for why Oriental Adventures both inspired me and delivered for me. But there is much more to compelling episodes of play than just the story elements. Oriental Adventures, for example, didn't just say "family and honour matters". Nor did it just present compelling fiction in which family and honour were shown to matter. It put family and honour into the core of the PC build mechanics. (These days I'd do it a bit differently - and it's not a patch on Pendragon - but back then I was young and impressionable.)Part of what makes 4e books evocative, for me, is that they promise compelling episodes of play, and the actual play experience then delivers.For those for whom the mechanics are less important - whose ideal would be for the mechanics to "fade away" - then my distinction might not hold, though. Because if mechanics don't matter to you, then it may be that nothing but story elements determines whether or not an episode of play is compelling for you.In my experience it depends heaavily on the book. But I would agree that the fiction in RPG books - and especially D&D books - is in general not very well written.I think this elides the differences between different D&D books.Part of why the Planescape that I have read tends to do little for me (and I'm thinking here especially Dead Gods, Infinite Staircase and the 3E Expedition to the Demonweb Pits) is because when I read it, I don't feel that a compelling play experience is being offered. The outcomes seem highly predetermined (though Infinite Staircase is perhaps not quite as egregious in this respect), and the action resolution mechanics a poor match for the situations that the players are expected to engage via their PCs.</blockquote>

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