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shadow_archmagi
2011-07-28, 09:02 AM
That is, do you USE your game books, or read them? When you buy Sandstorm, do you think "Okay, going to read through this tonight" and then go through it from start to finish, or "This will be a good source of environmental rules for our current quest through the desert. Maybe next time my character levels, I'll take a look at the desert themed feats" and then flip to the part you need and skim?

supermonkeyjoe
2011-07-28, 09:04 AM
Wow you know i've never really thought about that, I remember I used to read new game books cover to cover when I first got them, now I tend to skim them and only read the more interesting or relevant parts in depth.

In fact tonight I'm going to start actually reading my game books properly.

Ravens_cry
2011-07-28, 09:10 AM
Before I actually got into D&D properly, as in actually play, I used to take source-books out from the local public library and read all the cool fluff descriptions and art, occasionally trying to understand the cryptic statistics.

Shadowknight12
2011-07-28, 09:19 AM
I don't read books. I dissect them for the things I can use and then off they go, locked away in oblivion until I need their neglected corpses again.

I got so much flak in the WW forums for saying I didn't read the fiction of the nWoD books. It was mob mentality, full on. Apparently the short fictions there are one of the greatest works of literature known to mankind and not reading them makes you a heretic worthy of death. Painful, hideous death.

I may be exaggerating a little.

The Dark Fiddler
2011-07-28, 09:28 AM
I tend to read them cover to cover. There's two exceptions: D&D 3.5's Tome of Magic, because I couldn't stand the Shadowcaster or Truenamer, and Exalted 2e, because I just haven't got around to finishing it, for some reason.

Lord Loss
2011-07-28, 09:35 AM
I usually read them from cover to cover. I've read all my D&D books from cover to cover, although I'm not done Tome of Magic, which I got recently-ish. I haven't got around to reading the Truenamer stuff.

GeekGirl
2011-07-28, 09:37 AM
When i get a new book, I read it cover to cover usually twice. I can generally retain the information after that, at least the basics. So after that I just skim.

Ravens_cry
2011-07-28, 09:46 AM
I don't read books. I dissect them for the things I can use and then off they go, locked away in oblivion until I need their neglected corpses again.

I got so much flak in the WW forums for saying I didn't read the fiction of the nWoD books. It was mob mentality, full on. Apparently the short fictions there are one of the greatest works of literature known to mankind and not reading them makes you a heretic worthy of death. Painful, hideous death.

I may be exaggerating a little.
I agree with that. I like the basic mechanics of the Storyteller system, but the World of Darkness as written has fairly little interest to me. Too oppressively "We're So Dark, We Puke Shadows" for my tastes.

NikitaDarkstar
2011-07-28, 10:16 AM
I admit that I honestly only read what I need/am interested in at the time. I love to read, but I don't have a head for numbers and crunch so I skim through whatever book catches my fancy, go "that looks neat, maybe I should try it sometime." and then usually end up forgetting about it until I want/need it again and go "I know I've seen it somewhere... some city/magic/melee/whatever book!".

I'm horrible I know.

Luzahn
2011-07-28, 10:20 AM
I don't read books. I dissect them for the things I can use and then off they go, locked away in oblivion until I need their neglected corpses again.

I got so much flak in the WW forums for saying I didn't read the fiction of the nWoD books. It was mob mentality, full on. Apparently the short fictions there are one of the greatest works of literature known to mankind and not reading them makes you a heretic worthy of death. Painful, hideous death.

I may be exaggerating a little.

This attitude is only acceptable when 40k is concerned.
http://www.darkreign40k.com/drjoomla/images/stories/HeresyStamp.png

Shadowknight12
2011-07-28, 10:27 AM
I agree with that. I like the basic mechanics of the Storyteller system, but the World of Darkness as written has fairly little interest to me. Too oppressively "We're So Dark, We Puke Shadows" for my tastes.

Agreed. It didn't help that the one piece of fiction I did read completely (because it was recommended to me) was the one from Legacies: The Ancient (Mage splatbook), and it left me feeling all the wrong kinds of disgusted and horrified. It wasn't the Silent Hill kind of disgust and horror, it was the "there is a person defecating in my front yard!" kind of disgust and horror.


This attitude is only acceptable when 40k is concerned.

Har har hardy har har. :smalltongue:

Scarlet-Devil
2011-07-28, 10:37 AM
All of the (many) D&D books I own were promptly read cover to cover, with few exceptions.

Sdonourg
2011-07-28, 10:38 AM
I read books, some books I read partially, some from cover to cover. Tome of Magic and Frostburn were very entertaining.

Sipex
2011-07-28, 10:40 AM
I tend not to read them from cover to cover initially, just going over and reading parts in depth which catch my interest.

Later I'll read through it again but this time each section in detail.

dsmiles
2011-07-28, 10:42 AM
Depends.

I've read every 1e/2e AD&D book (that I could get my grubby little mitts on) cover-to-cover. I was never really interested enough in 3.0/3.5/4e to do that with those books.

My TTWG books, I read frequently. My Warmachine/Hordes books and Malifaux books all have creases in the spines, and the one I've had the longest is only about 8 months old. As soon as the new IK RPG comes out, I'll definitely read that one cover-to-cover, and if there's ever a Malifaux RPG, that'll get read, too.

shadow_archmagi
2011-07-28, 10:48 AM
I noticed (when searching for Dedicated Wright) That the Eberron Campaign Setting includes the word Dedicated a lot. I was thinking what lousy writing it was to use Dedicated on every page, and that that was one of the reasons I don't read books all the way through.

I copied the whole thing (I have a legit PDF) in Word so I could ask Word to find every instance of Dedicated (there's 65, if you're curious) .

This inspired me to copy-paste the entire thing into Wordle (http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/3877518/Eberron_Campaign_Setting)

Kinda neat to look at.

Tyndmyr
2011-07-28, 12:07 PM
That is, do you USE your game books, or read them? When you buy Sandstorm, do you think "Okay, going to read through this tonight" and then go through it from start to finish, or "This will be a good source of environmental rules for our current quest through the desert. Maybe next time my character levels, I'll take a look at the desert themed feats" and then flip to the part you need and skim?

...Yes?

I love curling up in bed with a good sourcebook. I read through everything and trawl for things I can use. I skim if I have more books than I can read reasonably...until I can come back and read them. This is, however, quite rare. I read ridiculously fast.

Knaight
2011-07-28, 01:46 PM
I read books cover to cover. That said, I don't buy supplement books that just add stuff as a rule, and not reading books cover to cover tends to leave you not knowing the rules of the game. The only exception is in D&D, where I usually skip large parts of feat lists, spell lists, whatever. That said, my D&D collection is pretty near nonexistent.

Eldan
2011-07-28, 01:59 PM
I honestly find most 3.5 books supremely boring, really. Skimming, mostly, therefore. There are some I have read , usually the more fluff heavy ones, and I've also read a few books from other publishers cover to cover.

Mordar
2011-07-28, 02:32 PM
I have, on occassion, bought books for games I full-well knew I would never play because I wanted to read them (Some of the In Nomine books, for instance) - either because I knew the author(s), style or fluff/content would be very engaging.

Most rule-books for games I do play, or expect to play, I read like primary research articles - look at the abstracts (chapter lead-ins) and pictures (art, tables, figures) to see what catches my eye, then review the sections that do grab hold of me...or those that actual game play leads me to need to know better.

Pretty pictures are always a plus, too!

- M

Urpriest
2011-07-28, 02:39 PM
When I first get a book, I'll skim it for goodies, or if it's a new system for chargen. After that though, I generally curl up and read it. Or used to, don't get the chance to curl up with a new rulebook much these days. Sigh.

Diarmuid
2011-07-28, 02:42 PM
I pretty much dissect them for useful bits, and disregard the rest. If I need a specific piece of fluff when building a character, or want to better understand someone else's character based on something I havent deemed "important" before then I'll read that section, but I certainly dont read them cover to cover.

Dimers
2011-07-28, 02:52 PM
I don't just read cover-to-cover: I also re-read. Like, frequently. I do, however, skip a lot of fluff on the re-read if I disagreed with its direction the first time through. (As in, "Really? That's all you have to say about the motivations of a druid in this gameworld? Pfft. My Bible-thumping fundie grandma could come up with a better druid PC.")

Interestingly, I picked up the 4e DMG today (Borders' pain is my gain) and was reading it on the ride home. It's got much better advice for running games than any other gamebook I've ever read. That's definitely one to go back over a couple dozen times.

KineticDiplomat
2011-07-28, 03:14 PM
I read the fluff first and foremost. Usually he char gen section as well, provided it is sufficiently fluffy. This is what typically peaks my interest in a game to begin with.

Then I look at the basics of the rules...not nessecarily memorize, but get a hang on the core concepts.

Then I refer to advanced bits as needed or aniticipated (If building a SR4 hacker, for instance, the matrix sections are going to get a heavy rules relook)

Honestly, I tend to think of the rules as a system to support the fluff, or a theme of fluffiness, rather than the fluff as a convenient housing for a bunch of probability management.

Zarin
2011-07-28, 03:35 PM
When I pick up a new system I will at least read the core rulebook cover to cover, after that I usually skim all the supplements for anything relevant to the characters I'm playing or the campaign I'm designing. Of course there are some supplement books that are the exception in being either way too useful to simply skim, or way too interesting.

Jude_H
2011-07-28, 03:59 PM
Typically, the enjoyment I get from reading a book is inversely proportional to the crunch:fluff ratio.

(Crunch in this case refers strictly to rules elements of the game. Fluff in this case refers to both fictional elements of a game, and discussion of why the rules were selected.)

So I enjoy reading books like Fear Itself, Wilderness of Mirrors, or Little Fears, where the bulk of the content is genre analysis, game design discussion or game mythos, but I hate reading D&D books, where the bulk of the content is specific penalties for exposure, or the mechanical bonuses from joining a certain Wizards Club.

Welknair
2011-07-28, 04:50 PM
I don't read them. I study them.

John Campbell
2011-07-28, 05:13 PM
Depends on the book, or perhaps its publisher.

WotC fluff is crap - usually poorly written, seldom accurately reflecting the mechanics, often neither sufficiently generic nor sufficiently specific to be applicable to the games I'm actually playing in, and not infrequently just plain stupid. I don't read WotC books; I pick bits of mechanics, like new feats or prestige classes, out of them. And actively disregard the prestige class fluff.

On the other hand, FASA books, back in the day, were full of awesome fluff. I own FASA sourcebooks, for both Shadowrun and Battletech, that have no mechanics at all in them, and I've read them cover to cover for entertainment. More than once. The fluff was well-written, atmospheric, and did a lot to develop the settings. And is probably one of the main reasons that both of those games, and settings, are still alive even though FASA's been dead for years.

Similarly, I've read through GURPS and WoD books, even though I don't really play either system, because the books were interesting reads even disregarding the mechanics.

Acanous
2011-07-28, 05:28 PM
3.5 books have a specific format I think would benefit the world as a whole if it became standard. I flip to the index, and there's the chapters laid out by content, not just by number. If only math textbooks had been organized the same way, I might have been as good at trig as I am at algebra... Finding the tables and formula was always a bloody chore of looking through the exorcizes.

As it goes with DnD books, I check out feats first, then prestige classes, then spells. If they exist, I'll take a cursory look through the base classes, and then spend a couple minutes looking at the monsters, skimming until I see something particularly cool or deadly. All the while I run a check in my mind on weather the stuff in this book is sufficiently balanced to be allowed at the table, or is sufficiently cool enough that it can be passed despite being broken. (I'm looking at YOU, Book of Nine Swords!...Ok, so really I'm just looking at Iron Heart Surge, but that maneuver alone usually gets the whole book banned.)

I have a tendancy to skip over the fluff entirely, unless I'm really quite bored.
The other DMs I know fluff their own worlds independantly of the book fluff, and my players aren't the kind to seek membership in an organization, anyway. (Although I'd allow it. Heck, I tried to encourage it once, but they're still violent hobos who shoot first, and then second if they win initiative, then loot stuff. This doesn't go over well with most organizations.)

Quietus
2011-07-28, 05:44 PM
I don't read books. I dissect them for the things I can use and then off they go, locked away in oblivion until I need their neglected corpses again.

I got so much flak in the WW forums for saying I didn't read the fiction of the nWoD books. It was mob mentality, full on. Apparently the short fictions there are one of the greatest works of literature known to mankind and not reading them makes you a heretic worthy of death. Painful, hideous death.

I may be exaggerating a little.

That doesn't surprise me. WoD inspires a very deep following in a relatively small subgroup. However, I do find that the fluff in the nWoD books does an excellent job of setting the appropriate tone for the stories that system is designed to tell. It may, in that respect, be of use to you.

Talya
2011-07-28, 05:46 PM
Paper copies encourage reading cover-to-cover. Electronic copies encourage skimming. I don't know why this is.

flumphy
2011-07-28, 05:49 PM
Depends on whether I use the published setting for the system and, to some extent, how good it is.

I generally read White Wolf books from cover to cover, since it's hard not to use their default settings and the fluff is actually well-written.

I avoid WotC fluff, since, even though I do use their published settings fairly often, their fluff is generally not useful or well written. There are a few exceptions (the "Races of" books, for example) but for the most part my eyes are trained to block out everything but the mechanics. There are, however, some third-party d20 books I have bought soley to read and never to use mechanics from. I have a bunch from Mongoose Publishing that I'm especially fond of.

If I'm not going to use the default setting at all, or there is no default setting, (M&M, FATE, etc.), then no, I go straight for the mechanics I bought the book for. Probably not in order.

Shadowknight12
2011-07-28, 06:33 PM
EDIT: The below post is my personal opinion and is not attempting to bash any games you may like. If you like them, go you. I am merely expressing my frustration with the way WW handles nWoD fluff.


That doesn't surprise me. WoD inspires a very deep following in a relatively small subgroup. However, I do find that the fluff in the nWoD books does an excellent job of setting the appropriate tone for the stories that system is designed to tell. It may, in that respect, be of use to you.

It's not, because the standard nWoD fluff is shampoo-drinkingly awful.

Take Vampire, for instance. You WILL become a monster, it's just a matter of time. No exceptions (except for Golconda, and even then, it's quite iffy if it even exists at all). Everyone else around you? Monster. I can't think of a better game to see in action the effects of the Banality of Evil principle.

Promethean? Reality itself hates you. Everyone will end up hating you, it's just a matter of time. At least the promise of escaping the awfulness is built into the system. Even then, you're going to suffer every step of the way. Yaaay.

Werewolf? Encourages playing an ***hole. I think you actually get punished for not being a total **** to everything and everyone you encounter.

Mage? Legacies: The Ancient. I have never read a more personally offensive piece of fluff in all my gaming history.

Geist? "YAY DEATH IS FUN!" You chose the wrong game to inject lightheartedness into, White Wolf. It doesn't look rad or cool, it looks dumb.

Hunter? Like Werewolf, but worse. I didn't think it was possible, either. Also, I think it's mandatory for every Hunter to undergo a lobotomy upon taking up the Vigil, because the sheer amount of stupid in this splat will soon reach critical mass.

Changeling? The best one, sure, but even that one requires ignoring the stupidity that is inner-court fighting and half the plots they come up with. It's like they forget that the main point in Changeling is that these people have been broken in one way or another, and that makes one exceedingly unlikely to worry about so many of the petty things the official fluff says they worry about. It's just... it's like they keep flip-flopping between genuinely tragic and broken characters and people who act as if Arcadia had been a quirky vacation from which they came back with powers.

So I end up having to make up my own fluff.

Acanous
2011-07-28, 06:40 PM
What do you mean Reality hates Promethians?

They're perfect men, unbeatable machines, built foe one purpose: To destroy everything standing between man and freedom!
They are the heroes, how could we turn on them?

Shadowknight12
2011-07-28, 06:50 PM
What do you mean Reality hates Promethians?

They're perfect men, unbeatable machines, built foe one purpose: To destroy everything standing between man and freedom!
They are the heroes, how could we turn on them?

Prometheus =/= Promethean. :smalltongue:

Tetsubo 57
2011-07-28, 06:52 PM
I read RPG books as entertainment. From cover to cover most times. Though I do occasionally encounter ones so bad I just can't finish them...

Fhaolan
2011-07-28, 07:00 PM
I skim through them. I gave up trying to read RPG books long, long ago. When I started gaming the idea of 'editing' a RPG book meant typing it up on a mimeograph stencil and running off a hundred copies. Readability was not exactly a high priority.

Once in the habit of not reading them cover to cover, I've not really broken out of it.

ScionoftheVoid
2011-07-28, 07:22 PM
I tend to try to read them cover-to-cover then skip over sections which don't interest me, with the standard for interesting me rising as I read more.

This usually means I skip most of the fluff and just read the rules text. Particularly classes and feats, though interestingly monsters tend to have more interesting fluff and less interesting crunch - at least to me. I then go over the book again for things I've seen mentioned often (a lot of the time why I decided to get the book - I didn't buy Races of Stone because I gave a damn about Dwarf culture, for example, but because it had the Shadowcraft Mage in it), and again for something I half remember and have need of or new interest in, and again for the things I've skipped over before, and again for something else and over and over until I've read the whole book. This inevitably takes some time.

Dsurion
2011-07-28, 07:30 PM
In 3.5 I've only ever been interested enough in three books to read cover to cover, and they were Secrets of Xen'drik, Complete Scoundrel, and Frostburn. I skip every section involving spells and magic items, usually, so that tends to throw out, what, half the book? The rest to me is boring, boring... bor... zzz.

The few AD&D books I have I devoured with my eyes as soon as I saw them. I own the Vikings, Celts, Charlemagne's Paladins, etc. and they were written in such a way that I didn't want to put them down, except for the eventual forays to look up something historical in more depth. Oh, and Ravenloft. I love Gothic Horror.

I still reread my 7th Sea stuff every now and then, as well as the Iron Kingdoms books.

Basically, any of the books I read front to back are usually more for the flavor and less so on the rules.

Grendus
2011-07-28, 07:47 PM
Paper copies encourage reading cover-to-cover. Electronic copies encourage skimming. I don't know why this is.

Hard to turn pages on an LCD screen, probably. I find it's easier to read on my Kindle (well... Android phone, Kindle app) than it is to read on my laptop, and books are even easier. Computer screens are designed widescreen for movies and graphics, while books are designed to be very tall. And trying to read PDF's that scroll top to bottom can get tiring, having to scroll down and either make sure you don't over-scroll and miss text or find the last item you haven't read. It's just more effort.

Personally, I've read a few, but most I just skim. Lords of Madness and Elder Evils were both very good, as was Heroes of Horror, though I mostly liked the tables and concepts from the book. Oddly, I'm not much of a fan of horror games, but the fluff in those books was incredible.

Quietus
2011-07-28, 09:12 PM
It's not, because the standard nWoD fluff is shampoo-drinkingly awful.

I'd like to make it clear that I ask this in total honesty, because I know of your general outlook on things, not to be a pain.. but how do you know this if you haven't read that fluff? Reading the mini-fiction in the nWoD books is where you pick up on what the games are intended to feel like, whereas you've mentioned that you tend to go and read other people's opinions of books, rather than reading the book yourself, if you don't feel it'll be useful to you. Is it possible that you simply read someone's biased interpretation, took that to heart, and that they may have possibly been wrong?

The point of those monster books isn't that you WILL become a monster, or anything like that. It's a struggle AGAINST that. It's recognizing that there is something inside you that you probably don't like, and the attempt to keep it subdued, while also dealing with a strange new world you've been surreptitiously thrust into, generally after some remarkably traumatic experience.

Knaight
2011-07-28, 09:19 PM
I'd like to make it clear that I ask this in total honesty, because I know of your general outlook on things, not to be a pain.. but how do you know this if you haven't read that fluff? Reading the mini-fiction in the nWoD books is where you pick up on what the games are intended to feel like, whereas you've mentioned that you tend to go and read other people's opinions of books, rather than reading the book yourself, if you don't feel it'll be useful to you. Is it possible that you simply read someone's biased interpretation, took that to heart, and that they may have possibly been wrong?

The point of those monster books isn't that you WILL become a monster, or anything like that. It's a struggle AGAINST that. It's recognizing that there is something inside you that you probably don't like, and the attempt to keep it subdued, while also dealing with a strange new world you've been surreptitiously thrust into, generally after some remarkably traumatic experience.
Having read the fluff of several nWoD books, I can verify that all of the ones I read were every bit as awful as said, and I only tolerated them because they really do provide insight into the setting. The general themes and such are all pretty solid, but the way they were handled is pretty much a complete screw up.

Anderlith
2011-07-28, 10:42 PM
When I first crack one open I hit the highlights of what I want to look at, then flip to the very first page & read cover to cover (& even the backcover)

Shadowknight12
2011-07-28, 11:08 PM
I'd like to make it clear that I ask this in total honesty, because I know of your general outlook on things, not to be a pain.. but how do you know this if you haven't read that fluff? Reading the mini-fiction in the nWoD books is where you pick up on what the games are intended to feel like, whereas you've mentioned that you tend to go and read other people's opinions of books, rather than reading the book yourself, if you don't feel it'll be useful to you. Is it possible that you simply read someone's biased interpretation, took that to heart, and that they may have possibly been wrong?

No, it's quite all right, I don't mind questions in the slightest.

Uh... I never said I never read the fluff. I have read it (because, as it was pointed out before, I thought it could provide insight into the setting. Plus, in one case, it was actually recommended to me). And I found it so bad I immediately stopped doing that. And now I no longer do that. Because it's really really really bad.

And also, there are no analysis out there about the nWoD fluff, only the raving opinions of fans. Very little actual substance. So whether I like it or not, I had to read it myself. There's a difference between taking a serious analysis and sticking with the factual aspects while discarding the odd subjective statement, and reading something that is almost 100% bias and trying to puzzle out the tiny bits of actual fact.


The point of those monster books isn't that you WILL become a monster, or anything like that. It's a struggle AGAINST that. It's recognizing that there is something inside you that you probably don't like, and the attempt to keep it subdued, while also dealing with a strange new world you've been surreptitiously thrust into, generally after some remarkably traumatic experience.

Yeah, no. The rules don't support that in the slightest. The rules make you roll for Humanity all the time. Even if you don't DO anything to deserve it. I proved this to a Vampire fan once a couple of years ago, but I can't remember my arguments. Trust me, it's true. The rules set you up to fail. Now, some people say this is a good thing, with which I respectfully disagree. I'm not interested in a game where I have no choice but to watch my character slowly degenerate. I may go for that sort of thing from time to time, but I develop a profound loathing for games that force my hand like that. Even if I might not dislike the actual effect that much, the lack of choice makes me hate the game deeply.

big teej
2011-07-28, 11:18 PM
That is, do you USE your game books, or read them? When you buy Sandstorm, do you think "Okay, going to read through this tonight" and then go through it from start to finish, or "This will be a good source of environmental rules for our current quest through the desert. Maybe next time my character levels, I'll take a look at the desert themed feats" and then flip to the part you need and skim?

read.
cover to cover.
then make a call on what we will and/or will not use. along with any relevant houserules.

I'm the DM after all.

Gamgee
2011-07-28, 11:19 PM
Usually at least once. Gamebooks are expensive, I want to get as much out of it as possible considering I seem to be the only ones to read them.

dsmiles
2011-07-29, 04:41 AM
I still reread my 7th Sea stuff every now and then, as well as the Iron Kingdoms books.Hell, the Iron Kingdoms books are the only d20 books I've read cover-to-cover. And that's just because I want the awesome fluff ingrained in my memory for WarmaHordes reasons.

shadow_archmagi
2011-07-29, 03:39 PM
What do you mean Reality hates Promethians?

They're perfect men, unbeatable machines, built foe one purpose: To destroy everything standing between man and freedom!
They are the heroes, how could we turn on them?

There are no heroes left in man

we are the dead

Daftendirekt
2011-07-30, 12:19 AM
Paper copies encourage reading cover-to-cover. Electronic copies encourage skimming. I don't know why this is.

This. I loved reading my copy of Races of the Wild, but when going back today to my 3.5 PDFs after not touching them for a long time (Haven't had a 3.5 campaign in a while now. Heck, even the 4e one just went on hiatus) I just couldn't bring myself to read a whole page.

Half the fun of reading a book is having it in your hand and turning the pages. That's why I don't think I'll ever get an E-reader.

Ravens_cry
2011-07-30, 07:14 AM
This. I loved reading my copy of Races of the Wild, but when going back today to my 3.5 PDFs after not touching them for a long time (Haven't had a 3.5 campaign in a while now. Heck, even the 4e one just went on hiatus) I just couldn't bring myself to read a whole page.

Half the fun of reading a book is having it in your hand and turning the pages. That's why I don't think I'll ever get an E-reader.
Dead trees for the win!:smallbiggrin: