Monday, June 2, 2025

Reading Material

One of the many joys of this hobby is the sheer volume of imaginative material it has generated over the last five decades. Even now, I can happily spend an afternoon thumbing through a well-worn module or sourcebook and suddenly find I've lost an hour or more in its descriptions, maps, and background information. Roleplaying games, at their best, can stimulate the imagination in ways few other media can. They seem designed to invite speculation, which makes them a pleasure simply to read.

But they’re also games.

This shouldn't be a controversial statement, but sometimes I wonder. RPGs are designed to be played, yet so much of the hobby nowadays seems oriented around simply reading them instead. You can see this in how games are written, how they're marketed, and how they're consumed. I know more than a few gamers with dozens – sometimes hundreds – of books on their shelves, the majority of which have never seen use in any fashion, except as reading material. I know this because I myself am too often guilty of the same.

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with reading RPGs for enjoyment. I do it all the time and some games practically demand it. However, I do worry about the habits this encourages. For many gamers, especially since the appearance of PDFs and other digital media, the hobby can become more about collecting and commenting than it is about playing. “Backlog” becomes a point of pride. The latest boxed set or 300-page full-color hardback might get read, maybe even admired, but rarely, if ever, brought to the table.

There is, increasingly, a bifurcation in the hobby between those who play RPGs and those who consume them, often as passive entertainment. It’s now quite common to encounter people who own dozens of games they’ve never refereed or played, who follow RPGs the way one might follow a television show or a comic book line. They discuss scenarios, debate rules, rank publishers, and chase new releases, not unlike fans of any other media franchise. As I said, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that either, but I question whether that mode of engagement still resembles gaming in any meaningful sense.

To be fair, the sheer volume of RPG material produced each year probably makes it impossible for even a fraction of it to be meaningfully used. Nevertheless, I think this overproduction has consequences. Most importantly, I worry that it's fostering a passive approach to gaming, one where we're more accustomed to absorbing information than in making decisions, more practiced in critique than in improvisation. Worse, it creates an expectation that play requires exhaustive preparation and a towering stack of sourcebooks before anyone dares to roll dice. The result is paralysis: we read, we plan, we dream, but we don’t actually play.

The modern glut of RPG material encourages a passive engagement with the hobby, one where reading supplants playing. It fosters the illusion that the essence of the game lies within the glossy pages of a new release rather than in the messy, unpredictable energy of the table itself. Increasingly, we see products crafted less as tools for play and more as artifacts for consumption – lavishly produced, densely written, and satisfying to browse but difficult to use in actual sessions. These works often prioritize information over usability and polish over spontaneity. In doing so, they quietly undermine the fast-and-loose, make-it-up-as-you-go spirit that once defined roleplaying.

It wasn’t always like this. The earliest RPG books were lean, sometimes opaque, and unapologetically practical. They assumed the reader was already gathering friends and dice, ready to dive in. These texts weren’t written to be admired; they were written to be used, bent, scribbled in, and carried to game night. If you weren’t playing, they didn’t offer much. They threw you straight into the action with minimal handholding, trusting that you’d figure it out (or make it up) as you went. That trust in the referee’s imagination and willingness to improvise was not a flaw but a feature, a recognition that the real magic happened not on the page, but in the shared chaos of play.

There’s a lesson in that, I think. Games need to be played to come alive. The rules, the settings, the monsters, the magic, all of it is inert until you put it into action. Reading an RPG can be a fine experience, but it’s not the same as the laughter, confusion, and surprise of a good session. The books may be the door, but the game – the actual game – is what lies beyond it.

So, by all means, read. Marvel at the creativity our hobby continues to produce. Just don’t forget to play. Otherwise, all we’re doing is collecting books and calling it participation.

35 comments:

  1. This is definitely often on my mind. Up through finishing college (1989), I did bring almost all of my purchases to the table. Some maybe only for a one shot. Then in the 1990s, with a full time job, I started purchasing more. Also, having been burned by not getting all the RuneQuest 2nd edition supplements as they came out, if a game line peaked my interest, I started buying the whole line without commitment to a long term campaign (hello 7th Sea and Deadlands). All along though there have been magazine subscriptions where I definitely have not brought everything to the table, on the other hand, I know I have a lifetime of smaller modules in those magazines and I reach into them when I am looking for the next adventure.

    After getting engaged, I dramatically thinned my collection, getting rid of whole game lines in one bundle for $50 or $100 (goodbye 7th Sea, goodbye Deadlands), keeping the game lines I knew offered good play fun, or were so off beat that if I decided to get into them, re-acquisition might be hard (hello Tekumel, hello Talislanta - though granted I HAD brought both settings to the table - though not using one of their native systems).

    Some games I had fun with but had low expectation of playing, I kept just enough to at least be a player or a bit more so I could run it again.

    And now my purchases are heavily focused on stuff I will use. Well, OK, I've purchased most of the Far Future Enterprises CD-ROMs, but I HAVE brought Traveller to the table multiple times, and at the price offered and the fact that no shelf space is consumed, it does make sense to just have the whole line.

    I also got carried away with material to inspire sandbox campaign creation, especially when I had a vision of using Ben Robbins "leveled regions" setup from his West Marches campaign (this Izirion's Enchiridion of the West Marches and other sandbox supplements). But I've learned my lesson there and have really tightened my purchases.

    Yea, I purchased White Mountain Rescue which is out of the normal style of campaigns I run, but growing up visiting the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and enjoying a variety of "outdoor survival drama" movies and TV shows, the author had me as he was sharing his progress on developing the game. Someday I do hope to run it.

    I do know some folks who have huge libraries of games and commit to getting them to the table which is cool.

    Also sometimes, it IS worth reading a game just to read it to expand one's horizons even if you don't even directly take something from it for your own game.

    But also, like James, I like the long campaign, and that puts a serious limit on how many different games one can bring to the table. But it DOES them make sense to buy deeply into a setting once you are committed to bringing it to the table.

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  2. I'm probably guilty of encouraging this. In my adventure writing I've always attempted to keep the reader entertained, not as a primary goal, but merely a recognition that the GM has to read this book to prepare the adventure anyway, so they may as well enjoy the experience.

    Basically, I've read too many adventures and rulebooks that have almost put me to sleep with their at best flat and at worst turgid writing, and that's meant I haven't absorbed the important details. So if slipping a joke or two in helps makes the adventure memorable enough that the GM can run the thing, then that's a good thing.

    Of course, if people start reading for the entertainment, then I've gone and shot myself in the foot.

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  3. Playability is the crucial challenge I have to overcome in order for me to consider my Into the Majestic Fantasy Realm project a success.

    I can write interesting setting, making that a playable setting is the trick.

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  4. I tried reading Ghosts of Saltmarsh last night but was bored to tears. Way too many words. A Total Slog. Could be half the size and be better off for it. Good ideas, but buried in text. On the other hand, I've got the two Dyson's Delves map books of about 100 pages each. There's finished dungeons in them but also 50-60 pages of unstocked maps. So, throughout each book you get dozens of cool maps, each map with a blank page facing it for notes. I've been slowly working my way through the first book, creating basically one page dungeons, and it's probably my favorite way to prep for gaming sessions. A Total Blast to prep. It invites your imagination to wake up rather than stifling imagination with walls of words and turgid text. And so useful at the gaming table.

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  5. Having read this post, I honestly wonder what you would consider to be a truly great product, from a GM's perspective ? Easiest and/or most fun to run ? Just the right mix of all the components you consider to be important in an RPG product (again, from the GM's perspective) ? A 'starter set', 'campaign setting', 'adventure module', etc. ? Regardless of the ruleset ? Just curious.

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    1. Those are excellent questions. I shall ponder this and try to do a post in which I come up with equally excellent answers.

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    2. For me, the gold standard of Both Entertaining and Usable is Chris Hogan's Small But Vicious Dog.

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  6. Jim Hodges---
    Oh, my, do you hit the nail on the head today! I am and always have been an unrepentant reader first and foremost of all things RPG, and a player a distant second. In fact most of what I've purchased in the RPG field going back to summer 1983 and continuing through this past spring has been for me to pore over, enjoy, study. Sometimes, just on occasion, playing this material has even gotten in the way of my enjoyment, much though gaming has also been a delight.

    So, should I be bound, gagged, and thrown into Mount Doom for my treason? :-)

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    1. Nah. I'm guilty of it too, both as a buyer of this stuff and a writer of it. I'm no better than anyone else.

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  7. I look at the new Runequest books with their beautiful art and I can see exactly what you mean - material for reading - although the artwork does match the text and can help the GM set the scene.

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  8. I'm less fussed by this. While I'd much rather play my RPGs than simply read them, I'm also at a point in life where it's much harder to consistently game with my friends. I'm not in school any longer, when I simply had much more free time, and more importantly so did they. I'm still able to get some gaming in (currently playing a Star Wars game and a Pathfinder 2 game) and the conversations keep flowing about trying to put together another game or three, which will hopefully happen. But when we can't get schedules coordinated, I still have rpg books to read and scratch a little of that creative itch, to open the mind a little and spark some ideas...or learn something new. Add in the fact that I'm supporting a hobby I love and my FLGS, I'm not looking at it as a negative, just an inconvenient fact. I certainly have no complaints about better written books, that can add some narrative flair while also being generally better laid out, organized, indexed, etc.

    Besides, we still talk about creating a gamer's retirement home, where we can archive all of our RPGs in a communal library and game to our heart's content. Since a friend of ours is an activities director at a nursing home, we're trying to get her to test drive this idea out a little... :)

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    1. Yes, collecting is frequently a means for adults to stay connected with a hobby they all too frequently have no actual time to play.

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    2. GM for the residents there today, and they'll welcome you with open arms when you hit retirement age ;-)

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  9. I own a number of RPGs -- and quite a few supplements -- that I've never played, though all of them were purchased with the *intention* of playing them (minus a small few that I bought as historical artifacts, since I'm interested in the history of the hobby as well). Some didn't fill the niche I expected them to so didn't end up being used, others had circumstances interfere, but, for the most part, they were speculative purchases, because, hey, maybe I'll play this someday. And, hey, maybe I still will. :-)

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  10. I have been a player more often than a gamemaster, and now I am preparing a Mythras sandbox campaign with strong hexcrawl elements for my group. For various (legitimate, I think) reasons, I am leaning toward overprep rather than underprep. And I find myself wishing that I had read more systems and adventures I wasn’t going to run or play before now.

    Some of them are classics that were before my time playing RPGs and occasionally before my time altogether: I’m looking at the Cook/Marsh hexcrawl rules, the Isle of Dread, and RuneQuest’s Griffin Island. I have also caught up and kept up with issues of Gary’s Appendix. I have read the Mythras settings of Thennla and Monster Island. Since my central culture is inspired by the late Anglo-Saxons, I’ve read Wolves of God.

    It’s a lot, and I find myself wishing I had read and digested some of it earlier. I wonder whether reading rules and settings I am not going to run fills the some of the same roles for me that Dungeon and Dragon magazines did for an earlier generation of players.

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  11. For me, one of the signs something went wrong in the gaming industry was the 3rd editions sourcebooks, with "parchment-like" glossy paper (how could parchment be glossy, anyway?), a full page color illustration every uneven page , and the whole think making a solid hardback manual, costing more that 50 bucks and yet containing less material than their older 1rst or 2nd edition equivalents (Deities & Demidods , I'm looking at you). Those were expensive collection objects make to look pretty but very few gaming material (except for the pages-long stats blocke).
    Now I'm stacking black and white PDF's on my harddrive, but I must confess that most of them will never be for actual play. However, I still hope that I will be able to pick one or two useful ideas in every one to make my own game.

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    1. I disagree with your premise that there's something *wrong* with the games industry. The more customers out there buying role-playing games the better it is for the industry, even if a lot of those customers don't ever play the games they've bought.

      Those people may not be your cup of tea but they spend money on games and that means we have more games than we would without them.

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    2. well, that $15 book in B&W with lower production values from 1985 would cost you about $45 today and might have anywhere from 50-100% more pages. So while the books may cost more in raw dollar cost, the value has generally increased or at least stayed the same. A specific example: Oriental Adventures from AD&D 1E cost $15 back in 1985 (my copy still has the original price tag on the inside) in hardback with a color cover but B&W interiors and was 128 pages. The Khitai Core Rulebook for the 7th Sea system which was published in 2024 is a hardback with full color cover and full color interior art on glossy paper and is 240 pages. For $50.

      I don't think people are just getting shiny bells and whistles to pump up the price. And I for one, do not mind having high production values and excellent and inspiring full-color art from talented artists in the various genres I play.

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    3. I prefer the older format because you can write in them. I am not precious with my books. I can't put in notes with these magazine books.

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    4. In one sense, sure, the more folks buying RPGs the better. On the other hand, filling the books with an overload of expensive art and fancy page layouts that makes the game less usable for actual gaming while pumping the price may mean less actual play of the game.

      Also I'm not sure what the impact of the flood of new games where an individual can't even hope to play but a tiny fraction of them. Does that splinter the hobby? Does that pump authors up with sales that are just occupying space on folks bookshelves and not really being played? And to really go out on a limb, is there any environmental concern about books that are just occupying space?

      Even in the early days, new products came out fast enough few folks could keep up with everything, but at least those of us who frequented hobby stores and read the magazines knew about most of them and could make judgements about our interest, and a good percentage of the games gained enough traction that we would find magazine articles aimed at them and maybe knew a local group who played.

      These days, I have no idea what all is out there.

      And these days, I don't even know much about the current edition of D&D. Although I dropped back into D&D for 3.0/3.5, one thing that was definitely a factor in my not following 2.0 (other than the occasional module, and a couple of the green setting splats) was the increase in production values combined with the flood of products.

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  12. I thoroughly prefer for RPG books to have low production values like 1970s original D&D and Judges Guild. Such books can be blithely folded, torn, written in, thrown across the room to a player, etc. I do not like the full-color, glossy, coffee-table vibe at all. Yuck. Give me simple books that look as though they were done with a typewriter.

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    1. I don't think RPG books should be treated like collector's items, sealed away and packed up like museum quality display pieces, but why is it good to treat your books like they're disposable? What is the benefit to treating your hobby like it's disposable? DM's and players alike get inspired by great art to create their own cool stories, and better production values and color art only helps.

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    2. I agree, things shouldn't be treated as disposable, but in the early days, I did write stuff in the modules. These days, I often print off monster pages so I can have them more handy and write on them.

      But most art doesn't help me game better. It rarely gives insight on how the game is played. A bit of art that helps visualize the setting and set the tone is good, but the "art" books of today make the game less usable because they interrupt the reading. And the high production pages leave no opportunity to pencil in errata or note house rules, or note changes in the scenario because of player action that you might want to reference in later sessions.

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  13. I agree with Geoffrey's comments above except for the typewriter part.

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  14. Always the RangerJune 2, 2025 at 7:33 PM

    I'm fortunate to play in person twice per month and have only one shelf of RPG books, but I do regret selling my copies of Gamma World, Top Secret, and Boot Hill back in the 80s. There is some upside to collecting (or maintaining the small lot you have) as I can attest after failing to do so.

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  15. Honestly, this isn't new. It might not have been the case in the very early '80s, but it was certainly a thing by the mid-80's. I couldn't play, so I read. Eventually I did play (mostly DMed, tbh), but I had shelves of material by that point.

    Sometime in the 90's Dragon (or Dungeon?) had a poll, and among the conclusions were that far and away most of the purchasers had never run an adventure from Dungeon. (I think I did half of one, once.)

    I do think that, with the advent of the internet, and again with the rise of streaming, that a significant percentage of VISIBLE games became "performative" beyond the immediate group. A game played for an audience is not the same game played for a private group. Are most games that way? No, absolutely not, because most games aren't visible. But visible games are often performative, and learning D&D that way is like learning sex by watching online videos of it. It ain't really the same.

    (I honestly don't understand the draw of watching people play a game. I don't like watching sports either, unless it's "social", so it's probably me. But a lot of people do like it.)

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  16. This is why I stopped collecting any "third party" products or OSR material. It just becomes ANALOG SOFTWARE bloat. It's extraneous Operating Systems or "apps". Great, and no disrespect to the creators - but bloat.

    TSR 1974-1996 (whatever you think of 2nd Edition it has an amazing amount of reference material and great research) is all you need for a lifetime of RPG's. Throw in whatever else you like for personal tastes... but the baseline really is there.

    RPG's are about the players more than anything. Not books. Not rulesets. People who read a lot of literature/history with a Romanticist Imagination are the real surrealist warriors of the hobby. Not the nerd rule lawyers and the data collectors. All power to the imagination.

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  17. James: might you consider writing a post explaining in more detail why "Traveller: 2300" is not Traveller, and, if not, what it is? Is it Twilight 2000-ish/adjacent?

    I never played Traveller but still own a copy of MegaTraveller. I played 1e Twilight 2000 pretty extensively in 1985. I still own a copy of "2300," but never played it and never bothered to re-read it after I initially purchased it. But your several very readable posts abut it have intrigued me.

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    1. Traveller: 2300 is a sequel to Twilight: 2000 that has no connections at all to Traveller in terms of rules or background. The use of "Traveller" in its title was probably meant to convey that it was a science fiction RPG, but it caused a lot of confusion, hence why the name was eventually changed to 2300AD.

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  18. Agree. Though the problem is broader than this specific media. All media suffer from it.
    Mike

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  19. I'm glad that we now have well-written RPG books that are professionally edited, illustrated and produced. Fetishizing the slapdash, cobbled-together, disorganised pamphlets of yesteryear is elevating nostalgia over common sense. You can still jot notes in the margins of today's books, if that's how you like to do things (I never did, even back in the 70s). Or have a notebook alongside, and tear out a page from it to slot into the rulebook when needed. Modern games are still (largely) written to be played rather than just read. The fact that we fail to do so says more about us than them.

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    1. I dunno, I have a lot more fun playing those early games than I have trying to keep up with the newer games.

      But also, these days I don't buy much, partly from not having budget, but at least as much because I have more than enough old material, so what is desirable to me has very little impact on the RPG market of today.

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    2. That's great - keep playing the way that's fun for you! You don't need to feel any pressure to keep up with the newer games. I enjoy (some of) them, and am glad that they're professionally made, but don't buy or play anywhere near all of them.

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  20. I am so guilty of this. Even as a kid, I collected much more material than I ever played, with time and players being in such short supply even then. Got rid of my print collection, only to get back into the hobby a few years later, and start making up for what I lost with affordable PDFs. Too many affordable PDFs. But never enough. My main outlet now is play-by-post, so I have more material than I can hope to use in several lifetimes. Does that mean I've stopped collecting? I wish! Thanks to Humble Bundles, I have a ridiculously large collection of PDFs for Pathfinder and Starfinder, games I'll probably never play. Speaking for no one but myself, I think a lot of collecting involves remembering that first RPG product you ever bought--in my case the 1983 red box--and trying to find something that will bring back that initial feeling of wonder and excitement. Nothing ever does, and there's no starter set, rulebook or module that's going to give you the free time than you don't have now. Thanks for writing this post. I'm glad/sorry to hear it's not just me.

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  21. Once you buy a product, do what you wish and don't let anyone tell you you're doing it wrong. You do you. If you enjoy it, great. Don't let anyone else dictate your fun. It's your hobby. You've paid for the privilege.

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