
Inspire your Role-Playing Games With Nerdarchy’s Recommended Reading For Playing RPG’s
Nerdarchy was asked about recommended reading from one of our YouTube subscribers a little while back. If you didn’t know you can find Nerdarchy on YouTube- Here So of course decided to compile a list of some our favorites and shoot a little video on the subject. All Nerdarchy is avid readers and have been playing role-playing games for quite sometime now.
Recommended Reading for RPG’s Video
Amazon List Here
Between the five us I’m sure we have over 100 years of combined RPG’s experience!
It’s kind of crazy when you think about it. One of the things I credit to role-playing games is my love of reading. It was a RPG that first caused me to pick up a comic book. We were playing a super hero RPG Marvel Super Heroes Role-Playing Game originally published by TSR. I was in my teens at that point so we are going back a couple of years.
We were going to use the existing characters from the book. Thor, The Incredible Hulk, and Silver Surfer were already chosen.
I wanted an equally powerful character to play and there were two I was looking at Box and Sasquatch from Alpha Flight.
One problem I didn’t know anything about these characters. I decided to bother my parents for some cash and make a pilgrimage to the local comic book store. Instantly I was a fan and would go on to collect comics for the next decade or so.
It really was a vicious cycle. Role-Playing Games lead me to comic books which was the gate way drug to novels.
I’d hazard to guess between the five us we’ve read over 1,000 books by now maybe well over. Just myself I’ve read a ton of the old TSR books now owned by Wizards of the Coast and I’m sure the other guys have as well. Then there is all the non-WOTC books.
Be a reader is an awesome thing for a RPGer. There is so much good stuff to inspire your games. Why reinvent the wheel when a perfectly good design already exists. Sure you can polish it up bit and make it your own, but a lot of really smart, creative, and talented people went through the trouble of giving us great stories.
Why not infuse are games with the awesomeness of a best selling author from time to time. That is why Nerdarchy has gone through and made up a short list of what we consider recommended reading for anyone in the hobby. This list by no means complete.
We just wanted to ramble off a few the books and authors that have been influential to us from the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre. The more you read the more it will influence the creativity in your role-playing games. Whether you a player or the game master.
Reading well written novels helps you to under stand story structure, pacing, and character development all which is going to create a better gaming experience at your table. As a player it gives you a ton of ideas for character concepts or cool characters to model off of.
Here is the List
*** Disclaimer that Amazon link is Nerdarchy’s affiliate link.
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Robert Adams
July 14, 2016 at 4:49 pmI think the books that most inspired me as a yound D&D player were Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (aka, the "Swords of") series. Michael Moorcock's Elric books were a close second.
Aside from that, the comics of the 80s and 90s informed my Champions gaming, and Harry Harrison's books (Stainless Steel Rat, among others) and Asimov's Foundation series for science fiction.