Whenever I pick up a new RPG to learn, whether if it’s for the purpose of running a game (which is mostly the case), playing a character, or just for leisure reading, I’ve been applying a system to trying to get all that information in my head in a neat, orderly fashion. This is a step-by-step breakdown of how I study corebooks, and I hope that this will prove to be useful (or at the very least, interesting) for those who find themselves having to learn an entirely new game as of late.

Initial Read Through – I’m sure everyone does this. The first pass of reading of a book is surface level comprehension. There’s a lot of skimming, flipping back and forth, and skipping large tables and lists of minutiae. At this point I try to familiarize myself with the book, where to find what, which chapters cover which sections, and take the time to admire the pretty pictures. Setting – The second pass of my read is devoted completely to the setting. I try to forget that this is a game and go through the setting with a fine-toothed comb. I try to figure what kind of games I can run with it, as well as what setting-specific plot hooks I can use if I end up playing. Some games don’t have this (like the HERO System), so I skip this part if the game has no setting to speak of. Character Creation – The third step isolates sections dedicated to Character Creation. Confining myself to the Character Generation and skills / powers chapters, I try to build a character along with the read. Nowadays I do this on notepad, typing salient stats and trying to assemble a character as I go along. I do away with the temptation to “optimize” as I just want to be familiar with the process. On a separate file, I keep track of important pages like Character Creation Summaries, or relevant tables. Powers – This is where the min-maxers like to play. As a GM (most of the time) I have to be at least passingly familiar with the powers in the game. Isolating specific powers that may unbalance the game, and mentally earmarking them as requiring more scrutiny (nMage’s Free Council Order Book’s “Gain Skill” Rote, I’m looking at you). This will help me later on when the enterprising player finds and decides to see if they can exploit these powers. Systems – This is where I hunker down. Moreso than in the powers section, I find that I need to put extra attention to understanding the basic, underlying system in any game I end up playing. This is because the familiarity I have with the system is directly proportional to the speed of play. The last thing I need is to put the game on hold due to yet another rules lookup.

Throughout the process, I try to keep notes. These can be anything from minor rules that are hidden within the text of a given paragraph from a different section, to things like page numbers and little observations. As a GM I also try to write down the plot hooks that interest me, so that I can go back to it and use them as fodder if I ever end up running a campaign.