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Post by henryhankovitch on Sept 3, 2012 17:46:18 GMT -8
We roleplayers read lots of fiction, especially in the SF/Fantasy department. The entire hobby likely wouldn't exist in the first place if it weren't for Howard, Tolkein, et al. I think the nonfiction realm tends to be underrepresented in our recommendation lists, despite how much useful and inspiring material is out there. So this is a thread for recommending nonfiction books--history, biography, science, whatever--that help stir up the creative juices.
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century, by Barbara Tuchman. A broad overview of life in the 1300s, covering elements of everyday life--religion, family, trade and entertainment--as well as wars and plagues and kings. Lots of great material, demonstrating how the real medieval world was usually more varied and interesting than medieval fantasy tends to portray.
The Face of Battle, by John Keegan. The author is one of the most widely-read military historians of this century, and in this book he tries to deconstruct the war story from its traditional form, in which generals make all the decisions while faceless and emotionless soldiers execute commands (or fail to do so) in a uniform fashion. He tries to reconstruct three historical battles (Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme) from the perspective of the individual soldiers, explaining why they might advance or retreat, fight or flee. Not simply whether a particular tactic was 'smarter' than another.
Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond. This one I kind of hesitate to include. Partly because it's one of those books that people tend to recommend a lot already. But more importantly I think it's a bit bloated for casual reading. In the broad strokes, Diamond's theories on the relationship of geography and agriculture to historical development are really interesting; but a big part of the book's page-count is devoted to lengthy anthropological discussions of various tribal societies that can get tedious for those of us who aren't so excited about anthropology.
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Post by malifer on Sept 3, 2012 18:42:38 GMT -8
Probably most easy to recommend are the Gurps books. I just recently picked some up after hearing the love on the podcast and even if you never run the system the genre books like Fantasy, Martial Arts, and Space are little cliff notes of information. They can certainly inspire you or intrigue you to the point of wanting gain more information on subject.
I read a lot of nonfiction, these days probably more than fiction. I'm not really sure how much that has helped my Rpgs. But it certainly couldn't hurt to delve into these
Story - Robert McKee. - the structure of a story
The Hero with a Thousand Faces - Joseph Campbell - structure of myth
Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon - Chuck Palahniuk - author of Fight Club wrote a travel book and it is full of some real life characters. Portland is weird and they like it that way.
For Scifi most books by Michio Kaku are good and easy to read even for the physics layman.
I have a copy of Jim Marrs - Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids. It would be good for conspiracy in games. You could probably have a good time using one of his conspiracies as fact.
Disclaimer Jim is a conspiracy theorist, and if you have/are a crazy uncle please do not read his books.
Along the same lines Monte Cook wrote a book called The Skeptic's Guide to Conspiracies. Monte's book is tongue in cheek and even has a create your own conspiracy table in the back.
For fun how about this one
The Pirate Primer: Mastering the Language of Swashbucklers and Rogues - George Choundas - a pirate dictionary I picked up for a Pirate Rpg I haven't run yet.
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Post by CreativeCowboy on Sept 3, 2012 22:11:51 GMT -8
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Post by Forresst on Sept 11, 2012 17:33:01 GMT -8
Here is my reference shelf divvied up by basic area:
6 volumes of assorted folklores, fairy tales, and myth sets. I'm missing a good scandinavian volume, and I'd probably gleefully chew off my arm for a good book of Aborigine folklore.
Uh... counting the cool pamphlet I got at the Rome exhibit at the Musée de la Civilisation, there's about 12 books (the pamphlet only counts because it has an AWESOME little picture graph thing of the relative timings of the great empires of recorded history) on various aspects of history. There's the Roman empire, a couple of different Chinese dynasties, A bunch of stuff concerning the Russian empire, the history of Canada, and the US, and a few that try to show a little bit of everything.
I have a copy of the complete works of Machiavelli, the communist manifesto, an old textbook from some social studies course that looks at different political and economic systems, a book about forms of government and the social pressures that allow them to emerge, two books that detail the history of world war 1 and world war 2, a book about the cold war, and a neat book about undiscovered or primitive humans and the way their societies work.
Then I have a bunch of cookbooks. I figure you can tell a fair bit about how people will eat based on their environment and vice versa. Also, I like to cook.
I have this amazing book/dvd combo of Leonardo Da Vinci's works called 'Il Codice Atlantico' that my friend got me from Italy. I like that because if I'm trying to think up something about alternate history (or more to the point, alternate technology), it gives me a really good starting point.
Finally I have some biographies and histories of particular people. Nikola Tesla, Da Vinci, Salieri, Catherine the Great, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, my great grandma on my mom's side, and so on.
OH SHIT SON I almost forgot about all the science books. I have physics, chemistry, architecture, fluid dynamics, electricity, electronics, and assorted other books (of varying ages). Most of them are either old textbooks for the physical science-y stuff, or like someone up there said, I like Michio Kaku when I want to read about weird physics.
I only buy physical books for reference anymore, since I got my cool kobo electric book I can read random stories and let my brain gum on little brain candies just with that. But when I do go looking for more stuff to refer to, I get them at used books places because a) they're cheap, b) I'm just gonna slowly destroy them with tape flags and constant rereading anyway, so why get the shiny nice version?! and c) the stuff I'm most interested in drawing on tends to be the super old stuff. Which isn't really so popular right now.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 13, 2012 14:48:40 GMT -8
I found that Influence by Robert Cialdini was outstanding. Cialdini is a professor of Psychology, and his book is on ethical persuasion techniques.
Apart from having a substantial impact on my career, the book also transformed my GM'ing. How? Well, it helped me direct my players through adventures - leading them to planned events and encounters, without giving them the feeling if being railroaded.
It wasn't perfect - players now take the path I'd prepped 60% of the time rather than 30% - but that's a big improvement and makes my games better and my life easier.
YMMV
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D.T. Pints
Instigator
JACKERCON 2018: WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY June 22-July 1st
Posts: 2,857
Currently Playing: D&D 5e, Pathfinder, DUNGEONWORLD, Star Wars Edge of the Empire
Currently Running: DUNGEONWORLD, PATHFINDER
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Post by D.T. Pints on Sept 13, 2012 17:41:25 GMT -8
The Black Death by John Hatcher. Terrifyingly captivating book about how truly horrible this plague was and how so many in power just phucked it all up.
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