You know how in BG1, TotSC, SoA, ToB, there are countless books lying around? I'm wondering if people read them. I can say that the first time through, I read every single one, although now I don't bother (very few of them contain information that is even remotely useful).

Poll Information
This poll contains 2 question(s). 29 user(s) have voted.
Voting stops at September 30, 2003 21:39 board time.
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Poll Results: Books (29 votes.)

Do you read the books in all of the BG series? (Choose 1)
* Yes, every time I play, and all the books - 0% (0)
* I read them all the first time through, but not every time I play - 45% (13)
* I read some of the books, but I've never read all of them - 48% (14)
* No, I never read any of the books, even on my first play through - 7% (2)

Have you read the best NPC guide ever - "(Aldeth's the Foppish) Idiot's Guide"? (Choose 1)
* Every day - my life is hollow without my fix - 7% (2)
* Yes - 34% (10)
* No. And who does this Aldeth guy think he is, anyway? - 59% (17)

If you really want info about the Forgotten Realms. The books in the BG trilogy is perfect. I've read a few of them. Interesting indeed...

The only book I need is the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (3rd Ed D&D).

I only read a few book the first time through the game...now I don't even bother picking them up, or even seeing what the book is. :rolling:

I would have to admit to reading about 90% of all the books in the games. My favorite has to be the story of how bhaal came to power.

@Aldeth,
Your NPC guide is kind of good, just that the way you give the npcs their scores, it's strange... The reason why I download your guide, is to find some usefulness in some npcs that I seldom use. I must admit, your guide is the one that made me start thinking about Adomen's usefulness.
Anyway, I read all the books in the game at least once. As I am still a newbie in the Forgotten Realms, there are still many stuffs that I don't know about.

I read all the books in Irenicus' Dungeon, and then stopped after that when I realized most of them don't have anything to do with the game.

Why? Because in the old D&D rpgs (yep, here I go again back in time :) ), they had "journal entries" that are in the manual. When you trigger an event that says "you record the conversation as journal entry ##", then I stop playing, open up the manual, find and read journal entry ##, and then resume. The point of them was to give more detail on a long conversion, or they give hints such as passwords or maps... ie: highly relevant to the game.

So when I first played BG, I thought it would be sort of the same. But not anymore.

The books in the game should be a mix. There should be some that just provide local colour and others that are crucial to the game-play. If everything is only there in order to serve the plot, then the game becomes quite shallow (which is what, in my opinion, unfortunately happened with Icewind Dale II).

Some of the books I read and even take notes from them. However, these are things that I intend to somehow incorporate into our pen-and-paper D&D games that we play.

In terms of "real-life" books. I usually have the little BG2 manual somewhere handy, but I drag out my old 2.Ed D&D Player's Handbook during character creation time. (We've since moved on to 3.0.Ed and I've long since forgotten all the details.)

First time through any of the BG games I've read every book I could find, but later on I already knew their content (more or less) and didn't bother to read them again...

Have you read the best NPC guide ever - "(Aldeth's the Foppish) Idiot's Guide"?Hmm... could someone tell me where this guide may be found?

Of course Trydan!

It's right here at Sorcerer's Place. Well not RIGHT here - it's not in the forums - but under the guides section. There's not just mine there, but about 30 or so others, some of which are quite good.

And yes, I was totally shocked that Haer Dalis' got the highest score. He certainly isn't my favorite NPC, but I developed the scoring system BEFORE seeing what the final totals would be for the NPC's so it would be unbiased. Turned out that Haer Dalis excelled in just about every category I had.

aldeth, i dont see your guide anywhere, ive looked through it like 4 times now and still dont see it

Actually it's in the Tips, Tricks & Hints section. I would have thought it belongs in the Guide section, but I never have been able to figure out why certain things are in the Tips section instead of the Guides, and vice versa, so I usually end up sifting through both until I find what I'm looking for.

I always read books in D&D games the first time because sometimes they provide background info about the game, or something I may not yet know about the world I'm in. Sometimes they just give me nice reminders of some info.

I don't usually read them a second time though because I see no point.

I read most of them the first time I played through and managed to get past that damn Beastmaster...

Now though, I like to waste time picking them up and selling them to a merchant. Sure you don't get very much for them but hey...I like money!

I wonder if Galoomp the Bookkeeper is named that for something other than scrolls. I've never tried to give him all of the books. Are there any books that he has an interest in?

well no wonder i didnt find it, i only looked in the guides section, since it was named as a guide

In walkthroughs & guides you'll only see walkthroughs, for the most part... Any other types of guides are usually in Tips, Tricks and Hints. I'll make the division more clear once the new design goes up.

By the way, for those of you who didn't know, you can read all these books on SP, much more easily than in the game...

Check out http://www.sorcerers.net/Fan_Worlds/FR/index.htm

I strongly recommend reading History of the Dead Three. It is a cool reading and it shines some light on the past of the main character.
But I don't know if you can get it in BG2, but you can in BG1.

Yeah Twilight, thats one of the few books i have read, and its a good read ^^