Do you read Game Manuals from cover to cover? Or only certain parts, until you need the info in the other parts? If you only read certain sections, what sections are those, besides character creation?

After the very first game book - nope.  Most of the front-matter is devoted to terms that you will already know.  Once you understand "#d#" nomenclature; everything is pretty standard after that.  Might need to skim a section here or there for clarification, but really it's dive into character creation or throw out the book for me.

I always read rulebooks through at least once to get a feel for the way the rules integrate with one another and to get a feel for the author. This latter can be invaluable when it comes to interpretation of obscure rules. The more knowledge I have of the author's mindset, the easier it is to fill the inevitable gaps in his/her rules.

Having said that, I generally skim or skip any 'what is an RPG' and 'how to be a GM' sections at the beginning. I also tend to avoid the ninety plus pages of narcissistic exposition where the author drones on about his/her quirky game world that I'll never use. Unless those sections are used to provide thoughtful examples of the rules in play, of course. In fact I tend to avoid altogether rules that include large tracts of game-world narrative. Why should I buy pages I don't want to use?

These days I play almost exclusively in online PbP games, so the rules have to be very simple to reduce turn-length - rules-lite games are my favourite. Consequently, the rules I entertain are seldom more than twenty or thirty pages long, and some are contained on a single sheet of A4. It doesn't take much to read them through.

If I'm using a longer set, after reading it through I'll re-read the sections I need for immediate game play - Chargen, combat, intrigue, whatever fits my game. Then I'll make comprehensive notes, insert a number of modifications and houserules as I deem necessary, and then make brief notes and reminders of the lesser-used rules. After that, I can pretty much put the 'great tome' away, play from my notes and only bring the book out if I need to check something.

In reply to icosahedron152 (msg # 3):

That's usually how I handle gamebooks, depending on the length.

In reply to GamerHandle (msg # 2):

Likewise here.  I used to read the books all the way through...but after a few books that had the same introductory content, just phrased differently, I learned to start skipping to the parts of the book that I actually would be likely to use.  I like rulebooks that include examples for how the game mechanics work, but lately it seems like there's very little of that in most of the games I've been exposed to and as a result, I typically wind up focused on the sections that deal with character generation, and let the rest of it get sorted out in the process of playing, rather than trying to go through and process all the mechanics beforehand.