This is an excellent starting list for me, thank you.
Far as your statement here, it made me pause and think. Because originally I was just looking at some insight and mood, maybe a little background information, but as you said if I know the series, I'd know the movies, not THAT much is different off the bat that would be noticeable in an roleplaying game (other then uniforms and ships available. Everything else would be the same pretty much. Hmmm.
I hope the list is helpful, although I'm sorry if some of what I said is a little discouraging. Your idea of doing some research within the novels isn't wrong at all. I'm a fan of movie era, too, and if I was going to run a roleplaying game for ST I would probably set it there, too. I might not tell them that specifically, I would probably say something like, "It's set in TOS era, broadly speaking, including as far along as the movies." Surprisingly to me, I haven't read as many of the movie-era novels, but what I can tell you is that sometimes the movie-era novels still kind of have a "series" mode. When I read The Rift, it felt like a "series" story, rather than a movie story. On another occasion, I read a slightly pre-TOS era novel, in which a Starfleet ship gets badly damaged and has to be overhauled extensively; and even though it's a TOS-era ship, I pictured the bridge as more like what we see in the movies, after it's repair. What your players don't see, they might see in their heads the way they prefer to.
I haven't read huge amounts of novelverse Trek, but there have been plenty that have fired my imagination, even for usage in a roleplaying game. I've even come across material from books that were disappointing. Vonda McIntyre's Enterprise: The First Adventure wasn't what I hoped for, but it had some interesting ideas about a sub-culture within the Klingon Empire. I would love to run a game that feature the Rumaiy who shroud their faces and identities.
I would love to include material about the history of the Romulans, and a famous swordsmith who made swords at the time the Vulcans and Romulans became culturally sundered. Diane Duane's My Enemy, My Ally has this famous swordsmith who is part of the shared heritage of the Vulcans and Romulans; and even though I haven't read Duane's later novels yet, this is an idea that I would love to include in a roleplaying game, too, as a reinforcement of the shared heritage of those two branchings of the Vulcan race. I imagine that would be exciting to run for players who aren't strongly familiar with Star Trek, and introduce them to the idea of the Romulans in a different way.
Another thing reading the books has suggested to me, is that I think I would introduce a Security Chief, and a rotating cast of regular security redshirts to interact with players, and have interesting personalities.
Actually, some novels that might be interesting to read would be ones that focus very heavily on original characters. Dwellers in the Crucible has an interesting look at civilian life in movie-era Trek. The Final Reflection is about a Klingon captain, but we get his life story, including before he becomes a captain. I think I've read somewhere that Pawns and Symbols focuses on an original civilian character, too, but I haven't read that one, so I can't comment on it's quality.
Ironically, there are some books that I won't read, because I have my own ideas about where I would want to develop a character or situation. For example, I'm fascinated by a character called Garth of Izar from the episode "Whom Gods Destroy." I know there is a novel that takes that character and makes a new story out of it. I might read that novel one day, but I have my own ideas about how I would want to make use of the character in a story game.
As far as running a game in the movie-era, how much do you want to get into the feel of the movies? The Motion Picture is a story that works on a grand scale. If you are looking at the second and third movies, the stakes are high and the events follow on very closely from what has come before. Will your game have one or more player characters die in a very heroic or dramatic way? Following on with The Voyage Home, there's still strong continuity from previous stories; we still see the characters doing what they always do, yet in diminished circumstances with faltering or unfamiliar resources (Klingon ship is still a ship, so they can travel to other planets; they have a cloaking device that they haven't had before, but the ship can't handle the strain of time travel very well). TVH may be a light hearted film, but it is haunted by events of the past visually, every time the characters are in the darkened interior of the captured Klingon ship.
Anyway, good luck with your game, hope it goes well.
I am going to be running an Roleplaying game soon, and I wanted to do some research and get in the mood...also give some to the players as well.
. But yeah, now that you mention it there wouldn't have been enough time to make it a post-TMP novel. I have a first printing copy with the original copy and honestly if I hadn't read that the uniform was a post-TMP uniform on Memory Alpha I probably wouldn't have even picked up on it. It's barely visible and I have a pretty good copy.
