I've been collecting them but haven't done anything with them yet nor noticed any effects. Do they work just by taking them or do you have to "use" them in some manner?

when you pick them up and put them in your inventory, they give you their effect. Read the text on the screen carefully next time you pick one up, it will tell you what effect it is giving you. You can also see them listed in your perk section of stats in pipboy.

Once you pick it up, you gain the buff.

There are magazine racks and shelves in settlement mode designed to hold them, should you want to show them off in a fancy way.

Greetings,

I have only found 2 magazines. (I run the game on a PC.) When I select the item on the Inventory I am given the choice to inspect it, drop it, or Read it. To-date, the Read option has not worked. So I walk around with 2 magazines and without any of the benefits I should accrue from "studying" the material.

Any one else have this "Reading" problem with the game on their PC?

r/ RGCB

So if I sell the magazines or put them on display (no longer in my inventory), do I still keep the perks/increases?

I noticed that their weight is zero, can't tell if that's because I'm supposed to carry them all around or not

You don't have to carry the magazines, and read is the same as inspect for magazines. Other things like notes or Publick Occurences, it might be different I dunno.

You do not have to keep them, put them on display, carry them around with you, whatever. Once you pick it up, you have the perk. Magazines like Picket Fences sometimes don't add a perk you can look at in the menu, but their benefits are still there.

You have got the effect already when you have picked up the magazine. You get it actually when you first time activate the magazine in the game world, you don't even need to pick it up, you get the perk even if you hit cancel to leave it in the place after activating it. Look into your Perk list in your pip boy. (not the poster thing, but the perk tab in the Stats menu). It lists all perks you have, be it from the poster, magazine or companion.

If you have the magazines, check out the perks in the stats menu. It'll tell you the perks you get from magazines. Some are a bit confusing.. like Grognak doesn't fall under a Grognak perk... it falls under "Barbarian." Some magazines give you multiple levels for each of their perks. Some give an individual perk for each magazine you find.

Out of curiosity what are the magazines you picked up. Full names?

Also, some Magazines don't give perk but some other benefit. Like the one that adds Diamond city to your map.