How do you organize your gaming collection?

[Orius]

My system varies based on what's available. For D&D, I separate the books into several categories, subdivided by chronological order:

* - Players Books (PHB, XPH, ELH, SS, etc*);
* - Guidebooks (The 3.0 softcovers, A&EG, and the Races** books);
* - DM Books (So far, only DMG, MotP, and DD...pity);
* - Monster Books (MMs, Fiend Folio);
* - Campaign Expansions (OA, BoED, "Monsters" & "Environments", etc***.);
* - Campaign Settings (FRCS & Co., Ghostwalk, Eberron).

I do something similar, though I mix my 2e and 3e books, and my 2e collection is much larger.

I put all the hardcovers first, followed by softcovers. My hardcovers go in this order: 2 PHB, 2e DMG, 2e MM, Tome of Magic, PO Books, 3e PHB, 3e DMG, 3e MM, MotP, OA.

The softcovers follow a progression similar to the hardcovers. So after that are the 2e Complete series in order of release, Sword and Fist, Tome and Blood, Song and Silence. Then the various 2e DMG suppliments. Then monster books. After that comes campaign specific stuff, in this case the old green cover historical suppliments, Arabian Adventures, and some Realms stuff.

 

[Arnwyn]

My filing scheme:

My library is in the basement rec-room. There are two main shelves for gaming-specific material - one right beside the pool/gaming table for quick access during a game, and the rest on the main library shelves just a little distance away.

The bookshelf near the pool table consists of 3 shelves and the top. From the top going down:
Top: player character sheets/info, 2 battlemats, my dice, and pencil case.
1st shelf: left side has DM utility books (eg. Fields of Blood, Stronghold Guide, Monster Mythology, FOR series of FR books, Encyclopedia Magicas, WSCs and PSCs, etc). Middle has the PC minis. Right side has the PC-specific splatbooks.
2nd shelf: left side has all the monster books. Right side has the main hardcover rulebooks (PHB, DMG, Psi, ELH, main FR utility books [FRCS, RoF, F&P, F&A, P&P, DD], BoVD, BoED, R&R1, R&R2, LM, Draconomicon, etc).
3rd shelf: campaign rule binders (additional rules, weather charts, new PrCs, economic guides, encounter charts, spell charts, etc).

The main library bookshelf has 6 shelves. From top to bottom:
1st & 2nd shelf: full-size modules, organized by party level.
3rd shelf: Dungeon magazines
4th shelf: left side has the Planescape setting, right side has Kara-Tur/Rokugan setting
5th shelf: left side has FR setting, right side has AQ setting
6th shelf: left side has FR box sets, right side has SJ setting

Pretty wacky and anal, I think.

 

[Scribble]

hrmm

most of my currently being used books end up in my backpack or in a pile near my backpack...

But the other stuff, and whenever I get the urge to organize, it goes by game system/edition/company in this order DM stuff, Monsters, players stuff, campaign books setting stuff.

two exceptions, 2e I have the monster binders at the end, because they didn't fit right in the actual monsters location. 3.0 and 3.5 stuff I don't seperate because we play a mixture of 3 and 3.5

oh, and all of my boxed sets are stacked on the top shelf along with the weird games I've picked up over the years that are in boxes.

Also there are folders with character sheets from over the years in a magazine box, then a box for all of the various non dragon gaming mags, then dungeon aranged by issue #, followed by a bunch of dragon's by issue number. The space that's left over on the last shelf of actual game books holds things like dice, and minis cases.

 

[Wombat]

One shelf has all my Ars Magica material
Another has my D&D material
Another has the rest of it

That's pretty much it for organization

 

[CombatWombat51]

Mine are a mess. I think all of the non-D&D books are in one box, my 1E books in another, and same with 2E, my 3E and 3.5 are scattered about, except for my Psionics Handbook, which I use as a handy writing surface. All my adventures (from all editions) are in another box. My magazines, however, are in perfect order!

A bit of a side note, but a friend of mine organizes his movie collection by who's in it. He's got a modest collection of 200-300, and he can actually find his movies! Lemme try to explain.... Star Trek 2 would be next to Back to the Future because of that bald actor whose name escapes me. The Whole Nine Yards (John Cusak, Bruce Willis) would have Hi Fidelity (John) on one side of it, and Pulp Fiction (Bruce) on the other. Next to Pulp Fiction might be Basic (Samuel L. Jackson). And so on. In a completely impossible to understand string. It's not even like "all the Julia Roberts movies go in that corner, and all the Harrison Ford movies go on that shelf." Just a freakin' string!

 

[KB9JMQ]

Bookcase 1
Shelf 1 3E Iconic Novels, Old LOTR paperbacks, Dice Bags
Shelf 2 Wotc Minis - Humanoid
Shelf 3 Wotc Minis - Creatures
Shelf 4 Regular Books
Shelf 5 Board Games - Risk, Battleship, Cards, etc.

Bookcase 2
Shelf 1 Wotc Minis GOL Huges and various other ones I really like
Shelf 2 3.5 Core Books - Then rest of Wotc 3&3.5 then splatbooks
Shelf 3 More softcovers then 3rd Party Hardcovers
Shelf 4 Kalamar Books, Box of loose extra wotc minis, WLD, Dune, D20 Modern
Shelf 5 Milk crate of dice and Heroscape

Bookcase 3
Shelf 1 DM Shelf - Tactiles, Maps, Pens/Pencils, Folders, etc
Shelf 2 FR Books, SSS books, AU books Legends & Lairs books
Shelf 3 Basic Box Sets (Basic, Expert - Immortals), All basic modules, Rules Cyclopedia
Shelf 4 Everything Al=Qadim, AD&D 2E Books
Shelf 5 Dungeon and Dragon Magazines

Bookcase 4
Shelf 1 Weird D&D Items, Toys, Comics, Coloring Books, Tape of Cartoons
Shelf 2 Wotc Minis Stat Cards, Counters, Tiles
Shelf 3 AD&D Hardcovers and box sets (Rod of 7, etc)
Shelf 4 AD&D Modules
Shelf 5 Dark Sun, Ravenloft & Dragonlance Stuff

These make up the back wall of my D&D area in the basement, they are flanked by a sectional couch which surrounds a 4x8 gaming table.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

My computer desk came with a two-shelf hutch which, since I now have a nineteen-inch monitor about a foot deep (and less than two feet of depth to the desktop itself), sits against one wall of my bedroom. The top of it is now about waist-height on me, and on this I've organised my recent roleplaying books. I have others, such as Second Edition AD&D material, but they're in boxes in my wardrobe.

I use vertical magazine holders to organise my roleplaying books and magazines (I also have a very small comics collection at the end, mostly trades).

* Core rules in the first - Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manual, and Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed since it's a variant player's guide.

* Wizards supplements in the next two - Book of Exalted Deeds, Book of Vile Darkness, Complete Divine, Complete Warrior, Expanded Psionics Handbook in one; Fiend Folio, Planar Handbook, Races of Stone, and Unearthed Arcana in the other.

* Campaign setting books in the next - Eberron, Serpent Kingdoms (the only Forgotten Realms book I own at the moment), Ghostwalk, and Ravenloft).

* Third-party supplements in the last - Anger of Angels, Chaositech, and the Complete Book of Eldritch Might, all from Malhavoc Press. This rack also currently has the Storyteller version of Adventure! and the new World of Darkness corebook just to fill it out.

* Dragon issues in the next - #302, #308, and #310-#325, plus Dungeon #114. I have older Dragons but they're packed away.

* White Wolf in the next two and a half racks - d20 Adventure! and Aberrant, Vampire: the Masquerade revised, and the revised Clanbook: Nosferatu and Clanbook: Ventrue in the first; Hunter: the Reckoning, Hunter Players' Guide, Hunter Storyteller Handbook, Hunter Survival Guide and Hunterbook: Avenger in the second; half of the third is taken up by Hunterbook: Judge, Hunterbook: Visionary and Hunterbook: Wayward.

* The third file mentioned above is actually labelled GURPS and contains the two Fourth Edition corebooks, Alternate Earths, Alternate Earths 2, and Atomic Horror.

 

[JustKim]

My books are organized into two categories, "food" and "not food". This helps me to determine quickly which books are for eating and which are not. Frankly, I'm a little concerned the ambiguous edibility of your collections may lead to unfortunate mixups.