How do you organize your RPGs books?

[abazaba]

You do you, but not really. You need to remember which colour the book is to find it. Doesn't work for daltonians or colour blind people. Another examples, Numenera books are not the same colour. The player book is mauve while the setting/gm book is teal. What do you do then? 3.5 DMG is blue but the PHB and monster are red and brown. Where does the blue DMG go?

The mauve book goes with all the other muave books, the teal one with the other teals, the reds with the reds, the browns with the browns, and the blue DMG goes with all the other blue books. Obviously.

Also: I did state 'some people' on purpose: I do not order my books this way myself, but have known people that do. They seem to prefer the way it looks on the bookshelf (as part of the interior) over the ease of finding what you are looking for. I guess it boils down to the 'form over function' debate.

 

[Marc17]

Long ago, I decided on the shelving that is all broken up into 1' cubes. This allows for some discrete organization as well as spots for non-book items and uses. This goes for my game room library. Typically broken down by amount of use, game system, and edition. The most accessible cube holds the books, characters sheets and notes for currently running games. 5E D&D gets its own cube right next to the chair at the end of the table. AD&D gets its own cube. 3.x/PF gets at least two cubes but lower down. Another cube for all the modules I own and more for Dragon magazines, basic D&D game books, etc. To the side of that are all my WoD books broken up by game system, or at least to VtM and CtD* with most everything else filling in a single cube. A lot of random games are just shelved together in no particular order except perhaps by how much I wish to play them.

*I'm not actually that big of a fan, but I went to a garage sale and bought something like 30 books for $50 from somebody who was but moving and couldn't take everything with him.

 

[djotaku]

For physical books I have this weird system that follows the way my brain works.

First level of organization: TTRPG System ordered by when I bought it. So from left to right and then looping to the next shelf (in the way you would read English text) D&D, Tales of the Valiant, Cosmere, Pathfinder 2e, Starfinder 2e. Then random things from free TTRPG day. Since ToV is 5e compatible, I keep the Kobold Press books together regardless of D&D or ToV.

Second level of organization: keep campaign settings together. For example, Humblewood and Obojima have (or will have by the end of the year) 2 books each. I'd keep those together.

As of right now the only things I have on there that aren't strictly just a book:

• is the PF2e beginner box Unlit Star.
• GM screens, especially if they go in a slipcase

Paizo flipmats are in a drawer along with my dice and character sheets for the games I run for my kids.

For PDFs: Tabletop Gaming -> [System Name] ->

• For campaign settings and/or adventures: folders per book or book series along with other things that came with the book like VTT tokens, handouts, etc.
• A separate folder for sourcebooks - Player's Guide, Monster Core, etc
• A folder for bestiaries (mostly only applies to KP and 5e)
• A folder for world settings - in 5e this is for KP's Midgard. In PF2e this is for Golarian.
• For Paizo stuff a folder for the flip mats

A system agnostic folder for things like NPC generators, Czepeku maps, and so on

 

[Cadence]

Level 1: Game (5e > BX > 1e > 2e > PF/d20 > Other systems)
Level 2: Player Book > DM Book > Monster Book > Setting/Module
Level 3: Favorites First

 

[delericho]

I have one set of shelves for D&D (not including settings) and one set for "everything else". The "everything else" shelf is organised first alphabetically and then by edition. The D&D shelves are organised by edition (in reverse - 5e at the top, where it's accessible), then has the supplements sorted by 'category' - player-side books, DM-side books, monster books, and adventures.

 

[R_J_K75]

On my computer my pdfs are mostly organzied alphabetical by system.

I am so bad at keeping track of pdfs. They aren't named so I can easily find them. I have created folders for my numerous campaigns throughout the years that I copied and pasted various RPG pdfs in them only to put them on a backup hard drive after the campaign is over. So, it's likely I have the same file on that hard drive 10 times.

 

[Bunch]

I have about nine shelves of RPGs. My sorting mechanism is by number of books. Games with lots of books get their own section and to some extent determine what else is in that shelf. For example I have a lot of HERO games from 1-5th edition and a smattering of 6th. That has about 2 rows of shelves and became my superheros and pulp shelf. 3.X D&D has most of a shelf and along with 1st-4th defines it's self and the shelf next to it. The bottom of the 1-2e D&D shelf has close fantasy OSR systems as well. Then I have a corner systems of collectables where some of the rarer items get kept.
Due to Chaosiums tendency to use oversized boxes Chaosium got a few rows of a shelf and meant I have that organized by publisher.

All the new small format books got shoved into a small format shelf grouped by publisher. A lot of the other books are grouped by genre where possible.

Space forces compromises in ideal grouping.

I also have a current reading shelf next to my desk where items in active use get moved temporarily

 

[SlyFlourish]

For digital:

/RPGs/system/publisher/product type.

If a system has only one publisher, I don’t break that down. If there aren’t that many product types, I don’t break that down either.

 

[mamba]

By color


Most of my stuff is digital, by game system, further subcategories if I have a lot of stuff (supplements, adventures, dm stuff, …).

 

[aramis erak]

How do you organize your RPGs books?

1. By alphabetical order.
2. By alphabetical publishing company.
3. By alphabetical order using genre categories.
4. By Games system: 1d20, d6s pool, etc.
5. Other system
6. I don't, it's a complete disorganized mess.

I used to be #1 but yesterday, I went with #3: Alphabetical generic systems, then alphabetical fantasy, alphabetical pulp & modern, finally alphabetical post-apocalyptic & science fiction.

Crates/boxes by system. Boxes by wherever the heck I found room.

Digital: folders by RPG. A few within setting folders (Star Trek, Star Wars, L5R).
For example, my L5R PDFs are editions 1-3 in one folder, L5R 5 in a second.

Within each, I tend to have a folder for my notes, another for each campaign's specific notes.