How do you organize your RPGs books?

[zarionofarabel]

Oh wait...you're serious!

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

5 - by immediate usefulness; the rest by edition (I’ve paired down to just D&D books) from newest to oldest.

 

[Thierry-Advent]

5 - by immediate usefulness; the rest by edition (I’ve paired down to just D&D books) from newest to oldest.

I'm curious, what percentage of your RPG collection was culled?

 

[Maggan]

By game line and then by size, from larger to smaller.

Then the chaos begins …

 

[SkidAce]

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.

I hear yah...I spent sometime moving stuff around into a more coherent folder system, just to find that once everything was moved, that I had multiple copies (once up to 5!) that had been scattered all about.

 

[SkidAce]

The TOORGANIZE folder is like 17gig of stuff I HAVENT moved/sorted yet...

 

[Laurefindel]

I have a high shelf in the “office” in the basement where I sort books by game, then by version/edition. Those that don’t fit on it are in a milk crate or two - somewhere in the basement - sorted in a similar fashion.

The games I currently play or books I currently read rarely go back on the shelf; they end up all over the place. I recently found a lost one behind the couch, and one somehow made its way with the cooking books…

The closest sort of organization I have for those is a fabric grocery box-type carrier in the bedroom where I dump my things after a game.

 

[R_J_K75]

I hear yah...I spent sometime moving stuff around into a more coherent folder system, just to find that once everything was moved, that I had multiple copies (once up to 5!) that had been scattered all about.

Another problem I found is that from moving stuff around, copy and pasting over 25 years I come across corrupted files that won't open anymore; and it's becoming more often than I'd like. I usually have another copy of it but finding it is hard and takes time.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

I'm curious, what percentage of your RPG collection was culled?

No more than 5%, if that. Mostly old Vampire books. And some RIFTS.

 

[abazaba]

Another problem I found is that from moving stuff around, copy and pasting over 25 years I come across corrupted files that won't open anymore; and it's becoming more often than I'd like. I usually have another copy of it but finding it is hard and takes time.

Unsure of what platform you are running (and this will not help you with already corrupted files), but: at least for Windows 10/11, you can get Windows to make automatic backups to a (dedicated) disk automatically. It will keep multiple versions of the files by default, so if a file has gotten corrupt you should in theory have an older 'version' that is not corrupted. It's called 'File History', and is located in 'Control Panel', but using the search function on your taskbar works as well. It does require a dedicated disk (like an external) that needs to be permanently attached (so an external drive will work for a dedicated desktop, but probably not so much for a laptop/notebook). By default it will only create backups for default 'Libraries' (like your 'Documents' and 'Download' folders), but you can create a new 'Library' and make it backup those as well with some effort.