I just threw away 100+ RPG books

[Jd Smith1]

The setting is make-believe. The game is a historical pastime...it's like casting notes for a village mummers' play.

I don't know how historically important D&D is going to be, but I wouldn't rule out it being of some interest down the line.

Are you referring to the RPG hobby as a whole, or just D&D groups?

 

[Reynard]

Likewise.

I'm not the one being dismissive.

 

[Greggy C]

I think the actual books are less of a loss than the notebooks and journals. I feel like we need a national repository for that stuff from players and GMs. There's history in there.

Oh naughty word I wrote something on a piece of paper last week and threw it in the garbage. I didn't realize I should have summoned a historian to determine if that behavior was appropriate. No offense, but your take on random peoples scribblings is not one I could ever have believed possible. Exactly how you compare it to someone writing a book on the history hobby and the people who started the game is blowing my mind. That is like saying every game of every player who ever played a video game should be recorded.

 

[Cadence]

RE: Records for Posterity

although Lucien's filing system seems a bit nonstandard compared to living libraries.

 

[Jd Smith1]

Oh naughty word I wrote something on a piece of paper last week and threw it in the garbage. I didn't realize I should have summoned a historian to determine if that behavior was appropriate. No offense, but your take on random peoples scribblings is not one I could ever have believed possible. Exactly how you compare it to someone writing a book on the history hobby and the people who started the game is blowing my mind. That is like saying every game of every player who ever played a video game should be recorded.

Very well said!

 

[Umbran]

No offense...

Mod Note:
The rest of your post does not support the idea that you didn't want to offend. So, if you really didn't mean to, you really, really need to go back to the drawing board.

You don't have to think that there's folk history worth saving there, but you do have to try harder to hold to Wheaton's Law as you say so.

 

[MGibster]

I got so much money for my 1e and 2e WFRP books. Enough to pay for all my 4e books.

I have an ton of 2nd edition WFRP books that are in near mint condition. Nobody ever wanted to play them. I should try to get rid of 'em.

This hurts my librarian heart.

I used to feel the same way, but books these days are mass produced quite cheaply rather than individual treasures produced by a team of scribes working in their cells in European monastaries.

I don't believe there's a historical perspective to notes on a game of make-believe. Sentiment for a participant, sure.

Maybe, but maybe not. In a century, some graduate student might be writing his thesis on the "role playing game" fad of the late 20th and early 21st century, and your notes might prove invaluable. Probably not, but you never know.

Well, then my actions are good news to you, as your books just became a tiny fraction more valuable. That's how collecting works: you hang on to old crap in the hopes that someday it will be worth something. Me, I need storage space.

I've purged my collection twice in the last 25 years. The first time I sold quite a bit of it, the second time I gave away most of it, and I'm sure I'll purge again in the future. I might even just toss some of the books. In both cases, I needed the space. And when I decide I'm too cluttered, I'll purge again.

Oh naughty word I wrote something on a piece of paper last week and threw it in the garbage. I didn't realize I should have summoned a historian to determine if that behavior was appropriate.

The truth is that modern historians would love to have written accounts of what people in the past found to be the most mundane of activities and were therefore not mentioned in letters and notes. But practically speaking, we can't save everything. We probably can't even save most of it.

 

[Jd Smith1]

I used to feel the same way, but books these days are mass produced quite cheaply rather than individual treasures produced by a team of scribes working in their cells in European monastaries.

Exactly.

Maybe, but maybe not. In a century, some graduate student might be writing his thesis on the "role playing game" fad of the late 20th and early 21st century, and your notes might prove invaluable. Probably not, but you never know.

If he used my campaign notes, there would be a very confused rendition of the hobby. Back in the days when I had hard-copy notes, they were a mish-mash of military acronyms, abbreviations, and the like. I was big on having a very compact notes back then.

I've purged my collection twice in the last 25 years. The first time I sold quite a bit of it, the second time I gave away most of it, and I'm sure I'll purge again in the future. I might even just toss some of the books. In both cases, I needed the space. And when I decide I'm too cluttered, I'll purge again.

Yeah, when Ebay first came out I dumped a ton of stuff, and I've given a lot of stuff away in years past. But since I've gone exclusively online, I've lost contact with the fragmented bits of the local gamer community.

 

[AnotherGuy]

We tried the online but it was not for us mostly because I'm feel like a terrible DM online and not confident about by tech skills. All of my players are far more tech savvy than me.
We were fortunate in that one of my groups returned quickly to tabletop playing (by November-December 2020) and that game flourished while our weekly online game suffered until end of last year when that too returned to tabletop.

As for parting with rpg books, I haven't done it, not that I have a lot, but I do want to get rid of my 4e books as I hardly refer to them. But every time I get close to making that decision, I page through and find something useful. I'm a hoarder. The pain is real.

 

[Jd Smith1]

We tried the online but it was not for us mostly because I'm feel like a terrible DM online and not confident about by tech skills. All of my players are far more tech savvy than me.
We were fortunate in that one of my groups returned quickly to tabletop playing (by November-December 2020) and that game flourished while our weekly online game game suffered until end of last year when that too returned to tabletop.

As for parting with rpg books, I haven't done it, not that I have a lot, but I do want to get rid of my 4e books as I hardly refer to them. But every time I get close to making that decision, I page through and find something useful. I'm a hoarder. The pain is real.

My face to face group never stopped until 2021, when work issues ended a 20 year run. Online gaming is the greatest development in the hobby, IMO. The endless supply of players is wonderful; since I went online I'm gaming more than ever.

At my peak, I had a walk-in closet full of RPG stuff.