I should write a book called "Diary of an RPG Hoarder"

[soviet]

Note that if you do write this hoarding book, it will only be one more thing we all have to find shelf space for.

 

[Muad'dib Pendragon]

The antithesis of hoarding such books is when you have a collection of medical bills that insurance won't cover.

There is absolutely no substitute for deliberate and careful financial planning, to include prioritizing what matters most. If done right, one can prepare for real life contingencies and still support one's personal interests.

In other words, keep it all in perspective and don't sacrifice family and health for a potentially obsessive and costly distraction.

 

[MNblockhead]

Years of frequent moving, I thought, rid me of my hoarding inclinations. But now that I've had the family in one house for over 10 years (though I still travel a lot for work), I slipped back into my bad habits. It is hard to know what the proper balance is. With board games, I've gotten pretty ruthless. If I have not played a game for a while, or don't love playing, it gets donated to my local FLGS's game library. The only exception are games with some special sentimental value or games that have a cool or interesting factor that I can enjoy having around even if I don't play them. That is rarer for board games than TTRPG books.

I somewhat regret getting rid of all my 1e stuff decades ago, which makes me a bit clingy with my TTRPG books. But I try to balance this by only buying, or backing Kickstarters for, books that are "special" in some way. Books I really enjoy having on the shelf, and that I keep going back to. Generally, I buy most of my stuff in digital format.

Since moving to VTT, I've stopped buying miniatures and terrain. When I got back into the hobby in 2014, I spend a lot of money buying heaps of minis and terrain and have boxes of stuff I've never used and barely unpacked. I'd be happy to just give them to my one son who is in the hobby, but they just don't bother with terrain or even VTTs when they play. If I had to move to a smaller place, I could part with my minis and terrain pretty easily, but for now I'm basically holding on to them as something to enjoy when I retire.

 

[Teo Twawki]

There is absolutely no substitute for deliberate and careful financial planning, to include prioritizing what matters most. If done right, one can prepare for real life contingencies and still support one's personal interests.

In other words, keep it all in perspective and don't sacrifice family and health for a potentially obsessive and costly distraction.

Um. To use the American aphorism: yeah, no.

 

[Alzrius]

Fellow hoarder with OCD here. It's all about the books. My physical collection is well over 1,500 books, going back to the OD&D box set, and has grown exponentially in the last decade. My collection also includes thousands of PDFs for more systems than I can count. From Kickstarters to DTRPG and DM's Guild offerings, I'm routinely adding to my hoard.

While one day the RPG industry will totally move to the PDF side of the spectrum, for me a PDF can't beat a good physical book; the feel, the smell, the distinct sound of a turning page to reveal the next wonder. That said, a bookmarked and searchable PDF does beat a physical book for actual play reference if you employ technology at your table.

There is absolutely no substitute for deliberate and careful financial planning, to include prioritizing what matters most. If done right, one can prepare for real life contingencies and still support one's personal interests.

In other words, keep it all in perspective and don't sacrifice family and health for a potentially obsessive and costly distraction.

 

[Cruentus]

I had multiple 6-shelf bookcases packed with RPG's, supplements, Dragon mags, novels (11 boxes of fantasy novels off to the used book store), etc. from 40+ years of playing. Then warhammer and tabletop gaming, then... over a couple of moves, and a general purging, I'm down to two bookcases, and only 1/3 are RPG, 1/3 are tabletop minis, and 1/3 are novels. I've had to pare down and curate my collection. Unfortunately, I also tend to go back and re-buy things I had, because there was something I remembered in it, and just had to buy it...

Now with PDF's, I have sooo many, they have their own storage system. Problem is its harder to find that pdf to get the nugget of info I need - was it in X, or Y, or C supplement/book/advenure? I always found it easier to peruse the bookshelves.

I think that "collector/hoarder" element is in all of us, it just depends how it manifests. I've had to really think consciously about what I do buy, and where its going to go, and what is going to leave if I do buy it. Oh, and walking away from the computer when I just need to buy this thing. Usually even 30 minutes later, it wasn't so pressing and I never buy it. LoL.

 

[MNblockhead]

Now with PDF's, I have sooo many, they have their own storage system. Problem is its harder to find that pdf to get the nugget of info I need - was it in X, or Y, or C supplement/book/advenure? I always found it easier to peruse the bookshelves.

Where do you store and organize your PDFs. If in Google Drive, OneNote, or Evernote, they should be fully searchable, you should be able to search across all your PDFs.

 

[Cruentus]

Where do you store and organize your PDFs. If in Google Drive, OneNote, or Evernote, they should be fully searchable, you should be able to search across all your PDFs.

Yes.

Some in google drive, some on my laptop hard drive, some on an external hard drive, some on my ipad in the pdf reader... its sort of a major organizational block that I have going when it comes to pdf's. I blame it on age... LoL.

 

[Longspeak]

I've collected gaming books for decades. When my family moved last year, I got a real idea for how many books I had. I've gotten rid of a bunch, but there's more.

I seriously struggle with getting rid of some of them. I have questions that run through my head.

• I currently play 5e. Do I get rid of books from prior editions?
• Do I get rid of books that are autographed?
• Do I get rid of books that I got for the cover?
• Do I get rid of collector's edition books that I've never used?
• Do I get rid of books by some of my favorite authors/game designers that are not well known? (i.e. Ed Greenwood's Castlemourn)
• Do I get rid of any Pathfinder adventure paths that I have a complete set of?

I'm sure there's more, but that's what runs through my head.

Anyone else experience this? Got any advice?

Get rid of everything that does not bring you joy. Seriously.

Now... you have to honestly and thoughtfully weigh every factor and decide what brings joy.

For me, About 14-15 years ago I decided I didn't want a "collection" of games. I decided I wanted a working library of games. Would I conceivably used the book for anything? If yes, keep. If no, I got rid of it. Games I was currently playing, Games or Books with material I have used and would use again to adapt, whether rules or source material. And a few I just enjoy reading or paging through on lazy days.

I got rid of about 500 books in about 200 different games.

I've regretted some, but mostly I don't even think about them. They weren't doing anything except taking up space.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Never get rid of any books under any circumstances

I once believed that way. Then I had a bunch in storage. Some got ruined when my basement flooded.

Then I moved to a new house and I could not believe the sheer number of books I have. I wasn't going to put them anywhere where they would get damaged, yet there wasn't enough area in the house for all that.

I started to realize that I didn't need all those books. What good is having all that when many of those books were collecting dust? So I've been scaling down, big time.

So yeah, I see where you're coming from, but I've changed as well as my circumstances. Keeping everything just isn't going to work for me anymore.