Making the cut for your TTRPG library

[Dannyalcatraz]

How long do you hold onto a game book you don't like before unloading it somehow?

I started in 77-78, but my collection didn’t expand much beyond D&D, Traveller, and Champions until the early 1990s. At that point, it exploded! By the turn of the century, I owned books from 200 different RPGs.

And there it stood for a good decade or so, when I finally divested myself of about 40 systems worth of books. I donated a lot of them to the USO, along with some polyhedral dice sets.

Since then, I’ve added a couple new systems.

But the real answer is, “it depends”, because I absolutely still have my earliest acquisitions. The stuff I donated was all bought post-1990.

 

[jdrakeh]

I used to be very big into collecting physical books and boxed sets. At one time, I had an actual library of them (i.e. a dedicated room in my house that was nothing but RPG stuff). I currently own exactly three physical books (the Anniversary Edition of BFRPG, a NOS copy of Freeport: City of Adventure, and a ratty, beat up, copy of Codex of Erde).

I used to have a "one year rule" stating that if I hadn't played or read an RPG product in over a year, it went on the chopping block. Now, realizing that I'll probably never again play anything other than current edition D&D locally, I've pretty much switched to PDFs exclusively, as the only players I can find for anything other than current edition D&D (or WoD) are not local to me.

 

[Koloth]

Moving seems to be the catalyst for anyone who becomes discerning with books (of any kind) and choosing when the buy physical vs digital.

It was for me. Kept most of the RPG stuff but boxes of magazines kept for many years found the recycle bin. Several shelves of non-RPG books got donated to the local Friends of the Library sale. Hundreds of VHS tapes also got culled. Mostly Star Trek stuff. I had binge watched them a few times but with DVD/Blue Rays a thing, time to let go of the earlier tech. Still prefer physical print books over pdf but can't ignore the ease of having most of the PF1, a bunch of PF2, and Mongoose Traveller stuff on my iPad. (Thank you humble bundles). Still working on the crates of Reaper KS Bones minis.

 

[aramis erak]

So this is just for physical ttrpgs.

How long do you hold onto a game book you don't like before unloading it somehow?

Not sure yet, have a few that are over 40 years....
I've sold on only a few, and those were purchased solely for a one-time read.
Only two sold on that I wanted to run but didn't: Dune (LUG version) and Rhand: Morningstar Missions.
I should have bought several copies of LUG Dune...