The older i get the less I need.

[Deset Gled]

There's a lot to be said about building a personal library. Whether it's RPG books, fantasy novels, or even DVDs. Here's just one list of you can easily find on the internet about the reasons to value and curate a personal library: Why Build a Personal Library?

If the ideal size of your library is smaller for any reason, that's great. For me, it currently includes a lot of WEG d6 and 3e stuff, even if I don't play those games anymore. They're great for reference, unexpected tools, or just for fun (dare I say nostalgia?). But it also includes some of my favorite old textbooks, a bunch of novels, and even a few manga and random coffee table books.

I'm sure one day I'll eventually downsize. Like the OP, I guess it will be motivated by moving and deciding what I need to keep and what can be left behind. But for now, I'm happy to let my slowly grow and collect over time.

 

[Voadam]

I reached the point of having more physical books than I expect to fully read long ago, like probably AD&D era. I have a lot of books (five book shelves worth?) but I look at RPG books more as reference though so if I want to pull out stuff on a subject I have access to it. Such as in my 5e Iron Gods Thundar the Barbarian themed game one PC wanted to make a Werewolf the Apocalypse themed druid and I had plenty to draw on for that theme in between games that came into play a lot and was a lot of fun.

I mostly have gotten PDFs for the past two decades plus and there is still way more that I have some interest in having as possible reference stuff than what I am going to get, though I have a decent monthly PDF budget I allow myself. This allows me to focus on getting good bundle deals and individual titles I have an interest in within my budget and I now have an admittedly ridiculous collection of RPG stuff.

In practice though I bring very little to the table, usually the core books, the module I am running, maybe a map, and some stats for stuff I expect to use.

In my online Fantasy Ground game I had the books, some extra monster books to draw from, the module and some maps. If I was using something that did not have an equivalent in one of those sources (a pathfinder 1e monster without a direct 5e equivalent for example) I would just reskin a 5e element from Creature Crucible or Tome of Beasts or the Volos or whatever which I did have in the system.

In my face to face games I would have just brought in the stats to the game or the book if I had it like using a Creature Collection II serpent golem in a Freeport Game I was running.

 

[Li Shenron]

The more you have, the less you do: property steals your time away. As our family wealth grow, I am myself learning to spend less in physical stuff (not counting investments, of course) and more in hiring others to do errands I don't enjoy in my place, so that I have more time for what I do enjoy. I stopped buying large amounts of RPG books when 3.5 came out. I don't "collect" or hoard anything. I buy very few physical copies of movies and music an use streaming instead, except for favourites and rarities. I almost don't even buy books anymore and use the public libraries instead: I think of them as if I had colossal extra rooms spread around town with nearly every book I would ever want to read and a whole staff taking care of them for me.

 

[Black Dougal]

Feel free to offload your libraries here...I'm willing to help.

 

[overgeeked]

I’ve gotten rid of some stuff over the years and always regret it. Not because I needed it, because I wanted it around. I like looking at my shelves and remembering or daydreaming about games. Even if I’ll never play them again.

I’m definitely with you on the lighter rules. What pushed me over the edge was freelancing for M&M3E. Just too much. Gimme a one-page game any day of the week. What I need to run games is players and a randomizer.

 

[dbm]

Back when I was in my late teens / early twenties, cash was tight and I sold off some collections to fund new purchases. Eventually I regretted that and now I am very resistant to selling off parts of my collection. Recently I even bought back some of the systems I had sold after we moved to a new house which permitted the luxury of a permanent gaming room.

And I do look on my physical books as a collection. They are very, very unlikely to see play again but are great for looking thing up part remembered, and they are a personal history of my gaming which has been a core part of my life since I was about 11 years old. If we significantly down-size in the future I may then have to make the hard choices but for now I can take pleasure showing my geek credentials to anyone who cares to visit.

On the other hand I am quite resistant to buying new systems, having identified that SWADE covers pretty much all the gaming I personally want to run. With all the product that Pinnacle put out that still keeps me busy adding to my collection however!

 

[GrimCo]

Most of my collection is in PDF on external ssd drive. These days, i hardly buy anything physical when it comes to ttrpgs. I do own some books, but they sit on the bookshelf and aren't used in games. It's faster to pull out phone and google rule than to find one in 300+ book.

On the other hand, i just bought new resin 3d printer with washing and curing station to go along with my old filament 3d printer. While we rarely use minis and terrain in our games, i have a kid that plays with them like we used to with plastic toy soldiers. He just has custom made and more cool toy soldiers now and real castles, not ones made from old boxes.

 

[delericho]

I've long since come to the position where what I really need are fewer, better things - not just in terms of RPGs but pretty much everything.

Sticking to the topic of RPGs, I all but stopped buying physical product several years ago (with D&D books being a notable example - though even there I cut right down). When I backed a Kickstarter, it was always for the PDFs, I'm gradually building up a library of D&D Classics PDFs, and so on. (That's probably just replacing physical crap with digital, but since my biggest issue is physical storage space, that's not such a problem.)

I've had two culls of RPG material - the first was a load of games I'd never run and several "orphaned" books (sourcebooks and adventures for games without the corresponding corebook); the second was everything Pathfinder except adventures (I had a load of stuff but never ran it; after playing a few times I concluded it just wasn't for me - on balance I prefer 3.5e). There should probably be a further cut of stuff that I'm never going to use again, but since that's almost all of what I own, and since an awful lot of it has sentimental value, letting go will be hard.

Fortunately, there are plenty of other areas of life in much more pressing need of decluttering.

 

[delericho]

Back when I was in my late teens / early twenties, cash was tight and I sold off some collections to fund new purchases. Eventually I regretted that and now I am very resistant to selling off parts of my collection. Recently I even bought back some of the systems I had sold after we moved to a new house which permitted the luxury of a permanent gaming room.

One good piece of advice I saw on the topic of decluttering was that if you are concerned about later regret, maybe set aside some money for potentially rebuying a few particular items later. That way, if there's something in particular you regret parting with, solving the issue is easily handled; in most cases, you're probably not going to miss it.

Of course, that doesn't help if you either regret everything you've disposed of, or if you regret getting rid of things in principle.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

How about you? How do you feel about the amount of stuff you feel like you need to be happy in the hobby?

For me it's not about amount, it's about specifics.

As I get older, I want RPGs that are better-designed, and more focused on their purpose. I've got less time for RPGs where the mechanics don't match the tone and/or setting - I now know I can't/won't re-write an RPG. I've also get less time for RPGs where like 60% of the game is cool, but 40% is bleh or actively uninteresting, which honestly described a lot of RPGs I played in the 1990s. Nor RPGs that contain huge bad ideas that you know are going to be unfun for most of the party, like some cyberpunk RPGs' approach to hacking, where it's a gigantic, time-consuming minigame. I'm also much more aware of "dealbreakers" for me and my main group - Shadowdark unfortunately has some of these despite some otherwise-good ideas.

So do I feel like I have the RPGs I actually want? Not really. I've actually stopped DMing at the moment because of my dissatisfaction with a lot of current RPGs (there are some really well-designed ones out there - Masks and Heart come to mind, but my likely players are less interested in those subgenres). Hollows and Draw Steel! come out next year and I'm interested in running one of those - also very interested in the new big update to Trespasser RPG if the guy making it ever gets a chance to actually do it - likewise the big update to ICON, which is hopefully coming fairly soon.

I guess this does agree with your position in the sense that, unlike at 13, or 23, I no longer want to own like, "All the RPGs" and am less prone to buying RPGs just because they sound cool. I'm not immune if they sound super-super-cool though!