When thinning down the collection, what to keep and why?

[Jd Smith1]

Hoo boy I do hope you are joking.

Nope.

I just threw away 100+ RPG books

A full (probably) set of War Hammer FRPG 1e and 3e, a large amount of Rolemaster, and some odds and ends, plus several binders from campaigns long past. It represented about 60% of my remaining print RPG library. I quit buying hard copy a long time ago, with the exception of WH 3e, and have...

www.enworld.org

 

[MGibster]

Here's the questions I ask myself when thinning the collection:

Do I like this?
How likely is it that I'll play this?
Does it have sentimental value?

I might very well thin something from my collection that I like but is unlikely I'll ever play. (RIP my copy of Blue Planet.)

 

[MGibster]

I can understand transitioning to PDFs but why in the world would you throw away books? Sell them to Noble Knight. Donate them. Give them away.

I can understand where @Jd Smith1 is coming from here. The process of getting everything together to sell isn't always worth the effort. And this isn't the old days when each book was precious because it was penned by monks on vellum and bound in leather to last the ages. I've thrown quite a few books away rather than take them to the library becaues it was just too much trouble for me.

 

[Reynard]

I can understand where @Jd Smith1 is coming from here. The process of getting everything together to sell isn't always worth the effort. And this isn't the old days when each book was precious because it was penned by monks on vellum and bound in leather to last the ages. I've thrown quite a few books away rather than take them to the library becaues it was just too much trouble for me.

But did you do it because you didn't want "unwashed masses" having them?

 

[Jd Smith1]

But did you do it because you didn't want "unwashed masses" having them?

MG is more a pure intellectual, navigating the heights of life, technology, and philosophy, not a people person as I am.

 

[GuyBoy]

Might be worth contacting your local high school to see if they have a RPG club that would welcome a donation of books.

 

[Fenris-77]

Huh. Thinning down the collection. I understand what each of those individual words means, but not what they are supposed mean in that order.

 

[delericho]

I've culled my collection twice, with a third time on the hoirzon.

The first I got rid of a load of items of marginal value - orphaned sourcebooks for out of print games, loads of games I'd never played (and never expected to play), lots of low quality d20 and OGL materials. No regrets there, at least not yet.

The second time was all my Pathfinder 1e books except for adventures - when I finally got to actually play PF I very quickly decided it wasn't for me, and anyway I actually have all the books I got rid of in PDF. Most of these went to a Pathfinder GM of my acquaintance, so they're doing more good with her than with me.

The third cull, if/when it happens, will be a load of old magazines - random issues of White Dwarf, Arcane, Backstab, and others. These are just taking up space, so might as well go.

The things I expect to keep permanently are all my D&D books (of all editions), all my D&D-compatible adventures (including Pathfinder), and a few favourite games (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd, Star Wars d6 and Saga, the core of Vampire (but not all the sourcebooks), Firefly, and a few others). That said, I have no current plans for the third cull mentioned above, never mind any beyond that.

One other thing: in the event that I lost everything (in a fire or whatever), it's perhaps worth mentioning that the collection I'd rebuy is much smaller than that lost - probably D&D 5e core, and then other items only as I felt I was missing them. And a lot more use of PDFs instead of physical works.

 

[amethal]

Huh. Thinning down the collection. I understand what each of those individual words means, but not what they are supposed mean in that order.

As I understand it, it means looking through your collection for things you accidentally bought twice, plus any printed-out PDFs that you no longer need to keep (either because you've now acquired the printed version, or the reason you needed a hard copy has passed), whilst making notes of any gaps in your collection that urgently need to be filled.

 

[Fenris-77]

As I understand it, it means looking through your collection for things you accidentally bought twice, plus any printed-out PDFs that you no longer need to keep (either because you've now acquired the printed version, or the reason you needed a hard copy has passed), whilst making notes of any gaps in your collection that urgently need to be filled.

Ahh, now it makes sense. Who doesn't do that? I also spent some serious time yesterday re-labeling and refiling a bunch of older rev PDFs to make room for the updated PDFs I was about to download from DTRPG.