Great thread here http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=285649 by Levi.

Anyone here done anything similar?

To paraphrase my replies (the thread is about getting rid of excess games from your shelf):

I've got rid of a 100 books or so so far and have about 200 more to get rid of. I have way too much crap I don't use.

I've regretted nothing so far.

My main problem is I have too much to shift to put it all on ebay in any reasonable timeframe, my sell thread here despite being in my sig is generating hardly any sales and there are no second hand rpg shops in the UK anymore by and large. It's actually tough to sell the things as a practical issue.

But yeah, cruft accumulates, takes up space and doesn't get used. Games are meant to be played, if I've learnt anything from the indie crowd (Andy Kitowski basically) it's that and I'm grateful to them for reminding me.

...

For me it was when I created a database of all the rpg books I owned, and put in a field for whether I had used them in play or not. When I saw the results, I decided to get rid of most of my collection.

Hell, calling it a collection shows in a nutshell exactly where I had gone wrong.

Yeah, I sold off something like 600 books of my collection over the last 2 years. Now I'm down to about ~100.

haven't missed anything yet.

Agh, I forgot an important bit.

For those like mcrow who are doing this, what triggered it?  What made you decide to cut down?

Quote from: BalbinusAgh, I forgot an important bit.

For those like mcrow who are doing this, what triggered it?  What made you decide to cut down?

Mine was a very large bookshelf that collapsed creating an avalanche of RPGs that nearly took me and my computer out.

bastards had to go after that.

plus I didn't want to buy another bookshelf, so I started to thin out my keepers from the others. by time I was done I realized "holy shit, I buy way to many crappy games and don't play enough of the good ones!". Knowing I would never have time to use all of them I sold of the ones I was less likely to use.

I have a lot of old RPG stuff stored in my parents' basement, and there is no way that I would ever sell it, even if 99 percent of it will never see play again.  I just enjoy the nostalgia rush whenever I visit my folks and head down to the old shelves.

As for RPGs that I have with me in my current flat, I try to keep things to a single shelf.  I've generally been pretty good with that, although some bloat over time is inevitable.

Last time I moved I had about six 3.5/d20 books that I knew I would never use again.  I gave them to the members of my old group for free -- I just can't be bothered to try to sell such stuff.  It's not in my nature (despite being part Scottish).

I live in quite a small flat so for the last 5 years or so I've had to be ruthless with my use of space.  This means that my DVD and book collection are pared to the bone... nothing I don't think I'll rewatch of re-read or refer to.

So essentially I make 2 or so trips to the post every week with my eBay and Amazon sales.

I have, however, managed to accumulate a backlog, particularly of old RPG stuff I'm never going to use and school books and sci-fi paperbacks.  I'm currently in the process of sticking all sellable uni books on Amazon and I'm going to start batching and selling on all my sci-fi novels.

The RPG stuff I need to look into though because I'm always horrified how much RPGs go for.

Quote from: McrowYeah, I sold off something like 600 books of my collection over the last 2 years. Now I'm down to about ~100.

haven't missed anything yet.

600?

:jaw-dropping:

You know, for me, I don't feel any great need to dump any of my RPGs.  The closest I've come to that is backing up a lot of my downloaded pdfs onto multiple disks to free up room--basically, a bunch fo stuff I won't use any time soom.  But I'm pretty happy with what I have, print-wise.

Where I HAVE made a change is in the length of my "to-buy" list.  A year ago, it was a very long list.  Today, there are maybe ten-twelve items on it, and some of those are for games that don't have release dates until mid next-year.  I find myself buying much less, through a circumstance of being happy what I have, a lack of titles that interest me, and getting burned one too many times on internet "darlings", so to speak.

EDIT: 600, Mike?! :eek:

Quote from: JongWK600?

:jaw-dropping:

yeah, thats about 2 books a month for about the last 15 years + my yearly Palladium Chistmas deal.

oh, and I bought a good sized collection from a friend @ one point, so that made up about a third of it.

Quote from: BalbinusAnyone here done anything similar?

Nope.  I only own one RPG that I'd part with despite having two bookcases worth of them (maybe more).  Why?  Because I've been role-playing for almost 30 years now and I never know what I'll want to read, reference, or use again later.  For example, I have a ton of old D&D stuff that I never used, some from the late 1970s.  I dusted some of it off to run my recent D&D campaign, which was loosely based on the A series of classic AD&D modules.  Same with D&D and all sorts of other books.  Never know when I'll use them again.

I do find this rather ironic in light of what people were saying in the growth of Indie games thread concerning the resale of games and their replay value, though.

I am finally getting rid of the 60 or so boxes of books I've been keeping since I worked in publishing in the late 1980s, early 1990s.  So far, I've given at least a dozen boxes away and I'm at the point where I might just throw out a few dozen more if I can't give them away.  

Quote from: BalbinusFor me it was when I created a database of all the rpg books I owned, and put in a field for whether I had used them in play or not. When I saw the results, I decided to get rid of most of my collection.

Hell, calling it a collection shows in a nutshell exactly where I had gone wrong.

Nothing wrong with having a collection for reference.  Heck, I've never played the vast majority of games I own.  I do, however, continually reference all sorts of games for setting and systems ideas for the homebrew games that I play.

[Added:  Part of it is that my tastes in rules and settings change over time.  Games that I don't care much about at one point can become very important to me at another point and vice versa.]

I have gotten rid of a bunch of my game stuff and I still have some games to get rid of.

I got rid of the games because they arent being used/wont be used and for me if they arent being used/wont be used they go.  It frees up space and money, money that can be used on other things.

I think unlike many here and at the other major gaming fora, my "collection" is a mere one bookshelf wide. Nevertheless I've culled it in the past and I mean to do so again.

The real problem is all the wargames and books, but I have similar intentions for them.

The reason is simply that we're running out of space and I'd like to get some use out of the spare bedroom as something other than a storage room.

QuoteGames are meant to be played.

As an internet wargaming acquaintance said, a great deal of what's wrong with the hobby could be solved if people would restrict themselves to buying what they play, and playing what they buy. Unfortunately the amateur designer in all of us justifies a lot of "research acquisitions". However I try to restrict those to items poached inexpensively from used book stores and eBay.

But now that this subject has come up I think I might be more likely to choose PDF over print format even for games I do intend to play. Goodness knows I could probably sell my entire RPG collection and rely entirely on free games available over the Internet, for both "traditional" and "hippy" designs. Harder to do with boardgames, though.

Quote from: Zachary The FirstEDIT: 600, Mike?! :eek:

yup, I kept everything I bought and received for gifts since 1989 or so. to be fair there were a lot of small suplement and such in there, but still a lotof books.

Quote from: Elliot WilenAs an internet wargaming acquaintance said, a great deal of what's wrong with the hobby could be solved if people would restrict themselves to buying what they play, and playing what they buy. Unfortunately the amateur designer in all of us justifies a lot of "research acquisitions". However I try to restrict those to items poached inexpensively from used book stores and eBay.

This is what made me sell many of the games I have sold.   I adopted that mindset about buying what you play and getting rid of the stuff that sits and isnt used and/or will never be used.

Quote from: Elliot WilenAs an internet wargaming acquaintance said, a great deal of what's wrong with the hobby could be solved if people would restrict themselves to buying what they play, and playing what they buy.

If everyone did that, I suspect the commercial part of the hobby would collapse.  I suspect that large numbers of the role-playing books that get bought never get played.  Remove those sales and I suspect a lot of FLGSs and smaller RPG companies would go over.  Heck, I don't know if I'll ever play DitV but I bought a copy to see what it's all about.  If I wasn't willing to do that, that would be one less Indie sale.