Over the years, there have been some gaps in my gaming collection I've never quite been able to fill. These are games I would have liked to have played, but which always eluded my reach. For some reason, they never made it to the shelves of any of the bookstores, toy stores, and game shops I went to. They include:

Ringworld - the Holy Grail of RPGs for me. I love the books, and would love to have had this game back in the day.

The Fantasy Trip - I ran across one minor supplement for this game, and it's the closest I ever came to getting a look at it.

Games I finally landed in recent years, long, long after I would have had the chance to run them for my old game groups:

OD&D - I managed to grab this and its supplements in pdf while WotC let them be sold.

Metamorphosis Alpha - Another of the early RPGs I never saw back in the day, but which I finally was able to buy on pdf.

The Arduin Grimoire (original 3 booklets) - I think these books would have caused my original game group to shit a collective brick had we had them back in the early 80s.

Any others have games that have eluded them over the years?

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;401731OD&D - I managed to grab this and its supplements in pdf while WotC let them be sold.

I got lucky, and traded my copy of the 1e Gamma World rules for the three books and first four supplements, back in about 1984.  I don't think the guy's dad ever found out what happened to them...

Quote from: ColonelHardisson;401731Metamorphosis Alpha - Another of the early RPGs I never saw back in the day, but which I finally was able to buy on pdf.

After keeping an eye out for 25 years, I found a really nice copy of the original MA in my FLGS just a few weeks ago! Cheaper than eBay, too.

The one that's still missing for me is the first Jorune book.

And the Midnight at the Well of Souls box set.

Dune

I would like to get a look at Ringworld and The Arcanum 2ed.

Empire of the Petal Throne. The actual, physical boxed set (I have the PDFs).
One day I'll solve this once and for all.

Metamorphosis Alpha, one of the TCI translations of S.F.3D Maschinenkriger, probably more, can't think straight right now.

The only one I've ever really wanted and somehow never picked up is Monsters, Monsters!.

For me its TORG.
 I read the three book trilogy that was meant to introduce the setting and game - loved those books. Never got a chance to own or play the game.


- Ed C.

TORG for me as well. I also wish I'd picked up the rappan althuk reloaded boxed set when I saw it on the shelf.

Some of the rarer/older Call of Cthulhu stuff for me. I remember Horror at the Orient Express and Walker in the Wastes on the shelves in the game shop back in the 90s, but I wasn't that into the heavy books at the time - shame. Later I've aqquired stuff like Beyond the Mountains of Madness and Golden Dawn, but I have never seen the before mentioned two in a reasonable price range.

Also, a couple of years ago I found three of the AD&D Birthright box-sets dirt cheap at a secondhand bookstore, and later bought the other boxes on Ebay, but the actual Birthright basic-box has evaded me so far, which is kinda bugging me, since I really like the setting and the whole army-battle-cards-thing, so I feel it is somehow missing in my collection.

Quote from: Koltar;401768For me its TORG.
 I read the three book trilogy that was meant to introduce the setting and game - loved those books. Never got a chance to own or play the game.

This one surprises me. I remember TORG being pretty common in my area. The various supplements and sourcebooks were ubiquitous. I still have my original boxed set and most of the realm books. It's weird to see how something I always thought of as common was rare in other areas.

Quote from: DKChannelBoredom;401778Some of the rarer/older Call of Cthulhu stuff for me. I remember Horror at the Orient Express and Walker in the Wastes on the shelves in the game shop back in the 90s, but I wasn't that into the heavy books at the time - shame. Later I've aqquired stuff like Beyond the Mountains of Madness and Golden Dawn, but I have never seen the before mentioned two in a reasonable price range.

Horror at the Orient Express - I think that was the one that was supposed to have been a super-deluxe CoC adventure. I remember getting a poll in the mail from Chaosium (I was on the snail-mail list, long, long before the internet) asking if there was a call for a really premium adventure that could cost well over $100 (this was ~20 years ago). It was supposed to include, among other things, an actual (as opposed to cardstock) evil idol of some kind. I think Orient Express ended up being that adventure, much reduced. I never saw it for sale anywhere besides in Chaosium's catalogs.

I've always wanted, and have never been able to find for a reasonable price, a copy of either edition of RuneQuest prior to the 3rd, Avalon Hill, edition. Nobody I gamed with circa 1979+ ever had a copy or had even seen one. I was the only one with the Avalon Hill edition, and it was met with a thundering lack of interest when I showed it to the rest of my original game group. I'd like to see the original version of the game (I know it was the basis for BRP) and adventures like Pavis and Big Rubble. I vaguely recall seeing Big Rubble at a shop in the early-to-mid-'80s, but I didn't have the cash for it at the time.

Bifrost -- Published as three separate books in the UK around 1977-1979. I saw reviews in White Dwarf but never saw a copy of any of the books in the US. I hear it is nothing special, but it the only early RPG I know of that I've never even seen.

I bought Horror on the Orient Express cheap from my local game shop where it was being neglected and slowly getting more and more beaten up by shelf-wear... still have it. Awesome box set.

I think the only game book I really wanted that I never got my hands on was the leatherbound Call of Cthulhu anniversary edition. I didn't have the money when it came out. I don't have the money now. I'll pretty much never get it. No huge loss.

As an old Niven fan, Ringworld is sorely missing from my collection.


I actually have an extra copy of TORG I got of a friend who was a bit strapped on cash.