The Great RPG Book Purge

[stevekenson]

There is no way you can be an RPG hobbyist and professional for nearly three decades (only about half that time for the “pro” part, I’ll note) without accumulating a considerable collection of books. Problem is, of those books, the vast majority are ones I no longer use or reference, or have never used, and probably never will. I’ve got enough RPG material to last me for lifetimes of gaming at this point, particularly given my tendency to design my own stuff.

Meanwhile, I am newly enamoured of reading PDFs and eBooks on my iPad (which is a reading device that has solved my issues with reading electronic books) and in dire need of space. Thus I have decided to embark on the Great RPG Book Purge and do away with a large percentage of my physical RPG book collection.

Here are the guidelines I’m following:

1. If the book is something I’ve never used or referenced, it goes.

2. If I have an electronic copy of the book (PDF or eBook), the physical book goes.

3. If I do not have an electronic copy of the book, I can either acquire one (if I think it’s worthwhile), hold on to the physical book, or get rid of the book anyway.

4. If I wrote some or all of the book, I might hold on to one physical copy of it. The same may be the case with other books that have serious sentimental value or are truly valuable core books, but I intend to be ruthless in such cases.

5. If the book is an especially rare or unique volume (such as my Limited Edition copy of Shadowrun 3e with my name embossed on the cover). I’ll hold on to it.

Where are all the books going? Chances are, I’ll offer them to Noble Knight, since that’s what I did the last time I purged extra comp copies and other extraneous RPG books. They were a breeze to work with and it was far easier than trying to dispose of the books piecemeal. The idea of handling individual eBay auctions or even just shipping gives me hives.

I will also focus my future book acquisitions on electronic versions to keep the clutter down and make this effort worthwhile.

I know many of my friends and fellow gamers are bibliophiles who will no doubt find this effort horrifying. As I respect your views, please respect mine and do not clutter the comments section with posts about how you could never do this, or discussions of the merits of ebooks versus hardcopy. If you want to give some of my books a good home, well, Noble Knight has a very effective cataloging, sales, and shipping operation.

The purge should commence soon, but I expect it will be a work in progress for a fair while.

Comments

[hackard.livejournal.com]

I've done the same thing for the last couple of moves, and it's really quite liberating. Pretty much the only stuff I've held on to completely is my 2E Ravenloft collection, because my work with the Kargatane netbooks led fairly directly to my job(s) with SJ Games, and because it's the one setting I still wish I could get back to playing. (I'm looking forward to next year . . .)