Currently, maybe over 90% but I consider that too low and am working to improve on it.

Probably in the 15% range - I run 3 or so games a week and play in others, but the material used tends to be from a fairly narrow range which gets used a lot, while the bulk of material goes unused. Rules systems are the most likely thing to go entirely unused (Iron Heroes) or get used once (4e Gamma World). Adventures are much more likely to be used, to the extent that an unusable D&D adventure is an annoyance. Some old TSR era adventures get used repeatedly; I've probably run The Shrine of Kollchap from 'What is Dungeons & Dragons?' a dozen times.

Quote from: Spinachcat;874750I have strict rules for my game shelves.

Every year, I review the collection. Was something used this year? Great, it goes to Section One. "Used" means I played it or used it for prep.

If it wasn't used this year, it goes in Section Two. If something stays in Section Two for 3 years, it gets sold on eBay UNLESS it is something so rare and wonderful that I fear would be hell to replace (like my OA 1e 1st printing).

This works for me because if something stay in Section Two for 3 years, its lost my interest. When I review Section Two each year, I put stuff aside to run at cons. If the con game doesn't happen, I usually recognize that game has lost my interest.

I don't cull PDFs, just dead tree. I've got 100s of free PDFs I haven't read.

I used to sell stuff, but that's too much effort now. I quite often give stuff away at the London D&D Meetup, but even that can be too much effort especially for hardbacks that need carting in by public transport. And there's always the "Well I *might* want to use something from this some day..."

I'm not really a collector -- I rarely buy something I don't plan to play. Counting only physical game books I currently own, and considering systems as discrete units:

Currently on my shelf and played:

• Paranoia (the maligned edition)
• Mongoose Lone Wolf
• Call of Cthulhu
• Mongoose Conan
• Traveller: TNE
• WHFRP  1E
• Hackmaster (current edition)
• Pendragon
• A|State
• HERO
• Rogue Trader
• 1E AD&D
• Eclipse Phase*
• GURPS 4E
• WEG Star Wars
• MERP
• Rolemaster 2
• Rolemaster Standard System
• D&D 4E
• D&D 3E
• Heavy Gear
• Silhouette

Owned but never played:

• Dragon Warriors (received as a gift)
• Mongoose Traveller (prepped a campaign and did group character gen, but never played)
• Cthulhutech (nice concept, ultimately poor execution)
• Interstellar Elite Combat (found it cheap and picked it up because it looked obscure)
• Continuum (would love to run it, doubt I ever will)
• Guide to Glorantha (planned to run RQ6 Glorantha, until the recent changes at Chaosium)
• Spacemaster

Which comes to 76% played

If you actually added up every book, it would be closer to 90 - 95% used in play, as I own much more material for games I play or I've played, than ones I don't -- and, again, I don't tend to buy stuff unless I intend to see it used in play.

The least used of my used games would be Traveller: TNE, with which I ran one of the intro scenarios 2 or 3 times over the years, but I also used the setting for a 6 or 9 month SilTrav game.

*Eclipse Phase is the only game on the list that I've played but haven't GMed.

With the exception of books I bought and hated, pretty much all of it in some form or another. I have always canabalized material from modules, supplements and rules systems in some way. This may have to do with my purchasing habits. Typically I only buy books when I need them. So say I am running a samurai campaign all of a sudden, that is when I go out and buy all the Samurai-themed RPG books I can and comb through them for material.

5% sounds about right.

About 97%.

There are only two games in my collection I have not played or run an event for, Top Secret, because of the wonky combat system. It's still used as a source of ideas for other games because the details are very good, and Caeron d20.

Caeron was an original Sci-Fi setting published under a d20 license. It's a game that has everything except for a soul. It's bland, without any unique setting elements that allow it to stand out.

There were eight basic character species including Humans of course, there is just one solar system in the core book, Caeron, and all the action focuses on just one planet, Andraeus. There are no GM's map of Andraeus, and only two pages of the book that describe a couple of dozen settlements.

Unsurprising with the planetary description, it includes no NPCs, no plot hooks, no history, and no storylines for the GM to even have a place to begin. The GM has to make all that stuff up, ...from scratch. There's a three page adventure writeup that starts like this;

"You have received orders from your commanding officer to investigate rumors of Hau'keen and Boark activity to the North of Redhome. The details of the mission are vague, but if you complete the mission, you will receive a bonus of 1,000 quasars each"

There's so much work to do with this to get a player evenly remotely intrigued to to goo along with such as beginning, that as a GM, you might as well write up your own sci-fi universe.

Finally, there are very few charts, and the book is pretty much missing random tables, as in, the Sahara Desert has more watering holes than random tables that can be found in this book. this book feels heretical.

As a GM, when I'm looking at a new game, imma want some random encounter tables, random equipment and magic/psi generation tables, and maybe an encounter generation system in place, as part of the game, just to save me some time. Any good full RPG has that. Caeron has none of this.

It's the example of what not to make to keep players and GMs alike interested and entertained.

Quote from: GameDaddy;874804Finally, there are very few charts, and the book is pretty much missing random tables, as in, the Sahara Desert has more watering holes than random tables that can be found in this book. this book feels heretical.

As a GM, when I'm looking at a new game, imma want some random encounter tables, random equipment and magic/psi generation tables, and maybe an encounter generation system in place, as part of the game, just to save me some time. Any good full RPG has that. Caeron has none of this.

It's the example of what not to make to keep players and GMs alike interested and entertained.

There are many, many games that are basically nothing more than character generation and task resolution. I find these pretty much worthless.

Quote from: NathanIW;874692Take a gander at your shelves and folders and give an estimate (or calculation) of how many of your RPG products (print and PDF) have seen use in actual play.  You get to decide what counts as seeing actual play, but I hope we can at least all use the minimum standard that you could actually identify what elements were used rather than a general vague notion of increasing setting knowledge or general inspiration.  If you really want to count that as use in actual play you can, of course.

For me, it's definitely less than 10%.  I tend to get a new thing every month (mostly PDFs these days) or so and have been playing since Holmes D&D and have branched into a huge variety of games.  While I have sold some stuff, I think I'm still under 10%. Maybe even 5% if I count all books I ever owned.

EDIT:  You can also share how often you play if you want to give some context.  I run a weekly game, and a monthly game and play in another weekly game and another monthly game.

Good question!

Ars Magica - yes, but not all of the supplements.
Star Wars Saga (complete) -  no
Rogue Trader (complete) - no
Vampire the Masquerade Revised/20th - no
Forgotten Realms 3.5 complete collection - no
d20 supplements I still have - no
pathfinder core book - yes
pdfs from drivethrurpg - no

So probably about 10 to 15% of my collection is about right.

I use about 5% of my collection -- but that is just a guess really.  I have no idea.

But I play almost every Sunday, so it is all just fine with me.

(You crazy junkie ... where's my next fix MAN!)  

About 10%, sadly. SO many games, so little precious free time.

I'd say 1-2% but I am a collector. I have 60+ linear feet of shelf space dedicated to RPG books and numerous digital books. I do tend to 'stael' ideas from diverse sources as well. I might only take one plot point, monster or chart from any single source.

Most of it. A good 90%. If I ain't going to play a game or have never played it I either play it or get rid of it. I'm not much of a collector these days. If things take up space meaninglessly I get rid of them.

Probably 30%.

(The average to this point is in the 40s (from mostly taking the higher number when a range was given), with a lot below 15% and nearly as many at or above 90%.)

Straight up play? Not much of it... but borrowed from or reworked or inspired what showed up on the table? Most of it.