Take 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.
I would say 80% on a book by book basis, though a good chunk of that would be for one or two sessions or for supplements that don't see regular use.
40% easy. And it was higher before I purged the shelves.
Maybe 10% with a very generous definition of actual use that includes using one thing out of a hardback that is hundreds of pages long or running a game one time. 5% is probably a more realistic number though.
Easily under half of my in-print because there's so much to explore within each "imagination seed packet" (book). There's lots of setting expansion material I can't reach because there's not enough shared time for my friends and I in our adulthood.
If we're also including .pdfs, then we're talking less that a quarter, maybe even under 10%. That is because I got all ambitious and crazy with free products and the quest for that perfect new system. In the end I found I was searching and learning systems more than playing, which was detracting from shared playtime with friends.
In the end the novelty of new systems with friends was less fun than enjoying new campaigns with old systems. System familiarity made the mechanics fade away more and the fun stand out in relief. Yeah, I crossed the old, fuddy-duddy line now... :(
Less than 0.1%. But I'm a big collector.
5%-10%
Hmm.... Probably about 5% of the core rule books I own have been actually played. (Not counting the collection of 1000+ free RPGs I've collected off the internet over the years.)
Probably around 50% of my total collection has seen use in actual play.
If we're talking print items, hrm. A good bit higher than it used to be, since I sold off most of my collection a couple years ago. Like many another gamer, I spent my first several years grabbing damn near everything that caught my eye, so I had 1st ed copies of Recon, Runequest, Shadowrun, Ysgarth, Lee Gold's Japanese conversion of C&S, and all manner of adventures I'd never touched, mostly for Champions.
Now? Hrm. I've got originals of the Judges' Guild Tarantis and Viridistan "city-states," some author's/contributor's copies of sourcebooks in systems or milieus I never actually GMed (GURPS IST, Battletech, MERP, DC Heroes, the like). By page count, I probably use or have used about 60-70% of what I have left.
I have the habit of buying new games I see that are not like any game I have or that cover genres or play styles that aren't covered by games I already own just to see how they handle the material. I am also a sucker for certain genres like anime based games or horror themed games. I am also a sucker for a sale. I rebought a bunch of stuff for Mekton even though I haven't run or played that game in 15-20 years because it's nostalgic for me, anime themed and was heavily discounted.
Currently, I'd say about 90% conservatively.
I 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.
Quote from: yosemitemike;874744I rebought a bunch of stuff for Mekton even though I haven't run or played that game in 15-20 years because it's nostalgic for me, anime themed and was heavily discounted.
Mekton is just plain good. I haven't played it as an RPG in quite some time, but I do still use it for miniature wargaming with whatever sci-fi miniatures I want every 4 or 5 months or so.
The results have been very interesting so far.
Quote from: NathanIW;874753Mekton is just plain good. I haven't played it as an RPG in quite some time, but I do still use it for miniature wargaming with whatever sci-fi miniatures I want every 4 or 5 months or so.
The results have been very interesting so far.
I wouldn't have bought it otherwise but there is next to no chance that I will ever use those books in a game. I basically just bought them to have them.
At one point or another I have given all my games a whirl. Even 4e D&D Gamma World.
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.
For print books and ignoring the oodles of free pdfs, I have probably used about a quarter of the collection at one point or another.
While there has been a fair number of books lost over the years, some theft, some traded, and a few given away, I have probably 90% of everything I've ever purchased and will periodically go through them. Plenty of times something that I picked up a decade or two ago and lost interest at the time now seems interesting and useful.
Quote from: Simlasa;875052Straight up play? Not much of it... but borrowed from or reworked or inspired what showed up on the table? Most of it.
I'm the same. I actually purged everything about 8 years ago or so...then I started the podcast and started getting lots of stuff again.
I've read every single thing on my shelves, and almost all of the PDFs I've downloaded. I take inspiration from then all. There's very little of my shelf I play per se, but I steal a lot from everything when I run games. That goes double for OSR compatible stuff.
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'd say this is a good description of my own catalog, today.
Being a 3.X fan, I've got a lot of "have a Feat from this book, PrC from this book, a magic item from this book...", that the system 100% sells itself on. By that definition, I use a good 80% of my library.
I own several iterations of the Star Wars RPG (d6, d20, FFG), and regularly mine all of the various books, for plot points, vehicles, personas, etc. I'm currently trying to see if I can modify WEG's Darkstryder campaign into something workable, for our group's tastes.
But if we're talking "actual use", like direct games rules or named material, I'd say use falls to like 20-40% direct use. Magic spells in 3.X could use a lot of consolidation IMO; how many "does 1d6 damage per level, shaped like a
" spells do you need? :idunno:
100% I don't buy anything that I haven't gotten a use out of in some fashion.
100%.
I don't own any gamebooks I haven't used or utilized in some manner.
Quote from: Omega;874764At one point or another I have given all my games a whirl. Even 4e D&D Gamma World.
I played that once. It convinced me to never play D&D 4e
I was going to say some abysmally low percentage, but when I sat down and thought about it a bit more I realized that most of my games I've played. Not necessarily recently, mind you. Very little goes entirely untouched in my collection.
On the other hand, my general standard is: If I've played or run a campaign using that game and/or setting, then the book counts as being used, so almost all of my 3.5 D&D stuff (except the modern/Spycraft) got 'used', even if I personally had little use for any given book. Obviously I can discount stuff bought AFTER the last time I played or ran a game.
So all of my RIFTS books count, except Lemuria, which I just got two or three months ago, since I was playing in, and briefly ran, a RIFTS game, but I may only count as 'half points' things like Nightspawn, since they were available but not really 'in use'.
Of course, the last year has been pretty lean, gaming wise, so I've currently got a lot of stuff sitting fallow upon my shelves (er... boxed up in storage...), sadly.
I'm going to say... maybe 60%, and that seems on the low end. If I'm not playing or running a game I tend to only buy a core book, so that's a lot of titles but comparatively little shelf space.
Quote from: Novastar;875084snip
i just wana say nice profile pic
now as to my self if im liberal with my figures 1% not because i dont want to use them but iv been with out a group for like 8 years now and have yet to find one in my small town.
and im working on my own game and you know what they say about writers good ones barrow the best steal and thats a little how i look at rpgs there's stuff iv payed for only to look at the moving parts and help me figure out how to make an idea i have work on the nuts and bolts end .
that and i dident start buying rpg books my self till after my old group died
At this point, only the Guide to Glorantha, and a few novelty games like HoL: Human Occupied Landfill, Fiasco and Baron Munchausen aren't really used.
Generally, I made a policy of only buying physical copy of games I am going to play. I probably ought to have played Fiasco by now though.
As such, I have about ten games: D&D, Traveller, RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu, Paranoia, Pendragon, World of Darkness games (Vampire, Werewolf and Mage)and Feng Shui.
Actually, I've not really played Pendragon either and the RuneQuest has been generally used for historical gaming (not Glorantha). I did actually sell on my physical collection of Ars Magica books, and a bunch of others over time, as they just weren't getting any practical use.
I do have hundreds of pdf copy games though - most are just bought for reference and ideas rather than active gaming.
Add me to the choir of play very few, steal inspiration from the collection.
Everything I own in print has seen play at least once or twice.
I got rid of games I don't play many years ago.
"How Much of your RPG Collection has seen Play?"
As always, not enough.
Not NEAR enough.
At least 50%, rapidly growing.
They've all seen Play. Kid, however, they've only seen on the big screen when "House Party" was on TV.
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.
The answer would be a pretty fair chunk of what I have now, because I sold three boxes crammed with stuff I never used.
Maybe 40%? 50%
I am not including PDFs or magazines.
All of it now. I got rid of the RPGs I wasn't or would never play.
10% of my current collection, maybe 15%.
Of all the games I have ever owned? 2%?
I've used in some capacity almost every D&D, Earthdawn, Savage Worlds, and Shatterzone book that sits on my shelf. I have a lot of Savage Worlds PDFs I haven't used for play such as Solomon Kane, High Space, Accursed, Winter Eternal, Streets of Bedlam, some Ultimate Guides and Mercenary Breed by Mystical Throne Entertainment.
I have a Pathfinder core book and some PDFs I have never used. We never did start a Pathfinder game.
I have a Bare Bones Fantasy book that I have never played. I've used the random dungeon generator tables in the back for games though.
I have a Trinity book I have never played.
I've also got a lot of other PDFs that have never seen play ranging from RPGs to wargames to board games. Fading Suns, Blue Planet, Warzone, Mutant Chronicles, One Dice , Skirmish, Cards& Quests, Deadly Missions , Demon World, FATE, Outrider, Star Clash, Chaos 6010 A.D., Pirates & Dragons , Era the Consortium, Era of War, and Neverwhere from a quick glance through files.
So for stuff that I actually own in print, I've used over 75%. For PDF stuff, I've probably used 25% or so, I have a lot of PDFs that get read and never played.
Really it all comes down to time and budget. We like Savage Worlds and have a lot of books for it, so it is the one getting played right now.
Right now I am running my Necessary Evil game biweekly. Ted is working on an Interface Zero/Shadowrun type of Savage Worlds game to run biweekly as well.
Quote from: Daddy Warpig;876041"How Much of your RPG Collection has seen Play?"
As always, not enough.
Not NEAR enough.
This is the best answer! :worship:
Quote from: Tetsubo;874857I'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.
Just curious, when you say collector, does that mean you put them on the shelf with the hope that they increase in value or do you buy them to read the contents, but not necessarily play them.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;876854Just curious, when you say collector, does that mean you put them on the shelf with the hope that they increase in value or do you buy them to read the contents, but not necessarily play them.
For me, the interest is in reading them, not investing (which is a terrible idea anyway).
I'd actually LOVE to play everything at least once. But I own hundreds of systems, thousands of supplements, and lately I have had almost no chance to play. Realistically, it's never gonna happen.
Back in the day, I had a pretty extensive RPG book collection and it had almost ALL seen play.
Now, since I became well known as a reviewer, I've got an absurdly large RPG book collection (so much so I've had to get extra shelf-space) and a lot of it hasn't seen play. Mainly, of course, because a lot of the stuff I get now for free is stuff I wouldn't have been interested in enough to buy in the old days.
I am slowly reducing my collection to only those items that will get regular usage or have huge significant value to me. More importantly I have set aside a very finite amount of space and I am only keeping what will fit.
Everything else is being given away, sold, or thrown out.
Quote from: Brander;878264snip thrown out.
what throw out rpg items what kind of person are you ?
#shockandawe
Quote from: kosmos1214;878286what throw out rpg items what kind of person are you ?
#shockandawe
I'm sure I'm evil, pure evil :)
Having worked in and around the publishing and printing industry, along with the rise of PDF and ebooks, I no longer sweat throwing away physical books unless I have reason to believe it might somehow be actually rare and/or unavailable electronically.
I'd say 60% of all core rulebooks I own, I have played or run at least once. Supplements are another matter...
With dwindling shelf space at home and a horrific real-to-dollar exchange rate, I'm not likely to support the industry much in the near future. So I expect this percentage to climb. ;)
Quote from: kosmos1214;878286what throw out rpg items what kind of person are you ?
#shockandawe
He's the selfless person who is raising the value of existing collections because he is increasing rarity.
It's like old comic books. Over the decades, millions of mums threw them out. What survives now has value. Newer stuff, lovingly wrapped in collector's plastic, mint as the day they were purchased, not so much.
In the 80s I ran/played everything the group bought at least once. Some was shit and incomprehensible (shadowrun 1e, Rolemaster, some FGU games...) and never got played again but for a while there we were trying everything on the market for a period of about 6 years.
These days I run a DC heroes Play by post, heavily modded and that's about it, so around 1% of the games I own get used.
Putting it like that, maybe it's time for another purge.
Quote from: Brander;878423I'm sure I'm evil, pure evil :)
Having worked in and around the publishing and printing industry, along with the rise of PDF and ebooks, I no longer sweat throwing away physical books unless I have reason to believe it might somehow be actually rare and/or unavailable electronically.
Quote from: saskganesh;878538He's the selfless person who is raising the value of existing collections because he is increasing rarity.
It's like old comic books. Over the decades, millions of mums threw them out. What survives now has value. Newer stuff, lovingly wrapped in collector's plastic, mint as the day they were purchased, not so much.
but but but but but its a book A book all books have value whats next book burning
edit you are making my inner paper master cry