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.