So, yesterday, after taking my son to the doctor due to an unfortunate rash he developed in response to a new laundry detergent, I said to him, "Son! There are times in life when someone else's misfortune can be your gain.  Sad, but true.  Let's go into the local used bookstore and see what all the penniless college students had to unload at the end of the semester."

Now, I didn't buy any of these things, but I spotted some (to my eye) rarities.  After the Cthulhu d20 discovery from a couple of months back, I figured I'd get your opinion on them.

Dark Sun - the original boxed set, plus three of the boxed adventures.  Mostly in good shape, but I never played 2nd ed. D&D, nor am I ever likely to.  But the setting always looked cool to me.

Al Qadim - again, a boxed set.

Engel - the WW edition, and virtually pristine.  Pretty, but I hear it's also pretty useless.

Serenity - again, virtually pristine, and only asking half of the origina cover price.

Starship Troopers - not the RPG, but the old boxed boardgame from the late 70s.  Pretty beat up, but it looked like everything was there.

There was lots more, but those are the items that caught my eye.  Any of them really worth getting, even if I might not ever play them?

!i!

If worse comes to worse, snatch up all you can and sell that shit off for something you want and can use.  IF you can spare that sort of change yourself in the first place.  

Dollars to doughnuts, somebody somewhere wants those things and will either give you money or give you something that you want in return for them.

The Dark Sun bit sounds like a very good buy for the amount of content, though.

I wish the used bookstores around here would carry cool stuff again; all we got around here is WW stuff, and not the good bits at that.

The old Starship Troopers is an interesting game, though I've only played the Skinny scenario. Probably hard to find an opponent these days but if you leave it in your son's room you might be able to recruit him through osmosis.

Mmmm. . . Starship Troopers is a find (I had the original boardgame for years when I lived in Topeka and thoroughly enjoed it the three times that I got to play). The Dark Sun stuff was likely a bargain, too, given the price that it can command on eBay and at Noble Knight.

I recently picked up a 1e DC Heroes box set with NM contents (the box had a lot of shelf wear) and a shrink-wrapped Buck Rogers: High Adventure Cliffhangers core box for less than $10 total. I was pretty happy with that and added some $1 copies of the Poor Wizard's Almanac in to round things out.