I'm not sure if this belongs here, but JimBobOz's post about replacing missing, torn or defective pages got me to thinking. (A dangerous affair, I know.) How many of you have had defective materials sold to you?

In my years of gaming, I have purchased two books that were defective. At the time I never even thought to contact the publishers, now I wish I would have thought of that.

So what do you folks do to your game materials to preserve them? I purchase between four and six Shadowrun books as they are released. One or two are kept unused, until needed, the rest we use as players and as a group for the game. I also try to keep one copy just for me, for the collection.

I've had a few books rebound, and laminated over the years, as it's become cheaper and more accessible.

And you?

In general, it's not been a problem for me. Either the thing falls apart in the first month or so, in which case I return it for a replacement, or it last for years.

The other thing is that I usually run the games, rather than play them, and people usually want a game from the last few years. So, there I have my twenty-year-old copy of BTRC's Timelords, but it's not going to wear out, because it hasn't been played for years... :mad:

I've sometimes laminated books, but that's it. They get lost or stolen or permanently put on the bookshelf long before they could wear out. Unless, as I said, it's the first month or so...

Actually, there were two exceptions - Traveller 4th ed, and Shatterzone. Traveller 4th ed when the pages fell out I decided was no loss and let go, and SZ I kept for a bit in a ring binder instead. But that, like most of my collection of many years, got lost in '99.

Quote from: Serious PaulSo what do you folks do to your game materials to preserve them?  I purchase between four and six Shadowrun books as they are released. One or two are kept unused, until needed, the rest we use as players and as a group for the game. I also try to keep one copy just for me, for the collection.
 

I take care of my things.  In addition, I don't loan them to others.  I don't hand them around the table.

That's really all there is to it.  Don't disrepect your own property and don't give others a chance to disrepect it.  

And your players should be purchasing their own books.  You shouldn't have to be a library for them.

Whoa, easy there killer.

We take pretty decent care of our books-the players have purchased some of their own, and in some of the other systems we play they've purchased all of them. ( I own the Shadowrun books, one player has all the Earthdawn books, another has D&D covered...It works for us.)

Quote from: GabrielI take care of my things. In addition, I don't loan them to others. I don't hand them around the table.

Sounds like there is a story behind this.

I guess our group has a much more relaxed atmosphere. My books are my players books, we all take decent care of them (Minus a phase where we thought we could bind some ourselves. We still regret that.)

I also don't play with anyone I wouldn't trust in my home, which includes treating my property with the proper amount of respect.

By the by, I don't mind picking up more books than everyone else. (Because I do.) As long as we have fun, and I don't go broke (Believe me when I say I am no danger of that any time soon.) doing it, I don't mind.

I generally have one book for everyone to use and one copy for me to have on the shelf for my own use. I've had books fall apart due to really getting hard use but I tend to carefully seperate out all the pages when that happens and put it all in a ring binder with those little reinforcing rings on the holes to stop them tearing. I've had a bunch of AD&D 2nd ed stuff that's been like this for years and still gets used at times.

Thanks
Frank

Two books in total, and both because the printer decided they could save a little money by using cheaper binding.

First was Dangerous Journeys: Mythus. GDW ordered the more expensive binding glue and the printer decided to save a little money by using the cheaper.

Second was the GURPS 4e character book. This is hardbound, a lay-flat binding at that. The printer was penny wise and pound foolish and skimped on the binding.

Quote from: mythusmageTwo books in total, and both because the printer decided they could save a little money by using cheaper binding.

First was Dangerous Journeys: Mythus. GDW ordered the more expensive binding glue and the printer decided to save a little money by using the cheaper.

Second was the GURPS 4e character book. This is hardbound, a lay-flat binding at that. The printer was penny wise and pound foolish and skimped on the binding.

heh, I had some Dangerous Journeys books that fell apart as well. But I wasn't too bothered as the game was not that great anyway. Stuck all the page sin a binder and gave it to a friend. He didn't like the game that much either.

Thanks
Frank

I tend to use sticky tape. Can't say I've ever bought a duplicate book.

On the boardgaming front as a kid I got a copy of Republic of Rome with misaligned print on the counters.  They were useless because the text overlapped the diecuts.  I wrote Avalon Hill and they sent me a correct counter sheet rather quickly.

My copy of Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader started losing pages from the binding the week I bought it.  Since it was still useable and the company was overseas I never did anything about it.

I bought a copy of the Mekton Zeta tech book in a used bin and discovered the ink on more than half the pages was too light to read.  Since I bought it used I thought it would be uncouth to try to get a replacement copy out of R. Tal.

As a kid my game group utterly destroyed the biding and covers of my PHB, UA, and DMG.  For the PHB and UA I removed the pages from the binding, three-hole punched them, and put them in a binder.  My friend Dave like the results so much he did the same thing to his copy of MERP, which I thought was unnecessary at the time.  Nowadays I'm not hard enough on my books to really need to do anything like that.

My copy of Shadowrun 3e has a couple pages in it that just weren't printed for whatever reason.  Luckily, they were non-essential pages, so it took me a while to realize that it was even an error.