I've found, over the years, that almost any RPG book I keep but think "well, I'll never use that again!", I end up using, sooner or later. For example, I kept my Robotech RPG books around for over a decade thinking I was just holding on to them as a reminder of my RPG youth, when suddenly I got cause to run a campaign with them again (a couple of years ago).
Do you have any books like that? Books that:
1) you actually USED at some point in at least one game
2) think you will never use again
3) have kept for some reason
I am bit of a pack rat and managed to keep together 90% of stuff from back in the day. Only things I got rid of were my Middle Earth Roleplaying Stuff. I bought a fair amount but they invariably sucked compared to the utility I got from Ars Magica or Harn. Finally I gave them a good home with a friend that was a rabid Middle Earth Fan.
I am going to ditch my entire collection of World of Darkness stuff except for the 1st edition Vampire the Masquerade book I own. I just never ever going to use the original stuff especially when I have the GURPS version on hand to use as a "monster manual".
Some of the stuff I still have, like FASA Star Trek, I doubt I will ever use but you never know.
If anything I have fit your OP it would probably be the shelf full of Hackmaster 4e stuff I got from Kenzer Co secret fire sale on ebay. It is doubtful but it could happen. I have used various tables and stuff for my Swords & Wizardry game. Hackmaster is packed to the gills with tables and stuff.
The Thieves Guilds material I manage to collect may turn out useful. I used a couple of the scenarios for Swords & Wizardry when I first got it.
Yeah the AD&D 2E Battlesytem Skirmishes rules. I keep it on the shelf for painting examples.
And honestly those are some nice stripped down mini combat stats/rules that every once in a while I consider using as a backbone for a home brew role play game.
Except then I remember THac0.
Then I think THac0 wasn't so bad and wish I hadn't been a broke college kid at one point that had to sell a bunch of other books... but I still have that Battlesytem book.
I've still got all my old Leading Edge stuff... Phoenix Command, Living Steel, various Rhand stuff. I only tried to play it for a short couple weeks of summer vacation along with a couple of 'realism' obsessed pals. We were sure it was the keys to the kingdom when we started... and even at the end I was reluctant to admit it was just too damn much.
I can't see why I'd ever attempt it again, but I do like the aesthetics of the books.
The Rhand/Living Steel setting is kind of neat though... so those could possibly see some action, someday, with some MUCH lighter set of rules.
My (near complete) Star Wars d6 collection.
My best friend would kill me for the heresy, but I actually DO prefer the d20 system (my favorite is a weird gestalt of Saga for the characters, and RCR for starships).
Oh sure. I lost most of my gaming stuff a few years ago when my sister sold the home we grew up in. I could only save a couple box loads of games. What I saved I'm not sure if I'll ever use again. But ya never know.
I also have a Hero System martial arts book from about 23 years ago. Don't know if I'll ever play a Hero campaign again and if I do who knows what type of character I'll choose. But I keep it anyway.
The odd thing is half the games in my closet I've never played. And yet, I want to keep them in hopes that someday I will play them, often. Hope, hope, hope.
I have yet to get rid of any of my game stuff. Have lost some stuff though.
Dragon Storm: Probably for me the epitome of this on so many many levels.
Cthulhu LIVE: Got it planning to host some sessions at cons and then never got the chance. Still hoping to some day. Played all of once as a player.
Cyberworld: Another LARP, same reasons as above.
GURPS: So many many failed tries to get up the urge to GM this ever again. Every successive stunt SJG pulls just kills that urge a little more. At this point its looking like never.
Big Eyes Small Mouth: Ran it once, might again some day but no one has interest in it. Though two friends are showing mild interest again in Big Ears Small Mouse, Or Cute Fuzzy *cockfighting* Seizure Monsters.
The original Warhammer Fantasy RPG: The more Games Workshop goes to hell the harder its gotten to get anyone interested in this if they are aware of the history of the company.
Those are the ones that come to mind right off the bat.
Sometimes I keep something just to remind myself of just how pissed off I am at the designer or company or just how badly they fucked up a new edition.
When I was young and pretentious and took shit way, way, WAY too seriously I got rid of some "Bad", "Stupid", and "Childish" games that I think I would really have some fun with today. The main ones I regret forsaking were TSR FASERIP Marvel and the White Wolf Streetfighter game.
For a 4th edition L5R game, I ran a sidebar encounter out of the 1st edition L5R core book*, and still consulted the 1e book for flavor. 4e is the better game, but that original book has some setting aspects and turns of phrase that pulled me back once I was actually running a game again.
I still read the AD&D DMG for inspiration and random tables, despite never having GM'd AD&D. It's baroque, bombastic, cryptic - and still one of the most inspirational game books I've read.
*So, at risk of spoiling a 15 year old adventure hook:
A barefoot woman approaches the PCs' camp in winter, at night, holding a baby. Her hair and clothes blow in a wind no-one else feels. She begs someone, anyone, to hold her baby, to warm it up, "its so very cold!" My five more savvy players want nothing to do with this; the sixth one, the guy who showed up to an L5R game basically to play D&D, volunteers. And I think great! I get to tie him in more, give him the reward if he pulls this off... I tell him the baby starts to get heavy as soon as he takes it, and before I can say anything else, before I can explain this is a game thing where he's going to have make a couple of strength rolls to follow through on his word and hold onto the baby, immediately says, "its getting heavy? Well, I put it down." I'm a little disappointed, but I think well, alright, that's a play choice, certainly. The woman screams in despair, and she and the baby disappear in a spray of blood. At end of session I hit the player with a minor honor loss (broken word) and a taint roll behind the scenes (which he passed anyway).
So, not the win condition, obviously. Somewhere the ghost of a woman who died in childbirth still wanders My Rokugan, with a child trapped between worlds. But Rokugan's a hard, imperfect world anyway, so there you go.
Quote from: RPGPundit;801935I've found, over the years, that almost any RPG book I keep but think "well, I'll never use that again!", I end up using, sooner or later. For example, I kept my Robotech RPG books around for over a decade thinking I was just holding on to them as a reminder of my RPG youth, when suddenly I got cause to run a campaign with them again (a couple of years ago).
Do you have any books like that? Books that:
1) you actually USED at some point in at least one game
2) think you will never use again
3) have kept for some reason
Maztica - It sat there on my shelf for decades. I went through this phase where I said "I got all this shit on my shelf - I'm using it, damn it. Next thing the players knew - they had an incentive to go to Maztica.
I also have various editions of Ars Magica that falls into this category. Palladium Fantasy, Rifts, Shadowrun (but I might give this another go in the next edition)
I have almost all my stuff from when I started. Most I will have and will never use.
Only one I have pulled out and used recently was DC heroes 3rd edition I think. Used it a year or two ago to run a Supers campaign which itself was doomed to die. One of those.
"Hey GM run whatever you want."
"OK I will"
knowing full and well it would fail. And It did.
I now translate that into "run whatever you want that we will play." and it failed just becuase the players were not into it.
I'm at the cusp of a great rpg purge. Not a fan of clutter and I have too much that just sits there.
Yeah. Still got pretty much the entire line of Gamma World products for the 1st,2nd and 4th editions. I was big on Gamma World, ran a lot of it for many years. But even then I was never entirely comfortable with the core system and Bounty Hunters of the Atomic Wastelands is has the genre covered for me. So I am really just hanging on to it for sentimental reasons.
In my defence I have got rid of all my Gamma World 3rd, 5th and 6th edition books and I never got the 7th (D&D4e version). Sentimentality only goes so far.
I also pretty sure I won't be running Twerps again, but I'm keeping the little booklets because I just love the illustrations. But they don't take up any space at all.
My uncle had a plan to run a CoC game based in the hymalayas. He had found some old survey maps in a second hand book store and over about 5 years he collected a box worth of stuff. When he died it came to me and it sat round for maybe 12 years.
Then a few years ago I was pushing the murder mystery envelope a little, moving on from the 1920's English stately home that had been our bread and butter and I decided to run one set in the Raj during the Great Game. I realised I had a box of period props, guide books, postcards, military photographs and of course very impressive linen survey maps.. all very fitting he would have approved.
When my mum died I inherited all her d&d stuff naturally enough. I kept it for a few years but eventually realised I didn't need 3 or 4 copies of most of the 2e splats so took it to the charity shop. I still have about half a dozen of her neigh indecypherable note books though. .. maybe one day I will run a game about an insane middle aged woman and her diaries....
Up until a couple years ago, I kept damn near everything, and I had a whopping lot. Stuff I'd never used (comp copies and things), stuff I hadn't touched in decades ... all kept for the nostalgia factor. Needing $$ and finding out about Noble Knight Games, I sold out for several hundred dollars. Woo, hoo.
What I've kept falls into two categories: copies of stuff I wrote, and books I'm likely to use again. Despite that I'm a GURPS GM, I unloaded all the Space/Ultra-Tech stuff, as well as the ones from genres I don't touch like Supers or Horror.
My Ars Magica, 3rd edition, books.
I ran a semi-long campaign 12-14 years ago, has once in a while since bought more sourcebooks when they've turned up in bargain bins and like, and I don't think I will ever run it again. It just takes a very special kinda of group of players to make the troupe-style roleplaying work and click. And quite a lot of work.
But I'll be damned if I am ever gonna sell or unload them.
Just for this EXACT reason, I refuse to sell any RPG books ever again. I have sold off books only later to regret it, and even re-purchased them because I felt I could use them.
This of course has become much easier with my expansive digital library as I can keep all my books in a small space. :-) (I still have a fairly large print library as well)
Examples: GURPS Voo Doo and GURPs Cabal. Man these books are chock full of useful tid bits to use in any horror game. I have also sold then re-bought a collection of Eberron books (DD3.5). I really like this setting and I plan on running games for it in the future (most likely using another system, not DD3.5).
Earthdawn first and second editions. The former for the art, the latter for the slightly better mechanics, both because it's simply my favorite RPG. I loaned the 2e book to my DM a few months back to run the magic system by her as (inspiration for) a replacement for the pseudo-Vancian stupid of D&D/PF magic, but it never went anywhere. Sigh.
I also still have my old d6 Star Wars and 7th Sea books, but I don't really anticipate using either of them again, sadly. I vastly prefer the skill-based design of both over the restrictive classes of Pathfinder, but as we all know, there's what you'd like to play and there's what everyone else will play.
Quote from: woodsmoke;802590Earthdawn first and second editions. The former for the art, the latter for the slightly better mechanics, both because it's simply my favorite RPG.
Earthdawn is a great setting... I'm not sure about the rules because our GM was always fiddling with them. I'd like to try it again someday.
Quote(...) but as we all know, there's what you'd like to play and there's what everyone else will play.
A constant frustration, BUT one I'm feeling less of since I started playing online more... connecting with other folks who are not Pathfinder fans.
Several books have been lost over the years, a couple stolen, and I gave my MERPS stuff to a buddy who really wanted them.
Otherwise, I have kept every rpg book I have ever acquired. Plenty of room in the basement for them. Even old Dragon/Dungeon/Polyhedron mags. Everything comes in handy as inspiration though never directly used in game.
If I don't use something for 3 years, it gets sentenced to the Shelf. In the next year, anything on the Shelf has a chance to get used - even as a resource - but if it does not get used, then it gets sentenced to eBay unless its clearly a rare reference text.
If I decide I made a mistake, I just buy another copy off eBay.
Quote from: Simlasa;802600Earthdawn is a great setting... I'm not sure about the rules because our GM was always fiddling with them. I'd like to try it again someday.
My brother did the same thing when I used to play with him. He's of the opinion Shadowrun (3e, I think?) is about as close as any game has ever come to mechanical perfection, and he was always trying to figure out a conversion. When that didn't work he turned to the Savage Worlds conversion, but that didn't live up to his theoretical ideal either and he ultimately just stopped running the game. Haven't played Earthdawn since, much to my chagrin.
I'll readily admit ED's mechanics are far from perfect, but IMO they're perfectly serviceable if you don't expect the game to be anything more than it is (D&D with the serial numbers filed off and mechanics that actually make sense). I particularly like the magic and dice step systems; both are perhaps less elegant than they could be, but they make sense, which is a breath of fresh air after years and years of D&D, and the latter actually gives on a reason to use all of one's dice instead of just rolling a dX plus modifier for everything.
Quote from: SimlasaA constant frustration, BUT one I'm feeling less of since I started playing online more... connecting with other folks who are not Pathfinder fans.
I should probably look into that more, but... I don't know, online gaming has just never really appealed to me outside of MMOs. Nothing beats the experience of everyone sitting around a table in the same room, even if it means always playing fucking Pathfinder.
Quote from: woodsmoke;802810I should probably look into that more, but... I don't know, online gaming has just never really appealed to me outside of MMOs. Nothing beats the experience of everyone sitting around a table in the same room, even if it means always playing fucking Pathfinder.
I'd never say it's AS GOOD as live and in person... but it's been pretty damn good, particularly if there's cameras for face contact. My first online game was with James Raggi and I was really taken with how well it worked and how near it came to actually being there.
There are downsides... like technical glitches and people feeling less pressure to show up... but not having to travel, having access to your own bathroom and fridge and getting to play obscure games with willing/eager participants nearly makes up for all the shortcomings.
Quote from: woodsmoke;802810My brother did the same thing when I used to play with him. He's of the opinion Shadowrun (3e, I think?) is about as close as any game has ever come to mechanical perfection, and he was always trying to figure out a conversion. When that didn't work he turned to the Savage Worlds conversion, but that didn't live up to his theoretical ideal either and he ultimately just stopped running the game. Haven't played Earthdawn since, much to my chagrin.
I'll readily admit ED's mechanics are far from perfect, but IMO they're perfectly serviceable if you don't expect the game to be anything more than it is (D&D with the serial numbers filed off and mechanics that actually make sense). I particularly like the magic and dice step systems; both are perhaps less elegant than they could be, but they make sense, which is a breath of fresh air after years and years of D&D, and the latter actually gives on a reason to use all of one's dice instead of just rolling a dX plus modifier for everything.
I have ED1, 2, Classic, and 3rd sitting on my shelf. Some of these books will get pulled out for setting stuff once Earthdawn 4th edition hits (Player's Guide this month). Probably won't ever touch 2nd again, tho. As some-one who has played and GM'd all the editions, I really,
really recommend checking out 4th edition.
The new devs have figured out a mechanic to replace the Success Level Chart (basically +1 success for every 5 over the Difficulty number). This streamlines play incredibly and they're using this mechanic to improve the Spell rules (and it also is the basis of the "Armor Defeat" rules, where each additional success on the to-hit gives +2 Damage... so a 4 success hit will blow through Chainmail - if I remember my 3rd edition numbers). Lots of improvements built on the "Optional Talent Pool" advancement mechanic that was introduces in Classic, which resolves the cookie-cutter Adept problem I ran into as a GM.
Quote from: Telarus;802950As some-one who has played and GM'd all the editions, I really, really recommend checking out 4th edition.
The new devs have figured out a mechanic to replace the Success Level Chart (basically +1 success for every 5 over the Difficulty number). This streamlines play incredibly and they're using this mechanic to improve the Spell rules (and it also is the basis of the "Armor Defeat" rules, where each additional success on the to-hit gives +2 Damage... so a 4 success hit will blow through Chainmail - if I remember my 3rd edition numbers). Lots of improvements built on the "Optional Talent Pool" advancement mechanic that was introduces in Classic, which resolves the cookie-cutter Adept problem I ran into as a GM.
That does all sound pretty good. While playing Earthdawn I appreciated what the rules were trying to do but they often felt bulky and redundant... having to roll several times for each attack... and yeah, there was that samey feel to always favoring certain Adept abilities.
I fully intend to pick up ED4 when it's released; I've been watching the FASA site for months now just waiting for the damn thing to finally show up in the store.
I don't remember enough about the mechanics to know whether I'd consider what you said about the change to success steps an improvement. While I know some consider it unweildy, I've always loved the fact ED separates defense (did I hit him?) from damage mitigation (yeah, but the blow glanced off his armor). Not sure whether that's what either of you were referring to.
I do remember cookie-cutter disciplines being kind of a problem. Back when I was still playing the GM at the time tried to encourage us to do more with skills to get around that somewhat. I was fairly power-game-y back then and didn't really go for it because of the mechanical inferiority of skills, but if I were to play the game now I'd probably load my characters down with skill ranks simply because the system lets me (as opposed to Pathfinder, in which I'm constantly running afoul of the class-based skill cap in my bid to do add a little extra flavor to the character). Hopefully the optional talent pool will provide a nice middle ground.
Quote from: woodsmoke;802963While I know some consider it unweildy, I've always loved the fact ED separates defense (did I hit him?) from damage mitigation (yeah, but the blow glanced off his armor).
I always liked how Runequest did it... but for some reason the Earthdawn seemed to have extra layers that repeated the process... or something. It's been a while now since I've played. I remember it always slowed down combat as each Player tried to remember all the various Abilities he could bring to bear... then rolled each one... added bonuses... rolled the actual attack... then remembered he forgot to subtract wounds. It was just a lot of moving parts, IMO.
Fair point. I really liked the level of crunch in ED because, again, all of it made sense to me (insert broken record joke here). I get that it's very much a YMMV issue, though.
Quote from: woodsmoke;803049Fair point. I really liked the level of crunch in ED because, again, all of it made sense to me (insert broken record joke here). I get that it's very much a YMMV issue, though.
Yeah, the crunch made sense, and tied back to the setting... which kind of made it more frustrating because it all had a reason for being there. It was flavorful crunch.
I'm noticing the same thing now as I tinker with the magic rules for my homebrew setting... coming up with all sorts of flavorful ideas that are tied to how the magic works in that place... but realizing it's just too much to move smoothly in game.
I going to highlight this as 'Probably doomed' as I haven't made my mind up on them yet.
Celtic Legend - I used this to get some ideas for a campaign I ran where the PCs were heroes from the Dark Ages that got re-incarnated into bodies in Victorian times. I will probably never use this again as I have my eyes on getting the Design Mechanism book Mythic Britain that I think will more than adequately replace this.
Paranoia - Played this back in the day but its not a setting that I think you can make last long term. I therefore doubt I'll use this again, but many of the adventures are funny and might give me horrible ideas in the future.
On topic: I suffered a home fire a few years ago which ate my bookshelf of gaming material while I was getting everyone out of the building. Had lots of stuff that I would flip through, but never ran as such, like old Warhammer books, lots of 2nd ed Forgotten Realms and Darksun. 1st ed Cthulhu stuff. TMNT rules. MERP stuff. Bunch of random things. I do consider myself lucky that no-one was hurt in that fire. *symbolic gesture of mt. dew for the fallen books*
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Quote from: Simlasa;803070Yeah, the crunch made sense, and tied back to the setting... which kind of made it more frustrating because it all had a reason for being there. It was flavorful crunch.
I'm noticing the same thing now as I tinker with the magic rules for my homebrew setting... coming up with all sorts of flavorful ideas that are tied to how the magic works in that place... but realizing it's just too much to move smoothly in game.
(Not to totally sidetrack, but I wanted to comment on this thread of the conversation.)
There were two major time sinks involved in resolving action tests in Earthdawn (1e). Each attack could be 2-3 rolls (attack roll, opponent's active defense, damage). Characters can have multiple attacks, and you can see how the below resolution used to take a while.
- The first part was figuring out the Step Number and Die Pool to use. While nominally very simple (add an Attribute Step to a Power Rank, look the Dice up on the Step Chart on your character sheet), this often involved multiple other bonuses/penalties on top of the number written on the sheet for the talent/skill. Things like -1 for every Wound taken after the first, Harried modifiers, if you have a Defensive or Aggressive stance going, temporary spell effects, etc. Having to change your dice pool multiple times in a combat wasn't the most intuitive for players.
This was addressed from Classic/3e forward by saying that temporary modifiers (+3 Aggressive attack, or Harried mods, for example) can be applied after you roll (with the old style as an optional rule).
I think from the previews in 4th edition we are using the old-style s the base with the 3e version as the optional rule.
- The second part of the roll was always determining the degree of success, which usually mattered, possibly for a followup roll. The classic example is the "Armor Defeating" success, 2 SLs above a hit.. and as a GM I would always do a SL lookup at some point to base scene descriptions on.
This meant looking up the difficulty number and roll result on a chart to see which Success Level column the result fell in. The math gave a rage for each difficulty that worked out to a set number of success levels. Things like bypassing armor completely required 2 success levels above a hit. In 1e the ranges for each success level grew as the difficulty increases, leading to the same # of levels for each difficulty number (based on the scaling math of the exploding dice pools). *phew*
In 4e, the new rules completely skips this whole chart lookup for a simple equation based on 5s(+1SL) & 10s(+2SL) above the difficulty number. This change means you most likey get slightly more success levels for rolling bigger pools, as a trade off for a set range for each SL.
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Combine these new mechanics and the player will now usually roll the dice they have written down on their character sheet (which may change between sessions as they spend Legend Points), add/subtract temporary mods from the die results, and the GM can tell in a second how many successes above/below the difficulty they got. Ideally, this reduces up to
6 chart lookups in one attack (for dice-pools and result levels), to simple math everyone can do in play.
I see a lot of people (on international forums too) who loved ED and suffered through the crunch and who also comment that another edition really isn't worth it unless there's a radical change to the mechanics. The Step System is still there in 4e, but I think this
*IS* a radical change to the system and definitely for the better.
I actually really want to run Keep on the Borderland and Slave Pits of the Undercity with the new Earthdawn rules & setting tropes. Just waiting for the base rules to be settled before I want to try converting the oD&D stats. Seems like 2 levels = 1 'Circle' would work best, based on the 30 level BECMI scale... :D
Huh. I don't even remember active defense rolls being a thing. I thought it was simply a different target number for Defense vs. Armor based on Dex and encumbrance. Defense could be conditionally boosted via defensive maneuvers like giving ground, thus increasing the TN, but I thought the number itself was generally static.
Of course, it's literally been 5+ years since the last time I played; it's entirely possible I've simply forgotten how combat in ED actually worked. I gotta' say, though, the more I read/learn about 4th Edition the more I can't wait for that damn book to finally be released.
Quote from: trechriron;802581Just for this EXACT reason, I refuse to sell any RPG books ever again. I have sold off books only later to regret it, and even re-purchased them because I felt I could use them.
Yah. This. Here.
In 2010 I did a big RPG purge and got rid of all my non-judges guild 0D&D stuff... Your know... two
White Booksets for about $80 apiece (and I kept one though, still using it, thank goodness), all the supplements,
Chainmail, Swords & Spells, Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldritch Wizardry, and Gods, Demi-gods & Heroes. At the same GenCon I sold everything in my
Star Wars RPG collection as well including about 400 minis, and all the WOTC SWRPG books.
A year later my boy suddenly takes a great interest in
Star Wars, and is all about being a
Star Wars fanboi, and all I have is the SAGA Core rules book. Had to pick up a bunch of books again like the A
rms & Equipment Guide, The Galactic Campaign Guide, The New Jedi Order Sourcebook... Still looking for a copy of the
Dark Side Sourcebook at a reasonable price...
Then in 2011 I get a request to run 0D&D at GenCon and have registration overbooked for all three games scheduled for this...
Also for fires, natural disasters, and other fun stuff, my RPG collection is insured, Cost to replace everything is currently just under $25,000, though I think that's a bit low... Not properly counting in the labor and time for the handpainted minis, however did an inventory just last September for the insurance company. For most of the folks here... this is probably a
small RPG collection.
I would no longer ever get rid of any of what I consider "my" books, but a while back I got rid of a bunch of the review books sent to me, the ones I was quite sure I'd never ever use.