Trouble Letting Go -- The Heartbreak of Selling Wrath of the Immortals
As many readers know, I've been selling off parts of my RPG collection since my marriage. The reason is simple: lack of room -- two forty-somethings each get married, each for the first time, and have to combine two houses worth of stuff into one house. However, I've been keeping many older items like really like, such as my Classic D&D rules and adventures.
Last week, however, I looked at my copies of the Wrath of the Immortals boxed set from TSR and The Primal Order from WOTC and realized that I have never used them and probably never will. I just do not need detailed rules on deity-level NPCs. I run my deities as deities -- plot devices who can do whatever I need them to do within the limits of their areas of power. They don't really need hit points, let alone detailed lists of powers and how many points of divine energy each power uses. And that's what TSR's Wrath of the Immortals and WOTC's The Primal Order do. Sure, Wrath of the Immortals also has rules for a campaign with PCs as Immortals, but I'm never going to run anything like that.
I'd like to know what my readers think of this. Do you have trouble letting go of gaming materials you know you will never need or use?
September 8, 2008 at 12:20 PM
Yes, definitely, while it's easier for me to be ruthless about getting rid of stuff with the very limited space I have now, there's still a number of books on my shelf that I will never use in my games, and it's even doubtful I will read them for inspiration. Some of them have sentimental value, which is funny talking about D&D books.
Of course, I also have a hard time getting rid of books in the first place, since the entire eBay process is a bit of a pain.
September 8, 2008 at 4:56 PM
The 3e Manual of the Planes. Even after I had decided to go with 4e (I kept up with the preview materials pretty well), I bought the Manual of Planes because I loved the concepts so much. I figured I'd use that cosmology in a 4e campaign. What with the quality of the 4e stuff, though, I expect I'll probably end up using the 4e Manual of the Planes instead. Still, I can hardly let go of it.
September 8, 2008 at 6:05 PM
Often enough I have unexpectedly found exactly what I needed among the books already on my shelf that I manage to justify keeping everything. It helps that I’m pretty picky about what I do buy.
And being useful doesn’t mean that I’m playing the game the book was written for or even dealing with its topic. Inspiration or something that can be twisted is as valuable—maybe more valuable—than something I’m going to use as-is.
September 8, 2008 at 9:39 PM
My personal vow is to keep my game books down to no more than one bookshelf's worth and to never keep any book that I wouldn't rate at least four out of five on a hypothetical quality scale describing overall inspiration and utility.
I ditched Wrath of the Immortals, too. I already had all the major immortals described in my Hollow World set and it was just soooooo metaplotty and railroady.
September 9, 2008 at 11:50 AM
Will said: "My personal vow is to keep my game books down to no more than one bookshelf's worth...."
I so hope my wife doesn't read this and get any ideas. I don't think I want to go that far.
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