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| Swiped from Wayne's Books |
On the other hand, my library of RPGs also includes a few games I've never really played. These are games I bought once upon a time either because I hoped I'd play them or their subject matter simply piqued my interest. I say "a few" such games, because, as a general rule, I try to limit my library to games I have played or are currently playing. I'm not a collector and, in fact, make an effort to prevent myself from developing that sort of mentality toward my games (not that I always succeed).
Yet, as I said, I do own games I've never played. SPI's Universe is a good example of what I'm talking about – perhaps the best example of it in my library. I first encountered Universe in 1982, in the Ballantine paperback edition of the game, which I borrowed repeatedly from my local public library. I think what first attracted me to the game is its fold-out "interstellar display," which is basically a map of star systems within a 30 light year globe around Earth. I can't even begin to tell you how appealing that map was to me; I spent many hours simply staring at it and imagining. This was heady stuff to a 13 year-old.
But I never really succeeded in playing Universe, despite the fact that I wanted to. Nevertheless, a copy of the game sits on my shelf next to my desk, alongside Hawkmoon, Bushido, and a handful of other RPGs for which I retain a strange fascination even though I've never played them. I suspect I'm not alone in behaving like this. In fact, I'd love to hear from readers about the roleplaying games they still hold on to, despite the fact that they've never played them.
I share your paired desire to both not waste time/money, but also someday get to play these things. of course, at this point, all 5e stuff is at best, idea mining.
ReplyDeleteI tried to convince the guys that we should do a "New System" night every month, where we do some quickstart, freerpgday thing, just to try it. rotate the GM, anyone can run anything, with the understanding that if you choose something lame, we will bad-player-ruin it :D
but it never went anywhere, people are too busy.
Rick
I no longer own anything I haven't played at all, but that's more owing to fire and flood than a deliberate effort to either play everything or dispose of deadwood. Always regarded games (RPGs in particular) as viable alternatives to actual books as something that I'd enjoy reading and re-reading, so buying things I knew I'd likely never play wasn't a big concern.
ReplyDeleteBut if I did have to pick a few things I once owned but never played, today's top three would be:
Whispering Vault - Flavorful but bizarre game where you play as supernatural entities hunting down former "Dreamers" who've gone rogue to actually experience the reality they've helped create - which is the "real world" and their presence warps and damages it beyond mortal endurance.
Nexus: the Infinite City - Urban genre-mash game set in an infinite cityscape that's composed of bits and pieces of every city in all of space-time, came out years before novels like Elantris or Perdido Street Station started to popularize the concept of impossibly-sprawling megalopoli. I even had a setup scenario for my Planescape group to enter Nexus from Sigil when our DM decided to pull the plug on his game, but the group fell apart before that happened.
Continuum - Mind-bending time-travel game where the more you know about a situation the less you can change it - but you can always try to set things up so the what you "know" turns out to be wrong. Essentially cheating fate by conning the other PCs and sometimes yourself.
Those are the ones I would have liked to play but couldn't. There were a few others I bought solely for the "so bad they're hilarious" aspect of them, including World of Synnibarr, Realm of Yolmi, and (in hindsight) every one of the dozens of Rifts books I used to have.
Digital distribution makes it really, really easy to become a system hoarder. As far as things I have a ton of material for but will probably never actually play, Pathfinder has to be near the top of the list. I bought a large bundle of virtually everything available for 1e, no idea when, if ever, I'll actually use it
ReplyDeleteI bought that game just for the beautiful local star map.
ReplyDeleteUniverse and Traveller 2300 both had that map-pull fascination...but FASAs Dr. Who and AHs James Bond were two I held onto for many years hoping to play someday.
ReplyDeleteI had all the AH roleplaying games at one point, but Lords of Creation was the only one that got more than a session's play. Well, and Runequest, but I consider that Chaosium no matter whose logo is on it.
DeletePower & Perils didn't get past character creation and a single combat mechanics test. Gads, what a mess of a game.
The local Paranoia players enjoyed the Tales From the Floating Vagabond session I ran at a con, but not enough so to want to do a campaign of it. Probably for the best, the humor was very hit or miss, and mostly miss.
Jeeze, I loved TftFV, I played it exactly once...but the money system alone was worth it.
DeleteOh god, yes. Though we played quite a lot of Bushido back in the day. I aloso now have a whole shitload of games in pdf that I've never played, alongside the physical games I've never played.
ReplyDeleteI do have the collecting gene, but still aim to test all my games. One of those, though, that I have not yet played and have that strange fascination for is another SPI game, DragonQuest.
ReplyDeleteNot only do I own everything published for it, I actually own three copies of the rules. I really don't know why.
I played a fair bit of Arena of Blood (the boardgame version of DQ's combat mechanics) but it didn't inspire any of us to actually try the full game. Had better luck with Melee and Wizard luring people into The Fantasy Trip, though.
DeleteAlways kind of surprised more RPG publishers don't take that approach. Release a streamlined board or minis game using the same core combat mechanics as a teaser for the RPG, you're bound to get some sales that way you would have missed and if the intro game's any good you get the sales off it as well.
Melee/Wizard and TFT has a very different level of approachability, but I can see why Arena of Blood did not inspire to DQ.
DeleteThe cross over point between board and minis games and rpg is interesting, especially considering the origin of the latter.
I have a lot of games that I played many years ago, maybe just once, but I hold on to for nostalgic reasons. Feng Shui, Shadowrun, Legend of the Five Rings, and Conspiracy X, for example.
ReplyDeleteMost of the games I have but have never played are, luckily, short experimental things released in the big digital indie period of 2005-2015 (ish) but most of those are pdfs so aren't taking up any real space. Lady Blackbird, 3:16 Carnage Among the Stars.
Games I've gone and bought but never played are rare. Mage: The Ascension springs to mind, but I lost the book years ago, so it doesn't quite count!
Not a game, but I have the Masque of the Red Death boxed set for AD&D2 and I'm not sure why. It's very unlikely that I'll play it, but for some reason I wanted it badly enough to find a copy!
I have the opposite problem. I played AD&D2, D&D3, SW d6, V:tM, yet the only rule book on my shelf is my home-printed LL (from back when the free version had art).
ReplyDeleteFor me it was Tékumel until nearly seven years ago.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad that I'm not alone in this.
ReplyDeleteLike Dick McGee, I own nothing I don't run or play to this day. The frequency may vary widely and some material from older games gets used while the rules no longer do (FASA Star Trek converted to Star Trek Adventures for example) but if it's in my collection, I'll be playing it.
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time there were many RPG I owned but had never played. Then, around the year 2000 (for me), *POOF* the internet happened. And lo and behold, what should I discover but a thriving gaming community over email and play-by-post boards.
ReplyDeleteSlowly, but surely, all of those games I owned I either GM'd or played. Today, there's only one RPG I own that I've never played--Colonial Gothic. Maybe soon, it will hit the ether of a play-by-post game.
I wholeheartedly recommend play-by-post. Gotta post everyday, though, keep the game moving. None of this two or three posts per week stuff. EVERYDAY and it works wonderfully.
Ah, sweet bird of youth!
Delete>sniff! sigh!<
In 2007, as I was getting engaged and married, I dramatically thinned my game collection. I ditched a ton of stuff that realistically I was never going to use, was of no use to me as reference for other games, and had no sentimental value. What I kept was a small number of SFRPGs for reference (Universe among them), sentimental things like Bunnies and Burrows and Chivalry and Sorcery or other early games (like Gamma World). I kept all my Talislanta, and EPT plus enough Tekumel stuff to feel like I could run a game if I so chose. I kept my collection of all versions of D&D from OD&D through AD&D 1e (but nothing past Unearthed Arcana and no Deities and Demigods - never repurchased that after having dumped AD&D in 1990). Over on the RPG Pub I went through an exercise of looking at everything left on my shelf that I had never played. Not really very much. Of the stuff I've played, I kept a tiny bit of Champions, GURPS, D&D 3.5 plus Arcana Evolved, and a few other bits just to have significant games I could possibly play again sometime.
DeleteThere is some stuff I regret getting rid of, Riddle of Steel - really it was just two books for one I can think of. Probably shouldn't have got rid of Star Frontiers (but that was two boxed sets). Should have kept all my C&S supplements (I did keep C&S itself).
Mine are fairly recent, stuff I saw ads for years ago in Dragon, spotted at cons, and bought on spec. When I actually had a look at the rules, I figured out why some of them went nowhere eg Man, Myth, and Magic (I rather liked the idea of playing a leprechaun, but it's literally the only "monster" you can play).
ReplyDeleteThe roleplaying games I still hold on to, despite the fact that I've never played them? According to RPG Greek that would be 3,173. But I know that's probably only half of the items I've gotten around to entering.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a collector either. However, I am an avid reader of some of the coolest fantasy and sci-fi ever written.
I don't have enough time to play them all, but I manage to be able to read and enjoy quite a few of them - and that's worth it to me.
For example, today while preparing for a game I thought of a game I haven't looked at in 30 years called "Dragonraid: The Exciting New Adventure for Courageous Christians" an D&D style RPG that is exactly as it sounds - except that it has some of the coolest ideas for games I've ever read and for my latest campaign I plan to steal heavy from it - not casting spells with bible verses - but the rest of the world is really cool.
I'd love to play all my games, but I wouldn't give them up even if all I could do was read them!