My RPG Collection: Shelves 1 & 2

Often you see threads on RPG forums of people asking how large other's collections are, and when I read through them I find that there are generally 3 types of role-player represented.

1. The Minimalist - The role-player who perhaps just plays in a couple of games, or who perhaps runs games but doesn't keep many books. Many role-players make up their own items entirely without needing entire gamelines that are published. Then there are those who have switched mostly to electronic books. Whichever they are these games have only a handful of RPG books, generally no more than a couple dozen.
2. The Game Liner - Those who only play perhaps one game and collect almost everything they can for it. The game line of choice is fairly extensive, but not always complete.
3. The Collector - The person who collects RPG books seemingly as a hobby onto itself. While these gamers often to game with their books, it is not always the case. Many role-players actually just buy to read these days. Often these gamers will collect multiple lines in intense detail, and have parts of dozens of other lines, collectors editions, rare items etc generally spanning the entire history of the hobby.

I seem to have fallen into the latter category, I am most definitely a collector who buys anything of interest to me and has formed a large stack of books over the years. I don't have an exact count, but it's way upwards of 1,000 items. 

So what I thought I'd do was document in more detail what is in my collection and point out any gems, rarities etc. Since it is large (I have no kids, no debts, no vices other than books and flying and we have two professional incomes which is why I've managed to buy so much) I'll be splitting it in to multiple parts. Not sure but this could take some time to get through.

So onto the first two shelves. I'm arbitrarily starting at the top left of the collection and working through each case and then onto the other boxes and bits and pieces around the house.

Shelf 1

This shelf is rather a mixed bag. A copy of Eclipse Phase (purchased after flicking through the freely released PDF) followed by my Transhuman Space collection. I think I have everything released in Print for Transhuman Space, but I'm not sure.

Next up is the GURPS WWII line. I think I'm missing a few items there that I've not bothered to look to hard for.

Coming up after are a few real gems of games. A|State I love the setting, it's very Perdido Street Station mixed with Cyberpunk and more mystery. Not much of a rule system but a great setting and it's a shame it didn't get more exposure.

Starblazer Adventures was a Christmas gift from a friend. Based on the old comic strip Starblazers it's a great little golden age style game that I haven't given completely the time to read through. 

Tucked in beside is my only copy of an Unknown Armies book, the second edition rulebook. Seems like a great game, must re-read and then run.

Sengoku is Gold Rush Game's samurai RPG, seen here along with the adventure campaign Shiki. It works quite well but I bought it mainly for background as for the most part it's straight historical Japan with optional fantastical bits.

Recon. Ah I recall this fondly from my school years, playing Vietnam games based off war movies. We had great fun with it. This copy was bought a few years ago as a nostalgic replacement for books I sold many years ago.

Almost the entirety of the rest of the row is Traveller (until you get to the 40K stuff.) Here is mainly my Megatraveller collection (complete I think from a GDW perspective) but also any large format items from Classic and Megatraveller published officially and third party. The real rarities and favourites here have to be the Digest Group Publications (DGP) items. Starship Operators Manual (one of the best RPG books ever written in my opinion), Vilani and Vargr, all the large format Traveller's Digests.

Also include are the classic Traveller Alien series, the Traveller Adventure, fanzines such as Signal GK (about 6 issues), the small format GURPS Traveller items, the GURPS Traveller deckplans, Power Projection miniature rules, Traveller Bibliography and a couple other items from third parties like Judge's Guild.

Last in the row are some Warhammer 40,000 related items. While not RPG books they're great items. The original first printing two Realms of Chaos books (I shall never part with these they are much sought after), the paperback collected Liber Chaotica (mysteriously now out of print and worth about 3 times what I paid for it) and The Inquisition companion to the Black Library Inquisition based novels. 

The only item left on the shelf is the box set of Story Forge cards. I'll do a proper review of these at some point, but for now I'll just say these are great for coming up with character backgrounds, plot lines and adding colour to anything you're creating.

Shelf 2

Okay this shelf is a simple one. It's all Traveller.

This shelf contains all my large format Traveller books outside of the Classic and Megatraveller eras. I have everything else represented here Mongoose Traveller, T20, New Era, T4 and GURPS Traveller. GURPS is complete as is T20, but T4, New Era and Mongoose are missing items. For T4 it's missing teh Naval Architect's Manual (I never came across it) and First Survey (I refuse to pay money for such a flawed book, but we can discuss that separately.) And yes I know I have two copies of Reft Sector. I do keep a list on a website of my collection but sometimes I forget to look at it while I'm at my FLGS. 

From this shelf my favourites are the T4 books. Not for the rules, but for the setting information. I love the Milieu 0 foundation of the Imperium era, it just speaks to me. The GURPS Traveller books are also exceedingly well done and written. 

You may also notice tucked in are the three Bablyon 5 books published for the Traveller gameline (Trouble with Drazi is the thin one hiding in between.) I got these as completionist items to round out my B5 collection, but that's an entirely separate box. 

So there are the first two shelves. I've never sold any Traveller items during one of my selling phases, so many of these I've had 20 years or more (the Megatraveller stuff mainly.) The only repurchase on those shelves is the previously mentioned Recon book.

Hope you found it interesting, I'll be back with more at a later point.