Comments on: Art of the Genre: The Weight of Print

By: Black Gate » Blog Archive » The Top 50 Black Gate Blog Posts in February

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:56:39 +0000

[...] Art of the Genre: The Weight of Print [...]

By: JLB

JLB — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:37:04 +0000

I consider myself fortunate, I move as often as you (on average) but since 1989 my primary gaming platforms were GURPS and Rolemaster, neither of which I ever bought adventures (I just gave away my last RM books in 2009). When we did our move to Calgary in 2000, we had 10,000 pounds of “stuff”, when we moved back to Saskatoon it went up by 4K. This was after the purge where I got rid of 2/3rds of my comic boxes and about 500 books. I kickstarted (for no apparent reason) the new Traveller and may run that this year, but those darned Garrett’s books (reviewed by John) make me want to run something like that now (except in GURPS).

By: Scott Taylor

Scott Taylor — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 05:08:29 +0000

Glenn: I take it you saw my copy of Slayers D20 in the final image? I too have never played that game, but as the series was cool, I thought, might as well in case someone wants to play it sometime

By: Glenn

Glenn — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 02:42:29 +0000

I recently picked up a copy of the Slayers d20 RPG. a book that will never get used probably. Just had to have it to see how they translated the anime into rpg format.

By: Jeff Stehman

Jeff Stehman — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:34:56 +0000

I’ve got nothing. In prep for a probable upcoming move, two years ago we started purging our holdings. All of the RPG material (although I had kept them pruned over the years), most of the books, about a third of the DVDs and about a quarter of the CDs. The only RPG I’ve purchase in recent years has been C&C, and that on pdf. The only new books have been ebooks. Bits are so easy to pack.

Well, not quite all my RPG material. I have several White Dwarfs in the #60-#88 range. I’d hate to recycle them, but I haven’t bothered to eBay them yet because they’re non-contiguous and magazines are expensive to ship. Sad remnants.

(Interesting tidbit: Two years ago most books I put on eBay eventually sold. Going through another round in recent months, very few have.)

When I moved to grad school, pretty much everything I owned packed into my Ford Escort. There are times I miss those days.

By: GreenGestalt

GreenGestalt — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 06:40:41 +0000

I bow in awe and drool in envy, sir!

Sadly, more people are moving to digital, since frankly it’s easier to carry a laptop/tablet around and people have less money/free time thanks to the — (decides not to type five pages of foaming rabid conspiracy stuff)

But I consider the gamer’s “Man cave” to be at the height of the non millionaire level of cool!

By: Joe H.

Joe H. — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 00:52:01 +0000

That’s why last time I moved I paid burly men hundreds of dollars — as I described things on the phone when making arrangements, I had almost no furniture (I was replacing most of it) but had about 100 30-40 lb. boxes of books, CDs, DVDs, magazines, RPG supplements, etc. Not sure I want to even think about what the total would be today.

By: Sarah Avery

Sarah Avery — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 05:36:57 +0000

I’m boxing my books, aspiring to average one box a week, for a possible move in the next year, and logging in LibraryThing each book I decide to keep. Strangely, that added step of logging the books has made it easier to cull my library. If I don’t care enough about the book to scan its barcode, I probably don’t care enough to schlepp it across a state line.

After the long post-Hurricane Sandy power outage, I’m even more bullish about paper books than before. An unstable electrical grid, plus planned obsolescence for ereaders, plus media companies that would really like us to have to pay all over again for our entire personal libraries every time the devices improve, adds up to a sense that ebooks are too ephemeral for content I really care about. If I want a book still to be available to me in twenty years, paper’s the only form I trust.

Of course, after I move, I may reassess my priorities. So far, I haven’t had to carry those boxes beyond my own attic.

By: Joe H.

Joe H. — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 00:51:03 +0000

Boot Hill; Top Secret; Gangbusters — boy, don’t those take me back …

By: Scott Taylor

Scott Taylor — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 21:42:24 +0000

Andrew: I’m liking this idea more and more, and at some point this all has to go, although I feel sick to my stomach just writing those words.