Too Many Games!
I have too many freakin’ games. Boxes and boxes of games stuffed into every nook and cranny – OK, the nooks and crannies I’m allowed by She Who Decorates. I look around and I’m amazed that I’ve managed to collect so much.
I’ve whined a bit on this blog about my decision to let some things go for the first time in years (and when I say years, I mean close to 20 years), aside from a few games that I was so disgusted with that keeping them was an affront to my sensibilities. Eagle’s American Civil War comes to mind, which I shamelessly talked my nephew Alex into taking home so that he could use the figures in D&D games.
Tthe real kicker was that I simply ran out of space in the second bedroom closet, which has been the Last Sanctuary of games since my other options have been whittled down over time. My wife sews in this closet (calm down, it's roomy), and we frequently have guests over that are astonished to learn that no, they will not in fact be allowed to hang clothing in the closet because there is no room for said clothes.
Fortunately, our rowhouse has a downstairs bathroom with space for a tub/shower, and since the “bedroom” on the same floor is the Doug Room, we opted instead to put closet space where the tub/shower would go, up until now used for such useless things as ladders and extra cases of Talking Rain from Costco. After looking at this space recently, it occurred to me that I could move in a couple of relatively thin bookcases in the back and sides and use this as my main game closet.
So that’s what I did. Of course, it doesn’t hold as much as the old space, but that is a Very Good Thing. You see, it forces me to think about what games I have that are worth keeping and what games aren’t. Downsizing forces you to really think about the value of things, as we learned in a move from a house with a large basement to a two-bedroom apartment four states away several years ago. All those books? I'm not moving them...
Understand that this is a 2.5 floor trip from one closet to the other, thankfully downhill (I would have hired the neighborhood kids were it uphill, were there kids in my neighborhood). Every trip I said to myself, “Self, this is the last one for a while,” only to go back upstairs and think that one more isn’t such a bad idea after all. Three hours later (including removing the stackable/foldable bookcases from their boxes and unfolding and stacking them), there they were, the keepers.
But I made one boo-boo. The first cut, you see, was to remove the games from the closet upstairs to the bed, leaving the games doomed to Purgatory in the closet. Since my wife is 5’3” tall, the upper shelf of the closet is, apparently, free range for games. I intended to make a second cut on the way downstairs, and I did this with the games that had a Kosmos Big Box form factor (the big square ones, like Stephenson’s Rocket), and actually about six or seven more games went back in the closet. However, I neglected to do this for other form factors in the “just one more trip” mania that was my Saturday morning. So now, I will need to decide which of the downstairs games have to go Back Upstairs. Oh dear.
(Note that this is just the euros, the wargames have their own closet (in the Doug Room), although they certainly have taken over a good part of the 30 or so bookcases in that same room. I really should put up a picture, as it’s quite the space. Not that it's large, just, uhm, entropic. I close the door when my friends come over.)
I figure somewhere between 65-75% of my games fit in the new space, and I’ve got room for more if I can get up the gumption to get rid of the truly frightening amount of 2nd Ed AD&D and Warhammer stuff I bought a lot of back when I was in grad school and slowly going nuts. That’s taking up the third wall, so figure I have room for about half again as much new stuff that I’ll buy while I’m doing the books for my family’s business and slowly going nuts. But that requires me getting rid of it, and I am such a packrat. Besides, I can’t break up the complete set of Arabian Adventures modules I have, that would be Bad.
So here we are, having taken a concrete step towards The Big Purge. If anyone has gone through this process before (without a complete “sell everything” meltdown, I’m not quite there yet), I’d love to hear from you! I’ll continue the thread in the coming weeks with a list of games I’m on the bubble on.
I’ve whined a bit on this blog about my decision to let some things go for the first time in years (and when I say years, I mean close to 20 years), aside from a few games that I was so disgusted with that keeping them was an affront to my sensibilities. Eagle’s American Civil War comes to mind, which I shamelessly talked my nephew Alex into taking home so that he could use the figures in D&D games.
Tthe real kicker was that I simply ran out of space in the second bedroom closet, which has been the Last Sanctuary of games since my other options have been whittled down over time. My wife sews in this closet (calm down, it's roomy), and we frequently have guests over that are astonished to learn that no, they will not in fact be allowed to hang clothing in the closet because there is no room for said clothes.
Fortunately, our rowhouse has a downstairs bathroom with space for a tub/shower, and since the “bedroom” on the same floor is the Doug Room, we opted instead to put closet space where the tub/shower would go, up until now used for such useless things as ladders and extra cases of Talking Rain from Costco. After looking at this space recently, it occurred to me that I could move in a couple of relatively thin bookcases in the back and sides and use this as my main game closet.
So that’s what I did. Of course, it doesn’t hold as much as the old space, but that is a Very Good Thing. You see, it forces me to think about what games I have that are worth keeping and what games aren’t. Downsizing forces you to really think about the value of things, as we learned in a move from a house with a large basement to a two-bedroom apartment four states away several years ago. All those books? I'm not moving them...
Understand that this is a 2.5 floor trip from one closet to the other, thankfully downhill (I would have hired the neighborhood kids were it uphill, were there kids in my neighborhood). Every trip I said to myself, “Self, this is the last one for a while,” only to go back upstairs and think that one more isn’t such a bad idea after all. Three hours later (including removing the stackable/foldable bookcases from their boxes and unfolding and stacking them), there they were, the keepers.
But I made one boo-boo. The first cut, you see, was to remove the games from the closet upstairs to the bed, leaving the games doomed to Purgatory in the closet. Since my wife is 5’3” tall, the upper shelf of the closet is, apparently, free range for games. I intended to make a second cut on the way downstairs, and I did this with the games that had a Kosmos Big Box form factor (the big square ones, like Stephenson’s Rocket), and actually about six or seven more games went back in the closet. However, I neglected to do this for other form factors in the “just one more trip” mania that was my Saturday morning. So now, I will need to decide which of the downstairs games have to go Back Upstairs. Oh dear.
(Note that this is just the euros, the wargames have their own closet (in the Doug Room), although they certainly have taken over a good part of the 30 or so bookcases in that same room. I really should put up a picture, as it’s quite the space. Not that it's large, just, uhm, entropic. I close the door when my friends come over.)
I figure somewhere between 65-75% of my games fit in the new space, and I’ve got room for more if I can get up the gumption to get rid of the truly frightening amount of 2nd Ed AD&D and Warhammer stuff I bought a lot of back when I was in grad school and slowly going nuts. That’s taking up the third wall, so figure I have room for about half again as much new stuff that I’ll buy while I’m doing the books for my family’s business and slowly going nuts. But that requires me getting rid of it, and I am such a packrat. Besides, I can’t break up the complete set of Arabian Adventures modules I have, that would be Bad.
So here we are, having taken a concrete step towards The Big Purge. If anyone has gone through this process before (without a complete “sell everything” meltdown, I’m not quite there yet), I’d love to hear from you! I’ll continue the thread in the coming weeks with a list of games I’m on the bubble on.
posted by Dug @ 9:26 AM
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