Are You a Completist?

[Endless Flight]

I’ve never been a completist for any game line (or any of my hobbies really). I’m just wondering how common this is on the Pub. It seems to be a common thing about gamers that post online from what I see. Maybe you only collect everything for certain games? Just a poll.

 

[TristramEvans]

Use to be. Used to be baaaadddddddddd.

Thankfully, at least for RPGs, I've gotten over that

 

[Skywalker]

If I like an RPG and I am playing it or plan to play it, then I will consider collecting all the books. Certainly not for everything though.

 

[Picaroon Jack]

In the past yes, but now I just get what I need to play the game. The problem now is I do NOT specialize and instead get all kinds of things.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I answered no because that’s the case most of the time. Now and again I’ll find something where I want everything….but usually that’s more because I enjoy it or will use it more than because I feel the need to complete a set.

 

[TJS]

No. Don't have enough shelf space.

 

[Fenris-77]

I don't even have shelves.

 

[PolarBlues]

I have caught the completist bug a couiple on a couple of occassions. At one stage I owned everything Gamma World from 1st to 6th edition. I've since got rid of or given away most of this. For nostalgia reasons mostly I've kept the 1st and 4th edtion rules and adventure, though I honestly don't expect to revist them. But never say never, right?

I was also an ICONS completist, right up to the new ICONS Assembled edition. It's a great game that really suits my style of GMing and I the initial support of short, cheap PDF adventures worked really well, and I am not generally a fan of published adventures. My interest in ICONS products sort trailed off after the ICONS Assembled was released. The new edition didn't quite cliick with me in the same way and I've been a lot more selective about what ICONS release I pick up since.

 

[Ralph Dula]

I used to be. But I got tired of shelling out for products I could have done a better job of writing, not to mention interactions with folks that made me not want to give them money.

i still find it hilarious someone decided that I wasn’t a real fan of one of my favorite RPGs because I don’t have everything for the second edition. I gave up on it because whoever chose the layout decided to go with a nightmare of background colors so I literally can’t read the hardcopy books, and I’m not buying the PDFs so i can cut and paste all the texts to make them legible.

 

[TJS]

I would consider being considered "not a real fan" to be a compliment.

I've never understood why I would want to be a fan of anything at all.

 

[Fenris-77]

If you aren't a fan of things what in the world do you should shout into your own personal echo chamber about?

 

[VisionStorm]

Nope. Specially not about TTPRGs, since I tend to be kinda DYI. But even in video games trying to complete achievements I tend to give up. Hell, I rarely even finish the games--specially cRPGs, cuz I get sidetracked with side quests and trying out different characters or builds.

Closest thing to completing anything I've ever come as far as TTRPGs are concerned were the old AD&D 2e Complete (pun!) X series, which I'm pretty sure I got all of them. Except maybe the Paladin one, but even then I think I may have gotten it at one point. Also the "Glory of Rome" one, which wasn't technically a "Complete X" book, but was done in the same format and style.

 

[Yeti Spaghetti]

Part of me wants to be, part of me just wants enough to get by and play the game. Especially since I only play online, I don't feel that I need to have everything right in front of me.

 

[Blammo]

I am and it's stupid. I realize that it's stupid and yet I still buy all the things for shit that I have, even if I'm not actively playing the game I'm buying everything for. It's the same for video games (all the DLC) and TTRPGs (all the supplements). But hey, at least I'm supporting creators?

 

[TristramEvans]

If you aren't a fan of things what in the world do you should into your own personal echo chamber about?

Want to English that up a bit?

 

[Fenris-77]

Want to English that up a bit?

Fandom is what drives a lot of internet shouting, both humorous and no so humorous.

 

[FreeGamer]

In the 90s and 00s, I was, badly. It didn't even make sense because I so rarely got to actually play. So I don't know what drove that urge - perhaps a residual from my comic book reading days when missing issues meant missing important content sometimes. My dad and I definitely did a lot of hunting for back issues.

Now I only get more than the core books if I really like what's in the core books and will actually get to play it. I'd still love to get the French-language Agone books that I don't already have(found a guy who was able to procure a few for me once), and pretty much anything Sine Nomine produces is a must-buy(whether I get to play it or not) . . . well, when I can afford it, of course. Other than that . . . no real completionist tendencies anymore.

 

[Necrozius]

Use to be. Used to be baaaadddddddddd.

Thankfully, at least for RPGs, I've gotten over that

Same here. I’m actually trimming down what I have now that I have realized that I didn’t actually NEED everything. Less is more etc…

edit: 5e was the breaking point. I spent too much money on adventures that I ended up hating. Waterdeep Dragon “Heist” was the last straw.

 

[ScytheSong]

Depends on the line, for me. D&D I've always been hit-or-miss on, but for a while I got everything In Nomine, Werewolf: the Apocalypse, Shadowrun and 7th Sea that I could get my hands on. Since then I've been completist in the sense of only buying games where there was one book that could do everything I needed (Or, in the case of 7th Sea 2nd edition, backed at the level that gets me all the PDFs). There are several games that I have one book for that I don't need (and didn't get) additional resources for -- Call of Cthulhu 7th ed. and JadeClaw 1st ed fall in this category.

 

[Spellslinging Sellsword]

Want to English that up a bit?

Change should to shout.

 

[Sable Wyvern]

I'll pick up supplements on their indvidual merits; ie, what use I believe I'll get out of them.

I will sometimes let my desire to support a company influence my decision when I'm otherwise on the fence, but I'll never grab something simply because it's part of the line.

 

[Bunch]

Kinda. Less so now but have an almost complete in print collection of everything Talislanta and HERO 1,2,3,4th edition. Where it got a bit crazy was 3.X. I have most of the WotC 3.x books.

Now I'm a half added completist. If I can find it cheap I add it to my collection.

 

[Gabriel]

Yeah, I get bit by the completionism bug bad sometimes.

I'll just get it into my head that I need to follow a line or complete a set.

 

[TristramEvans]

 

[Necrozius]

I’ll never complete my Zombicide Black Plague collection because I refuse to pay ridiculously bloated ebay scalper prices on Kickstarter exclusives.

Being raised in a lower-middle class household when I couldn’t afford anything has made me real cheap LOL

edit: a few weeks ago I found a rare figure/character for Zombicide at a game shop in town. It was 90$. One figure. Give me a break. The store people thought I was crazy for not buying it.

 

[Ralph Dula]

edit: a few weeks ago I found a rare figure/character for Zombicide at a game shop in town. It was 90$. One figure. Give me a break. The store people thought I was crazy for not buying it.

A decade or so back I was at a game store, and found a 40K Witch Hunter figure that looked cool, so I bought it. When I was being rung up the guy behind the counter went on and on about it being a limited edition figure, and it was quite clear he felt I should be thanking him for the chance to buy it.

Ironically, it was cheaper than most of the regular 40k figures they had for sale.

 

[The Convenient Skill]

I can be if I really like a system. Luckily most systems I really like are very small lines or have no supplements at all.

If anything I'm more of a genre person, picking up swashbuckling systems where I can so I can compare and contrast.

 

[Stumpydave]

I used to be, but age and a dwindling amount of space curtails ones proclivity to hoard.

 

[Rich H]

I'm trying very hard not to be and I'm winning the battle s-l-o-w-l-y.

 

[Nobby-W]

I used to be, both in designing and purchase (in some cases). Now I've backed off that stance a bit, and much for the better, I think.

 

[Winterblight]

I voted yes. Having said that, the game lines I been collecting have got to the point where I can't be bothered anymore. I have just about everything from Shadowrun 1 to 5. I have Anarchy, but that put a halt to me buying SR books. I've never taken a bite out of 6th Edition. The same with Earthdawn - I think have everything bar one book, but I don't play as much anymore and have been looking at different systems more frequently. I guess I will find a new special game at some point. I used to have all the AD&D 2nd edition books, but those have been lent out, went missing etc over the years.

 

[Mankcam]

"Depends"

I never used to be a completeist, mainly because of limited access to rpgs and also because I used to be broke.
These days I am much more financially secure, and what I can't find on the shop shelves, I can usually just mail-order thru online shopping.
I figure why wait otherwise I'll miss out on something again, which was pretty much how things went for me in my teens up to my late thirties, but this past decade has seen me kinda make up for earlier shortcomings.
So if I see a line I really like, I tend to get as much of it as possible. Outside of my favourite gamelines I just tend to buy the corebook and that's it.
But yeah, I have four or five gamelines that I am tending to collect obsessively, heh heh

 

[under_score]

I try to buy only what I'll use, or think I'll use anyway. In the case of AS&SH, so far that's been everything. Call of Cthulhu, Mythras, OSE, Castles & Crusades, all game lines I like a lot but have no interest in some of their products, so I don't feel the need to buy them up just to fill in my shelves.
I guess I went all in on Flashing Blades, but leaving out one item would've cost as much in shipping later if I decided I wanted it.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

I used to be a completist with Ravenloft. Most other lines though I was content with the rulebook and the odd supplement or module that interested me.

 

[ffilz]

I voted "Depends".

For a while I was definitely a completist. When I realized I was burned by not having got all the RQ2 stuff, if I got interested in a setting, I bought in whole hog. So before reducing my collection after I got engaged, I had bought fully into 7th Sea, Deadlands, and Talislanta. I started buying (almost) everything I could find for Hero Wars/Hero Quest. I bought heavily into Tekumel in the 2000s.

After really thinking about things as I downsized in 2007 after getting engaged, I decided I didn't have to be such a completist, and to the extent I was, I focused on limited things.

I am now complete in all the Chaosium RQ1 and RQ2 stuff. I bought into the "all digital" level of the kick starter. I bought POD to complete my collection (OK, I'm not complete on magazines and fanzines, though last year I did fill out my Wyrms Footnotes collection, and I bought the digital collection). An eBay auction in 2005 let me fill out most of what I was missing for a pretty reasonable cost and got me duplicates of some of the most important bits.
I really thinned out my Hero Wars/Hero Quest stuff, keeping bits that were actually useful to me.
I kept my Talislanta stuff (really it's not that big a stack)
I kept a nice selection of Tekumel but got rid of a few things
I kept my complete run of Different Worlds
I kept my nearly complete run of White Dwarf up to whenever it cuts off (issue 60ish, with some into the 80s)
I kept my complete run of Dungeon Magazine (even the 3.x issues)
I have purchased all the Classic Traveller CD-ROMS and several others

I'd pick up stuff to fill in gaps if I found it at a good price.

Getting engaged torpedoed completeness in my other big expensive hobby. Until then, I had pretty much achieved a complete run of every LEGO Pirate set. Mostly I was missing a comic they had put out in some languages. I'm not even sure what all languages it was printed in, I don't have German and considering that Germany was LEGO's biggest market until 2000 or so, I can't imagine it not being in German, I forget if I have it in Danish, I even have both the US and UK versions where a few names are different...

 

[finarvyn]

I voted "yes" but am trying to do this less. For example, at one point I owned every Dune novel out there -- even all of the Brian Herbert ones -- and I eventually decided that I would never read the ones from the early days of the Dune universe and got rid of half of the collection. I had boxes of Star Trek books from every series made, and finally decided to focus on TOS and got rid of most of the rest. This kind of "buy and purge" seems to happen to me a lot.

I still tend to keep everything I can find for certain RPGs even if I think I'll never play them. I had a full set of 7th Sea books and then dumped all but the core player's and GM's books. Same thing with a lot of Savage Worlds and FATE stuff. The problem is that if I like a setting or game I love the concept of having a full set, but I don't have the time to read it all and don't have the memory to remember all of the details anyway, so a lot of stuff has been leaving my collection over the years. On the other hand, I like to keep most of my D&D stuff and still go back to re-read the really old gamebooks and magazines so they will probably stay on my shelves forever.

 

[AsenRG]

"Depends". As in, "I'm trying to rein myself in"!

 

[Altheus]

I tend not to buy more than the core book for anything. Except when something tempting comes up on one of the bundle sites.

Once I've got the core I can make up the rest myself (sorry games companies).

 

[Ravenswing]

Used to be, in early days, when my disposable income went into gaming, and I was hunting for any idea I could find to shoehorn into my homebrew. That pretty much ended after I got married and had bills to pay. I wound up selling the vast horde to Noble Knight Games about ten years ago, in a cash crunch.

Nowadays, well ... I'm a GURPS GM. It'd be madness to be a completist for that!

 

[Brightfires]

I am for certain favorite games... Exalted, Ars Magica, Wraith, Talislanta... but not for tabletop games in general or even for every one I play. Call it having a partial case of Collector's Instinct. I'm the same way with my dolls (I collect modern Asian ball-jointed dolls, and have gone for complete sculpt sets of some lines/companies but not others-) and miniatures.