Which specific copies of your games would you save?

Boardgames
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Assume you had to sell off your collection because you were moving halfway across the world and couldn’t afford to take all of them with you. You have either a) room for 10 games or b) 2 Kallax cubes and on the other side a decent game store awaits where you can rebuy games… which games do you keep? Why?

This was inspired by the recent floods over here and I don’t live that far from the Rhine about 4km… and cannot stop thinking what might happen with a bit more rain. In at least one of the villages a game store was destroyed. I tried to put the scenario in a bit more benevolent terms. Maybe this is not a good idea, I am unsure… please let me know and I’ll remove this to the bin of bad ideas.

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:sweat: :cry:

Ticket to Ride - 10th Anniversary Edition – I couldn’t deprive my partner of one of her favorite games, and this would be one of the most difficult games to replace in our collection.

18OE – I paid a lot of money for this. There’s no way I’m leaving it behind even if I could find a replacement

Empire Builder, Eurorails, Iron Dragon, and British Rails – some of the best of the crayon-rail series and very difficult to track down copies (and leaving behind Australia Rails, China Rails, Empire Express, India Rails, Lunar Rails, Martian Rails, Nippon Rails, and Russian Rails)

Roads & Boats 20th Anniversary Edition – I’ve seen this pop up fairly regularly and I don’t worry about my ability to track down additional copies when I need them, but I figured I’d get called out by this community if I didn’t include it

Anachrony Infinity Box – I’m not sure the Infinity box will be available again? Might as well not take any chances

Millennium Blades – The latest expansion is still impossible to track down; it may eventually get posted on L99’s web shop, but it’s never entering traditional distribution according to L99

Summoner Wars (1st Edition) – I have more than a full set of SW1.0 and I haven’t been convinced that SW2 is worthwhile yet.

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  1. Twilight Imperium 4th Edition. Way too expensive to replace if I can avoid it, and conveniently my favourite game of all time. Double bonus.
  2. Lord of the Rings Journeys in Middle-Earth. I’m quite proud of the paint job I did on those models, and I really, really don’t want to paint them again.
  3. Imperial Assault. As above.
  4. Forbidden Stars. This game was a gift at an extremely difficult time in my life, and it happens to be a game I really, really enjoy that can be hard to find. I often jokingly say that it will be buried with me.
  5. Archeology. It seems almost a waste for such a small, clever game… but it can be a devil to find a copy of it, and it’s really good.
  6. Scythe. Too many expansions owned, and a limited edition box cover. Plus, one of my personal top 5 games.
  7. Blackstone Fortress. Again, more about the models and the painting than the game being particular spectacular, but added bonus, it is good. And out of print.
  8. Eclipse 2nd Dawn: I might have to keep it just because it is still NIB, despite it showing up at my home in March 2020. Getting rid of a game I’ve never opened would be hard.
  9. Xia, Legeds of a Drift System. My favourite sandbox game, and a big chunky one, and hard to find.
  10. Aristeia!. Again, painting models = the suck, and doing it twice would hurt my heart.
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Dominion - 2,000+ labelled wooden discs and all the other custom DIY components would be a real pain to replace.

Napoleon’s Triumph - almost impossible to get hold of.

Blood Bowl - hundreds of triple-stickered cubes, custom storage I wouldn’t be able to find again.

Netrunner - big collection, OOP, seems to keep going up in price.

Mage Knight Board Game - custom storage, better box than the “ultimate edition” I’d have to rebuy.

Space Hulk - the only game I have with a large number of miniatures that I painted.

DungeonQuest - for sheer nostalgia value, the only game surviving from my childhood.

Roads & Boats Anniversary edition - expensive, tricky to get hold of.

Galaxy Trucker Anniversary edition - expensive.

Pax Pamir 2e - expensive, bit tricky to get hold of now.

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Ortus Regni - probably not expensive, but difficult to find.

Cthulhu Wars - using the word “expensive” here would be an understatement

1817 - didn’t sold well that the publisher can justify a reprint soon.

Container 1st edition - rare

Glory to Rome - rare even though the price was pretty decent when I got it

Dogs of War - not only is the base game difficult to find, it also house the Kickstarter expansion that is rare as hen’s teeth.

El Grande Decennial Edition - I can lose Tigris & Euphrates. But not this one. It’s the Decennial edition. I will never surrender and buy the Big Box edition ever.

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6

It’s nice to see the various games you are all attached to and the reasons for the attachment. Some games are just special :slight_smile:

I made my own list a couple of days ago…

  1. Spirit Island. My copy is the one with everything from the Kickstarter including the big wooden box and it would not just be really expensive to replace but also it’s mine, my treasure! This is my desert island game.
  2. Terra Mystica: Spirit Island’s predecessor as my favorite game. Also I have all the expansions and promos. This wouldn’t be difficult to replace but the specific game has nostalgic value to me.
  3. Clank! Legacy: a personalized copy of a fun game. This is the one legacy game that is playable after the campaign, this is ours!
  4. Tash Kalar: not only has it all the expansions and a badly made (by me) foamcore insert but it is signed and has a sketch from the artist inside the lid. Even though I got recently beat a lot on BGA by the one friend who also likes this, this one holds a special place.
  5. Gloomhaven: on going campaign that would be hard to recreate and also expensive to replace and I put some work into the insert as well.
  6. Pandemic Legacy 2: on going campaign that we would love to finish (and will, soon then there is space on the boat for another one)
  7. Pax Pamir 2e: expensive and somewhat difficult to get
  8. Oath: same as Pax Pamir and also my game has already taken on a personality of its own through my solo plays.
  9. Obsession: hard to find. And I feel I have a personal connection to this KS copy from following the lovely campaign updates about unboxings and the waffling about the included storage solution and…
  10. Leaving Earth: with all the expansion is really difficult to find and my partner loves it quite a lot (and so do I, even more after we played it on the forum and I now know how to mine the moon) and this particular one reminds me of where and when I bought it and how I picked it and… memories :slight_smile:

Also I am cheating and somehow found my copy of Sprawlopolis somewhere in a pocket of my jeans. Honorable mention goes to a game I don’t even own yet but should it ever arrive will immediately push something off this list: Blood on the Clocktower. I have a few other games that I am a bit nostalgic about but apparently not enough to not include our campaign games :slight_smile:

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Also, in the case of a flood you could use this as a boat to transport everything else in

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Wasn’t this what Boats on Roads was for?

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I think I’d mostly go for games that would be expensive to replace, or that we have extra bits for:

  1. Scythe: we have all the expansions, I built an insert for it, and we’ve played through the whole campaign.

  2. Pax Pamir: took ages to get hold of, and I have the nice metal coins.

  3. Oath: Expensive :see_no_evil: and included all the nice Kickstarter bits.

  4. Railroad Ink collector’s edition: I’ll probably be playing it on the plane/train/boat

  5. Root: I don’t want to think about the amount I’ve already spent on this game…

  6. Food Chain Magnate: expensive, plus I have the expansion and some upgrades

  7. Quacks of Quedlinberg: it took ages to put all those tokens into coin capsules!

The rest are some of my husband’s favourite games. He hates getting rid of games, even when he doesn’t like them, so it would save him a bit of stress.

  1. 1862

  2. Barony

  3. Blood Rage

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10

If I just packed up all our games they wouldn’t come to ten, I don’t think. Unless you want to include roleplaying games.

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Feel free. Games are games whether board or roleplaying or computer games. What matters to you is what counts for this thought experiment.

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12

There isn’t much I won’t willingly part with if the circumstances are right. That said, I’m totally with @Marx regarding anything that’s been painted already. Aristeia!, Aeronautica Imperialis and Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps (well that’s weird. All my minis games start with A?) get kept high up and well protected, and will not be replaced in the event of disaster. I just wouldn’t be able to do that all over again (note: not even done!).

Beyond that I have a few:

Yokohama cost me a small fortune to acquire in its deluxified version. Not just because it would (again) be pricey and difficult to replace but because I’d be fully compelled to do so, I would ensure this one came along with me.

Container 10th Anniversary Jumbo Edition is deeply out of print, and likely won’t see the light of day ever again. A new reprinting of the original appears to be on the horizon, but I covet this beast of an edition. It is the correct size for this game, IMO, and thinking of replacing it makes my head hurt.

Forbidden Stars is the best combat game I’ve ever played, full stop. It’s also OOP and stupidly expensive to acquire. I got exceptionally lucky scoring my (unplayed) copy at a little below the original Canadian retail price, and I’m not delusional enough to think I’d get that lucky again. A new version, not linked to any existing IP, has been threatened by its main designer for a long time now, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to guess that there would be gameplay changes. For better or worse would be anyone’s guess but here’s the truth: I wouldn’t really care. Forbidden Stars is perfect.

Feudum is a game I went bananas with, and I’m not even done (eventually I’ll end up with a THIRD copy of Rudders and Ramparts). It’s not a game that would be especially difficult to replace, but the effort I made in the first place (to say nothing of the costs) to get it upgraded and complete is enough for me to do anything I can to avoid repeating that process.

Finally, I also have first editions of all three Pretzel games (Flick 'em Up!, Junk Art, Men at Work) and I covet them. This will probably shift into a more vehement stance as time goes on, but certainly already I feel compelled to hold onto them.

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In the end, I have no emotional attachment to any of these games, apart from that which I’ve “created” (models), and even those are hardly irreplaceable. This extends to literally all of my worldly possessions, and my actual cash. If it all went up in smoke tomorrow I’d be sad, but they’re things, and no amount of personal upheaval or experienced tragedy can wipe the memories and good times enjoyed with good company.

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I wonder how well Kallax floats…

My copy of Colt Express is quite upgraded: a playmat, painted wooden bandit and horse meeples, and my own 3d-printed loot tokens. (Also the Time Travel Car promo, though I don’t often use it.)

Otherwise my games tend to be close to as-sold. I’ve upgraded several with 3d-printed bits or storage (e.g. Flash Point Fire Rescue, which I still love), but I could just print those again. If between now and then I find a copy of Lemminge that’ll definitely go in my emergency box.

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Rank speculation: like a wooden duck for 6 minutes, at which point the particle board will be fully waterlogged and it’s all gone forever.

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Well, looking only at print editions (since the PDFs don’t take up significant physical space):

GURPS, because I run it all the time, and write books for it, and have several of my published books on my shelves.
Big Eyes Small Mouth, because it’s my second favorite generic RPG and because I have a copy that’s really beautifully illustrated.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, because it’s an excellent adaptation and has a really good freeform magic system.
Mage: The Ascension, which I’ve run twice and enjoyed both times, and which has one of the best conceptual structures of any RPG setting.
FUDGE, the other generic system I’ve used, which has distinctive uses of its own.
Call of Cthulhu, which I’m playing in, and which is a really good example of a game where combat takes a back seat to investigation.
RuneQuest II, which I consider one of the great classic designs and am currently running.
Nobilis, which I’ve never run and never will, because it’s such a physically beautiful game book.
Superhero 2044, which is long out of print and irreplaceable.
Villains and Vigilantes, my other nostalgic superhero game, which is actually possible to run, unlike Superhero 2044.

Now, that’s treating my roughly two shelf feet of GURPS as “a game.” If each book counts separately it’s going to be much more agonizing to choose.

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The thing with rpgs is that most I can get as PDFs (or I used them now as PDFs).

Which edition? I have 1e, 2e, 2er (on PDF), and 3e. I have a fondness for 2e.

I think this falls under the “2 Kallax cubes” rules (assuming you want physical copies).

1 Like
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I don’t have many “special editions” of games. So most of my collection would be fairly easy to replace. Though expensive.

Inis - Top of the list. Just because I have it with the original cover art and I love it.

Traders of Osaka, Dogs of War, Discworld: The Witches, Discworld: Ankh-Morpork - All out-of-print and difficult to find.

I am sufficiently jealous.

Consentacle, The Champion of the Wild, Skulldug - Kickstarter stuff that would be difficult to get hold of again (Consentacle didn’t even have a retail release). And my name is on one of the cards in CotW!

Heroes Wanted - Not the best game, but I’ve got all the expansions for it and it holds a special place in my heart.

Ashes - God, it would be annoying to have to buy everything again.

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Consentacle is available as PnP on itch.io: Consentacle Print and Play Edition by Naomi Clark

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While I could thoughtfully cull my game collection down to 10 games, I don’t know which 10 I’d grab while running out of the house. My only grail game is the original 2F-Spiel Funkenschlag. My problem is that I so rarely get to play my games that I don’t have that deep emotional attachment to them. I’d lament losing them, but I wouldn’t be heartbroken.

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For Big Eyes Small Mouth, the second edition, in the original version that has lots and lots of color art. I use the shorter reprint to minimize wear and tear on it. I feel that the third edition was a less playable version (not the only game for which I feel that way).

I have no idea what a Kallax cube is.

As for PDFs, they’re useful for many purposes, but I can’t figure out how to go from a PDF to a copy on my computer in Books to a copy on my iPad.