Rulebooks you don't play, but keep anyway

[Blackwolf]

A few, . And have turfed a few out or given them to friends. However I will never throw out my vast Glorantha collection 
Like Daeothar ,my wife and I have a lot of books*,and multiple interests,books are sacrosanct,some rule books are just too good to toss out; Age of Arthur,Mordeim,Call of Cthulhu the list goes on... What I actually play; Rapid Fire , Mad Maximilian and my own multiple period rules loosely based on Mordeim crossed with Rapid Fire with one or two added tweaks (for example hero points for fantasy and pulp).

*Have to keep culling my kindle too!

[pauld]

I would say I spend far more time reading and collecting rule books and browsing forums and blogs than painting or playing with the collection.

My bookcases and Kindle are full of them, most of which I'll never play, but each and every one feeds my imagination and my favourites are constantly looked at and re-read.

As to culling them, no.  Never.

My wife jokes of a Viking Funeral - me on the lake with a blazing heap of books, metal and plastic. 

The wargaming hobby covers a lot of collecting styles, personalities and qwirks.  More power to it, I say.

Must dash, I'm off to read an early copy of Wagames Illustrated amongst the gigabytes worth of copies downloaded during my subscription period 

[Mammoth miniatures]

I have a theory that 90% of gaming books are never played - and of those a large number are never even read.
but we all like having them, either for the artwork, the ideas, or just on the off chance that that project we started 5 years ago might finally get finished.

[zemjw]

Shelves of the things

The only problem is that enerytime I think "it's time for a clearout", I always find a reason to keep them.

There are plenty of digital ones as well, which is something I really need to catalogue at some point...

[fred]

.... and my own multiple period rules loosely based on Mordeim crossed with Rapid Fire with one or two added tweaks (for example hero points for fantasy and pulp).

The mind boggles!

[Pijlie]

At least one rulebook (DBM) will never leave my shelves because I love to reread it to remind me of how NOT to write rules. It might be a good game (if not my taste) but it is written like a 19th century lawbook. Atrocious. 

But aside from this one example of "reverse inspiration" most rulesets I keep will inspire me on occasion to add something to a game that makes it a better game.

[Daeothar]

I have a theory that 90% of gaming books are never played - and of those a large number are never even read.
but we all like having them, either for the artwork, the ideas, or just on the off chance that that project we started 5 years ago might finally get finished.

[YODA]Much truth in this there is, hmm?[/YODA]

[SteveBurt]

I had a purge last year and got rid of a ton of rule sets that I realised I would never play again. Made quite a lot of space on the shelves!

[Elbows]

I was considering getting into Napoleonics as a kid, and my dad found a copy of Bruce Quarrie's Napoleon's Campaigns in Miniature at the local base library.  It hadn't been checked out in something like fifteen years, so he "lost it", paid the $10 or whatever and gave it to me as a birthday present.

A little cheeky, but it's a marvelous book.  This was all pre-internet - so it wasn't something you could find at the time.  Glorious book I keep till this day, even with no intention of ever gaming Napoleonics.  It's got amazing content...and so much detail I can't even begin to fathom who games like this.  Want to know the marching pace, in inches, of Prussian Landwehr?  It's in there.

It has excellent maps of the major battles, and an eye-watering level of logistical detail, etc.  Just amazing stuff...even if it's way over my head/interest.

[dadlamassu]

I do not have many commercial rule books.  Those I have fall into 2 groups - the first are those bought when I was in club that was keen on competitions.  I soon tired of them (competitions not the club) and they might be in a box somewhere or I have given them away. Don't know.  The exception is Cthulhu Invictus that I use for the background information on Ancient Rome.
The second lot are those bought more recently for games that our grandchildren want to play - Lord of the Rings, Hobbit, Bolt Action, Zona Alfa.  These do get used on Zoom while Covid restrictions get in the way.

So what do I use now?  Virtually all are rules written by my friend Slim or myself. and date back to the 1960s and 70s with amendments and updates.  At Christmas I was given "Infamy, Infamy!" and those have been played a few times again on Zoom.