Sunday, August 20, 2017

#RPGaDay 2017 Day 20: What is the Best Source for Out-of-Print RPGs?

Nostalgia in all its forms for #RPGaDay 2017 Day 20:

"What is the Best Source of Out-of-Print RPGs"

Enter the late-to-party Grognard, "Dagnabbit, I wish Crazy Egor's was all in his glory of the 80's and 90's you could get old-school modules affordably.  Heck, they even paid YOU a penny if you added a copy of Isle of Dread with your order."

Yes, I know Crazy Egor still exists in some form in the Rochester, NY area, but I feel a trip up there could never match up with the simply ridiculous inventory that we encountered in our epic road trip in the early 90's. 

Anyway, I've certainly left the Collector mentality after my great purge of 'Aught-Four.   Now married with kids, I don't have the budget to snag up the cool old stuff I still want, and I certainly don't have the time to use it in play.

I'm resigned to use two avenues to access my sense of nostalgia:
  1. eBay - This is not as awesome as it was even fifteen years ago.  Ridiculous opening bids and Buy-It-Now prices that make it cheaper to purchase a time machine and go back in time and buy it at retail. I still have a few saved searches that I check for deals (they still exist), but most of them are for miniatures.
  2. Auctions at local cons - I have the good fortune of having a local con (Mepacon) twice a year with solid auctions.  The auctions started as a con dealer hosting an "Everything starts for a dollar!" auction to a well-organized, standard part of the convention.  The dollar minimum still stands (outside large/rare items or charity auctions) and since it's fueled by attendees winnowing out their collections, it's a nice variety of stuff.  Of course, there's also a pre-auction buyout price that can be listed on the item, so a few of us might be known to prowl the area looking for deals.    Even then, I've given up a deal of a buy-out bid at, say ten dollars, only to pick it up in the live auction for three.  No signed copies of 70's Chainmail, but I have rebuilt my Rifts collection for Savage Rifts for less than a sawbuck.  
Plus that Russian copy of Scrabble I snagged is a conversation starter....

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