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Used to hoard every rulebook until I saw my buddy's minimalist setup
For years I kept every single rulebook from every game I owned even the ones I never played. Had a big plastic bin under my gaming table with like 40 rulebooks stuffed in there. Then last month I went over to a friend's house in Arlington and he just had a little binder with clear sleeves. One page per game with the setup diagram and a quick reference for edge cases. Everything else he said was just fluff. I thought he was crazy but we played 4 games that night and he never needed to flip through anything. Has anyone else tried paring down their rulebooks or am I the only one who treats them like sacred texts?
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keith90018d ago
Haha yeah I'm definitely in the "sacred texts" camp... I still have the rulebook for my first copy of Risk from like 1998 with all the page corners perfectly flat. Meanwhile my buddy writes his house rules right on the pages in pen and highlights stuff with a yellow marker. Drove me nuts at first but then I realized he never once had to pause a game to look something up. I'm trying to be more like your friend but honestly I think I'd need therapy to get over the mental block of folding a page corner...
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People get way too precious about rulebooks honestly. I mean if you're playing something complex like Twilight Imperium sure keep the full thing around but for most games you're really just flipping through for that one rule about line of sight or whatever. Your buddy's approach sounds efficient not crazy. It's just paper at the end of the day not some holy artifact. I've seen folks get legitimately stressed about keeping rulebooks pristine and it's kinda funny. You're not using them for decoration they're tools.
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sage30818d ago
Used to be one of those people who kept rulebooks in mint condition, never even creased the spine. But you're right @the_claire, they're tools not trophies. Started noticing that my buddy who dog-ears pages and writes little notes in the margins actually remembers rules better than me. He's not disrespecting the game, he's just making it work for his group. Thought for a long time that keeping things pristine showed you cared but now I see it's more about actually playing than preserving. Got a copy of Betrayal at House on the Hill that's completely beat up from years of use and honestly it means more to me than the ones sitting perfect on my shelf.
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