Simplifying

I am in a process of simplifying the number of games I play, and the amount of books I want to play with. Going back in the box are games we never play, and on our shelves will be only the basics.

I mean "just the books you need to play" and nothing more.

Pathfinder is now just the main book and the Bestiary 1, and possibly the Gamemastery Guide. D&D 4 is just the first three books. D&D 5 is just the first three as well. D&D 3.5 is that nice foil-covered collector's set.

Legend is up on the shelf because we like the game, but my PDF printouts are seeing more use than the main book so go figure. Our World of Darkness collection is up there too in its madness and glory, along with Exalted.

The rest of the books? Away from the core books and in another room, but on a shelf in case we need them. I don't want them out, I don't want them creating a wall of "play me" and intimidating us with their weight and presence.

Games have gotten way to fat nowadays, super-sized and written primarily for the collector's market. Who plays these things anyways? Even with the basic three books, many of the big-name fantasy games are pushing 1,000 pages of rules and content, and you wonder where that simple game went, the one we started this hobby with.

Game designers love to hear themselves talk, I guess.

But seriously, simplification is a good thing. Without a ton of books weighing you down, you are free to improvise and use your imagination. That's the point of this hobby, to make stuff up and have fun, no matter what game you play.

I like to collect, but I would never play with my collection - even just a single game. I like simple games, ones where we make up what happens next, and we don't have to navigate down a path of rules, treasure, or options to find something 'legal' and 'by the rules' to add to the night's festivities.

This is why Legend is so interesting for us right now. It is sort of a Traveller take on fantasy, and there isn't much in there. We are free to make most of the stuff up, and we are having a blast. With an active imagination, it is a great little game, and open for many possibilities. I don't want to sort through a thousand pages of monsters, spells, and magic items just to provide a sea of meaningless options to a game we have an idea for and want to keep it focused.

It is pretty hard to focus a D&D game on a single topic, say pirates, because there is so much stuff in the game that says "not pirates" to us. When the Drow crawl out of a cave, wizards start using teleport to skip ahead to the next port, and someone pulls out a flying carpet the players who want the focused pirates-on-the-seven-seas-experience are sitting there saying, "well...yar, I guess." Yes you can focus the game, but then you get into a game of "yes or no" on 95% of the content in the books.

So simplify.

Put away books you bought only to collect.

Focus your fun on the things that you enjoy.

You may find yourself a little happier and actually playing those games on your shelf.