Games You Regret Trading or Selling

Yeah, but you also just buy back shit. That's something I've admired quite a bit over the years.

Oh yeah, there have been a few buy backs...usually if I buy a game again I’m interested in it again for whatever reason or there’s a play opportunity there. Or I sold something when it was high on the market and bought it back later for much less. But even then- if it ain’t playing, it ain’t staying. And the collection filters back down.

Not such much a regret for those things sold as those lost to time and the fluctuating fortunes of my accommodation situations.

Even though they'd most likely be gathering dust I still have the odd pang of regret that I no longer possess my childhood totems of Talisman, Hero Quest, Space Crusade and my complete set of D&D Basic through Immortal boxes and modules. Not to mention the Palladium RPG books, the original Rogue Trader book and more assorted ephemera. This pang twists in my gullet especially hard when I see the eye-watering prices some of these things command on the secondary market. Now that I have a modicum of actual cash money for the first time ever in my life I've gone about reacquiring some of them, especially that original Mentzer Red Box, but most remain a bridge too far, and honestly better left as a warm glow of half recollected nostalgia.

I think I'd feel a lot less regretful if I still lived in the US, because in the Philippines both trading and acquiring used games is really difficult. Otherwise I could probably move stuff around to find another copy of Pirate's Cove.

Another one that I do regret a little bit was that we didn't bring our Heroscape sets, but I regret that a bit less. We ended up giving them to my sister who has two boys roughly the same age as mine, so it's still in the family and is still being enjoyed. Space was just too limited to take it with us.

I've come a long way in how I think about holding on to games. I used to move anything that wasn't getting played often enough, but I've moved so much over the last several years that I've learned what doesn't get played now will definitely get played later on. Currently I'm in a situation where I can play Euros very easily, but anything that takes over 2 hours to play is very hard to get to the table. That means most of my favorite thematic games haven't been touched since moving here, but I just couldn't bare to get rid of stuff like Fury of Dracula and Duel of Ages II.

In the past a lot of us on this website have been pretty hard on collecting shelves full of games that go unplayed. I don't think purchasing a ton of unplayed stuff is a virtue at all, but I've also come around on holding on to things for sentimental value. When I see the copy of Shadows of Malice I haven't played in a couple years it reminds me of my friends in Texas who took a chance on that game with me. When I see Duel of Ages II it reminds me of getting that game while we lived in Kansas City. When I see my German copy of El Grande, I remember how my wife bought it for our first Christmas as a couple, not realizing she had purchased a German copy from BGG.

For me games have served as a showcase of all the places I've been, and so a lot of them are probably never going to be unloaded. It's okay to have emotional value in things.

All the games I regret selling I sold because I moved and just couldn't take them with me. My parents weren't really a storage option for those things. Went off to college and sold all my Warhammer stuff. At that point I had a Chaos Army when I was at the peak of my painting skills. Also had a skaven army and elf army at one point. Then when I joined the army post college I dropped almost all my MTG stuff and DiskWars.

Of course I miss all the stuff I had when I was a child, lots of D&D 2nd edition sourcebooks (Shadow Run as well). Advanced HeroQuest (why I started with Skaven despite my fast food salary not going far with a mass troop army), Mighty Empires (ugh) stuff like that as well. A fair amount of the Games Workshop board games that were really and truly excellent. Can't really buy that stuff back. I did manage to snag a copy of Battle for Armageddon in a math trade while in Europe. But I was getting rid of a GMT game when those were hard to come by in the Old World.

There are games I’ve traded or sold that I sometimes think I shouldn’t have.

I think I’ve owned three or four copies of Republic of Rome. There was a time when I actually got to play that a lot, but it’s been at least twenty years since the last time and I doubt it would hit the table, but I still want to get it again.

I don’t like to be more of a collector than player, so I want to keep my collection reasonable and not have games that take up space and never played.

There have been many games that I have regretted getting rid of, but almost inevitably it really comes down to longing for the time, the place, and the friends necessary to enjoy the game. It's something I'm trying to get better at: accepting the fact that no matter how many great memories I have of a game played in the past, that doesn't mean that I will have that experience again in the future. Time marches on, but that doesn't mean that I need to bring all of my games along with me.

Gregarius wrote: There have been many games that I have regretted getting rid of, but almost inevitably it really comes down to longing for the time, the place, and the friends necessary to enjoy the game. It's something I'm trying to get better at: accepting the fact that no matter how many great memories I have of a game played in the past, that doesn't mean that I will have that experience again in the future. Time marches on, but that doesn't mean that I need to bring all of my games along with me.

I find this very insightful.

I've had games in this category and from them even some that I have bought again (and possibly sold again) but I'm like a few others here and have sold literally hundreds and hundreds in the last 15+ years so trying to remember any is an effort . A lot of them were sold about 8 years ago when my gaming groups weren't that interesting and life wasn't that happy so I just dumped games in case I was going to move on.

I think Blockmania (and expansion) because it will never be reprinted but it wasn't a great game and I didn't play it much (but it is in serious risk of being bought back if I see the right one), Heroscape sets (I should have known I'd have periods where I'd want to play with plastic figure and dice again), Lords of the Sierra Madre because it is such a strange game and there always could be a planetary alignment that would allow me to play it, just sold Mare Nostrum + Exp because I never had enough people to play it (I a already starting to regret it), Starcraft + Exp (one that was ditched in the not-happy time).

While games I bought back include Buffy the Vampire Slayer because it is a classic and Earth Reborn because I didn't understand it when I originally had it,

Gregarius wrote: There have been many games that I have regretted getting rid of, but almost inevitably it really comes down to longing for the time, the place, and the friends necessary to enjoy the game. It's something I'm trying to get better at: accepting the fact that no matter how many great memories I have of a game played in the past, that doesn't mean that I will have that experience again in the future. Time marches on, but that doesn't mean that I need to bring all of my games along with me.

This resonates - I have changed my habits in collating my collection - There are a few of "my favorite of this type" of games that I will not part with, for the rare opportunities that I get to play them with willing and similarly enthusiastic players, but I have been moving stuff out left and right and replacing stuff with games that my people want to play.

I have a lot of great memories of a period in my life where I had a group of dedicated gamers to get together with on a regular basis. We played hard games, and crunchy games. And mined them for the last VP. Solved the ones that could be solved. When I did inventory for moving it into my daughters newly empty room, I realized I was keeping so many games for an imagined time, where there would be a group of 3 or 4 similarly inclined individuals that wanted to get together and spend hours learning all of these games, or by some fortuitous luck, have played most of those 10 to 20 year old titles previously. And then get together on a regular basis and mine them. I came to the realization that I can never re-create that....people/time/place - And so I shrugged, and leaned into the fun that I have before me now.

I have made some friends in our sleepy little retirement village with similar tastes. But mostly these days, I play with family, and some friends into lighter games. Most telling - My last trip to the game store I had a $100 gift card and was torn between purchases that totalled the $100 - Terra-Forming Mars and Imperial Settlers (games to play at game club once a month and every other month get together) and Quacks of Quedlinburg and Small World (games to play with my wife, kids, and the our casual gaming families) - I picked the latter and it was good choice - They've hit the table a at least once a week for the last two months. And it's been a blast.

boothwah wrote: .... I came to the realization that I can never re-create that....people/time/place - And so I shrugged, and leaned into the fun that I have before me now.

Nooooooooooooooo - if people keep saying it then it will start to be true

This probably doesn't apply to anyone here.... but just in case. Wizkids loses the right to sell SEAL Team Flix on June 6. So if you regret selling it, or never buying it... you might want to get on that.

Clear the decks for your sci-fi adaptation of the system.

Sorry, putting off grading and had a spare moment.

Because of the pandemic and all my personal life changes, this is a really awkward time for my collection. If the only requirement was "is it getting played now," I'd drop down to 2 games.

But I also don't want to deal with the hassle of selling 'em online.