What TOADS are you SHELVING?

Gary Sax wrote: I get why people think the extreme reactions are funny, but it is a HUGE turnoff for me.

While it is funny to read about, if I were actually in that situation I would be supremely uncomfortable.

My eldest doesn't get -mad- at games, but she does get -sad- when things don't go her way and we have to all take a moment and explain that the other people are also trying to win. (She still wins, but she gets visibly misty when she's not absolutely crushing us). She is simultaneously the strongest and most fragile player. That said, if it's a back-stabby game, folks get stabbed in the back. I find it hard to believe someone could worked up about that. It's baked in.

My garage is packed to the gills with kitchen remodel stuff, but once that's out, I am getting some more shelving units and going to cull what makes the cut from the family room shelves. Parting with games is really tough for me, but I am not going to play some of these and would like to lay things out better.

Valley of the Mammoths: this game is so chaotic and wrecks all your plans, but it is so much fun. I don’t have anything else like it, where the game itself is actively trying to kill you. I hope to pull it out again someday, after about a decade of not being played. I get rid of games pretty often, but this one is sticking around.

Samurai Swords: this one hasn’t seen play in a while, but will never leave my collection. It’s too much loved. I’ve been playing this game since it first came out as Shogun and have ruined three copies of it from play. My current copy is just barely holding together and I’ve got a spare in shrink waiting. My wife frequently refers to surprise attacks in other games by mentioning the Ronin.

Axis and Allies: my dad was a major influence on gaming in my life. He introduced me to my first “hobby” war game with Avalon Hill’s D-Day. But I always associate his gift of Axis and Allies to me when it came out as the stronger, lasting impact. My current copy is not my original, which has long disappeared. I am not so much a fan of the game, anymore, but I keep it for the positive connection it has with my dad.

Conquest of the Fallen Lands: my wife likes this one, but we haven’t played in a very long time. I’m keeping it because I think it will be a fun way to reinforce learning addition when my son is old enough.

Gary Sax wrote: I get why people think the extreme reactions are funny, but it is a HUGE turnoff for me. I'm a really non-confrontational person in real life, so people getting Actually Mad at the table really breaks the bubble of safety and immediately makes me play differently. I kind of hate it, though I recognize it can also be perceived as a problem with me so ymmv.

They were old pals & the group was pretty established so the bust-up only lasted an hour or so. He did come and apologise so it was all good and he never blew up like that again. He did however hold a tabletop grudge and would go after the other guy guns blazing in every game after that.

Had it been a rando or new person acting like that a future invitation to game would not have been forthcoming.

I am pretty good at rotating out my board games that aren't getting played. About the closest to an actual toad is STREET MASTERS. I loved the theme and went all-in on the base game and all the expansions. Played it twice and had a pretty meh response. Clunky and bloated. It's on my to-sell list.

COLT EXPRESS hasn't been played in a while due to quarantine. It's too complicated for my family; my kid always wants to play it due to the toy factor but it is not very fun with 2p.

I also have an expansion map for RAILWAYS OF THE WORLD that I've never played. Eventually though. ROTW is a great system.

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My real wall of shame is my RPG shelves, sigh. I've never played:

• ALIEN, although this seems certain to get to the table eventually.
• BAND OF BLADES, basically The Black Company books done with the Blades in the Dark system.
• BURNING EMPIRES, unless you count a GenCon session fifteen years ago.
• BURNING WHEEL GOLD. Two copies, plus the Codex. They are lovely books and great to pick up and read, at least.
• A whole bunch of DUNGEON CRAWL CLASSICS modules, although I'm coming off a nine-month Roll20 campaign where I used a few of them. Maybe five or so.
• FIVE TORCHES DEEP, a great and creative game but I don't know that I'd choose it over DCC or BX.
• FORBIDDEN LANDS, another great Fria Ligan game that would be amazing to actually get to the table.
• MYTHENDER, a fun-in-theory game about killing off all the gods while trying to resist apotheosis yourself.
• NO THANK YOU EVIL, a "baby's first RPG" that is pretty colorful but kind of weird and goofy. I prefer Hero Kids for that vibe.
• VAESEN, but our first session is this Saturday, hooray!
• A bunch of miscellaneous ZINE QUEST stuff that I mostly regret.

And then there's all the stuff I haven't played in at least three years: Ryuutama, Mutant Year Zero, B/X D&D, Mouse Guard, Zombie World, and then a whole bunch of accessories like modular dry-erase dungeon tiles (seemed like a good idea at the time, but theater of the mind is vastly easier). Plus gobs of dice.

Jexik wrote: I enjoy the deduction puzzle more I think.

When it comes to it, for me it's a combination of both. I think the deduction puzzle is very stressful. It's a game that demands you to play well and make every move count. However, since there's also a massive information advantage so you will see mistakes. You often need to make moves based on questionable information or what you think the other side is doing and that gives a certain emotional edge that I enjoy a lot.

I liked it best at two because when I did play with 3 or 4, the protagonists would get bogged down in mapping out exactly what to do, and it suffered a little bit of an alpha player problem. Sure, the game recommends a 'no-talking except between loops' rule, which I think would be great, but I could never get a group to agree to it, even by offering them an extra loop (or just going by the higher end of suggested loop #). Watching 3 people sit there and dismantle your every move in agonizing detail was more stressful for me than being at the final table of a 60-person Heroscape tournament.

I totally understand what you mean. The table talk rule solves exactly that: The protagonists can no longer map every single one of your moves and block their way through. It's true that people are scared of it because they think it makes the game even more difficult but I actually haven't found it changes much. It refocuses the game on deduction instead of blocking.

When people who have played a lot of games just sort of assume they'll figure out how to play while half-listening to the rules, I've come across less than ideal sessions.

My girlfriend likes Tragedy Looper a lot but she came out frustrated a couple times because others ran into this issue.

Being frank, I think entrenched boardgamers have a tendence to play on autopilot. I often struggle to teach others how to play the games I like the most, not because they are difficult but because people charge with blinders on. Because I don't think that Cosmic, Sherlock Holmes CD are hard to play. They are just played differently from a typical eurogame.

I have a ton. I only really play a handful of games now. I need to get off my butt and sell them but I'm waiting for this pandemic to end first.

Ah jeez, if we're including RPGs as potential toads, I have a swampful:

Never Played:
All Flesh Must Be Eaten: core rules, several supplements, ref screen
Castle Falkenstein
Corum
Dying Earth: core rules, several supplements
Fiasco
Kindred of the East: core rules and some of the supplements
Mage: the Ascension:
Nexus: the Infinite City
Orpheus: the core rules and all of the expansions
Ringworld
Vampire: the Requiem: core plus a couple of expansions
Werewolf: the Forsaken

Not Played in the 21st Century:
Cyberpunk 2013/2020: base sets and quite a few expansions or adventures
Feng Shui: base rules and a few expansions or adventures
Gamma World: base rules and a couple of adventures, ref screen
Gangbusters: base set and several adventures
GURPS: core rules and a stupid amount of expansions
Hawkmoon: base set and only adventure
Lords of Creation: base set and one adventure
Marvel Superheroes Role-Playing: both base sets, several adventures, some supplements, those deluxce character handbooks
The Mechanoid Invasion (1st ed, all three books)
Nephilim
Runequest
Top Secret

I have done a lot of role-playing over the years, but in hindsight, most of it was confined to less than a dozen different games.

Shellhead wrote: Ah jeez, if we're including RPGs as potential toads, I have a swampful:

Never Played:
All Flesh Must Be Eaten: core rules, several supplements, ref screen
Castle Falkenstein
Corum
Dying Earth: core rules, several supplements
Fiasco
Kindred of the East: core rules and some of the supplements
Mage: the Ascension:
Nexus: the Infinite City
Orpheus: the core rules and all of the expansions
Ringworld
Vampire: the Requiem: core plus a couple of expansions
Werewolf: the Forsaken

Not Played in the 21st Century:
Cyberpunk 2013/2020: base sets and quite a few expansions or adventures
Feng Shui: base rules and a few expansions or adventures
Gamma World: base rules and a couple of adventures, ref screen
Gangbusters: base set and several adventures
GURPS: core rules and a stupid amount of expansions
Hawkmoon: base set and only adventure
Lords of Creation: base set and one adventure
Marvel Superheroes Role-Playing: both base sets, several adventures, some supplements, those deluxce character handbooks
The Mechanoid Invasion (1st ed, all three books)
Nephilim
Runequest
Top Secret

I have done a lot of role-playing over the years, but in hindsight, most of it was confined to less than a dozen different games.

We're STILL doing Battlestar Not Galactica (after 8, 8! years), but this is the final season and we're halfway through it. Stupid COVID. I almost want to pull the GODDDIDIT! and get it over with. Man, it must be a curse of the show - delays. A while ago, I broached the subject of what my players wanted to play after BSO, and I gave them the option of Warhammer Fantasy 2e or Midnight (aka LOTR went the wrong way). I wanted them to choose WF because I hadn't played the RPG since college. But the rat bastards chose Midnight. I warned them that they had to BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL, as it was a low magic setting and magic, especially magical healing, would be extremely curtailed. That was 2 years ago.

Now, I started picking up other RPGs in the meantime and now want to play something completely different. Either Numenera or Fragged Empire. Hell, within the last year I started rereading old Gamma World modules and started getting nostalgic for that. To mimic Shellhead, here's my list.

Never Played

Fragged Empire (core book and all supplemental materials)
Midnight (core book and nearly all the supplemental materials)
Warhammer Fantasy 2e (core book and all supplemental materials)

Mutant Chronicles (Modiphius KS version, core book and all supplemental materials) - I beta tested this years ago, back before they hired an actual RPG designer and it varied from okay to outright bad. I'm salty about this one, as I backed it as a fan, only for them to fuck up my name and other things)

DragonQuest 2e
Judge Dredd - Mongoose (Core book and some other materials)
Metamorphosis Alpha - Special Edition (Proto-GW, set in space. Core book and some supplemental materials)
Predation (core book and some supplemental materials)
Lone Wolf (core book and some supplemental materials)
Sengoku (core book)

Not Played in the 21st Century:

Mutant Chronicles 1e (Core book and all supplemental materials)
MegaTraveller (Core book, nearly all the supplemental materials, and a FAQ/Errata the size of a phone book).
Gamma World 1e-4e (Core books, nearly all supplemental materials, incl. fan made stuff)
Villains & Vigilantes 2e (core book, nearly all supplemental materials)
Judge Dredd (GW edition) (Core book and all supplements)
D&D O/B/X & AD&D (box sets and nearly all the supplemental materials)
Justifiers (Core book and all supplemental materials)
Feng Shui (Core book and all supplemental materials)
Bushido (Core book and nearly all supplemental materials)
Aftermath! (Core books)

Midnight is a cool setting, I ran that a long time ago. Would make an excellent Burning Wheel setting as well.

I've probably got a few too many games, keeping them sitting just below a hundred but some KSers are arriving this year, and some don't get played that often but nearly all are wanted - I'd hate to call any of the games that I want to keep Toads but these probably have a low probability of getting played any time in the near/mid future:
- Tide of Iron plus two unpunched expansions (2-player days just don't happen much now)
- Samurai Swords (battered box but mint inside, I can get Fortress America out every year or two but can't spare a valuable slot for this)
Tadpoles (hard to get out but don't want to get rid of) are:
Star Trek: Fleet Captains
Star Wars: Rebellion

Update: OK, being completely open, two more Tadpoles ...
Twilight Imperium 3 (never leaving)
War of the Ring 2E (very doubtful of leaving)

southernman wrote: I've probably got a few too many games, keeping them sitting just below a hundred but some KSers are arriving this year, and some don't get played that often but nearly all are wanted - I'd hate to call any of the games that I want to keep Toads but these probably have a low probability of getting played any time in the near/mid future:
- Tide of Iron plus two unpunched expansions (2-player days just don't happen much now)
- Samurai Swords (battered box but mint inside, I can get Fortress America out every year or two but can't spare a valuable slot for this)
Tadpoles (hard to get out but don't want to get rid of) are:
Star Trek: Fleet Captains
Star Wars: Rebellion

So help me God, if you get rid of that SW: OT Risk I sent you, I will find a way to sneak into the country and beat you!

Rliyen wrote:

southernman wrote: I've probably got a few too many games, keeping them sitting just below a hundred but some KSers are arriving this year, and some don't get played that often but nearly all are wanted - I'd hate to call any of the games that I want to keep Toads but these probably have a low probability of getting played any time in the near/mid future:
- Tide of Iron plus two unpunched expansions (2-player days just don't happen much now)
- Samurai Swords (battered box but mint inside, I can get Fortress America out every year or two but can't spare a valuable slot for this)
Tadpoles (hard to get out but don't want to get rid of) are:
Star Trek: Fleet Captains
Star Wars: Rebellion

So help me God, if you get rid of that SW: OT Risk I sent you, I will find a way to sneak into the country and beat you!

Not a chance [quietly removes it from his Math Trade list]
And I hope you still have the LotR: Sauron expansion .... I had to trade my bundle away finally this year after not being able to get either of my gaming groups to play it for years (and to help keep my games list below three figures).

I wonder: Do you guys run into the problem of having enough toads that even if you play every week you struggele to get them all played?

Erik Twice wrote: I wonder: Do you guys run into the problem of having enough toads that even if you play every week you struggele to get them all played?

I suppose it all comes down to how often you feel must you play a game to keep it, I'm sure everyone here is different ... and I would be at the extreme end .
But I have regular (outside of COVID lockdowns) Friday night and Sunday half-day sessions with my AT group so that is a max of just over a hundred a year if we make them all, plus sometimes we do Monday nights if people are free, and then have my weekly euro-centric group where I'll show up 2-3 nights a month depending on what they are playing or just to fill a seat so they don't have to cancel.
So I do have opportunities to get games out - but then my shelf-toad qualifying time period is reasonably long, I get Fortress America out about once every couple of years and that is fine for me.