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By Aaron T. Huss
I’m a bit of a collector. In fact, I’ve been doing it for probably 25 years. My childhood was consumed with comic books, baseball cards, football cards, basketball cards, and those sticker books that were filled with baseball card-looking stickers. Most of this has been sold, although some of them still remain and are found on eBay frequently. But nowadays I have a new collection that is slowly building…
Role-playing books.
Living in the Twin Cities has some great advantages. We have lots of Half Price Books stores scattered about where you can score some big finds. So I decided to start a new article series to highlight the excellent books I find secondhand.
To give you an idea of how awesome some of these finds are, I’d like to highlight some of my previous big finds:
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook 2nd Edition, 2nd Printing in excellent condition
- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master’s Guide 2nd Edition, 2nd Printing in excellent condition (these were a matching set!)
- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay The Enemy Within (Games Workshop edition) in excellent condition
- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Shadows Over Bogenhafen (Games Workshop edition) in excellent condition
Sometimes the find is only eclipsed by how wonderful the condition of the item is.
Today I made a trip out to Roseville and was astonished by what I found:
- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Game Master’s Toolkit (FFG) sealed
- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay The Adventurer’s Toolkit (FFG) sealed
- Fading Suns core rulebook 2nd Edition
I was quite shocked to find the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay toolkits still sealed (verified that the items inside were sealed as well) and am very unsure of how Half Price Books acquired them. I have a feeling they periodically get someones overstock or clearance items. But the really big find (in my opinion) is the Fading Suns core rulebook (the Holistic Designs hardcover). Fading Suns has a well-developed background that is now the setting of Mongoose Publishing’s latest tabletop miniatures wargame for A Call to Arms. This will eventually lead to an OOP Review…
While I may never get the chance to run a Fading Suns game (although I’m going to try), I plan on using the content for the setting I developed for my own gaming group. This setting will be published (for free) through Savage Insider and is a sandbox, space opera tool-kit for Savage Worlds. The Fading Suns universe contains a wealth of source material already published and a setting that has been featured in the role-playing game, video game, and now a tabletop miniatures wargame. Combining this universe with what I’ve been learning by reviewing the Battlelords of the Twenty-Third Century catalog will give me a literal ton of ideas and adventure seeds I can use for my Savage Worlds setting (currently titled Mercenary Breed).
So join me through this habit of collecting and see what treasures I find! I’m not sure how often I’ll make purchases as each trip doesn’t result in a big find, but hopefully I’ll find lots of cool stuff!
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