GURPS impulse purchases

[csm]

Hello, my name is Craig, and I am a GURPS-aholic.

I realized a while ago that there are books in my GURPS collection that I would not have normally purchased had they not been GURPS books. One that springs to mind is GURPS WWII. Honestly, WWII does not even interest me in even the remotest sense. I own a copy of Axis and Allies, but would be hard pressed to even get the strength to bring it up from the basement, let alone pull out the pieces to play it. I don't keep track of which battles occurred when, and frankly my eyes glaze over whenever someone mentions WWII. However, I saw the book at my local FLGS, and after leafing through it, I had to have it.

Crusades? Couldn't care less, but GURPS - Crusades? Yes, please.

Same with Old West, Special Ops, and even Supers.

I started reading the Vorkosigan Saga series because of the GURPS book.

What are some of the books that you've bought for no other reason than they're a GURPS treatment of the subject, that you wouldn't have bought if they were another RPG product, or even just a regular book on the subject?

[Fwibos]

Ho jeez. i'd say 50% of my Gurps stuff is impulse buy. In fact, I struggle to rein in my buying. I would buy anything GURPS.

GURPS Timeline springs immediately to mind. And Time Travel, and Space.

GURPS Horseclans...
GURPS Wild Cards...

Yeah, I'd also say that I was happy with 90% of my impulse purchases after the fact.

[Grouchy Chris]

Just today, I cruised a used book store I haven't been to in a while and picked up Humanx, Cops, and Vikings. I'm running a fantasy game, so Vikings just might be of some use, but the other two?

I considered it a victory for my pocketbook that I passed on Space Atlas and Stardemon.

[vierasmarius]

For a while I would buy every GURPS book I found in a second-hand bookstore, on the grounds that it was cheaper than getting it new, and I might use it... someday... maybe. Now that so many books are available as PDFs, well... my checkbook is not happy with me. >_<

[mook]

Looking over the library it seems like nearly every book I bought solely because it's GURPS was for either...

... novels I'd never read:

Callahan's Crosstime Saloon, Discworld, Horseclans, Humanx, International Super Teams, Lensman, New Sun, Planet Krishna, Riverworld, Uplift, War Against the Chtorr, Witch World

... or other RPGs I wouldn't play un-GURPSified:

Blue Planet, Castle Falkenstein, Deadlands, In Nomine, Mage: The Ascension, Traveller, Vampire: The Masquerade

[panton41]

I have tons of GURPS books I don't even have an interest in using in a game... just in case. Plus, I tend to use GURPS books for just casual reading when killing time, so the oddball titles are just fun reading.

[roguebfl]

I bought the Uplift books because of GURPS Uplift 8)

[Pragmatic]

I have a bunch of GURPS books, and I don't even play GURPS.

I think I've bought almost every 4E PDF/book that's been released (preference for PDFs). I'd LIKE to get my 4E hardcovers replaced with PDFs, but I can't get myself to buy 'em. (I like that they're starting to release the books in PDF first now, though...)

Not so much interested in the GURPS Classic stuff, though I'm slowly building up my library. When it's more complete, I'll consider getting rid of my softcovers.

(Frankly, I'd like to replace my ENTIRE collection with PDFs, but dang WOTC stopped selling the Basic/1E/2E/3E PDFs... and the third-party publishers weren't selling them as PDFs, dang it...)

[csm]

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

I have tons of GURPS books I don't even have an interest in using in a game... just in case. Plus, I tend to use GURPS books for just casual reading when killing time, so the oddball titles are just fun reading.

Right, I'm not even thinking of the books that I'm not likely to play, I'm thinking of books that you'd have no interest in, period.

Here's another example: I'm interested in Greco-Roman history and mythology. I'd pick up books, and watch documentaries on the Ancient Greeks and Romans without much prodding. I'm not likely to play the GURPS Greece or GURPS Imperial Rome books any time soon, if ever. Conversely, Russian history isn't interesting at all. Had someone given me a book on Russian history to me, I'd have likely given it back to them in the condition received (ie: unread). But, GURPS Russia has a place in my library, and I'm likely to read it at some point.

That's the kind of GURPS conversion I'm thinking of: topics that prior to hearing there's a GURPS book about it, you would have never given a second thought, but because it's a GURPS book, you suddenly have to own it.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

I bought the Uplift books because of GURPS Uplift 8)

Ditto!

It's hard for me to firmly answer this as I'm one of those people who WILL read anything placed in front of them, given 5 minutes of idleness. Except romance novels, I draw the line there. Wikipedia is like a deathtrap for me. I get sucked in and then it's 8 hrs later and I haven't eaten and my cat is complaining about being neglected.

My "interest" in any given subject is hard to really gague because of that. SJG's house writing style is perfect for sucking me in - just about EVERYTHING out of SJG is interesting to me.

I guess my German copies of Conan and Time Travel count (since I don't really read German in any useful way), except I didn't buy them, I was given them. ("Hey, you're the gurps crazy person, have these crazy gurps things." "Uh, thank you?")