#13: Acquiring Experience and Junk: The Club Library

[RPGnet Columns]

http://www.rpg.net/columns/dormitori...ragons13.phtml

Summary:

Investing in club games.

Go to the column for more information.

[The Illustrious Number 6]

I just noticed that you don't get a lot of activity in the threads for this column. Just wanted to stop by and tell you that I enjoy your columns a lot. Almost makes me sorry I didn't run a gaming club when I was still attending university.

[Kid Twist]

Thanks for the kind word! Always good to get positive feedback. =) I don't really expect a whole lot of commentary (though I like it, clearly), since I figure that this is more of a reference for people that they'll hopefully access in years to come, so if lots of people don't read it now, I figure I'll have a better readership later in the future. =)

[spshu]

Originally Posted by Kid Twist

If you can assign that job to one of the officers at first, that's probably for the best, especially if your library is pretty small. While it would make sense to give this to the secretary, it may actually make sense to give it to an officer that doesn't have quite as many immediate duties, since the secretary is usually pretty busy with a lot of other small duties. The treasurer might actually be a good choice here, since the treasurer is also going to need to figure out if new games need to be purchased.

I don't think that the treasurer is the best pick as they purchase the items and are keeping track of them? Too easy for the treasurer to double purchase an item and add one of them to his personal collection.

The Vice President perhaps if there is one could run it.

If it has a board game segment to the gaming club then perhaps some piecepacks, a public domain game system, could be added. The club can have a "craft" night and make up a some with labels and cardboard. Take a look at Ron Hale-Evans's Emergency Game Kits.

In regards to building a library that members may donate a (complete) game instead of dues.

[spshu]

Creating some sort of gaming bits from some of the incomplete games that are not wanted could be used as a sort of kit to fill in some missing pieces from the incomplete games or for your recommendation of the Cheapass Games.

I would focus for board games on games systems, like the above mentioned piecepack as they are design to play several different games. The piecepack has over 100 games designed for it. Other included: deck of cards, multi-suited decks of cards, Icehouse, Dominoes, and deck of boards . Stonehenge: An Anthology Board Game and Tapestry have a few games for them so they might be good to take a look at.

Send out your members to pick up some of the Free RPG Day material if there is a local gaming store participating if they are RPGers and are not interested themselves in the material they can pick it up for the club.

Also try to find open gaming system that can be download for free. Figure out what is reasonable wanted. Either use college printing or Cafepress to print them out. Also have a few CDs with all the files on in case of lose of your print copies or for members to print out beyond what is budget for the print outs.

[Kid Twist]

Originally Posted by spshu

I don't think that the treasurer is the best pick as they purchase the items and are keeping track of them? Too easy for the treasurer to double purchase an item and add one of them to his personal collection.

It's possible, but from what I've seen, most clubs usually don't need to worry about this too much. First, if your members are having some input on games that are being purchased, there shouldn't be any surprises. Second, most gaming clubs aren't working with that large of a budget, so an extra board game purchased would be noticed pretty easily. Yes, the treasurer could keep an extra set of books, and blah blah, but if the person stealing from the club is really that thorough in planning this, there's not much a regular gaming club can do to stop him other than

It's easy to sit back and worry about every contingency, but in the end, you have to trust the officers you elect. I would hope that someone like this wouldn't get this far. Now, I've seen it happen, and when it does, it's bad, but I think it would be better to let your members give you input on what should be purchased, and report it to them, rather than giving sole decision-making ability to one person.

Originally Posted by spshu

In regards to building a library that members may donate a (complete) game instead of dues.

That's not something I had considered, but it does make sense. As long as the game is at least equal in value to the regular dues and is a complete game, I wouldn't see any problem with this as long as you have the room to store said games, and you didn't have a bunch of people going to Wal-Mart to purchase games no one wants to play.