We all have ‘shelves of shame’ full of books or films we want to read or watch, but have not. What would you be most surprised to learn that a person in your game group had not seen or read?
I really like the concept of “shelve of shame”. I have to admit that lately I haven’t been reading as many books as I want to. My backlog is getting bigger and bigger because of course I’d buy new books! It doesn’t matter if there are more than twenty books in my backlog! And let’s not count those that are in my to-buy list.
Today, since I’m a little ashamed about the size of my backlog, I will be kind and won’t choose anything difficult. And as a bonus, because I have two favourite genres, I will pick two films and/or movies.
For the first genre, which is fantasy, I have picked the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It’s one the best-selling novels ever written and also one of the biggest film projects ever undertaken. It’s hard for someone into our hobby to not have at least watched the films and I would be really surprised if a member of my gaming group hasn’t.
If I wanted to be more picky I could have chosen some of the Wizards of the Coast novels but, since I promised to be good, let’s just call them an honorable mention.
For the second genre, which is science fiction, I have picked the Star Wars films. This is another well known and very successful series. For some reason, though, I wouldn’t be as surprised as if someone hadn’t watched the Lord of the Rings.
As an honorable mention for this genre I have picked the Dune book series. I owe so much to these books because they were the ones that got me into the genre but also because they made me get more philosophical about some things.
And that’s all for today. Three days remain until the end of August and that means only three questions are left. Tomorrow’s question is: “If you could host a game anywhere on Earth, where would that be?”
So until then, have fun!
The Kind GM 
I have this, especially with books and films I’ve bought because they’ve been recommended as “hugely influential”. I have an entire DVD shells filled with films that I bought for their critical fame but just haven’t got around to watching. The hype seems to put me off!
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I used to read a lot six years ago. Now I read much much less. I blame the lack of time but I’m trying to force myself to read at least one hour a week. It’s a start.
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Good plan. I’ve started making a list of books I want to read this year, especially fantasy and sci-fi. Trying to give myself some tangible goals and use my Twitter time for reading something else instead!
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My kindle has just over 90 books I have bought but not read yet. I read every day normally for an hour or so to unwind.
It appears, unusually for a roleplayer, that because I don’t like Lord of the Rings, having read the books once and only made it through the first film (I only stayed as I had paid good money for it.) that I am in a definite minority. i also have only seen the star wars movies back in the seventies when I was taken to them by my parents.
I think we are so incredibly lucky to have such a massive wealth of material to read, what, listen too and play that one persons ‘classic’ is another persons ‘three hours of life they will never get back’ and it doesn’t matter as long as you do have books and movies you love.
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We are lucky this is happening with tabletop RPGs as well. We have a plethora of games and systems to choose from so almost everyone can be happy.
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