Here I am with a brand new copy of sr3, my third purchase of the 3rd edition BBB, because the others are worn out. Its a story far too common with RPG books: pages missing (usually the slick magazine ones), the covers either missing or soon to be, the spine delaminating away from the pages, etc...

so, has anyone got any ideas on how to prolong the life of RPG books? the only thing i've come up with is to take clear tape and neatly cover the spine, slightly overlapping the edges. this really helps prevent tearing on the edges, and made my most recent BBB last nearly twice as long as the first (that is, until those infernal magazine pages start to pull free).

short of dikoting , any ideas are welcome.

Have you considered having it rebound by Kinkos or some place. A friend of mine have all of his books done that way with a spiral binding so they lay flat. Might help you.

I have a general reference book I made by photocopying certain pages of the main books that I put in sheet protectors and put in a three ring binder. It's been in use for about a year now and shows no sign of wear. You could easily do this to pages of a book that is falling apart.

What DO you people do to your books? This goes far beyond normal wear and tear.

well, you see, i've got this *ahem* fetish and...



seriously, its just mainly hand wear that does my books in. they get passed around the table a lot, we're regularly flipping through them for various reasons, and it doesn't help that until recently I was the only person in the group who had the BBB or any sourcebooks (i'm the GM).

One thing I did that really extended the life of my books (BBB, MitS, CC, SR Comp., MM, Critters) was to put almost every table & list (from the backs of the books) onto my laptop, along with the corresponding page/book reference.

Laptop Screen Grab

I originally did these as html using Safari to browse through the info I need, but there's so much now I'm probably going to create a program to handle them all in a faster, and more organized way.?

If you don't have a laptop, you can always scan those really frequently referenced tables and list, use a DTP program to reassemble them all onto 15-25 pages or so that you can re-run off as they get worn to save wear and tear on your books.

Yep, got um rebound so they lay flat and laminated the covers. Makes a world of differance, plus they travel better that way. I brought my NEW copy of Matrix to kincos while it was still in the dust sleeve. Its now bomb proof.
But having the most important tables scanned in my laptop help immensly.

Only 2 of my books have any kind of damage

Sr3, the colour pics of the pregens fall out, now i keep them in my NPC folder, and Matrix, that lastd about a week before pages fell out, pgs 12-20, but apart form that the rest of the pages (and my books) are fine. And im constently rereading them.

I've never had any Shadowrun book fall apart, but I spiral bound my SR3 so it would lay flat. It cost about 7 bucks, and the print shop told me to never bring in another book "like that" again, because the amount and quality of glue in it gunked up their drilling machine for over an hour.

I finally gave up and had a number of my "core books" professionally bound - though the Kinko's idea sounds pretty good too.

I've got SR3 bound into one book, CC, M&M and R3 bound into another single volume, and done the same with SRComp, MitS and Matrix.

I get mine done by a bindery in Minneapolis, if anyone is interested , the email of my contact there is duncan@campbell-logan.com. They charge about 60 bucks per, which isn't cheap, but it is worth every penny if you ask me. Not having pages fall out over the course of a few games is great - plus, having just the three books makes it quite easy to tote your references around.

Of course, if you want to really splurge, you could get the bound in black leather like a bible...for only a few hundred dollars per.

- Runner Smurf

It's not that much. I've seen leather-bound Cerebus phonebooks go for less.

we've got a binder here at work. i may use it on some of my stuff. now to find a way to covertly use it.

The simplest way is to cover your books in contact paper (sticky clear plastic(. This helps keep the cover together and protects the binding. (helps keep the art intact too).

The more expensive versions involve rebinding the book.

You can do this yourself by getting a ring binder several clear plastic 'page pockets', cutting the binding off the book, and putting each page in its own pocket.

A better way is to have something like the above done, but at a book binders (kinko's will probably do).

I'm on my third or fourth SR3 book now, and the archetypes just started falling out last week. The first is in a 3-ring binder with sheet protectors (about $25 worth) on my wife's desk, but it is soooo obsolete, it still has references to "Page XX" and the Defiance Super Shock did physical damage.

By buying new ones, I keep up with the new printings. Next purchase will have the new vehicle costs, and a Shock Glove will do "(STR-1)M Stun + 7S Stun".

as a new member of the shadow run ward, i was wondering what is Kinko's ?
please describe it because i cant figger out what it is.

It's a business service store, basically - http://www.kinkos.com/

My dad owns and runs a printing shop, so he let me go in and spiral bind it myself...I always thought that was pretty cool.

One thing I'd like to suggest in addition to the rebinding at Kinko's is to have them laminate the front and back cover. All of my core books are bound like this and except for the ultra-heavy use of the cannon companion gear tables all of the books are still in excellent condition. All of my SR3 core books were purchased shortly after each became available.

The lamination has certainly been a boon to have since a few of the guys in my group are quick clumsy with liquids and such.

My SR3 detonated. Now I just make a lot of house rules.

Worst part is, I'm not kidding.

Now back to rewriting combat. Again.

My old GM had one of his books spiraled at kinkos, which helped a lot. I'm not sure why, but we've both had trouble with the SR3 book loosing pages too.

Me, I've got all but 7 of the rulebooks on pdf files, (5 of those 7 are first ed, the others I still need to scan), so I just take my laptop out to game as well. I also have quite a few pages that I reprinted and put in binders, with tabs for easy reference. Got one binder for everything combat, one with all the tables, etc.