Swapping Stories

On 24 July 2026, Paula Deming of Things Get Dicey! posted a video titled "Culling 100 Board Games?? Part 1":

The thumbnail reads, "I cannot keep all these games", and by the end of the video Paula has set aside...fifteen games for culling. Thus, part 1.

By chance, in mid-July 2026 I saw the following sign at my local library:

Over the past couple of years, I've been shedding games 50-100 at a time every few months. I constantly think, "The next time we move, I don't want to move all of these games again", and here was another opportunity to lighten the load, both physically and mentally.

I asked a librarian about how they planned to run the event, and she said, "We'll probably have a few tables available. Some people have already dropped off games, and we'll put them out then." That last sentence was a clue to what I should have expected at the event, but I overlooked it at the time.

A week passed, then I finally got off my butt and started going through shelves to find games to swap. I figured that these games would probably be going to "regular" game players, not geeks, so I'd have more success getting rid of lighter games in terms of both weight and rules. You can probably imagine the games I have in mind — those that might sell for $3-5 at a convention flea market, but that you might also bring home again because they're not buzzworthy, big-box titles.

To encourage more participation, since I doubted the library had done any social media outreach, I posted about the swap to folks on my game group mailing list, as well as to two Facebook groups: one for the neighborhood group that has 600+ members and one for the 2,500 members in the "NC Tabletop Game Exchange" group.

I ended up pulling more than 150 items from my shelves and showed up fifteen minutes ahead of 2:00 so that I'd have time to claim a table and lay out everything...except there were no tables to claim. You weren't actually swapping games with other people, but just placing all of your games on tables, then stepping back and letting others have at it.

I forgot to take a pic of what I was giving away, but here's a shot from mid-event:

The library's "game swap" method was a way better approach than what I had in mind. I thought we would be swapping game-for-game or one game for a stack, with us negotiating to ensure we each got a "fair" deal, but instead I simply let my games go, and that was that.

The format eliminated any concern over whether I would feel ripped off by someone making a lowball offer as the price of everything was automatically $0. If you want to participate, drop your games on the table; if not, take them back home with you...but you were already thinking that you would not be coming home with these particular games, so why not give them away? After all, you didn't care about them enough to keep them.

Amazingly, someone (or two someones) dropped off copies of Feudum and Cerebria: The Inside World, two games that I never would have expected to see given away like this, but if you don't want to keep something, it's sometimes worth nothing to you no matter what the value might be for others. Other nice games came and went as well, such as David Conklin's Blazon, which he had placed on the table himself, along with other titles. That's one way to get rid of author's copies!

The tables weren't empty by 3:30, and one of the librarians I spoke with said that they would encourage other branches to host a game swap of their own and offer all the leftover games as a starter kit of sorts.

Here's what I came home with:

• A first edition Black Spy, Alan R. Moon's first published game.
• Vintage, a Bruno Faidutti design that had sounded interesting in 2020, but which I had never seen in person, probably due to the lack of conventions for most of that year.
• Lair, one of a dozen mystery/escape room-stye games from The Deadbolt Mystery Society that someone had donated.

Swapping 150+ games for three is an improvement for my future self, and if I don't play these titles — or even if I do — they'll likely be out the door in a few years.

My advice from this experience is two-fold:

• If you have a library nearby, approach them about hosting a game swap, then help them publicize the event. In addition to getting rid of games, I wanted to help spread awareness of modern games to others — and this event made that happen. I saw people drop off Qwirkle, CATAN, and dozens of far more mainstream games, then take home titles they had never previously heard of. (I also handed out a few business cards, so if you're reading this post after meeting me at that event, hi! Hope you found something fun!)
• If you're looking to cull games, you need to be far more aggressive than Paula was in her video. Sometimes the choices are easy. If you actively dislike a game, dump it, right? But if you've picked up a game a few times over the months (or years) and said, "I really want to play this someday", then put it back down, you probably don't really want to play it.

My approach to getting rid of games aligns with my approach to sleeving cards in games: If I'm not sure whether I want to keep a game or get rid of it — that is, if I would place it on a "maybe" pile — I consider the cost of replacing that game. If the game was a mainstream U.S. or European release and I could likely find a copy for $20 or less, then I should get rid of it. Most likely, I'll never think about that game again, but for the rare game that does haunt me and make me wish that I could replay it, copies will be available at some point.

I realize from comments on that sleeving article that not everyone is in the position I'm in, that is, surrounded by gamers with access to several conventions annually, but I thought I'd offer my perspective anyway. Everything is going to go at some point, so it's just a choice of when. Of course, I've got at least twenty years on Paula, so my "when" is likely sooner than hers, which means the weight of what I own might lie heavier on my mind. My extended family likes playing games, but they'd be fine with, say, six games, and I have a few more than six, which means I still have more culling to do...