While searching eBay last night, I noticed that the West End Games version (i.e., the d6 version) of the Star Wars rpg does not sell well at all. There are excellent condition rulebooks that don't sell for $2 + reasonable shipping. Ditto for many of the supplements. I find this strange, given how popular the game seemed to be (to me, anyway) back in the day.

Why don't these sell well? Clearly, supply exceeds demand, but I'm looking for more insight than that.

Did the back-in-the-day popularity just not translate to popularity today?

Is it that lots of non-gamers (but still Star Wars collectors) bought copies, and so the sales-to-play ratio was skewed?

Is it that the folks who would otherwise want to buy the WEG stuff are perfectly happy with the WotC offering?

Is it that the SW rpg just hasn't hit its stride yet in terms of the rpg collectors market? It's about 15 years younger than D&D, so perhaps the would-be-collectors haven't quite reached the right point on the disposable income scale, nor the point where nostalgia kicks in?

Something different?

It was crap.

Guy Fullerton wrote:While searching eBay last night, I noticed that the West End Games version (i.e., the d6 version) of the Star Wars rpg does not sell well at all. There are excellent condition rulebooks that don't sell for $2 + reasonable shipping. Ditto for many of the supplements. I find this strange, given how popular the game seemed to be (to me, anyway) back in the day.

Why don't these sell well? Clearly, supply exceeds demand, but I'm looking for more insight than that.

Did the back-in-the-day popularity just not translate to popularity today?

Is it that lots of non-gamers (but still Star Wars collectors) bought copies, and so the sales-to-play ratio was skewed?

Is it that the folks who would otherwise want to buy the WEG stuff are perfectly happy with the WotC offering?

Is it that the SW rpg just hasn't hit its stride yet in terms of the rpg collectors market? It's about 15 years younger than D&D, so perhaps the would-be-collectors haven't quite reached the right point on the disposable income scale, nor the point where nostalgia kicks in?

Something different?

Some of the items (Tramp Freighters or Stock Ships, for example) used to go for quite a bit....and can still get a couple more times than cover price.  I think the newer version of the Star Wars RPG took a lot of the wind out of the sails of the older Star Wars RPG, I noticed prices started dropping a bit as soon as the reprints came out for that edition.

A few items are still harder to find for the dedicated collector and go for decent prices...the aforementioned Stock Ships, a few of the later Adventure Journals, Alien Encounters, the Fantastic technology books, one book on special forces or something similar, all go for $25-$50 range.

Mike B.

If you've got some wallpaper paste too, you can make sith and yoda masks from paper mache.

Alexander1968 wrote:About the value of Star Wars D6 books, it could be they are not worth much - especially the core rulebooks - because they printed a lot of copies and so they are amazingly easy to find.

This is very true. Copies of the core books often show up in the $1 bin at the local Half Price Books in Seattle. I've seen them on multiple occasions (but only picked them up once).

I think it is cheap because most books had a high print run.  In a reference to a study in 1999, WEG Star Wars was ranked as the 3rd most played RPG with a market share of 20% or so.  Its not D&D but that is still a large market with lots of copies and books produced.