How much stuff do your players buy?

[Doug McCrae]

Is it typical for the DM in most groups to end up buying the most stuff?

A former member of our group who DMed quite a lot never bought a single WotC product. He downloaded them all as illegal pdfs and ran the game from his laptop. He was an exception, admittedly. Usually the DMs buy more than the players. Apart from this guy, all the players owned the PHB at least, though some only had the 3.0 PHB. One owned a few splats too.

 

[Cadfan]

In my group, people buy whatever they buy. If they don't have a PHB, someone else will lend them one. If they don't have miniatures, someone else will lend them one.

We kind of expect you to get dice eventually, just because those are more personal.

As far as power cards go, we've just been putting the powers directly on the character sheets (they usually end up being typed and printed). That's an "extra," so chances are everyone will get their own if they want them, and not bother if they don't. If someone has a set they're not using, I'm sure they'll share, but I don't anticipate that.

 

[scholar]

'm mostly a player, although I GM one shots...

book wise I'm right up there with my gm, possibly ahead of him in player useful books for 3.x... minus the terrain books and monster books, I have most of it...

most of us buy stuff for hte group, like tiles, and markers for the battle mat...

a few of the other players are the same, because they also dm occasionally to give him a break...

however, he does spend more, but that's because he's compulsive about buying DDM

 

[cougent]

I DM and occasionally play, but all my purchases have been as DM.

In my group of 8 that ran from 2000 through 2005 all the players bought their own dice. That was it as far as the "everyone" purchases. I had 1 other player who also DM'ed a separate group who bought several books, usually different from the ones I had and we frequently borrowed from each other. I had 1 other player who bought a PH and 3 other books. They were the 2 Psionic books and Savage Species because he wanted to use those and I did not have them. I had as many as 3 PH's (2 3E, 1 3.5) and so we had 5 total for the group of 8. We printed character sheets from the Internet so while WotC made much profit from me personally (over $2K worth of stuff), my group afforded them almost nothing. That is why although I will not participate in it, I do not begrudge them the idea of a profit generating subscription service.

 

[Shabe]

I DM, but my brother picked up the core books which we share.
I borrow mini's off of one of the players who runs a lot of 3e.
I print out tiles from work.
All the players have their own dice, whether they remember to bring them is another thing.
Only one of the players has a 4e PHB so far and he's the one who owns tons of D&D stuff anyway.
Me and my brother financed the buying of index cards, paperclips for the book keeping.
Two players have brought their own figures along for their characters.

Mostly in our groups the dm provides the stationary, all the books/minis and tiles are all borrowed from this one person who buys pretty much all the D&D stuff, no idea whats going to happen with 4e as he said he's only buying the phb, i might end up sharing the cost with my brother.
Over time with 3e we ended up with 6 PHBs in a 8 person group, but 2 of those belonged to the DM, It will probably end up similar this edition as well.

 

[delericho]

In my group, the DM (exclusively me these days) buys pretty much all the books. Two of my four players have 3.5e PHBs, and one has a Spell Compendium.

Oddly, all of my players have 4e PHBs, despite us not yet having played the game, and having no plans to do so for a good while yet.

Back when we played Vampire: the Masquerade, I think everyone had a core rulebook, at least one clanbook, and probably a guide to the Sabbat or Camarilla. (We played Camarilla games, but for some reason the Sabbat books were always the more popular ones.)

 

[Mallus]

My players buy quite a lot. More than me, though some of them also DM.

 

[drothgery]

I probably buy the most stuff in our group these days, and I'm rarely the DM (I GM'd a SWSE game last fall, and have run some PBPs, but that's it). But all of us have a fair-sized collection.

 

[stonegod]

I DM and play. I've got a large 3.x set and a 4E box set w/ extra PH for the wife (who also games). We also have an old battlemat and lots of dice (she collects them).

The groups I play with all have their own dice and at least the PH (most have the 3.x or 4.x box set as well). One person has a 3.x collection the size of mine, and another has lots and lots of minis (he likes that sort of thing).

 

[Scribble]

Well in my current group:

One player buys tons of gaming stuff. Not ust D&D, but all sorts of games. He also buys some minis every so often, but not ona regular basis. (we use counters for the monsters, and minis only fr the PCs.)

The other player, he just bought a PHB, but prior to that, the last gaming supplements he bought was a used copy of the 3.5PHB (about a year ago)

He used to buy more gaming stuff back in our 2e days though.