How much stuff do your players buy?

[doctorhook]

"How much stuff do your players buy?"

Hardly any, the freeloaders.

I "heartily encouraged" them all to buy 4E PHs though, so we wouldn't all be fighting over mine.

 

[hornedturtle]

I started playing in college and I bought the 3.5 core set before I really got into playing. I had picked up a second edition players handbook at a yard sale years before but have never played. Most of my college friends didn't own the books (any of them) so we only had like 2 PHB's for 4-8 people. Other than the core books the only book I went out of my way to buy was the ebberon setting, for warforged. I have other books from whenever I could find them cheap. I also brought most of the dice, sheets and pencils. And i generally wasn't even the DM.

 

[Wormwood]

My players bought the core books and most buy D&D minis. Most have expressed interest in subscribing to DDI when (if) it becomes available.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

In my current group I am the DM and I probably own more books than the rest of the group put together. I have all the Complete series except for Complete Champion as well as a whole heap of other splatbooks like the MIC, RC, SC, etc., In addition I have over a thousand minis, battlemats, a heap of Dungeon Tiles and plenty of dice.

The books distribution in my group varies significantly. One player is in my group is new to D&D (my game was his first campaign) and does not own any books. Another player has played 3.5E D&D for many years now but only bought a PHB about 6 months ago. I think that is the only 3.5E D&D book he owns a hardcopy of. He has most of the WotC books in PDF via illegal downloads.

A third player of mine also DM's another group. He has the core 3, a couple of extra MM's and one or two other books. The other two players in my group are brothers. One of the brothers owns the core books, the entire Complete series as well as a couple of hundred minis. As a result the other brother just shares his brother's stuff.

2 previous players in my group did not own a single 3.5E book between them (not even the PHB), despite playing in my campaign for almost 2 years. One of the 2 had the 3.0 core rulebooks but that was it. I asked on a number of occasions if they were going to buy a PHB and they said no. One of the guys borrowed a 3.5E PHB from another friend of theirs for a while but that was it. Their refusal to buy a PHB really used to bug me, especially as we always seemed to be short of PHB's at the table. It wasn't like they couldn't afford to buy a PHB. I wouldn't have minded even if they decided to split one between them. They just didn't seem to want to.

Olaf the Stout

 

[RFisher]

In my group, none of us buy a lot.

D&D-wise: Most of us have a 3.5 PHB, but not all. I can only say for certain that one of us has the 3.5 DMG and MM. (Although, one of the guys is about to hit the second-hand bookstores for them because he’s planning on running a 3.5 game.) (I’ve got the 3.0 DMG & MM, but not the 3.5 ones.) Some of us have a few supplements we thought were interesting.

So far I think only two of us have 4e PHBs and only one 4e DMG & MM.

I think I now have at least three Basic and two Expert rulebooks for when I run classic D&D.

For many (non-D&D) games, we’ll only have one or two copies of the core book.

I might be the one who buys the most RPG stuff, and I mostly buy OOP and/or obscure games.

 

[Shemeska]

If they also run a game, they buy more than the players who don't. Even with the presence of blackbeard the e-pirate who has more pdfs than Adobe does, folks tend to buy legit copies of books that directly relate to current characters they're playing, or if they really like a particular setting they might buy some setting books.

However, since 4e came out, they haven't purchased a single thing from WotC. Some nWoD and Shadowrun have been purchased along with some third party d20 stuff, but more than anything they're buying less but branching out a bit in their purchasing (and the tight economy has little to do with it given the group composition and incomes).

I was originally the sort of person who bought everything WotC put out. Since 3.5 came out I've only purchased a grand total of 2 books (FC:I and FC:II), with no desire for 4e. Money hasn't vanished from that section of my budget, it's just going to different systems/settings/companies than WotC for various reasons of what I'm playing and the direction that my gaming tastes and WotC's have gone in the past few years.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Wow. People have groups where the players don't even buy their own dice? Wow. Just... wow.

Yep!

I didn't see that until the early 1990s, but I'm seeing it more and more. I think there are more casual players today than there were back when I got into the hobby in the 1970's.

About 1991 or so, I hooked up with a game group hosted by Alan Hench in Austin, and he had a "Bucket 'O' Dice" sitting in the middle of his gaming table. I thought that was such a nice thing for a host to do, I've followed his lead.

Currently, I have a big, plastic, hexagonal "candy" jar full of several sets of die, ranging back to my earliest days in gaming, free for all to use.

I also carry extra bags of dice with me when I'm not hosting, just in case...and frequently, it IS the case.

 

[Festivus]

As a player, I buy PHB, splatbooks that are applicable, dice, miniature, spell effect templates. I would also buy / build power cards for my own characters.

As a DM, I buy all the books I need to play (core books, splat books, adventures), many sets of dice, miniatures (which I do loan on occasion), and battlemats.

 

[Nebulous]

As DM i buy most of the stuff myself, including minis and terrain. Or i make my own terrain. I see that as my responsibility if i want them to use it. Players nearly always bring their own copy of the PHB, or whatever core book for the system we're using. Sometimes they'll provide splat books if it's relevant to their characters.

As for the digital projector or recessed 42" LCD i WANT to play with...i'm afraid that burden would fall on me too. But damn, i can already see it happening. Bye bye print battleboards forever!

 

[sjmiller]

My group buys what I always imagined every player would buy. We're playing a variation of D&D 3.0, so everyone has a 3.0 PH, a miniature of their own choice (painted by a couple of the players), and their own dice. These people are so obsessed about their dice I would be shocked if everyone did not have their own. Heck, I think at least one player has bought a new set of dice each year.

Other than that, they really have not bought much, and I would be surprised if they did. Two players bought different copies of books from the "Races of the _____" series. Those were mainly bought out of curiosity and because one of them liked the art in it. Really, that's about it for players buying stuff.