Who spends more money on the game? Players or DM's?

[Festivus]

In my group it's about even... but I just bought Ptolus which should tip the scale heavily my direction

I have a collection of bottles and cans, the proceeds of which buy splat books for use at the gaming table. Otherwise, I buy stuff I like at the rate of $20 / month for my book fund. With the purchase of Ptolus I am out of luck until January for another book.

 

[Mean Eyed Cat]

Yeah, as the DM I spend way more than most of my players. The majority of my players are college students, so they have other priorities right now. However, I have one player (who's not in college) who probably has spent just as much (if not more) than I have

 

[Dragonbait]

I spend about 90% of the moola, and I am the GM almost all the time. My players are tightwads.

Additional: In my last D&D group, of the 6 members, only 3 had the PH. I got two of the other players the PH for X-Mas. I doubt any of them have read beyond the skills & feats section (feint attack, what's that? What happens when you are sickened? Aid another with an attack, how do you do that?)

 

[Captain Howdy]

I buy way more books than most of my players (I am always the DM). There is one player that buys probably as much as me, maybe a little more.

Overall though, with 1 DM and 7 players, it looks like this:

DM (me): Lots and lots of books. 4 shelves worth.
Player 1: Almost all the WotC books (minus the last few months releases)
Player 2: Core books plus a few Ebberon books
Player 3: 1 PHB (that I bought as a gift)
Player 4: No paper books, a bunch of PDFs that he pirated
Player 5: No books
Player 6: No books
Player 7: No books

 

[Aurora]

In our group everyone has a PH. Members have chipped in at times to buy various other books and to buy the 3.5 DMG. Other than that, DM (my husband) has bought all the new miniatures to use because we didn't want the metals around where our little one can get to them. Overall, I would say that we spend the most money but the players do chip in. Plus, they bring drinks and snacks to the table I think it all works out in the end.

 

[haakon1]

As a younger player who's been into D&D for 7 years, I envy you for that. I have a gnomish monk/gnome giant-slayer/tattooed monk aspirant in my last campaign.

Luckily, that was in FR, and my homebrew is more 1050 AD, grim'n'gritty myth/folklore/reigion-as-fact-with-major-Tolkien-influences kinda place, which keeps 'em on thier toes

cheers (and still envious!)
--N

Sounds like your homebrew has got what you want, but I guess having you and all the players on the same page might be the issue.

If you want Tolkienesque that you don't have to write for yourself, you can sometimes get that in Greyhawk materials and Dungeon Crawl Classics. Harn and out-of-print MERP (Middle Earth Role Playing) also have that, but are harder to find and not D&D.

 

[Voadam]

The DM can determine what is relevant to his campaign.

For my pbp campaign I limit player resources to things I have, and I seriously doubt any of them have all the player applicable books I do. Plus I have all the DM things such as monster books, modules, maps, setting materials I will be using, NPC generating software, etc. So pretty much by definition I will have more stuff relevant to my campaign then the Players.

However if you count minis the player's in my ftf group far outspend me as I buy none, they buy lots and we use their minis in the game instead of my counters for tactical map stuff.

 

[Emirikol]

Don't you guys require your players to have their own PHB? I suppose in a younger group there may be an exception, but I can't see in this day and age that someone can't buy a PHB used on ebay for like $0.99
jh

 

[Mercule]

It seems in our games that the DM outspends players about 5:1.

You're speaking collectively of the players, right? That'd be closer to my situation.

In fairness, though, that's me vs. me group. When I wasn't DMing, I probably outspend the DM at least 5:1, maybe 10:1.

Currently, there are less than a dozen books (nine of which I'm actually aware) owned by the rest of the group, total. I'd be better able to measure mine in linear feet of shelf space, plus a couple cases of DDM.