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Who spends more money on the game? Players or DM's?
- Thread starter Emirikol
- Start date
Lazybones
Adventurer
Every DM I have ever met/gamed with has spent at least 10 times as much as the average player I've met. Some really go all out, with miniatures, etc. Others just have a few books. But I'd say about 50% of the players I've met only have the PH or have nothing, which brings down that side of the equation a bit I'm sure.
Dog Moon
Adventurer
In my group, we kinda switch off DMing [no full-time DM or anything], so it's impossible to determine who spends more. However, one person buys numerous books, another buys only the books that he REALLY likes, a third buys a rare book here and there cause he doesn't have much money, and I'm too cheap to buy books when everyone else combined buys enough books for me to use happily. 
Has everything to do with personal tastes than DMing or not.
Has everything to do with personal tastes than DMing or not.
In my experience, DM's are much more into D&D than the average player (though of the 13 players involved in the 3 campaigns I run, 2 are DM's of their own campaigns).
Players maybe get a PHB (some borrow), maybe get a avatar (about half borrow), and maybe get dice (about half). A few get a few more books. Upper middle spending (own their own basics, but no more) is $35 + $20 + $5 = $60, for multiple years of playing; amortized it's something like $20 a year -- much more is spent on beer and food for the games! Low end spend (borrower) = $0. Highest spend (own stuff plus buy occassionally) = $60-120 a year.
My spend was probably $1000-$1200 a year in the early years of 3.0. It's less now, because there's much less interesting stuff out there. Last month, I went into to FLGS. I bought two issues of Dungeon in one, and a DCC adventure in the other. So, maybe $50 a month, or $600 a year.
So in my world, the DM spends $600, the average player $20, that means 30x as much for DM's, or total spending by 3 DM's across the 13 + me folks in my games = $1800, total spending by pure players = $220, so DM spending is 90% of the total. Seems about right.
WOTC seems to think it's the other way, with lots of "player advantage" books lately, but it doesn't apply for my groups for 3 reasons:
- I'm old school, and I don't play very often. Once every two months in person. Continuously over email, which is so slow and haphazard it equals once every 4 months or so. And 1-2 times a year with my oldest campaign, in another time zone I visit 1-2 times a year. I don't like a lot of unnecessary extra rules and "world changes" between sessions, so I ban everything that's not specifically approved. I also don't like spending a lot of money to "break" my game, so I don't buy crunch books myself either. Instead, I buy TONS of adventures, to read for fun, to run, and to swipe bits from.
- Most of my players don't like spending a lot of money on D&D, and instead mooch off my stuff. I'm totally OK with this, as I'm buying it anyhow, and everybody in my games is a real world friend first.
- My players aren't into 3e ish weirdness. They're a mix of old schoolers who learned under 1st Edition, and brand new players who understand the world to be like LOTR. Neither brand of player is interested in playing half dragon fiendish dire vampire soul thief/accountants in spikey bondage armor.![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
Somebody like Aragorn only different in X, Y, and Z ways is more like it.
Players maybe get a PHB (some borrow), maybe get a avatar (about half borrow), and maybe get dice (about half). A few get a few more books. Upper middle spending (own their own basics, but no more) is $35 + $20 + $5 = $60, for multiple years of playing; amortized it's something like $20 a year -- much more is spent on beer and food for the games! Low end spend (borrower) = $0. Highest spend (own stuff plus buy occassionally) = $60-120 a year.
My spend was probably $1000-$1200 a year in the early years of 3.0. It's less now, because there's much less interesting stuff out there. Last month, I went into to FLGS. I bought two issues of Dungeon in one, and a DCC adventure in the other. So, maybe $50 a month, or $600 a year.
So in my world, the DM spends $600, the average player $20, that means 30x as much for DM's, or total spending by 3 DM's across the 13 + me folks in my games = $1800, total spending by pure players = $220, so DM spending is 90% of the total. Seems about right.
WOTC seems to think it's the other way, with lots of "player advantage" books lately, but it doesn't apply for my groups for 3 reasons:
- I'm old school, and I don't play very often. Once every two months in person. Continuously over email, which is so slow and haphazard it equals once every 4 months or so. And 1-2 times a year with my oldest campaign, in another time zone I visit 1-2 times a year. I don't like a lot of unnecessary extra rules and "world changes" between sessions, so I ban everything that's not specifically approved. I also don't like spending a lot of money to "break" my game, so I don't buy crunch books myself either. Instead, I buy TONS of adventures, to read for fun, to run, and to swipe bits from.
- Most of my players don't like spending a lot of money on D&D, and instead mooch off my stuff. I'm totally OK with this, as I'm buying it anyhow, and everybody in my games is a real world friend first.
- My players aren't into 3e ish weirdness. They're a mix of old schoolers who learned under 1st Edition, and brand new players who understand the world to be like LOTR. Neither brand of player is interested in playing half dragon fiendish dire vampire soul thief/accountants in spikey bondage armor.
Somebody like Aragorn only different in X, Y, and Z ways is more like it.
CanadienneBacon
Explorer
I'm the DM for our group and quite honestly, of a group of six players, four of them outspend me. Easily. I probably buy new published D&D material about twice per year. The rest of my ideas come from reading the newspaper, watching the History channel, perusing gaming websites, or reading books. With three children (and one on the way), and only one salary in our family, I try to be frugal.
The four players in our group who spend quite a bit of money on gaming material--and this is quite interesting to me--buy the grand majority of that stuff knowing in advance that I've been running a core-rules only table for the past three years. By core-rules only, I mean the PHB and DMG are in play for PCs. From what I understand from browsing the net, I'm also like most DMs who institute a core-rules-only policy in that I do, from time to time, allow in non-core material when provided with a plausible reason. The players do, however, seem to enjoy simply reading the gaming books they buy for the sheer joy of reading. Perhaps one day one or more of them will be inspired by a purchase to DM, which would be neat.
The four players in our group who spend quite a bit of money on gaming material--and this is quite interesting to me--buy the grand majority of that stuff knowing in advance that I've been running a core-rules only table for the past three years. By core-rules only, I mean the PHB and DMG are in play for PCs. From what I understand from browsing the net, I'm also like most DMs who institute a core-rules-only policy in that I do, from time to time, allow in non-core material when provided with a plausible reason. The players do, however, seem to enjoy simply reading the gaming books they buy for the sheer joy of reading. Perhaps one day one or more of them will be inspired by a purchase to DM, which would be neat.
Typically, DMs spend more, I think. My group's the exception, in that I probably spend the most on books (now, anyway; some of them built extensive libraries while I was a starving undergrad), and don't DM. The other players/DMs all buy minis, though, and the couple (which includes our normal DM, though he's not the current one) that hosts the game have other expenses involved on that end.
Shadowslayer
Explorer
haakon1 said:
Bingo. In a lot of cases, the really-into-D&D guys usually gravitate to the DMs end of the table sooner or later. It may be that they're DMing because they like the game enough to buy lots of books, rather than buying more of books because they're DMing.
Anyway, my group and I (I'm the DM) are about even as far as book ownership goes. But then I don't buy a lot of books. (Beyond the core 3, the PHB 2 is my first WOTC hardback since the 3.0 FR hardback came out) I have a guy who buys the odd thing...psionics handbook, FR hardback, etc, and I've bought the odd Campaign setting and "DM's toolbox" type books. So between that guy and me, we're about even. The rest of the guys at least have the PHB.
Its a good group.
Roadkill101
Explorer
It's been my experience that those who GM are the ones who invest the greater part of financial resources towards rgp's, when compared to those who only players.
Nyaricus
First Post
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.haakon1 said:- My players aren't into 3e ish weirdness. They're a mix of old schoolers who learned under 1st Edition, and brand new players who understand the world to be like LOTR. Neither brand of player is interested in playing half dragon fiendish dire vampire soul thief/accountants in spikey bondage armor.
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
