20 Minutes of Fun ... and for How Much Money?

[SWBaxter]

It actually came up to $241.05 with purchasing The Basic Set: Characters and The Basic Set: Campaigns ($84.70); with the group's wanting to play sci-fi, I had to pick up the genre books Space and Ultra Tech ($74.10) as well as Traveller: Interstellar Wars (for starships) ($42.35); I printed copies of the GURPS Lite rules for each player ($10); and to help make things easier on me as a GM I purchased the Character Assistant program ($14.95) and the GM Screen (14.95).

I don't consider that I went out shopping like a "drunken sailor." The bare minimum that I could have spent to run the game was $124.60 (for the GURPS Lite Rules, the Basic Set, the Character Assistant, and the GM Screen).

Two points:

1) You spent twice as much as what you consider the bare minimum, might just be a legacy from my Scottish parents but any time I spend double what I actually need to it means I'm almost certainly throwing my money around in a pretty carefree fashion.

2) Your bare minimum appears to be miscalculated, the purchases you list should come to about $85, which means you spent almost three times your bare minimum.

So I guess it's just a difference in preferences, but I do consider that spending like a drunken sailor. Even your bare minimum is pretty high by my admittedly stingy standards. I'm similarly baffled by other purchases listed in this thread, like spending $250 on nWoD books and only playing one session.

 

[bento]

I'm at a loss as to what to say :/ Why on Earth would you buy more than just the core rule book before even running a game with it?

The 4th ed core books (2 of them) run about $80 MSRP. The first book has everything you need to create a character, and the second book on running combat and doing everything else.

I'm in the same boat as the OP. I had two GURPS snobs ('D&D/D20 is sooo broken') convince me to buy the books to run a WW2 special ops adventure I was developing. After the investment, along with discount priced copies of GURPS WWII and some supplements, I had approximately 6 hours worth of GURPS playing before I figured out that I didn't want to play with one of the players ever again.

I could have saved myself the money as I already owned D20 Modern and the GURPS supplements are always good investments, even the WWII hardback. I might use the GURPS 4th ed again, but highly unlikely. Right now they're in a large plastic storage tub in a crawl space under the stairs.

 

[Retreater]

Just to clarify: the bare minimum amount I listed was for a basic GURPS game. To run a basic Sci-Fi game, I found that I required additional books. I picked up Space, but it turned out to not be that essential to the game. However, Ultra Tech was essential for equipment and weapons. Then I had to get Traveller for starship rules. So I did purchase only the bare minimum that I thought I would be using, and it quickly ballooned out of control.

At the present, there's perhaps one or two products I'm looking at getting, both for 3.5 D&D: City of Brass and Tome of Horrors Revised (if it's printed). After that, I'm done for quite a while.

 

[JDJblatherings]

one thing we are all missing in these price per hour calcuations is how much time the DM and other players spend pouring over the books between play or in campaign prep.

 

[Glyfair]

Why define the value of the activity so narrowly? Even just reading the books (and I have a lot of RPG books that have never been played, only read) is part of the experience and part of the fun, and shouldn't be counted out of their value.

Good point. Of course, different people have different experiences. Some don't enjoy the tactical segments, others don't enjoy the character immersion segments, others enjoy making joking Monty Python type comments and others even outlaw them from the game.

{erhaps, he best of worlds is to find a group that matches your preferences so you spend more time on the elements you enjoy and les on those you don't. It's even better when you enjoy all the typical elements.

 

[bento]

So I guess it's just a difference in preferences, but I do consider that spending like a drunken sailor. Even your bare minimum is pretty high by my admittedly stingy standards. I'm similarly baffled by other purchases listed in this thread, like spending $250 on nWoD books and only playing one session.

I'm sure the OP saw his investment in GURPS as a good one because the core books are generic. But the two books can only get you so much, so you feel the need to purchase more GURPS books to run a space campaign (or weird WW2) as these add additional character options and rules governing ship combat and the like.

I'm keeping my GURPS books for the time being. If the current D&D group I'm with ever breaks up and I'm looking for another group, having GURPS in the list of what I play opens up greater possibilities.

 

[Dan Bell]

That is one of the reasons why I liked the free Harnworld downloads at Lythia.com. Using them in my game allowed me to strech my dollars when I paid for product from Harn's publishers: http://www.columbiagames.com/ and http://www.kelestia.com/.