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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Voneth" data-source="post: 402184" data-attributes="member: 1016">That's funny, it only cost me $20 to RUN, not play 3ed. for almost a year.I got the PHB after I was convinced the game had the flexibility to run the games I wanted to run, not the games that WotC/TSR wanted to run. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />With only the PHB, I converted and ran a Castle Falkenstein game and even created a spell point/ skills and feats magic system. Our opponets were intellgent races, not cliche fantasy monsters, and we never used minitures.  I had a waiting line for my game.My next book was the 1st ed. Star Wars book becuause I wanted it, not needed it. It was $35 of alien/monsters, a working XP system that is simpler than even 1ed's XP and I got another "magic"/Force system. Damn good buy!What was even better was seeing how WotC had created new classes and races, that really let me cut loose in my games.Then I bought d20 Deadlands ($25), not becuase I thought I needed the rules (though the Mad Scientist class is a great improvement over Alchemy and Craft if you prefer a loose gadget system) But because I have always wanted to play Deadlands and no one else I played with wanted to touch non DND stuff. My CF steam punk game got darker and I still had a waiting line.At this point, I still didn't have the MM or the DMG. It is almost a year later and I still under $100 in "DND" stuff.Converted over the old WEG Darkstryder campaign for Star Wars, ran that, and I still didn't use minitures.Then I finaly got a job where I don't live paycheck to paycheck, and my purchases exploded, because I wanted the items, not because I needed them to play. I got OA ($35), Spycraft ($35), Series Archer ($35), and some misclanous but very cool mini games in Polyhedron and Dragon magazine ($20?).This next wave of purchases was over $125, but I got rules and bits I wanted, nothing I needed. I could have bought 5 other RPG, right? I did.I got RPG rules for Far East, Superspy, low-key scifi, space fantasy, pulp, urban fantasy and more steampunk. Opps! Looks like I got seven games there. And all of them are part of one intergrated system where I can switch out rules even if the genre is different, at $17 each.And then I look at my Revised Dark Sun boxed set and see how many rules it took to make AD&D work with those races, and I feel gyped! About 3 months ago, I learned the price of the three core books was going up. I finaly got the MM and the DMG, after I found a store that had stocked up on the $20 books. And then I actualy started to read them (beyond browsing other people copies when I played their games.) I discovered that while the MM is nice, the DMG (for me personaly) wasn't worth the money since I only need like two or three chapters (For guidelines -- not rules-- on PC monster races , the Leadership feat [humph! they could have put that in that in the PHB], and more suggestions on d20 in other genres). All that dugeon stuff and treasure charts -- wasted space for my particular style since I play fast and loose.And recently I broke down and got Farscape becuse I love the show and I like the optional rules that AEG comes up with, in fact if you like 1st ed, then Farscape is space opera in your style.So while I can't help you that WotC didn't feel confident enough to reoder another million copies so they could continue to sell the game at $20, I can inform you that if you truely hold to that whole "1st ed was about loose rules" then the PHB is more than adequate for you needs, especialy if you focus a role-playing game that does more than just throw monsters at PC. If insist that you must run the standard fantasy game, then you will need the MM.Still under $100 I am afraid.</blockquote>

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