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Message: <blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 2016710" data-attributes="member: 812">The plain and simple fact is that there are relatively few people who enjoy combining improvisational theatre with double-entry accounting. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> MOST people in the world, if you show them the Player's Handbook, are just NOT going to read that bloody thing in order to play a GAME.Now, I've had great success in getting non-gamers to play. I've got flight attendants playing D&D. And the big secret is -- I never show them a rulebook. I create their characters for them and give them a simplified character sheet and they have great fun playing the game.Which is great, but between the four of them, over the past year and a half, they've accounted for maybe $50 in gaming materials. That is, three of them received dice sets as gifts (I actually have no idea what a set of dice goes for, so that $50 figure is pure guesswork).This pattern is common. You don't need to spend much money to play this game. I haven't spent a penny on RPG stuff in at least six months. I'm still having just as much fun, it seems.And of course, people who DO play this game make up tons of their own stuff for it. And they make it available to others. For free. When I need a new adventure or a monster or whatever, I start online, looking through the staggering amounts of free stuff that isn't noticeably different in quality than plenty of stuff I've paid for. I'm not going to consider buying something unless I either see it and experience the "Must-Have" knee-jerk reaction or it offers significantly higher value than what I can get for free.And I say all this as someone who would LOVE to be writing game material full-time. Who supports the industry and the people in it as much as possible. But I look at this three-pronged situation: 1. Intimidating Hobby  2. No Need to Spend  3. Tons of Free Stuff :: and I don't see how anyone can think this is ever going to be a large (or even medium-sized (or even small)) industry. It's a hobby. A FRINGE hobby. And I don't believe it will ever be able to support more than a handful of full-time professionals.Frankly, I'd be surprised to learn Hero Games had offices.</blockquote>

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