Books for XP? Tired of stingy players

[Lela]

I'd never do it with my players but we're mainly made up of college and High School students. Most of us don't even have a part time job.

But, if your players aren't on the poverty level then, by all means, go with whatever works. I'd recomend the "Must own the book to have the X" idea myself. They can look at the DM's books to decide what they want to buy or to comment on the artwork but, come on, we can only do so much with one book.

That said, my players and I fell in love with AU when I bought the book on impulse (something I never do) and it wasn't too long before almost the entire group had a copy. Admittedly, I was a bit liberal with Christmas and coming home gifts but other members still bought there own. Even if it wasn't their favorite setting they were in the campaign and felt they needed it.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

My players have been pretty good about chipping in extra for the pizza or bringing more beer than will be drunk that night. I figure that's payment enough for me.

It really depends on the game; I mostly run D20 Modern, and one other player brings his corebook, which is enough for rules lookups. I wouldn't expect them to chip in money for the sourcebooks from other game systems I use for ideas.

 

[Tessarael]

[..] if they just buy and bring some, not all, of the books I am using in the campaign. [..]

Do they use the SRD? If they have laptops, the SRD can be quite useful, particularly the Sovelior version : http://www.geocities.com/sovelior/srd/

Other than that, I would recommend photocopying they key sections that they need to refer to (or printing stuff out from the SRD).

Just my thoughts ...