Books pricing themselves out of reach?

[Belen]

I guess my suggestions for how to make things better are to charge what you need to charge for a book, but also proofread it, edit it, understand the D20 rules you're using, and make the book something I'll actually want to use. Now as I said before, that last one is the tough one, because my desires for what to put in a book are not yet universal. So perhaps do some market research on what gamers are looking for. Take a look at what Mike Mearls is writing in Iron Lore, and ask yourself what other niches in D20 haven't been filled yet.

Great observations. My main concern is that the price of the books is a barrier to entry. Some kid who wants to learn how to play D&D is not going to pay $100 dollars and then convince all his friends to invest $35 in a PHB.

And the 3rd party companies are only catering to the existing crowd, although Troll Lord has at least created an entry level book.

And then, distributors like Alliance, are not even carrying most d20 books any longer. For instance, the Book of Iron Might (Malhavoc) was out of stock nearly a week after it came out and my FLGS was never able to get it for me. I had to order it from an online vendor.

If the stores cannot even get the books, then there is a huge problem indeed and price is only a component.

 

[woodelf]

Another thought just hit me: You think that's high, you should try to buy gasoline recently. My wife and I spend $70.00 per week together on Gasoline, and that's only counting from work to home. Anything beyond that is extra.

You're each commuting ~50mi one-way, or you have gas-guzzlers?

Anyway, two thoughts on this:
1) We're still only paying something like a quarter of the cost of a gallon of gas, the rest being made up for by general revenues (mostly state/municipal property tax and federal income tax), so i see nothing to whine about.
2) However, there *is* a general trend going on here, where inflation is outpacing the CPI, which is in turn wildly outpacing growth in both the minimum and average wage. IOW, even if all the manufacturers are doing is keeping their profit margins relatively constant, RPG books are gonna get more expensive because the real value of your wage is probably falling (unless you're making 6+ digits a year, as a rough generalization). Only things that've been getting cheaper in real value in the last decade or so are things whose costs have fallen dramatically.

 

[woodelf]

It depends on what you compare rpg books with - other books or other forms of entertainment.

If the former, rpg books are an unusual size and are printed in small runs, so they will of course be more expensive than the average book.

What books are you comparing to? I can't remember the last time i saw a non-RPG book full of illustrations (not photos), and where every bit of the content had to be created from scratch (rather than researched), of a comparable page-count that was cheaper than an RPG book. Only things i can think of are some software how-to books, and some coffee-table books. And they're generally more expensive, despite much larger (orders of magnitude larger) print runs.

Heck, i've even got an example fresh in my mind: last weekend i picked up Lady Cottington's Pressed Faerie Book and the Babylon Project's Earthforce Sourcebook. Both are full-color, the former is hardcover and around 50 pages; the latter is softcover and 132pp. The faerie book has a cover price of $25, while the RPG book has a cover price of $21, and both are from about the same timeframe, as far as inflation is concerned (though, if anything, the price difference should be bigger, because the RPG book was published 3 years later).

Yes, your hypothesis is reasonable: smaller print runs should make them more expensive than comparable books in other fields. Add to this that they should be more expensive than books that have fewer creatives behind them to pay, and more expensive than books with less art. Those are all reasonable reasons why RPGs should be fairly expensive. However, it is empirically demonstrable that they are not more expensive, and are in fact relatively cheap books, especially for what you get in them. I've long puzzled over why RPG books are so cheap, and i can only conclude that RPG buyers are (1) cheaper than other hobbyists or (2) poorer than other hobbyists.

 

[Ranger REG]

It's not that I can't afford it. I can, I just refuse to pay that much for something I can easily do without.

If you can easily do without RPG, then more power to you.

 

[Crothian]

If you can easily do without RPG, then more power to you.

I can quit whenever I want, honest...I just don't want too

 

[Ranger REG]

I can quit whenever I want, honest...I just don't want too

Then buy cheap RPG. At least you know what you're paying for.

 

[Turjan]

If you can easily do without RPG, then more power to you.

I don't see what not buying RPG books anymore has to do with doing without RPGs.

 

[Ranger REG]

I don't see what not buying RPG books anymore has to do with doing without RPGs.

Look, if you can do RPG without buying new books, then more power to you. In which case, you shouldn't be concern about the current pricing. After all, if I can do without a Lamborghini Diablo, then why should I voice my opinion about the car's limited production and high-end price? To make Lamborghini affordable for Wal-Mart consumers?

 

[Turjan]

Look, if you can do RPG without buying new books, then more power to you. In which case, you shouldn't be concern about the current pricing. After all, if I can do without a Lamborghini Diablo, then why should I voice my opinion about the car's limited production and high-end price? To make Lamborghini affordable for Wal-Mart consumers?

That's something completely different, and I don't object to this notion. You were making the connection of 'doing without RPG' and not buying RPG, and these are two completely different things. I've got enough RPG books for the rest of my life, and even if the SRD should vanish, there are always games like this, or many others.

 

[tetsujin28]

A new copy of Empire of the Petal Throne was something like $25 in 1977. So, that's my benchmark. If I think that I'll get as much enjoyment out of a (say) $50 gaming book as I've gotten out of that EPT box set, then I'll pay it. Otherwise? No.