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Message: <blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 2116907" data-attributes="member: 10201">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.</blockquote>

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