Ok, this post goes along in much more detail than I was planning to. I have no idea how much fire there is under this thread, or if it has simply come to it's natural conclusion (with nothing left to be said).
Bendris Noulg said:
One question I do have for the "preview" file-sharers: Do any of you find yourselves "backed-up" in your planned purchases? How many have found yourselves in possession of so much material that you want to buy that you can't possibly do so in a reasonable amount of time? Or, more possibly in my mind, at such an expense that you can't feasibly afford it all?
I recently (since about Febuary) got into HarnWorld and HarnMaster. Compared to many other products by many other companies, theikr products are expensive. Imagine for $30 you get 160 pages of rules (80 looseleaf sheets) a pad of character sheets and a thick cardboard GM screen. On the other hand, HMlite (consisting of just the rules) is $10. Ok, admitedly, this is fairly cheap cost/number of pages, but the core rules only comes with a brief two pages for Wizards, and two pages for Clerics. To get the rules for wizards and magic, it is $30 for 72 pages. To get the rules for clerics and religion, it is $30 for 88 pages. All told, $60 for 160 pages of material that you generally might find included in your average FRPG. So, what does the above mean.
When I first learned of Harn (from their free pdf of the HM3 rules), I immediately knew that this was the set of rules that I would use for my gaming purposes and drop 3e completely. Since I had major differences in my world background for Wizards and Clerics, I decided that the Magic and Religion products weren't worth getting. I spent some time on Kazaa and found Magic. I found a whole lot of other harn product (mostly OOP products from 20 years ago that I will likely have no chance of finding used online for a decent price). I eventually want to get a physical copy of all product for Harn, but simply do not have the money (most of the inprint articles cost $0.50 per page) at this present moment. Back to Magic. I read up on it, and was interested in it, but it wouldn't fit my world. I could not find Religion on Kazaa *anywhere*. It wasn't a concern because I figured it eventually has to show up sometime. Well, I decided to start a HarnWorld campaign to familiarize myself with the rules, and one player wanted to be a Cleric. I attempted to find it again on Kazaa, but to no avail. I eventually decided to purchase it. I got it used from Noble Knight for about $2 cheaper than CGI sells it for. I also got another product at the same time (Pilot's Almanac). Note: my reason for eventually purchasing had more to do with the emergency of requiring it for a game, rather than being unable to find it. If I didn't have any plans of starting up Harn, I would've waited.
I want so much to go on CGI's website and order a copy of every article they currently have in print, but I simply do not have the available resources to commit to it. Imagine oweing $7500 on a credit card, an $8000 student loan, and a $5500 personal loan from family, and combine this with a $100 week income.
And yet, with all this debt I have managed to purchase about $200 worth of Harn product, and around $100 worth of cds from some amazing European bands (who without the presence of Kazaa would go unpaid).
Of the files I do have 93 total, only 20 are official Harn products. The other 73 or so is fanwork of incredible quality (or free official pdfs). Of the 20 "illegal" downloads, only 7 are still inprint, and thus available for me to purchase if I had the available cash. I'd have to spend $127 to catch up on planned purchases at this present moment. The only slight problem comes to some of the products released as pdfs only (though there is only one such product I have downloaded), and they're not quite up to the quality of classic Harn products.
Now, onto another sub-topic of this whole debate. As many have commented, people have a price range in which they are willing to purchase a particular product. For me, computer games are simply not worth the price that new releases are charged. The amount I will pay is between $15-25. As an example, for many years I played Starcraft off of a burned copy. We mostly played at lan parties, and I rarely if ever actually played the single player or on battlenet. Even when it was available, my need for a legit copy did not outweigh the price I would be willing to pay. Eventually the price dropped, and I found the Starcraft bundle for $30. This fit my price range of $15 per item. I was playing it more often, became decent at the game, and enjoyed it, thus it became an ethical obligation to purchase it, and in a small part support Blizzard. The fact that it has, and still is a mainstay years later at lan parties shows that it has been well worth it.
Part of my resistance at paying "New Release" price for a computer game is that I know in about a month (with my ADHD) I won't be playing it very much anymore. Also, I have no idea whether or not my computer will have the necessary hardware support. I got "screwed" when I first bought NFS: Hot Pursuit 2, at $30 (it was near my price threshold, and it had dropped from $50 that it was at). It chunked and was horrid. I eventually learned why having a soundcard is a good thing. By the time I learned the "problem" (about 6 months later), Hot Pursuit 2 was selling at $15! Of course, this discussion thread is about RPGs, so I'll end this with a little bit of my "philosophy".
In my current financial situation, I need to be careful with how I spend my very limited dollars. I always support those products which I get the greatest benefit out of, and encourage everyone else to the limit of my ability of persuasion. Of course, knowing how much benefit something can provide can only be determined by using it as such. Whether this use takes one week, one month, or even one year, is dependant on the lifespan of my use of the product.
That is one of my complaints with "trial use" software. I will never know within the trial period if it will be something that will justify the price asked for. One example to bring this back into RPGs is Campaign Suite by Twin Rose. If I recall, the trial use had some disabled features so that you couldn't use it fully functional without paying for it. Since I've never used a program to organize and keep track of campaign details, I don't really know what the program's full potential could be, and I couldn't spend enough time with the disabled version to know if it could do as much as I wanted to, if not more.
And finally one more opinion (since the 5th paragraph I've been telling myself that was all I had to say... :\ ) To print up a supplement that has been downloaded will often cost as much if not more and you'll end up with a lower quality product. PDF's are fine for reference on the computer, but not much beyond that. I've determined that if I were to print about 60 pages, it would use half of a black cartridge. $40+paper for approximately a 128 pages. It is cheaper to simply purchase it at the store. This of course depends on how much use you will get out of the item. One final example, when Star Wars was released, I managed to get it as a Christmas present. I have not used it *once*. I've barely looked at it beyond how they deal with Jedi (possibly for ideas for my own game).
