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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ConcreteBuddha" data-source="post: 173660" data-attributes="member: 3139">Okay, my hasty generalization about the Barnes and Noble = leisure books was bad, I agree. Let me attempt to clear up the definitions of leisure book and non-leisure book, as I am using them:Leisure books are a want .Non-leisure books are a need .With this in mind, I'll alter my original statement: I believe that mainstream bookstores cater more towards leisure books than non-leisure books. My reasoning? I only have the train of thought that: 1) Businesses have target consumers 2) Mainstream bookstores showcase fiction, story non-fiction and hobby books prevalently at the front of the store 3) These books are generally a "want" item and not a "need" item. 4) Therefore, mainstream bookstores tend to cater to the consumers of leisure books.This is not to say that mainstream bookstores don't carry "need" books, but that they are not the primary function of those stores.I also think the computer book/RPG book analogy is invalid because non-game, computer-software books are not leisure material. In general, people don't learn C++ or Java for the only reason that they want to, they do it because they are making an investment in a book which they believe will pay off someday ( and it may be a hobby). This investment is a "need". As in, "I need to learn OpenGL so I can get a job." Same goes for college textbooks. I would also contend that reference materials tend to be "need" items. I don't believe that "wanting" a dictionary is normal behavior. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />When people buy RPG textbooks, they do not expect to be making money, directly or indirectly, in the future with that specific RPG. They do not "need" an RPG book. Hence why people balk at the sticker shock. Non-leisure items, on the other hand, can have a decidedly higher sticker shock because the consumer needs the item....As per the laminated folder idea: I am not a game publisher. I do not know how to make it work. I do not know if there is a market for this sort of thing. It is up to the person (people) in charge of researching the project to find out if the project is economically viable in the long term. I just know what product I want as a DM and a consumer. (The Monstrous Manual in 2ed was not the same idea because each monster is only useful once a session, whereas the PHB and the DMG are constantly being referenced during gameplay. Also, the SRD can be condensed into smaller pages that make more use of space and the whole thing can have significantly less pages than the Monstrous Manual did. Just my opinion...)Also, I do not want that specific example to cloud the general idea I made in my first post that alternative mediums are a possible way out of the "leisure book prejudice" for the RPG industry.</blockquote>

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