Have Your RPG Purchased Dropped Off?

[der_kluge]

I've never been a big purchaser of D&D books anyway. I've got a decent collectin of 2e stuff, and I've got lots of Planescape and Al-Qadim books, and a few generic titles (book of artifacts, legends and lore, etc).

As for d20, I held back on buying a lot of stuff since my job status was questionable. Now that I've found out my job is safe (for at least a year), I've bought Complete Warrior and Unearthed Arcana. Both of which I'd been wanting for a little while.

I've bought more stuff since DM'ing than I ever did as a player. My game is scheduled to be completed this winter, and I'll probably go into game buying hibernation once I start playing again.

 

[Psiblade]

The evil D&D mini line has caused my spending to increase despite a drop in books bought!

-Psiblade

 

[Voadam]

For a long while I was sticking to around 1 purchase per month.

I've been splurging a bit for a while however what with GM's sales days, the ENworld $1 sale, the WotC 60% off sales on Amazon and filling out amazon purchases for my wife with small d20 products I want so that the order qualifies for free shipping.

I've had more than I have free time to read since before 3e so that has not changed, but I enjoy getting them and most of my purchases over the last few years are d20/OGL whereas I used to be across the boards on systems getting neat magical supplements for a dozen systems and converting them to D&D.

I've never gotten everything as it comes out but I do get a lot of stuff (1 full bookshelf, a full filing cabinet of boxed sets, a stack of printouts, and a ton of pdfs currently for gaming stuff).

 

[Wombat]

Cut way back

Partially due to economic circumstances, partially due to no changeover to 3.5, partially due to lack of interest in new publications

I have been picking up a fair amount of Green Ronin of late, but nothing else

 

[mearls]

Wow, that's a ton of replies. Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer and post.

My spending has plummeted, save for the D&D minis. I buy those by the caseload, and usually spend about $200 per set to complete each release. OTOH, the D&D minis have had a measureable, positive impact on my games. I love setting up a Dwarven Forge room with monsters and telling my players "That's *exactly* what you see." Plus, the minis game is really well done.

Here's my take on why I don't buy many RPG books. It comes down to two factors:

I'm bored with what's coming out. It's a rare book that gets me excited about buying it. AU was the last thing that got me really going. (Yeah, I know, I'm an employee, but I'm also a customer, if that makes any sense.)

I've been burnt too many times. I've handed over $30, $40, $50 for books that sit unused on my shelves. I'm a lot more careful about what I buy, especially since I know that the D&D minis are going to be fun to use in my games. There's been a lot of really just... dull for lack of a better word... games to come out in the past year.

Lately, I've been buying a lot more 1st ed. stuff on eBay (I'm running a 1st edition game this summer), plus I want to pick up a few more Dwarven Forge sets to polish off my collection.

Anyway, thanks for all the respones. And by all means keep posting! This is really interesting stuff.

 

[RFisher]

When 3e came out, I was buying like crazy.

I didn't enjoy The Sunless Citadel, and I couldn't get excited about running Forge of Fury, so I stopped buying the modules.

I wasn't really happy with the content or quality of the splatbooks though. So, I didn't buy any of the other D&D supplements. I did buy all the splatbooks (the optimist in my holding out hope, I suppose), but I recently sold them because I never used them.

Between the D&D books, d20 WoT, d20 SW, & d20 CoC; I couldn't seem to come up with a d20 variant that I really liked.

For a while, I kept purchasing about as much, I just shifted away from WotC stuff. 3.5 pretty much ensured I wouldn't be purchasing from WotC again.

My spending really slowed down, though, with changes in my personal economic situation.

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

I've found that I spend a lot less on gaming stuff lately quite simply because I'm paying for "fun" stuff nowadays, rather than mooching off of my mother or all-to-kind grandmother. While I'm not super broke or anything, I've also realized that I have shelves full of books that I have NEVER used in a game. I love to game, and I love options, but I dn't have a lot of time to devote to looking up new stuff in books to make a fun adventure. I could survive on just the core rules and a campaign setting book really... So I focus mainly on what I have already and try to use it.

 

[Treebore]

Book of the Righteous by GR probably won't make you happy either. Too bad, it is a gorgeous and very well done book.

 

[Krellic]

My budget hasn't changed, although I am running out of space on my bookshelves. I have made an effort to stop buying things for the sake of it and hopefully I'm now in pursuit of quality products!

 

[MerricB]

The evil D&D mini line has caused my spending to increase despite a drop in books bought!

** diabolical laugh **

From that presentation Wizards did at GAMA, that seems to have been part of the point of the D&D Miniatures line.

Truthfully, a huge amount of my campaign is sourced directly from the Core Rulebooks, and little else. I have no doubt that I am not unique in this.

For many of us, the Core Rulebooks provide about as much of the game as we need. Do we actually need new feats, prestige classes, magic items, monsters, campaign settings, and so on? No, we don't. Either we can create them ourselves, or they are actually irrelevant to the game we're playing.

What we need are things to make the existing game easier to play. Thus: Dice, Maps, Miniatures, Adventures.

Adventures are problematic for Wizards due to the low profit margin on them. They get around it with Dungeon Magazine, the d20 System publishers, and the free online adventures. Then too, they try to make it easy for us to create our own adventures. (Just look at the DMG!)

Dice - well, they try from time to time.

Maps and Miniatures are both new lines for WotC. The Maps have been given to us freely as part of the Map-a-Week line on their website, but it must be admitted that not all of us can print them out on colour printers! Alas! So, the Map Folios, which are inexpensive ($9.99, as I recall), and are tools for the Stage II DM who doesn't need the rules of the game expanded so much as things to help him play the game.

Miniatures... well, we all know about them by now! What a success they seem to be for Wizards. Again, they are a tool for making an existing game run better, rather than something that will expand the boundaries of a game. The rules for the miniatures are already there - all you need are the actual figures.

I have a collecting mindset, so I will try to acquire most of the new books Wizards are putting out (save the Forgotten Realms books), and my purchases are likely to remain constant because of that.

Cheers!