Have Your RPG Purchased Dropped Off?

[pogre]

Pretty steady here - usually pick up about $150.00 worth of books per year. Mostly adventures and the occasional campaign idea book - Anger of Angels - etc. I stay away from WOTC releases with rare exceptions - Miniatures Handbook for example.

My spending in miniatures is about the same - I have slowed down on buying Foundry Ancients and buy a lot more Reaper Monsters

 

[trancejeremy]

I'm actually spending more on RPGs (when I have money, anyway), but I've moved away from D&D to d20 games. Conan, Spycraft, the OGL books from mongoose (though I've paid a lot of money for them, I still haven't gotten them in the mail, grrrrrrrrrrrr)

 

[Altalazar]

Stable for me, though it does go somewhat in cycles.

 

[jgbrowning]

Pretty stable for me. There's still good stuff I find useful coming out and, unlike a lot of people, I didn't buy everything in the beginning.

joe b.

 

[Nighthawk]

My RPG spending has gone substantially down, but not because of a lack of money. Instead, I made a conscious decision to diversify my gaming purchases. I now consistently play ccgs, computer games, rpgs, and wargames. This has done wonders for myself, as I no longer "burn out" on one type of gaming. I wish I had done this a long time ago.

Also, RPG products do not interest me as much any more. This is mainly because d20 is so dominant. The groups I am with do not bother to play any other games, which makes for continual boredom on my part (my problem, not theirs, but there it is nonetheless). If this were not the case, the presence of non-d20 games would most likely revitalize my rpg product interest.

 

[RogueWriter]

My spending varies, depending on what game I'm reading/playing at the time. Some games, I buy just to read. I know that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but that's my thing.

Things I have bought lately: Green Ronin's Psychic Handbook (Awesome!), Mongoose's Bab 5, Chaositech, Legacy of the Dragons, WotC's Unearthed Arcana (suprisingly good), and anything for Mutants & Masterminds.

Things I won't buy. 3.5 core books. (I bought 3.0, and while some of the 3.5 changes were needed: Heal, Haste and such; other changes I believe were done to simplify the game for a younger audience. The Monk was too complicated to play in 3.0... Maybe for an six year old.... Weapon Size & Handedness. The single worst idea in 3.5 , IMO, was to change weapons back to the way it was in 1st and 2nd edition. C'mon. A Longsword is a longsword. I never could understand the reasoning behind this change, even after they talked about it last year at GenCon... But, back to things I won't buy. I gave up on 5th edition Hero. Good system, good support, but I just don't care to do all the math to build characters that I did years ago. While there is software to do it for me, I just don't have the love for it that I did then. I look at anything from WotC with a skeptical eye. IMO, Psionics Handbook stunk up the stores, and the Expanded one will just spread the stink farther. Complete Warrior? No thanks. D&D Minis? No thanks.

Things I will buy: I'm fairly hopeful about Eberron. I think it may be very interesting, and I'll plunder it for my homebrew campaign. I take a good look at anything from Green Ronin. They put out good quality stuff. Same goes for Mongoose. I still buy anything for Rifts. Ditto for Shadowrun.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Well, discounting minatures, I'm spending less and plan on spending much much less in the future. Like most of you, I find that there are so many products, lots of unknown quality so it seems that it's a risk to buy anything. Anything Dragonstar or Midnight I automatically buy (I'll probably never use/play the systems, but damn, I love the fluff in there... plus it goes with my huge collection of CoC that I'll never play ). Same for Freeport/ WotC titles I've bought quite a few of but there are only a couple more titles (Psionics, and Complete Divine and Arcane) and then I'm done buying "core" books.

Sadly though, all the money I've been saving on books has been going into those damnable Minatures ... but I've been thinking about cutting back on those (or buying by the case, cause I'm weak willed). Between myself and one of my players we've bought in excess of 40 boxes/boosters of Harbinger and still don't have a complete set. Ditto for Dragoneye and Archfiends.



Now here is the

 

[scruffygrognard]

When 3.0 came out my gaming group went nuts, buying every WotC product to be released. I wanted to have every option available to players, but shied away from non-WotC materials.

Now, with 3.5, I've been very choosey when deciding what to buy. As a DM of a homebrew campaign I've gotten by with the core books, Unearthed Arcana, and The Complete Warrior. When designing my campaign world I eliminated psionics, decided that the gods need not be have stats (other than alignment, relative power levels, and spheres of influence), and that plane hopping won't be happening for quite a while and would be a rare occurance (if it happens at all). All I intend on buying now are the WotC class books and Dungeon magazine. Everything else seems like unnecessary fluff (like buying dozens of booster packs for Magic: The Gathering).

 

[Azure Trance]

Chiming in to say that spending has gone way down. I'm much more selective for reasons that people have mentioned many times above.

 

[ChainsawJoe]

Spending is up

Prior to 3rd edition, I hadn't purchased a single game product in years (unless you count the Knights of the Dinner Table comic book). When 3rd edition arrived, I decided to give it a shot and my spending has gradually increased every year since, even post-3.5.

I've purchased more product in the past few years than I did throughout my teens and 20s. Some of it is due to increased income. Some of it is due to buying two copies of the most often referenced books (one for me, one for the kid). Some of it is due to gaming with a wider group of friends, with a wider variety of systems. Although I have purchased the 3.5 core rulebooks and the Complete Warrior, most of my spending lately has been on Spycraft, Gamma World, and other systems. I'm also picking up the D&D miniatures, but certainly not in the same quantities as others here.