Have Your RPG Purchased Dropped Off?

[BluWolf]

My spending has gone way down as I have not been able to game in over a year and half with very little opportunity in the near future.

My last two purchases were about a year ago. T20 and then D20 Star Wars off ebay. There are a few I would like to get but probably won't until some sort of glimmer in gaming arises.

 

[Hardhead]

I used to buy every book put out by WotC. Not anymore. With all the power creep, I don't bother to buy anything much anymore, as I rarely want that stuff in my world. My rule used to be "Everything by WotC is allowed by default, ask me first for 3rd party." Now, it's "only the PHB is allowed by default." I paged through the new PGtF at the store. YAWN. I'd never let my character have the new Bloodline of Fire (+2 caster level?!?). Nothing in there for me.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

Well, interstingly enough, I took this poll to read "Has your spending on D20 gone up or down?"

So, I marked "Down", since I really don't buy much D20 stuff anymore. (Sure, I get stuff for "The End", and the occasional items from Necromancer Games (Rappan Athuk, Raise the Dead, etc.) and WotC (Draconomicon), but very littel stuff for the D20 system has interested me. The only D20 things I buy regularly is the "Ravenloft" stuff and the "MIdnight" stuff.

My budget in general for RPG's though, has gone up. I buy stuff from Decipher (LotR RPG), Eden Games (Buffy/Angel), Atlad (Ars Magica), Chaosium(CoC-sure, it's dual-statted now, but I could do without ever seeing D20 conversions.), Pinnacle (Deadlands- again, dual-statted, but not caring about that.), White Wolf (Most of my budget goes here!), and a number of other comapnies.

 

[milotha]

My spending has gone down for several reasons. 1) Economic, I don't have as much money to spend. 2) I have a ton of books and minis already, many of them go unused, with no real reason to update. 3) I have a ton of other things to do and buy - movies, books, gadgets etc.

 

[The Black Kestrel]

My spending on books has remained fairly steady. I tend to buy most of WotC's stuff along with AEG's L5R, DP9's Core Command, Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles, Holistic's Fading Suns and the rare Shadow World (2e Rolemaster) book when ICE puts one out. I tend to stick to games I'm familiar with. I'm going to Ebberon a shot mostly to see what nifty rules I can steal for my Realms campaign.

PDF-wise I buy mainly Malhavoc, Expiditious Retreat Press and Game Mechanics. I used to spend quite a bit on WotC's ESD's but I have most of the ones I want now. I might purchasing some RPG Objects PDF's as well soon as they mighty tempting and might enhance a d20 Modern campaign I've been kicking around.

 

[Doc_Klueless]

My spending on RPGs has definitely dropped. Dramatically. Where I used to buy 2-4 books a month, I now buy 1 book in 2-3 months. This may change with the advent of GURPS 4e, which I'm very much planning to buy.

My decline in spending is due to several reasons:

1) Once I figured out what else I could be buying with that money, I was shocked. Hey, I was shelling out $100-$200+ a month on that stuff, which, while fun, wasn't particularly more fun that some of my other hobbies.

2) Not a lot has come out that has interested me. Complete Warrior was interesting, but has been sitting on my shelf without a whole lot of use to justify the expense on my part. While it did add to my IRC game with my old buddies back "home," the game was just as rich when I didn't have it, if that makes sense.

3) Several games (such as the aforementioned GURPS 4e) have latched on to my short attention span and I'm saving up some cash to blooooow on them.

4) I don't play as often as I used to. This is due to having moved across country from Texas and my old home, my new career as an ICU nurse suck-suck-suuuuuuuucking up my free time, family time with my daughter and her mom, and runnin' about discovering this new world called Los Angeles and the surrounding area.

5) I'm picking up the D&D minies and, really, for the price of one RPG book, I can pick up LOTS of minis off the websites that sell them separately. So, even with a boost in money going out in that direction, I still spend a lot less on gaming stuff. Beside, the minis game that comes with the miniatures is a lot of fun too and you can easily play it by email. All it takes is for all the players to have the same minis (or tokens to represent those minis), a digital camera (to snap a shot of your moves that turn), and MSPaint that comes with Windows. (I only spent $50 last month on RPG stuff and it was the minis. Probably won't spend any money on RPG stuff this month).

6) I'm old and need my rest, so I tend to nap more than I used to which cuts into my RPG readin' and plannin' time, so the books I do have last me a lot longer.

 

[Greg K]

My purchases has actually gone up. Excluding the core rule books, most, if not all of my d20 purchases have occured within the last year (I cannot remember exactly when Mutants and Masterminds was released).

Of my purchases, the majority have been from Green Ronin (i.e., Psychic's Handbook, Shaman's Handbook, Witch's Handbook). However, I have also purchased Blood and Fists (RPG Objects). The only non core WOTC book that I own is the Unearthed Arcana which was a gift.

This year looks to include several more purchases. From Green Ronin, I plan to buy the M&M Annual and the Medieval Handbook. I plan to also look closesly at both Powers Corrupted and Haven by Louis Porter Jr. I will give a look at the Complete Arcane, Complete Divine, and Frostburn despite my general dislike for the majority of WOTC DND non core products. And these are just the products that I am currently aware of. The above list also does not include a couple of older releases from various companies that I am considering.