How "deep" into a setting will you buy?

[Khairn]

If it is a setting I actually intend to DM in then I will buy a fair amount or collect a fair amount over time. I am not a completionist though, so I tend to only buy the books that I think will prove relevant to me. So for me this has meant Forgotten Realms and Golarion.

For settings I might only play in I consider picking up the core book at least. I was not a huge fan of Eberron, but did play in the setting as my group wanted to. So I picked up the core book, but that's it.

Basically the same, but with an important (at least to me) caveat. If the core setting is planned as being only a single book, it better have enough detail within the cover. An example of this would be Ptolus. If I know in advance that its only a single book I'll avoid it unless there are some mitigating circumstances.

There are few things I find more frustrating than discovering a great setting that really captures your gaming imagination, only to see it come to an end after a single book. As a GM I'd much prefer to pick and chose the details I want to include in my game from something that has already been written for the setting, rater than be forced to create it all myself. That level of work and commitment is reserved for my homebrew, rather than a setting I've already paid for.

 

[Wepwawet]

I only buy the core book.

It's good to have a layout for a world, so you don't need to think about it all, but it's important that it gives me enough freedom to do whatever i want with it.

Most importantly, I don't have the patience or time to read all of the material, or the setting's cannon. And from my experience the players even less.
They rarely read more than the sinopsis. It's up to the DM to present the world on the fly.

So why bother reading too many details about a setting?

 

[Holy Bovine]

I vary wildly in how far I'll buy into a setting. For example with Scarred Lands I have pretty everything S&SS put out for it. For the new Dark Sun campaign I have the setting book and nothing else. Ditto the 3E Forgotten Realms. It really depends on how much a setting appeals to me. I was jazzed about SL and ran 3 campaigns in it all to high levels over the period of about 8 years. FR I have run exactly once for about 5 sessions and was never very enthusiastic about it. Currently I am trying to track down some of the old Mystara gazetteers and would probably buy them all if money allowed.

 

[drothgery]

I think I'd mostly fall under Beginning of the End's "Utilitarian". I kind of went all-in on 3.5 Eberron and SWSE (I bought all the rulebooks for both), but in the first case I played most of my 3.5 games in Eberron, and I've run a lot of Star Wars PBPs (and even did a short tabletop game). Other than that, it's mostly been a book or two (though I did pick up a bit more 3.0 FR stuff which I pretty much never used).

 

[Voadam]

If things are cheap I'll generally get everything I'm interested in.

I got all of the DragonMech pdfs for example during Goodman Games' $2 sale at the "end" of the d20 logo era.

I have a ton of pdfs from promotions and sales and a ton from their just being interesting and cheap.

There is hardly a line though where I have everything and there are a few lines where I have almost nothing thanks to their high prices.


Ravenloft - a ton of 2e but not everything, a bunch of 3e but not nearly everything

1e and 2e Greyhawk - a ton but not everything.

1e and 2e and 3e FR - a bunch but not everything.

Oathbound - almost everything but not quite.

Eberron - Only the Five Nations book and a few dragon articles (No core CS!)

Scarred Lands - a bunch in print and a ton in pdfs but not everything

Freeport - A bunch but not everything

Thieves' World - I have all the setting books from a huge discount sale but not all the modules.

Iron Kingdoms - just one pdf that was on a $10 sale and two monster books I got as gifts. Very Expensive.

Golarion - The Campaign setting I got as a gift and I got one 32 page chronicles supplement.

Planescape - I got a bunch of pdfs but not all.

Birthright - I got the core book pdf but not the supplements.

Jakandor - All three!

Dark Sun - I got a bunch on pdf but not all.

Rokugan - I got the core book on a used sale and the monster book in pdf.

Arcanis I got a used copy of the 3e CS, a used copy of their serpent book, and a pdf of the 3.5 CS when it was on sale.

Nyambe - Core book but not the magic items one or the adventure.

Northern Crown - Both setting books

etc.

 

[Dark Mistress]

Depends on the setting. If it is well written, interesting and really grabs me. Then I tend to buy a lot of stuff for it. Like Forgotten Realms back in the Grey Box days, Iron Kingdoms and Golarion.

If it is ok, I find it appealing but not to the level of the above then i buy the main book and then usually some key books about area's or things I find interesting. 7th Sea, Greyhawk, Al-Qadim.

The rest I buy the core book at most.

 

[raindog308]

Old School

To give an old school, non-TSR/WOTC response...

Imagine if you "got into" Harn. Harniacs are very proud that there are 2 million words written about that setting (and unlike FR, none of that is novels - it's all GM material). Frankly, I find a lot of it to be over-detailed minutiae that one would never use, but if you "really got into it" you could be reading for a long time.

I got into Tekumel once. But I couldn't afford it because it's been out of print forever, the books are hard to find, and when you do find them the prices are ridiculous. (They did release a new version in 2004 but I haven't read it. It was only 240 pages so I'm sure it wasn't everything that was previously published).

Ditto for Jorune...which I understand is sadly tied up in some kind of legal dispute. I love, love, love that setting and the 3rd ed box set was awesome. But to go and get all the books would be pretty expensive from a rarity point of view, though there aren't as many of them (I haven't checked prices, just basing this on what's in the "old and obscure" section of my local game store).

I think the most expensive setting might be...PATHFINDER! Seriously, the base campaign setting is $50. I saw the River Kingdoms book and it was $20. It wouldn't take long for that to get pretty pricey. The Kingmaker series as I recall is six books at $20-30 each...

 

[delericho]

It varies.

Back in 2nd Edition days, I got the base boxed set for many of the settings (Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Dark Sun) and then very little else.

During my Vampire: the Masquerade days, I basically bought everything that was released (at least for the "Revised Edition" era up to "Gehenna").

In 3e, I bought the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting main book, and then when the time came to actually run a campaign there I bought a couple of relevant books to go with it.

This year, I have bought a complete set of the 3e Eberron books (excluding the "Adventurer's Guide". Oh, and the main book, which I got when it was first released). This was partly because my FLGS had a whole bunch of them at big discounts, and partly because I was running a game there.

At this point, my only game-related purchases are my ongoing subscription to the Pathfinder Adventure Path product. I have no expectation to run either Pathfinder or D&D 4e, and so won't be spending money on anything for those systems. However, if I were to get back in (say with a theoretical D&D 5e), my ideal model for a campaign setting would probably be similar to that of Al Qadim or 3e Eberron - a fairly small number of books that manage to detail the setting quite well but not exhaustively. The 4e model is quite close to this, but it a bit too "bare bones" for my taste.

 

[delericho]

I think the most expensive setting might be...PATHFINDER! Seriously, the base campaign setting is $50. I saw the River Kingdoms book and it was $20. It wouldn't take long for that to get pretty pricey. The Kingmaker series as I recall is six books at $20-30 each...

Six books at $19.99 for Kingmaker, also available at $13.99 as PDFs.

Also, it's worth noting that those are an Adventure Path (modules), and not necessarily part of the setting as such. $120 is probably not too bad for a full campaign good for at least a year's gaming...

But Pathfinder can certainly get horribly expensive if you try to get everything.

 

[Deepfire]

I buy all of it, when I am into a setting - and if there are more publishers for one game, I try to get all of all publishers.