I like rpgs and all but...

[BiggusGeekus]

I'm the only one of five people who uses a book in our d20 Modern game. The rest of the guys just printed out the SRD or borrowed my copy.

I freaking love the SRD; its better than pancakes in the morning.

 

[Numion]

I feel your pain.. I used to haul around 20 kg sack of stuff, but not anymore since we play at my place

In our new campaign we use only the core books, so it's not too bad. And I'm not the DM, so it's not my burden anyway.

Solution: buy a back of holding, only a couple of Kgp.. er what?

 

[Desdichado]

It's really cool how you can have all those books, and find stuff in them that's really fun to have. Your statement that you have to have them is a complete fallacy. And I don't understand your second response at all. Who cares if someone says "that's not a rule?" Are you the DM? If so, you make the rules, based on what's in the books. You can allow or disallow whatever rules you want, or whatever books you want.

 

[Airwolf]

I have to agree with Crothian. We have 3 players who don't bring anthing except character sheets. They borrows books, dice and pencils when they game. Of course two of the three are wife/gf of other players and use their stuff. The last just has no interest in buying all the books. No one in our group has ever had a problem with this.

I think when I get my 3.5 books I will pass along my 3E books to the last player so he will have 90% of the rules.

 

[KnowTheToe]

I understand where Dementia is coming from. 3E is very very rules heavy and has so many options and sourcebooks, that it is impossible to pick up. Everytime I have tried to start a new game, I get request after request of PrCs from 3rd party books, dragon and the internet. There really is a wierd drive in the gaming community to collect everything they can, have every option possible. I think it is just wierd. 3E has become as much about what powers you can have as it is about anything else.

Yes I know there are exceptions and lots of them, but after playing the game and reading the boards there are a lot of product whores in the RPG world. Yes, I understand this has benefits to the industry.

 

[Zappo]

I understand where Dementia is coming from. 3E is very very rules heavy and has so many options and sourcebooks, that it is impossible to pick up. Everytime I have tried to start a new game, I get request after request of PrCs from 3rd party books, dragon and the internet. There really is a wierd drive in the gaming community to collect everything they can, have every option possible. I think it is just wierd. 3E has become as much about what powers you can have as it is about anything else.

I'd call that a problem with the players, not with the game.

 

[ichabod]

I run a group with five players. Only three of them own more than the Player's Handbook, one of those only has an extra splat book, one DM's occaisonally, and one is a completist. No one uses more the the PHB during play. And despite all of the books I have, I use more homebrew stuff than stuff from non-core books. Of two non-humans in the group, both are homebrew races. Of two prestige classes in the group, one is homebrewed. In the adventure they are currently playing, there are four MM monsters and three homebrew monsters. I don't see that things have really changed that much since high school and 2e.

 

[s/LaSH]

My group has one copy of each of the core rulebooks (and we didn't even have the DMG or MM for the first 9 levels). As the DM, I hold onto them (hey, I bought them in the first place), and we pass the PHB around during the gaming session. It might take less time if we all had one, but I don't think it would be cost-effective.

Really, the DM is the one who needs the rulebooks. I don't even know if players should have rulebooks at all. If a player has never even read the DMG, are they still going to plan for a broken prestige class in their future, or will they be pleasantly surprised when informed, "You can multiclass into this class you never knew about and run up walls or whatever it does"?

My 2cp.

 

[Tyberious Funk]

Different strokes for different folks I suppose...

My weekend game: The DM arrives with a car boot full of stuff including a crate of books, his own table, a laptop, a backback full of campaign material, several cardboard battlemaps and a box of cardboard miniatures. Most of the others in the group also have their own PHB at the very least. We pretty much all have an ample set of dice. In addition to the DM, two of us bring laptops. It's a full-scale affair.

My Friday evening game: The DM carries the three core books, a couple of sheets of paper with his campaign notes and a small box of dice with enough dice for all of us to use. He generally keeps hold of our character sheets. Of the players, I am the only one to bring a PHB. Other than that, we all travel light.

 

[Nightfall]

Bah. Games I run, even the Scarred Lands one, don't require people to OWN half the stuff I have. Hell if they just have the PHB, they're fine.

Right Ni?