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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MNblockhead" data-source="post: 8040629" data-attributes="member: 6796661">Let's see, I average about $100 per month on TTRPG materials and subscriptions. A lot of that is digital-services subscriptions (now) and physical gaming materials (pre-COVID). The books that I buy on Kickstarter range between $50 and $150, most hovering around $100. But most of this is going to known publishers who I'm already invested in because of the setting/rules system and/or because I've consistently been happy with the quality of their work.  So my money is going to WotC, Kobold Press, and Frog God Games...mostly FGG these days. Digital spend is going to D&D Beyond (Fandom), Fantasy Grounds (Smiteworks), and World Anvil. It just takes an incredible amount of work to convert someone to spend a significant amount of money on a regular basis with your company, or to you individually. After switching from my homebrew campaign and running curse of Strahd, I have Rappan Athuk and shot and ended upon going all in with Lost Lands. But I make that kind of change, maybe once every five years at most and I've got enough material now to last me far more than I can play in five years. You can raise prices, I'd probably pay another $10-20 per book for the big Kobold Press and FGG books, but another $50? Maybe not. I don't know if FGG and KP are paying their creatives a living wage. I'm more concerned about keeping my hobby spend with what I can afford. It is something that I can easily cut back on. I could completely stop buying anything new and have enough to keep myself and my six players entertained for years. If I go back to homebrewing, then indefinitely. The problem is that there are just too many people who want to and are able to sell this work and not enough demand. If you want improve the wages of TTRPG creatives, then you need reduce the number of them creating and selling content. Short of some powerful union or licensing scheme to create strict gatekeeping, I don't know how this will happen and I'm not sure that artists and writers in the field would welcome this. Universal basic income and universal health coverage could help, so that people could pursue unprofitable work without the risk of destitution. But that raises other costs and controls, including higher taxes, stricter immigration regulations, state-run birth-control measures, and other controversial policies. At the present time, all I can do is continue to support the few companies who put out products I really like and use. Those looking to work in the industry need to understand the reality of the situation. Simply demanding that publisher pay more is going to have very little practical effect on the situation.</blockquote>

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