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Message: <blockquote data-quote="T. Foster" data-source="post: 3700455" data-attributes="member: 16574">Perhaps the biggest advantages of tabletop rpgs is that they're extremely cheap to play. Only 1 person in a group of 5-6 actually needs a copy of the rules, and beyond that all you need to play are pencils and paper (which it can be safely assumed everybody already has -- though you might need to buy a pad of graph paper for a buck or two) and dice (which varies by game -- back in the 80s most games game in boxes that included dice so assuming everybody was willing to share a single set that's no extra investment, some games use only six-sided dice which most households already have (or if not you can buy a set at the supermarket for ~$2), and even if every player in the group buys a full set of polyhedral dice we're still only taking, what, a one-time investment of $5 per person (confession: I haven't bought a set of polyhedral dice in ~15 years and have no idea what they actually go for nowadays)?). Sure it's possible (at least for most games) to buy assorted accessories (GM screens, characters sheets), supplements, adventures, and of course minis to the tune of $100+ a month, but none of that stuff is really necessary and it's perfectly possible to play the game (or at least most games) without any of it.This is something that the rpg industry seems to have spent the last 20 years trying to change (or at least downplay) which, at least IMO, is ultimately a mistake as it obscures one of the few truly undeniable advantages rpgs have over pretty much all of their competition. Why not make the fact that for a single $40 investment (boxed set with ~100pp rulebook, intro adventure, character sheet blanks, and whatever dice are needed to play -- pretty much the same model we saw in the early-mid 80s, when rpgs were at ther peak of popularity) an entire group of people can be entertained for at least months, probably years (and possibly a lifetime...) into a selling point, or even the selling point?I'm still playing with 1E AD&D rulebooks I bought close to 25 years ago, and have never given WotC a cent of my money (the last "Official D&D" product I purchased was sometime around 1993) but I'm still "supporting the hobby" by playing the game, talking about the game, introducing new people to the game, and increasing its visibility. I'm pretty sure that WotC has written me off as part of their customer-base (they'll make an occasional nostalgia-based appeal to try and lure me into the fold of the current edition, but as long as I'm not buying they're not listening to me), but why shouldn't they be holding people like me up as paragons of what the game is capable of? A single investment and you can still be having fun a quarter century later; no console game or MMORPG is ever going to match that!</blockquote>

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