D&D 5E What are your D&D buying habits?

[Alzrius]

I buy every official book, since I'm a collector (though not so much that I buy every version of every book out there; I like what you do, Beadle and Grimm, but you're out of my price range!), but quite often it takes a long time for me to pick them up. I'm still filling out the back-catalogue of previous editions, and expect that I will be for a long time to come.

 

[Tom Bagwell]

Well, I only buy the D&D Beyond versions. I bought the core books, and then only the occasional campaign or setting as needed or as they catch my interest. More often individual classes, races, or backgrounds.

I didn't vote as I don't see a good way to reflect this.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

What this poll might have been helped by is some option as to whether you buy adventures or not. I buy almost every official rulebook, but I buy zero adventures (I have access to quite a few because some people I play with have them shared with me via Beyond but that's another story). I'm just not interested in "Adventure Path"-style writing from WotC. Like, every time, it's just... not very good. Rarely terrible either... but not very good, like I could do better with the same ideas/material. I don't want to derail on that too hard, but it's like, a major influence on what D&D stuff I get (I don't find this to be true of all companies or all games). I will probably get the 17 short adventures book because most "A number of short adventures" books tend to be, well, pretty good, even if other adventures from that company aren't (I mean, assuming a certain level of basic competence). And they often actually get used - I still use "a bunch of short adventures" books from 1E AD&D for example, thanks to Dungeon World. The WotC one also has some exciting authors, and even if 50% of it is "meh", then that still a bunch of good stuff. Whereas if 50% of an AP is "meh", then the whole thing is kind of ruined.

I should add that I also largely buy from Beyond re: official stuff.

I do have some third-party stuff, but I tend to only buy things which can easily be integrated into Beyond. I.e. magic item books, very discrete systems books that don't require modifying the core game rules (or adding to them in a permanent way), monster books (to some extent), and so on.

 

[tetrasodium]

in the third party revelation spirit, between d&d compatible ttrpg focused patreons like swordmeow, cze & peku, the recent addition or arcadia, or even keith baker & nondmsguild 3rdparty titles I buy quite a bit of non-wotc 3rd party stuff that I suspect even amounts to a sizable majority of what I used to spend with wotc when I was still hoping this new book would fill some of my needs.

 

[Green Onceler]

I bought the Player's Handbook. That was enough for me.

 

[Weiley31]

Alternative Covers. I started purchasing a number of the alternative covers post Tome of Foes/Xanathars/Volo. Pretty much started with Tyranny of Dragons 2019 and been getting them over the regular cover 5E books ever since. I plan on getting the Candlekeep Mysteries Alt cover as well. And hopefully this time when it comes in, doesn't get stolen.

This also extends to a number of 3PP 5E kickstarter too. From Humblewood, Stargate, Hellboy, and Heckna, to name a few, I've backed at the higher pricing tiers for the Collector Editions and their exclusive covers. Worth it though as usually, like Humblewood for example, are very gorgeous. (Okay I'm a tuls for dice so those tiers also come with exclusive dice as well.)

Now if I want a book and it doesn't get an alternative cover, I'll still buy the book. I still need to get Tales from Yawning Portal and Curse of Strahd(which has Revamped so that's gonna be my "alternative cover" purchase for that.)

Of all the current alternative covers released so far, Tyranny of Dragons 2019 and Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden have to be my favorite ones.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I am a collector. I would rather books about monsters, PC races and classes, but not modules or about lore/background. In my city I can't buy original English-language but only the translated editions, and nothing of 3PPs, but the Tome of Beast by Kobold Press, what will be translated by Nosolorol. I also bought Sandy's Myths of Culthu, translated by Edgeent (company owned by Asmodee Games). I bought some Starfinder books, but Devir Iberia's candence is veeeery slooooow.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

I own all of the core rulebooks and supplements. None of the adventures. I'm personally disappointed by the quality of the adventures of 5E, and their editing, layout and approach to content also makes it harder for me to hack and slash bits to use in my adventures.

 

[el-remmen]

Since I just started 5E about a year ago, I have got more non-core books in that year than I'd normally get (three of them), but two of those three (Xanathar's and Tasha's) were gifts for birthday/holidays that I put on a wishlist rather than something I would have cared enough to pay for myself (but my family knowing I love D&D, telling them to get me a D&D book is easier than most other stuff).

Each new edition I've played has seen a pattern where I buy a lot of stuff early, but as the edition matures I move more and more to homebrew stuff and ignore new releases.

As for adventures, I only buy 1E modules or back issues of Dungeon - all print (though if a PDF is accessible I grab it for cutting/pasting stuff into my notes of running the game and printing it out).

I spend a lot more money on minis, paints, battlemats, and stuff like new USB cameras for remote play.

 

[schneeland]

I bought every book WotC until end of 2017, and a larger number 3rd party things. But about 2 years ago, I had to admit to myself that I lost the appetite for newer editions of D&D. I would probably still be interested in PDFs of some releases, but since these are not for sale for this edition, the money flow towards WotC mostly stopped (I sometimes buy PDFs of 1e and 2e stuff).
I still spend a considerable amount of money on RPG products, including OSR stuff, just not on D&D5.