What's Your Price Limit?

[TheAlkaizer]

I'm willing to follow a push in price with physical books (don't have a choice, shipping, customs and currency conversion from CAD doubles the price of books). But my limit for PDF is much, much lower. There is no universe where I will pay 50$+ for a PDF. And any bundle of Physical + PDF that's the total of the two doesn't compute for me. If the physical book is 50$, and the PDF is 25$, I'm not paying 75$ for both.

 

[Gorgon Zee]

The question is, is that a critique of the other gamesmasters, or just a sign that you're more fond of the design ethos of games of more recent vintage? (This is not me saying the latter is necessarily the case, but it doesn't seem an impossible conclusion).

Good question. I think it's independent of the style of game -- but it's always hard to spot your own biases!

 

[Distracted DM]

For the amount that you pay for them, you get a massive value in play. Of course that assumes that you're actually making use of them, and not buying them because they're interesting and you're sure that one day soon you'll get around to using them properly, but not just this moment.. and then it's 5 years later and they've been shelfware the whole time

Anyway, I've dropped some pretty pennies on the super fancy offset-print wonderfully-bound indie TTRPG books. But I'm also one of those "whales" that you hear about, when it comes to gaming... I'd probably be in a better financial place if I wasn't so good at convincing myself to buy stuff I like

 

[jdrakeh]

I'm at about $50 for a hardcover core book and a max of three core books. Most of that is because I'm disabled and susbsist mainly on SSDI, which doesn't pay very much. I occasionally make some extra money editing/proofreading RPG material, but that money is almost always put toward necessities (which RPG books are not). I really want to get into the new edition of Rolemaster (RMU), but it's currently out of my reach with 4+ core books at $50-ish each.

 

[Stormonu]

For the amount that you pay for them, you get a massive value in play. Of course that assumes that you're actually making use of them, and not buying them because they're interesting and you're sure that one day soon you'll get around to using them properly, but not just this moment.. and then it's 5 years later and they've been shelfware the whole time

Anyway, I've dropped some pretty pennies on the super fancy offset-print wonderfully-bound indie TTRPG books. But I'm also one of those "whales" that you hear about, when it comes to gaming... I'd probably be in a better financial place if I wasn't so good at convincing myself to buy stuff I like

I'm right there with you - game sounds fabulous, but is just sitting on the shelf mocking me. Then when v2 comes out, I just have to hang my head in shame....and then buy it.

 

[Zetesofos]

Question for folks, but do people buy books to play with a group, or do they talk with players, and buy books together? Put another way - if you've been playing with a group for awhile - is one person responsible for the supplies for a game everyone plays?

 

[payn]

Question for folks, but do people buy books to play with a group, or do they talk with players, and buy books together? Put another way - if you've been playing with a group for awhile - is one person responsible for the supplies for a game everyone plays?

I wouldnt say solely responsible for buying supplies for everyone, but its pretty common for any game outside of WotC, Paizo, or Free League. For example, right now im in a Fading Suns game and the GM has many of the source books. Everyone else has a PDF equivalent of the characters handbook.

I have been running a Traveller game and started out with just me having the source books. Though, after playing for a bit half the group has gone on to buy source books of their own. Seems like try before you buy era of RPGs for me and my folks.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's funny, I read this thread earlier this week and now it seems Draw Steel is finally available for purchase directly on their website... and it is 89$ for the PDFs! I've already seen a few reactions to the price of the PDFs.

Draw Steel

I have to admit it'd have to be--quite the PDF--for me not to laugh at that price for one, assuming that U.S. dollars.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Question for folks, but do people buy books to play with a group, or do they talk with players, and buy books together? Put another way - if you've been playing with a group for awhile - is one person responsible for the supplies for a game everyone plays?

In my experience its primarily the GM who invests first (and we're a multi-GM group, so that's not always the same guy) though if they like it, others will buy it later.

 

[jdrakeh]

Question for folks, but do people buy books to play with a group, or do they talk with players, and buy books together? Put another way - if you've been playing with a group for awhile - is one person responsible for the supplies for a game everyone plays?

If I'm running a game, I bring my own copy of the core rules that everybody is initially free to use, but I prefer that the other players buy their own copies of the PHB or equivalent (maybe not immediately, but eventually).