What's Your Price Limit?

[Cergorach]

-$30 for physical books. No more room, I even considered selling my entire physical book collection, I've come back from that (for now), but a LOT will be sold. Not to make room for more, but to make it take less space. I have have a lot in pdf of my collection and for Pathfinder/Starfinder almost everything is in pdf. I do pay for Foundry VTT modules for Paizo products, but I also have my limits for that, but I did pay $120 for the Kingmaker module (entirely digital).

The price of the Alien Archive is only $65, so $205 for all three. Or $90 if you go for the pocket versions.

Player Core is 464 pages, so quite a tome for $70, but the original was 528 pages for $60. The GM core is 264 pages and is also $70, but where every player/GM will want the Player Core, only the GM will want the GM Core, thus less demand. Alien Archive is 224 pages for $65, in line with the GM Core book. As the original book was 528, the Player+GM Core is 728 pages, 200 pages more then the first edition, so it's $60 vs $140 for ~40% more pages spread over two hardcover books. With the additional page count and adjusted for inflation, it's still ~$30 more expensive, but not as much as the OP initially made it appear.

A while back (just before D&D 5e 2024 released) there was a possibility of moving from D&D to PF2e, so I bought Player Core 1&2, GM Core, and Monster Core. $20 per pdf, $80 total, but ~1500 pages of RPG material. The D&D 5e 2024 PHB/DMG/MM have ~1150 pages of RPG material. When bought from DnD Beyond or Foundry VTT (digital), this is $30 per book or $90 for all three.

Pathfinder and Starfinder currently don't have that much of a priority for me.

That said, for digital products I already mentioned the $120 for Kingmaker (FVTT), but I also spend $320 on the Ember (FVTT) KS, while that is more then just a digital product/module, it also comes with a hardcover world book and cloth map. Depending on what it is, how much I want it, and how much disposable income I have at the time, I'm willing to spend a pretty penny on RPG product.

A bigger issue is that publishers don't publish in the electronic format I prefer. D&D 5e not in pdf or in more Foundry VTT modules (currently only 6 official FVTT modules available for D&D 5e of 50+ products). And some publishers don't offer anything for FVTT (like Shadowrun, World of Darkness, etc.).

 

[MGibster]

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?

For the most part, the people I game with tend to purchase their own book. At least the main book. There are exceptions of course. If it's a completely new game, then fewer people likely to purchase the book. They'll usually pick a book up if they like the game and realize we're likely to play it again.

My current D&D group is an aberration. I started out with six players, and only three of them own the PHB, with the other three relying completely on D&D Beyond. This has caused some small amount of frustration on my part as they often didn't understand basic rules and I'm frequently having to remind them about little things like adding their Strength bonus to damage or that their character has two attacks. The two Pathfinder players need to be reminded at least once a session that flanking isn't a thing.

I don't expect players to purchase books for an entirely new game they might not even like. For some of my niche games, I've got multiple copies of the main rulebook, so I can always share it with someone. I actually really appreciate games that have something like a player's handbook because it's often less expensive than a book with all the rules/setting information but has everything the player needs to understand the game.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The two Pathfinder players need to be reminded at least once a session that flanking isn't a thing.

That's likely the disease of near-system conflation. People who've played a lot of closely related games, or played through multiple editions of one game are often prone to confusing rules from one with another. We used to see it with Runequest all the time back in the day, as we'd played through three editions which were close but not identical. Hero System too, far as that goes.

 

[Retreater]

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?

My group rarely (almost never) purchases any gaming books. I've been known to purchase extra copies for the table to use. And minis, maps, pens, initiative trackers, tokens, character sheets.
They bring snacks.

 

[MGibster]

That's likely the disease of near-system conflation. People who've played a lot of closely related games, or played through multiple editions of one game are often prone to confusing rules from one with another. We used to see it with Runequest all the time back in the day, as we'd played through three editions which were close but not identical. Hero System too, far as that goes.

No shade on them. I frequently have to ask questions like, "Roll whatever the equivalent of Streetwise is in this game."

 

[Professor Murder]

Right now, $75 for a single book would make me balk but I could see my way to do it, if it felt "complete." Roughly $60? Sure. Like once a quarter. Small A5 type ttrpgs? $45 would be my balk point, but say 30-40? Sure thing. Will these numbers change in say 3-5 years? Unfortunately yeah. My desire to get physical media really can be a pain. I do get non-physical games in bundles with a lot more casualness. I have dropped say 30-50 on a collection to never even really open it more than once, just in case I might want to use them.

 

[lynnfredricks]

Yes, inflation. Yes, tariffs. I get it. Paizo can charge what they want. Maybe Starfinder 2 is even so good that it's worth $500. And yes, Archives of Nethys will be free. And yes, PDFs and Pocket rulebooks are cheaper.
But in the era of Shadowdark (which FYI I didn't love), Dragonbane, and Daggerheart when you can get a full game for $50-60, does $210 seem excessive? Does the very thick, three core rulebook model need to continue in the era of $210 games? (This might be the most expensive core system by a major publisher.)

Publishers that want to compete with each other know what their customers want.

Some go the full color experience for their core products, and that is expensive. They've completely and fully monetized their PDF businesses, and also put out starter sets. A lot of businesses will 'eat it' somewhat on one type of product if that product will lead to buyers buying higher margin products.

They've also done good jobs to convince you that its the only way to pay everyone and produce a solid product, but what exactly is the product?

Prices were already creeping up before D&D 5.5 2024.

They've convinced some people that the PDF has a higher value, which is great because their channel margins are pretty much nil (unless they are selling on a third party platform), or in some cases bundled the PDF with the book if you buy direct, which is where they really want to go, and charge you for both.

Breaking the $50 price point was a big deal, but they knew it was possible, just like the console game companies did. Fair enough if they can make their sales.

Other companies have focused on functionality of rule sets or other things.

Ultimately you have to decide what's important to you. I realized a long time ago that unless a piece of artwork has an in-game use, it has very little value. A lot of GM products are filled with very expensive art that is never shown to players.

I played Starfinder 1.x and really enjoyed it, but like you, I won't buy Starfinder 2 for the same reasons. It most assuredly is going to have a Player Core 2 book since they shorted Player Core (1) with fewer classes.

I agree in the case of Dragonbane. The boxed set is one of the best overall deals I have seen in a long time. It is packed full of useful material.

 

[Cergorach]

This has caused some small amount of frustration on my part as they often didn't understand basic rules and I'm frequently having to remind them about little things like adding their Strength bonus to damage or that their character has two attacks. The two Pathfinder players need to be reminded at least once a session that flanking isn't a thing.

I think that the first part is just sloppy from their part, this is information you put on your character sheet: 1D8+3 damage, 2 attacks.

The second part I can understand, with 35+ years of Games Workshop games and their WFB, 40k, Necromunda, etc. being so similar across editions, eventually you had 15+ editions you had read/seen/played, and did this edition have an extra attack for action X? No that's the current edition of 40k... When we started D&D 5e up again we had the same issue with years of playing 3e a couple of decades ago, even with the 'update' to 5e 2024 we kept thinking of the 2014 rules. It took a while and it's possible we sometimes still do things wrong (but don't notice)... Yes we read the new rule book, but that's just part of a bunch of information we consume, not just for hobby, but also for work, it seems that old, more used information starts to become more ingrained into our old brains...

Getting into PF2e (new Core) from D&D 5e is also kind of difficult for that reason, 1500 pages of text, a LOT of which you can ignore as a player, but it becomes more difficult for the GM. Especially when it's so similar to D&D and other D20 games, but just different enough to be difficult.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

They've also done good jobs to convince you that its the only way to pay everyone and produce a solid product, but what exactly is the product?

Even if I can be convinced of that -- I have no opinion on this currently -- it won't affect my buying pattern. I trade money for a product based on the merit on the product. If I think it is going to bring me 20 € of value, I won't buy it 50 € even if it would allow authors to be paid better. I mean, I can see me doing that when buying coffee out of charity for East-African coffee planters (while thinking it's probably middlemen that benefit the most), but I don't feel charity is a factor when paying workforce in a country with similar or higher wealth level than mine. I am pretty sure I am not the only customer to think like that.

 

[Morrus]

Even if I can be convinced of that -- I have no opinion on this currently -- it won't affect my buying pattern. I trade money for a product based on the merit on the product. If I think it is going to bring me 20 € of value, I won't buy it 50 € even if it would allow authors to be paid better. I mean, I can see me doing that when buying coffee out of charity for East-African coffee planters (while thinking it's probably middlemen that benefit the most), but I don't feel charity is a factor when paying workforce in a country with similar or higher wealth level than mine. I am pretty sure I am not the only customer to think like that.

Paying a fair price for something isn't 'charity'.