[freeroleplay] Re: Opportunities for Free Gaming?
- From: Jerry Stratton <jerry@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: freeroleplay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 19:10:28 -0800
At 9:58 PM +0000 on 11/26/04, Samuel Penn wrote:
>How many people who play an RPG actually buy the rules? In
>our groups, it's often that the GM will have a copy of the
>rules and no-one else will. So that $30 is split amongst
>five or six people (of course, it's always the same couple
>of people GMing, so the cost doesn't really get shared, but
>the effect on the company's profits is the same).
IME, it depends on how often the game gets played. Back in AD&D 1E days, most
people I gamed with had at least a copy of the players handbook. When we
started playing DragonQuest regularly, most of the members of our group ended
up with a copy of that. But other games that we played sporadically, such as
V&V or Runequest, we made do with only one copy. It was always limiting to do
so, however. (I finally picked up a copy of Runequest in memory of those days
just about two years ago.)
But the point is that for any game that's become popular (D&D, Shadowrun,
Vampire), they are complex enough that it becomes useful to have more than one
copy of the game, especially during character creation.
Now that we're playing Gods & Monsters, we generally have two and a half
copies: I have a copy of all of the rules; another player keeps his wireless
laptop nearby for quick reference of the PDFs, and also has a printout of all
the rules he has deemed appropriate to his character (mostly spells); and
another sorceror player has a copy of the Arcane Lore book (spellbook/specialty
book) that gets passed around whenever the characters jump a level.
I think for any long-running game, multiple copies of pertinent rule
books/sections will always be desirable. Whether or not it actually happens
will depend on the cost of the rules and how often the game is played.
Although as I recall now, one of the reasons we played DragonQuest more often
than other non-D&D games back in college was that we had run across a cache of
the boxed set for something like $5 apiece; we all bought it because of the
price, and then played it because it meet our minimum requirements and we all
had a copy. Fortunately, no one else was with me when I ran across and bought a
one dollar version of the "Cyborg Commando" boxed set.
Jerry
--
jerry@xxxxxxxxxx It Isn't Murder If They're Yankees
http://www.ItIsntMurder.com/
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