Back in grade school, this used to crop up from time to time — the GMs I knew (myself included) spent a lot more than their players did on games that the whole group enjoyed, so why not pool funds to buy books?
I never felt quite right asking my players to do that, and I don’t remember ever paying for the GM’s books myself as a player, either. And as we all got older, of course, spending money became less of a concern.
The truism that in any given group, the GM will be the one who owns the most books for the current game still seems to hold true, though. And when that’s me, I don’t mind.
So how about it — has this ever been brought up in your group? Did it come up when you were younger? I know of groups that have pooled their cash for digital projectors, but does anyone actually do this for books, adventures and the like?
I wouldn’t ask players to help pay for books as a GM, I would pitch in if asked as a player.
As a GM I want ready access to those books at all times. As a player, not so much and as a player I would lend my books to the GM if I was not using them. Although, some times, as a GM, I’ll get an idea out of left field and start beating up a book that I’d ignored for ages and would be out of sorts if my book of choice wasn’t readily at hand.
Even if the books are for a one shot game that might not ever get played again, I would want to own that book or books. If a game interests me enough to try one session, it’s books are keepers.
Ugh. I too recall these failed “socialist policies” in my youth as both a player and GM. The attempts were rife with corruption, those that pooled monies never got equal time, or the monies were subject to embezzlement by the “treasurer,” if anyone bothered to appoint one.
Dar notes exactly why, for all the same reasons, especially as I GM’d more, I never participated in such efforts.
It’s a noble idea, but too often the flip side goes unaddressed: who *owns* those books once purchased with group funds?
The obvious, but wrong, answer, is “the group, of course”. But what happens when a new player comes into the group? What happens that person hasn’t yet contributed funds, but a book is subsequently purchased that benefits that new member? What happens when someoen else leaves? What happens if that person was the *main* person who used a particular book? What if someone doesn’t officially leave, but just turns up less often? It’s more hassle and bookkeeping than most gamers want to be bothered with.
So, I think it’s usually best for every book and other gaming item to have an owner. While a group might decide to buy a book as a gift, that book is still *owned* by the recipient, not by the group as a whole.
Further questions that rarely get addressed satisfactorily by “the group owns the book”:
There’s a book that has been purchased with the pooled funds, and is now considered the property of the group. What if one member of the group starts physically mistreating the book and the rest don’t approve? What if *two* members start doing this and neither of them sees it as a big deal? What if everyone except Joe mistreats the book this way, and none of them have a problem with it except Joe?
What if the majority feel that a particular purchase should be made with pooled funds but a minority disagree? What if a majority think the pool should receive more funding but a minority disagree?
These problems, whatever their solutions, usually lead either to bad feelings, or differing *levels* of “ownership” in the shared resources. This in turn implies more financial bookkeeping and division between members.
The problem in general is known as “The Tragedy of The Commons”, that while it would be more efficient for finite shared resources to be purchased by pooled funds and maintained collectively, once this happens it is in every individual’s ongoing rational best interest to use the resource inequally to the detriment of their fellows.
Personally I like having my own collection of books … even if I play with different groups in 10 year’s time, I’ll still have the books I own. Lending them to other players when they need them is no problem, just like lending books they own from them when I don’t have them (although for Shadowrun, the RPG I play most, I own all books since the 4th edition came out). But I woulnd’t want collective ownership really.
Although I’ve been playing with the same core group of people for the better part of 4 years, people come and go due to various work schedules. I just can’t see an arrangement like this working. Although we all have collections books similar to one another, nobody has a problem loaning out books to one another if someone doesn’t own one and doesn’t really want to spend $30 just to learn a single feat or game mechanic, which is especially true for the DM.
“Socialist policies” is a great way to put it, Joe. I agree that ownership would be the tricky bit in any situation like this, too.
I’m surpised no one’s popped in to say that their group tried this, or even still does this — I didn’t think it would be common, but one of the reasons I asked the question was to see if my own sense that no one actually does this was accurate.
In Sweden there is a major national organisation called SVEROK (Swedish Role and Conflict-gamers Association) who funds youth-groups who game. Essentially each group needs atleast 5 members and receives 3000 skr (about 420 US dollars) as a “base fund” and an additional 100 skr (about 15 US dollars) per member in the age of 7-25. These groups, clubs or associations must be democratic and follow a set of rules (ensuring democracy) so we’ve both “done it” and not.
Everything was indeed owned by the group, not by an individual. Some of these clubs had membership fees, some did not. Either way, when someone joined the club they were a member and could thus use the books. No mistreating of the books, whatsoever, was allowed, on penalty to buying a new book.
It worked splendidly – but then Sweden is socialdemocratic to the core too.
A variant of this that I’ve seen implemented is the “club fee.” Essentially, the gaming group is treated like a club with a monthly membership. The dues are used to offset the GM’s costs (since he usually buys the materials).
The club model worked with this particular group because they had a dedicated GM and played at his house. Also, the fee was nothing outrageous (it was about $5 a month; this was the mid-1990s).
I can certainly see problems with more fluid groups with rotating GMs, and I’ve never implemented this rule myself.
Interestingly, I mentioned this model to a gamer friend of mine and he was violently opposed to the idea. It’s funny when you think about it: “Sure, I’ll play at your place, let you pick up my trash, I’ll eat your food and drink your drinks, I’ll flip through your copies of the books rather than get them myself, I’ll let you spend 10-15 hours a week prepping the adventure, but I’ll be damned if I give you a dime to entertain me!”
Walt C:
> “Sure, I’ll play at your place, let you pick up my trash, I’ll eat your food and drink your drinks, I’ll flip through your copies of the books rather than get them myself, I’ll let you spend 10-15 hours a week prepping the adventure, but I’ll be damned if I give you a dime to entertain me!â€
All of those things except perhaps “spend 10-15 hours a week prepping” are what would normally be considered “being a good friend”. I can quite understand the guy who was opposed to paying their friend to do what amounts to being the host for the evening.
Of course, if it is that *same* person every time playing host, and all the others aren’t also taking a turn now and then, it could start to wear thin on the friendship.
When I was running D&D regularly, I thought about putting together some seed money for the core books, since I was playing with a couple of college kids who didn’t have a lot of spare cash and I needed my books so I could run the game.
It didn’t happen for a couple of reasons but now that I look back on it, this was for the best.
As a player, I always make sure to bring something to the game to share, whether it be food, drink or snacks. I know the GM has a lot to do already with prepping for the game and I’ve never found it fair that he’s also got to feed us players too.
In college, we actually did this for a while. I was running a module heavy campaign, buying a new module every week or two. I talked with my players about it, and we agreed to give it a try. I think it actually went pretty well. One thing that made it compelling was that I was the only GM, and in fact I was the only one buying rule books (though we only used pooled money to buy modules). We also had a small core group that participated.
Now on the point of ownership: After the module was completed (usually within a few weeks of purchase), the player who helped purchase the module had the option of keeping it. I think about half the modules purchased during that time were turned over to players.
I think such a system might not work so well for rule books because there is more tendency for the GM to want to keep them. I think it also helped that I was cash strapped which made the players more sympathetic.
But as I start to shrink my game collection in preparation for my fiance and I looking into purchasing a home together and wanting to reduce my footprint, I can say I sure wish such a system had been in play while I was buying D20 supplements. Then instead of me looking at dumping 50 books or so for a few bucks a book, perhaps some of them would have been purchased by players and already gone from the house. And perhaps if something like that had been in play over the past 15 years, I wouldn’t have 2 boxes of Deadlands books to dispose of, a box of 7th Sea, and several other games, something like 20 boxes total. Who knows what I might have spent the money one.
I do know that I am taking a hard look at book intensive games. The burden of a book treadmill, when held by a single member of the group is just too much. It’s not just the purchase cost of the books. It’s the storage cost and the disposal cost.
Frank
All of those things except perhaps “spend 10-15 hours a week prepping†are what would normally be considered “being a good friendâ€. I can quite understand the guy who was opposed to paying their friend to do what amounts to being the host for the evening.
Of course, if it is that *same* person every time playing host, and all the others aren’t also taking a turn now and then, it could start to wear thin on the friendship.
And that’s perhaps the rub involved here. If the group is regularly rotating hosting duties (including GMing), then there probably is no need for this kind of thing. Everyone is sharing (though not necessarily equally, and that’s fine). But when you have a single GM, and a single host (usually the GM), there is NOT an equal load.
Now in my groups in the past, my players have been very open to providing snacks, and at least willing to share some with me and often willing to share with the entire group. That cuts the sting of hosting at my home. But I still get to do all the cleanup.
And as GM, I am still doing all the book buying and prep work. Now to an extent, I enjoy this, and don’t totally see it as a cost. But I do see the innequality.
And I wonder how much that innequality has to do with the fact that mostly I don’t consider my gamers real friends. None of them are being invited to my wedding. I might have considered one or two, but honestly, we’ve never socialized outside of gaming. Never gone to movies together. Nothing other than an occaisional lunch time meeting to talk about a future game, or the occaisional post game trek to get food. Now I realize many play groups are different, and in the past, it was different for me (actually, that college game group that pooled money was also my main social group, and other gamers in college did social stuff).
Frank
Ahh, pooling money for books. My first gaming group tried that, but it being back in the days of allowances instead of jobs, it never really got off the ground. I think everyone may have contributed a couple of bucks to it, but then the money disappeared or was used on rootbeer and doughnuts, and we never thought much of it again.
We did have more luck trying to photocopy all of our old 1E D&D books, but that was because we started playing 1E right when 2E came out and had no way of buying books for the system we wanted to use.
(Frank) And I wonder how much that innequality has to do with the fact that mostly I don’t consider my gamers real friends.
I don’t want to go off on a tangent, but I find this interesting. I’ve definitely gamed with folks who were casual friends, but my regular groups have always been friends.
Some were friends who became gaming buddies, with others it was vice versa. My whole current group plus members of my college and high school groups were invited to my wedding.
I can definitely see how that element — gaming buddies vs. friends — would put a spin on this topic.
I think we talked about it but never tried it. We do a lot of loaning and storing at the play house, but I suspect that’s pretty normal.
If you run a figure based campaign, like I do, the cost becomes gianormous. We could never play at anyone else’s house because nobody else has over 3,000 monsters, a 4×8 gaming table, complete library of 1E and 2E books with extras, laptop system to run the core rules expansion CD rom….
I do, from time to time, resent the players for not contributing to the outlay. They don’t even buy their own minis for their PCs!!!
Because I still play 2E, I started buying up PHs on eBay and keep a half dozen on my shelf.
Too often the players show up expecting to be entertained, fed, and cleaned up after….but I never forget that I have the power to kill their characters. I haven’t yet, but I do encourage them the provide the pizzas and sodas, which they most often do.
The thing I had to make peace with was that if I wanted to control the environment and attract players to my dungeon….it was going to cost me plenty. And to be honest…even if I didn’t have any players, I’d still buy all this stuff, so resenting them for not chipping in isn’t going to do me much good.
Not easy to explain to the wife, but true none the less.