man i say this as nicely as possible, but no they aren't *D&D* is expensive. Apocalypse World is $20. Strike! is $15. LANCER is $25 but all the player-facing content is free so only the GM really needs to pay anything.
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I homebrew on the reg, it's literally free (as long as you don't count my time has having value...)
aug 10, 2025, 2:27 pm • 2 0 • view
Pathfinder is 100% free if you're willing to put the work in
aug 10, 2025, 4:00 pm • 2 0 • view
What work??? Its all there! You have to go to one website.
aug 10, 2025, 4:35 pm • 4 0 • view
Yeah, but the rules are hard to extract if it's not directly class or ancestry related
aug 10, 2025, 8:00 pm • 2 0 • view
also there are actually thriving Brazilian and Japanese TTRPG scenes, you just almost never hear about them on the anglophone internet. and those are just the ones *I* know about
aug 10, 2025, 12:12 pm • 49 5 • view
TTRPGs haven't gained mass appeal because to run them you have to read and understand the rules and then do a lot of work. they're unpopular for the same reason any board game more complicated than Monopoly is unpopular lol
aug 10, 2025, 12:13 pm • 50 4 • view
it's true that the people who achieve, like, actual literal celebrity via TTRPGs are often white/american/middle or upper class but if you think the hobby and medium themselves are then go play three games off this list and then get back to me for extra credit, ones that aren't OSR lol
aug 10, 2025, 12:21 pm • 34 4 • view
i especially don't want to hear comparisons to CCGs, good lord. that's like saying a crack habit is more affordable than a beater car to get to work
aug 10, 2025, 12:24 pm • 37 0 • view
on the other hand having said my piece about poverty i DO think there's a significant race/ethnicity aspect to it, but i think it's mostly historical momentum. the genre was invented by a racist libertarian ex-Jehovah's Witness. D&D's default assumption is you're cleansing the frontier of indigenes
aug 10, 2025, 1:41 pm • 30 2 • view
D&D is pretty closely tied to SF/F while being even more niche and (for most of its history) primarily an in-person hobby. its biggest historical competitor was White Wolf, and Vampire/Werewolf/Mage often manage to be even more overtly racist about real-life people than D&D
aug 10, 2025, 1:43 pm • 27 1 • view
It's interesting to contrast TTRPGs with fighting games. Arcades were in city centers by necessity. Anyone could come in and play. The culture wasn't perfect but it respected talent. Fast-forward to today and you have a hobby that's mostly guys but isn't particularly dominated by white people.
aug 10, 2025, 1:46 pm • 26 0 • view
Meanwhile, TTRPGs are mostly private affairs -- pub games exist but you have to sign up, groups mostly expand via inviting friends-of-friends, there are decades of discourse about "how do I get the stinky guy nobody likes to leave without actually having an adult conversation with him", etc.
aug 10, 2025, 1:47 pm • 25 0 • view
There's a built-in tendency towards insularity. This has been a double-edged sword, because on the one hand it means TTRPGs actually had an *easier* time developing an audience of queer people and women (despite Gygax being even more insanely sexist than he was racist!) BUT ALSO still very white.
aug 10, 2025, 1:48 pm • 24 1 • view
Probably the most prominent early black creator in TTRPGs is Mike Pondsmith, and he was introduced to D&D in college by a personal friend. He was also already involved in historical naval wargaming, and at least aware of Japanese mecha wargaming. Guy was extremely plugged in and extremely nerdy.
aug 10, 2025, 1:52 pm • 32 2 • view
Also… I’ve seen TTRPGs in libraries! Sometimes you just need to make a special request!
aug 10, 2025, 1:20 pm • 10 0 • view
both my hometown's public library and my alma mater's academic library had D&D books but they were all AD&D-era and in the case of the college library they got stolen all the time and they eventually gave up on replacing them so i'm agnostic on that particular question lol
aug 10, 2025, 1:21 pm • 5 0 • view
That's kinda wild ngl, I mean how are you actually practically meant to use it? I guess you just keep borrowing it? Or use it for one shots?
aug 10, 2025, 3:11 pm • 1 0 • view
library lending periods can last for weeks or months depending on local policy, you could probably run a complete adventure in a D&D clone in that time. also kind of functions as a demo if you're not sure you want to buy something sight unseen
aug 10, 2025, 3:20 pm • 2 0 • view
Damn that's actually really obvious. I think I just have a "it goes in the square hole" brain, the notion of something working in a different context takes me a few minutes lol.
aug 10, 2025, 3:45 pm • 1 0 • view
on the other hand you can get virtually anything through interlibrary loan if you know how to ask
aug 10, 2025, 1:21 pm • 3 0 • view
Sadly for many around the world $20, $15 and $25 are still expensive prices, my money for example is worthless, so i understand their point in a somewhat fair (and personal) view, thought at least some indie creators seem nice enough to share their work for free
aug 15, 2025, 10:49 pm • 0 0 • view
Want to add to this: Even if they are the most expensive, both DnD and Pathfinder offer free versions of their rules and one-shots or small adventures for people to start. FATE and Powered by the Apocalypse are fully free, with the second one having SO MANY variants made by the community.
aug 10, 2025, 2:12 pm • 5 0 • view
If you later want to drop money on the big games for more options or whatever, you can and will be your choice, but the entry right now is as low as "how much it cost to print this blank character sheets?"
aug 10, 2025, 2:15 pm • 4 0 • view
D&D also doesn't have to stay within the reference books, it can be homebrew and you can make your own story with your own set of rules as long as has the basic DND structure to it. It can be up to free if the DM writes it out online instead, and there are bots made specifically to help with DND rp
aug 10, 2025, 5:18 pm • 2 0 • view
Like a dice bot where it's purpose is to roll any set of die
aug 10, 2025, 5:18 pm • 1 0 • view
Pathfinder has every bit of rules you need to be able to play on the Archives of Nethys And yeah, searching it for rules can be a bit of a pain, but...it is free to anybody with an internet connection
aug 10, 2025, 8:56 pm • 1 0 • view
Pathfinder 1 and 2e are literally free unless you actually want the books (or are getting an AP, those are not free)
aug 11, 2025, 2:29 am • 2 0 • view
It doesn’t even stop at just cheap: MÖRK BORG, Cairn, and Honey Heist are LITERALLY FREE. Dice are cheap!
aug 10, 2025, 4:56 pm • 3 0 • view
I've been playing SWN and the free versions are 100% playable with all GM resources, they have like 80% of the content that the premium versions do. and people then go buy the premium versions for like $20 to support the creator, because all the content is good.
aug 10, 2025, 1:40 pm • 7 0 • view
I did it for the mechs lol.
aug 10, 2025, 5:12 pm • 4 0 • view
i love the transhuman and true ai rules. mechs are very cool, but i've never been offered the chance to play as r2d2 before.
aug 10, 2025, 5:32 pm • 2 0 • view
It is interesting how they handle it in revised. The big investment seems to be to get a bunch of spare bodies to remote control which seems cool.
aug 10, 2025, 5:34 pm • 2 0 • view
it's not exactly a great time to invoke itch, but there's a good chance someone at any given hypothetical ttrpg table already owns dozens of ttrpgs they got in an old bundle they paid $5 for anyway. ttrpgs might be the cheapest group activity outside of kick the can.
aug 10, 2025, 1:28 pm • 6 0 • view