D&D and TTRPGs Have An Accessibility Problem

 

The original edition of Dungeons and Dragons launched in 1974, primarily marketed to gamers who were adults of working age, who were already involved in the hobby gaming scene. Of course, they had no idea how far the idea of codified roleplaying games rules would go in the future. The brown box was priced at $10, which seems pretty modest for today. However, using an inflation calculator, we can see that $10 in 1974 is actually about $55 or more in 2022 dollars. That seems in line with what a tabletop war game enthusiast would pay for something today. The minimum wage in 1974 was $2/hour. Five hours of mopping the five and dime and you could send mail to friendly cokehead insurance salesmen to have your own fantasy adventures!

1983 Sears Wish Book

Eventually, TSR would release revised boxed sets with larger print runs, marketed towards teenagers in toy catalogs of the time. With this, came even more reasonable prices. Most of the products in 1982 and 1983 seem very conscious of the $10 price point, despite these products being released almost a decade later. According to the calculator, $10 in 1983 is just under $30 in terms of today's buying power. The minimum wage had increased in 1981 to $3.35. This is, by far, golden era for families being able to afford D&D. Three-- maybe hour hours of cleaning puke off of the roller rink floor and you could have endless hours of B/X or BECMI fun!

Fast forward to 1999, where the 2nd edition starter set which sits on my bookshelf actually has a listed MSRP of $9.99 (about $17 in 2022) -- still conscious of the $10 price point. However, this is no longer a complete game, only offering a glimpse into playing 2nd edition AD&D. The books themselves have increased to $30 ($52 in 2022) for the Player's Handbook and Monster Manual, and $25 for the Dungeon Master's Guide ($44 in 2022.) The minimum wage in 1999 was $5.15 an hour. Spend two hours staffing the Radio Shack and buy a game that ends after the included adventure; discover you'll have to dedicate 16 hours more to get the real, full edition of the game. Oof.

AD&D Advertisement

If you were playing some form of basic D&D in the 80s, your household could easily get you fully into the game on the first box set purchase, with optional expansions through BECMI's lifespan. Getting into AD&D was more expensive and had a more front-loaded cost. The shift away from basic D&D fully into AD&D during 2nd edition made it more expensive than ever, increasingly relying on expensive hardcover books, a trend that would continue after Wizards of the Coast purchased TSR.

From 2000 on it's hard to gauge what WotC was doing. The 3rd edition Player's Handbook has a MSRP of $20 ($34 adjusted for inflation;) It's almost like it's purposefully aggressively costed because of 2nd edition. Three years later, though, they pivoted. 3.5 adjusted that MSRP to $30 in 2003 ($48 adjusted.) Fourth edition launched in slipcase form in 2008 for $105 or $35 per book MSRP ($49 adjusted). Fifth edition, printed in 2014, has a MSRP of $50 per book ($63 adjusted.) Current minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. It has not increased since 2009.

The average D&D consumer seems to have paid about the same in terms in household spending over the years for a three-book game, with the exception of fifth edition. Of course, there have always been amazon sales, bookstore sales, and other promotions that made these editions cheaper from time to time. The earliest D&D players even photocopied the booklets... in the time before the books became prohibitively large for that sort of thing.

Oh, right, this is an OSR blog! How does this relate?

 

Basic Fantasy RPG is a game that iterates on the d20 editions of Dungeons and Dragons, and it only costs about as much as the printer charges. Looking at the amazon listing right now, paperback versions are available for $5.50 in the year 2023. The rules themselves are free. Now, in our American hyper capitalist consumerist hellhole society, we can kinda look at this game and sneer for multiple reasons.
Basic paper quality and binding.
Generic, uninspiring art.
Trade dress and layout that feels... mediocre.
You get what you pay for.
Also, who's even playing or supporting it?

Okay, okay. Lots of publishers have made rules available for free -- a common compromise seems to be "without art." Art costs a lot of money and time and headache to commission. Fine. Sometimes you'll get free rules for the first half of the game -- like lower level gameplay. Or maybe with a lot of the optional player-facing material stripped out, like class options. A lot of these try to do a little better than BFRPG in terms of layout or art or product support. That's great and all, but they all seem to be devised with the sole intent of getting you hooked on, and purchasing, their premium game. A pipeline right back into a box set, a slipcase, a three book set, or a hefty single volume rules tome.

I don't think you're ever going to see the spirit of roleplaying fully engaged until people of all incomes are empowered to play all of the games. Not the K-mart, stripped down version; not the first four levels of the game, or the game with the cool classes left out. I want D&D that doesn't price out the poor. D&D that doesn't make them feel they have to photocopy or borrow books or get lucky with a sale.

Maybe you've heard of an in-store event that hobby shops participate in called Free RPG Day. Various publishers would send out promotional material, one shot adventures, quick start rules (a.k.a. trash that is generally unusable or trying to get you into the consumer pipeline.) Then, this crazy ass shirtless pro wrestling fan decided to print up 9,250 copies of an actual, really good module that probably could have sold for $20-$30 easily. He followed it up with 3800 copies of another premium module the next year. And following that, he released 4000 copies each, of two hardcover books. All for free. Absolute madman.

We're in the midst of an RPG explosion right now, with dozens of publishers vying for your attention for their upcoming, OGL-free game system. Their new ecosystem of products. Their new first-four-levels-no-art quick start adventures. Imagine, though, if someone printed up 4000 copies of New Free OSR Game For Everyone and gave it out. If they made sure people had access to the game. The real game. The full game.

I have dreams I want to make reality.