To quote the Mighty Thor: "Nay, nay, and thrice nay!"

I'd play D&D if someone was paying me 15 dollars a month.

I'm just fantasy burnt out at this point, been doing that since 1993-2015, 22 years of D&D dungeon crawling and Earthdawn kaer crawling.

Necessary Evil has been a breath of fresh air as a modern supers game.

As for the actual topic, 15 dollars is too high in general for a subscription service for strictly online goods when the average PDF is 10.00 or less. Has to have more value than that for the price point. 15 x 12 = 180 a year. 10 x 12= 120, 5 x 12= 60. These two are much more affordable price points. So you need to provide 180 dollars worth of total service for the year. Even D&D Insider for 4th edition has died a slow death when Wizards tried to do something similar (you can still renew but not subscribe, its like WotC winding a server down over time).

Negative ghostrider. The pattern is full.

At first I thought I was being offered $15 a month to play D&D, and I was wondering if it would be worth it but...

Quote from: Opaopajr;893282No.

(Not even a 'ha-ha' to go with it. Just, 'no'.)

Worth quoting.

I happily play Original D&D from 1974.  So, take an educated guess.

Quote from: Celestial;893319I subscribe to Roll20 for $5 a month.  That's about all I'm willing to do.

Decent price.

My first reaction would be no. However, looking at how much I pay for my website now, and that I used to subscribe to Obsidian Portal, there is a sort of yes there as well. The website cost can be amortized in other uses, though in the end, it's just fluff surrounding my playing RPG's, and satisfying my OCD for control and organization. To me, those costs are fine (less than $15/mo.), in that I have control, and I am not dependent on others for the service. I do know someone who subscribed to a wiki service that was around $20 a month, I thought that excessive.

Not for D&D, no. In fact unless you took away all the RPG that I currently own I probably wouldn't pay to play.

I don't do online RPGs, and needing to have an internet connection where I was gaming limits some possibilities.

I thought it was someone offering to pay $15, and I thought, which version? That is certainly not enough to get me to give up my current game for teh current version of D&D.

I was going to say, "No" but that is too short for the forum to recognize. So...

Hell no!

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;893276What if it cost $15 a month to play D&D? The latest game rules could be read only electronically while logged into the D&D website. Would you pay to play the latest version? Or would you stay with 5e (or some other previous version) forever?

Looks like Pathfinder's headed back to number one again.

Hell no!

But let me ask this, would you pay $15 a session for a professional DM (I know they'll never allow this but bear with me) with a clean, comfortable place to play and well organized miniatures and terrain and an asshat screening system of some sort?

I think I might, especially if people had to pre pay by the quarter so there'd be some financial reason for them to come since they already paid for it.  Maybe a financial penalty for not showing like a damage deposit.

I know it's absurd but, I'd pay for a good regular group.  I have two or three irregular bad ones at my store.  But that's just not the same thing.

Not at all, unless it came with free pizza and Mt. Dew.

$15/month is pretty trivial for doing something you love but the kicker is that there is so much D&D out there we don't have to pay a cent for (beyond buying the books/pdf).  My answer would be no.  Online content is handy to reference when at work or something like that but I like to take physical books to the game.

If you are talking online entertainment you also need to compare that with other stuff that is out there on the market.  Like NetFlix.

Quote from: Fiasco;893423$15/month is pretty trivial for doing something you love but the kicker is that there is so much D&D out there we don't have to pay a cent for (beyond buying the books/pdf).  x.

I think it sounds trivial, but it does come to 180 dollars a year. I consider that a good amount of money for a subscription (my Netflix account doesnt even cost that much). If money is tight, or if you are just trying to be frugal and save for things, that is the sort of thing a lot of people are only going to budget it if they think they are getting a lot of value. It is also one additional expense a month on top of several. I already have monthly services like Netflix, and I have regular monthly bills...but those are all things both me and my wife use. This would be 15 a month for something only I use. I am fine spending money very deliberately on RPG books I want, but something about a commitment to a subscription service for an, even at 15, is money I don't want to spend. This is why I never did DDI and why any interest I had in pathfinder ended when I saw their subscription model.

I think for something like this to have value to me, it would need to be more like a Netflix or Prime, where they are not just giving me Pathfinder or D&D, but giving me access to a wide range of RPG products. Then I might see the value because I can check out a lot of RPGs I may be curious about but not otherwise purchase.

Quote from: David Johansen;893364But let me ask this, would you pay $15 a session for a professional DM (I know they'll never allow this but bear with me) with a clean, comfortable place to play and well organized miniatures and terrain and an asshat screening system of some sort?

I know it's absurd but, I'd pay for a good regular group.  I have two or three irregular bad ones at my store.  But that's just not the same thing.

I've paid more than that per session at a gaming con and not always for good sessions.

I would probably be willing to cough up fifteen bucks a session for a good regular group of a game I enjoyed.

I have a group of mixed players, some frustrating, most mediocre, a couple of gems. Unfortunately the good ones are the ones who can play the least often.

But not for just online only access to the rules.

Its been tried before. And failed miserably. EVERY-SINGLE-TIME.

One of the biggest blockades is that online sites are absolutely 1billion% ephemeral. Sites gone? So is the game.

This is part of the reason I ignore FREE online only, non-downloadable, anything in the past and will in the future too.

It is simmilar to buying a PC game that can only be played as long as the parent site exists.

From around 2000 to I think 05 various companies and artists had the brilliant idea to try things like that. At least two even had screencap blockers up. Not a single one succeeded and all are long gone as if theyd never existed.

For comparison D&D Online is free to play. But the VIP subscription is about 8.30$ a month. It is not a TTRPG though.

The other problem is that many DM/GMs do not like being tied to the computer to play a TTRPG. For counterpoint though. One of my previous DMs though loved it.

Quote from: David Johansen;893364But let me ask this, would you pay $15 a session for a professional DM (I know they'll never allow this but bear with me) with a clean, comfortable place to play and well organized miniatures and terrain and an asshat screening system of some sort?

I'd rather answer this than the OP, which is easily dealt with in the "Since I don't have gamer ADD, and don't buy into the moronic notions that rulebooks have a sell-buy date or that the existence of a later edition means you're not permitted to play earlier versions any more, oh frigging hell no" fashion.

Twice, my players offered to pay me.  Once was in impoverished college days, when $10 for a session loomed pretty large.  (Hell, when I was first in college, I had $6/week spending money, out of which had to come my meals and subway fare.)

Both times, I declined.  (Well, three times.  My brother offered me $25, in 1978, for a vorpal sword for his PC.)

I do this for fun.  I play on the days I choose, in the location I choose, using the system I choose, in the milieu and setting I want, to parameters I prefer.  I make the rulings that suit me, fitting my perception of the integrity of my game.  If I need to call off or postpone a session because I'm sick or there's a family emergency, I don't feel too badly about it.  If I don't have the time during the fortnight to get in the prep time I prefer, I don't feel too badly about it.  If something bad happens to your character -- coincidentally, I had one of my extremely rare permanent PC deaths last session -- I don't feel too badly about it.

The moment I start taking money from you for it, I'm now your employee.  I'd better provide you the experience you want -- you're paying me for it.  Suddenly, there's a disincentive for "Nice try, but no" -- am I in the business of not giving you what you want?  Now that this is a cash-and-carry business, do I back down on "vorpal sword" deals as well ... how much extra XP does $50 buy?  Damn, finances are tight, and that pays my electric bill this month.  And I'd better run this Saturday, sick or not, prep time or not, because, well, getting paid for it.

Nope.  Don't ever want to go there.