It started with a little green in the living room and suddenly turned into a full grown, humid, highly poisonous indoor jungle that’s thirsty as fuck. And it turns out that exotic plants, fancy pots, growing lights, different types of soil for different species, fertilizers, and dozens of liters of water every day are somehow expensive…
Tabletop Roleplaying Games.
I bought Mutant Year Zero in 2015 thinking “Ah, this will give me countless hours of play! I can make my own adventures and stuff!”
Now, my shelf is buckling after trying a hundred different games and supplements, and getting addicted to pretty books.
Currently, my favorite game of all time is Delta Green. Investigative horror mystery. Amazingly horrific scenarios (adventures) with True Detective season one level of masterful writing.
I love how TTRPGs are the model for having a quality product means people will buy it. It’s not difficult to pirate everything, and many systems are just flat out free. And yet I buy most of it.
On the other hand, I recently started doing the other kind of magic with cards. That sounds really cheap, all you need is a $5 deck of Bicycle cards, some YouTube tutorials, and you’re all set. Turns out, that can be a money sink as well if you decide to go deep (or wide) enough. Still far less than MTG though.
There are endless ways to play magic cheaply. Starter decks, pauper as a format, online. I could make a dandan deck for Magic less than one trick on theory11
What’s your strat? I like fixing up older business laptops as linux machines. Do you just look on local listings after a big OS deprecation or is there more strategy to it?
Not really, I just thought to myself since Windows 11 dropped 32-bit support, we will probably see more older systems come to light when Windows 10 dies.
My grandma got me 3 ducklings in 2019 for no reason. 3 ducks don’t cost very much. The issue is, that she unlocked a passion. I now have 12 ducks. I want more, but I don’t have the money or space.
Oh yes. I’m having issues putting pics in this comment, so here’s an imgur album. These are various birds from various stages of life. The big one with the red face is my fave. His name is Antonio.
They are. I had two very aggressive males that I did not consider pets. The one became dinner and the other one was killed by the other ducks. I, and the other birds, have zero tolerance for bullies. Thankfully my whole flock is absolutely lovely now. <3
that’s what i do in my life too, remove myself from aggressive folks and let them deal with the consequences of their behavior. haven’t had aggressive pets though, so not sure what i would do.
It’s easy to remove emotional attachment from aggressive livestock. At least it is for me. I grew up on farms, though, so that kinda thing is normal in my eyes
I had a recipe blog prior to the pandemic. I put well over five grand into it over four years and didn’t make a cent.
If I hadn’t decided that I hate website with ads and third party cookies on them I probably could have made a few bucks during the pandemic.
Thanks for asking. This prompted me to review some posts and I see I need to update a lot of stuff for consistency (it’s a bit of a mess). I hope to get back into this one day, after I finish some other projects.
For me, it’s board games. I figured a few good board games could last a while. I’m sure you are (incorrectly) guessing the next step, that I just bought too many.
No, I bought Kingdom Death: Monster. And now I want the expansion packs, which combine to nearly $3000.
KD:M may have its imperfections, but I don’t think I’ve ever played another game quite so beautiful (if you’re into that existential dread type of beauty).
Maybe you can help me. I don’t understand “boardgame people.” Like, enjoy boardgames and tabletop games, but not playing a brand new one every time we get together.
What’s wrong with playing poker or Catan or NBA Jam for the thousandth time?
A lot of board game geeks hate Catan. I also hate Catan, but my reasons probably aren’t their reasons. So there’s that.
But I don’t entirely disagree. It’s complicated. I bought multiple games to find ones I’d love more. I find most people with board game obsession still have a favorite.
Like me, I’ve spent more time playing KD:M and Spirit Island than the next 5 combined.
I also have a butt load of boardgames, I like playing Catan not a lot but maybe once a year. The ones I keep going back to are Star wars epic duels, Eldritch Horror, and Arcadia/Starcadia Quest.
Eldrich Horror is on my to-buy list. My wife got really burned out on board games so I’ve leaned into my ultra-crunchy solo-friendly stuff, but she enjoyed Arkham horror for quite a while.
But yeah. Last time I played Catan I wanted it to stop by round 2. I have horrible dice-luck, so a game’s gotta be fun when I roll worst-case 5-10 rounds in a row. In Catan, it means I get all nerdy placing my towns on strategically sound intersections, and then watch everyone else play and I pass as numbers like 6 and 8 never roll for an entire game. My record is like the first half of the game getting no resources. Then getting one or two. Something about seeing the 3rd or 4th 2 roll give someone resources before you’ve gotten anything just makes you want to flip the table.
I get what you mean lol. I used to get pissed at the luck, but enjoyed when I was outsmarted. Now I enjoy all outcomes cause I have been able to get others into boardgames. If I play with new people I try to play towards getting them to win cause that gets them to want to play more. And once everyone knows how to play I get to play an earnest game. I’ll even take a day off work every month to get friends together for boardgames, food, and drinks.
I guess that’s kind of a reason I have so many boardgames, depending who’s playing we might enjoy one more than another. But I noticed more people liking the co-op ones more than vs games lately. Started with pandemic, then Arkham Horror and Mansions of Madness, and now Eldritch Horror is what we’ve played most. Hopefully I get to try some of the new ones I got, looking forward to Unfathomable.
I agree re: coop. They seem to be the way of the future. Some people I game with get really frustrated being less competitive than the rest in games like Dominion, where taking your time and planning out your turns has huge return but makes everyone have to sit and wait (and don’t talk to me, I’m figuring out whether I’m going to play my Laboratory or my Sentry first!)
For some reason, though, Pandemic goes over like a dead weight to most people. So much so, I’ve never bought Pandemic Legacy as good as it looks. Arkham horror is too crunchy for some, but just right for others. Spirit Island, surprisingly, has been a sweet spot for some recently. It’s a little hard to get good at, but the sliding difficulty scale is really granular.
Oh man, my friend bought that game and has been trying to get us to play it, but I had twins, and have not more time for board games. It looked fun though
It’s incredible, and a blast. A full campaign (assuming you don’t lose halfway through) runs about 60 hours. So I get it :)
The digital version might be more accessible. I really wish they’d sell it without the minis. I just don’t have the time to paint minis, which means I don’t get the value worth in minis.
I had the good fortune of meeting a couple of board game nerds before getting into the hobby myself. They had a seperate insurance policy specifically for their games.
Interesting. Because you were doing too well? The only way KD:M gets a little boring to me is if I’m trying to min-max and only fighting the most appropriate monster for maximum return at each twist or turn. All those underleveled lions for 15 rounds, then all those antelopes, avoiding phoenix and any unique monsters, etc. I did a playthrough where I suicided extra population against most bosses instead of risking my better ones. Ok, that can get boring.
But throw all those in? Nothing quite like going for the overpowered unique phoenix and trying to land his death bonus on my character with Immortal disorder. Also nothing quite like that character making it, then constantly being targeted with “instead of damage, roll on critical injury table” and having to blow my party’s rerolls to save her. (For the record, no she didn’t make it to LY30)
But honestly, to each their own. I really enjoy it. And adding a few more hunt or showdown monsters (when you really “know” your base prey) is enough to keep an entire campaign fresh. And if not, PotSun and PotStars is a blast (said in Tabletop Simulator because I can’t afford all that)
Comparison with Kingdom Death? Interesting. I made a point of watching a few let’s plays of Pathfinder the Adventure Card game, and it seems to me as similar as Catan and Pandemic (which is, not at all)
The comparison I see is Townfolk Tussle, which I intend to someday buy for a faster/easier campaign.
Getting fed up strimming our 4 acre, very steep field.
I looked at remote control mowers. At the time they were all well over £6k, so I thought I’d try building one. Well, I’ve done it and it works well, but it’s taken three years and cost over a grand so far in parts.
Um, how? I’ve strapped physical electrocal devices and petrol powered motors together. Nothing I’ve done is unique, I hold no IP or copyright and anyone can copy it.
If you mean show others - then sure, I’ve done that!
I started to really get into it back in 2015 with a Sony A6000 and a kit lens. Then you buy more, higher quality lenses. Then you buy better camera bodies with full frame sensor, then lenses that are full frame compatible. Then the various odds and end accessories. Then trips around the world to take pictures of things.
I have taken a break from photography recently, on account that having a kid doesn’t allow me a lot of opportunity to edit my photos anymore. They say the best camera you have is the one that is on you. That has proven to be true while I try to be as present as possible around my daughter. I can quickly take out my phone, capture the moment and it will take care of most of the post processing edits that I can share with family later.
I picked up photography back in May which just started by getting an old point and shoot digicam to take convincing liminal space photos, then I got another… then another… then some film old cameras, a cheap DSLR a set of lens, etc. Etc. It’s become a full on addiction at this point lol
D&D. When I got back into it as an adult it was mostly because I could get into it for $0. I was dead broke at the time. I pirated the books downloaded the free basic rules 😉 on my trash find laptop and was good to go.
But man once I had money it turns out I really like collecting books and the D&D ones are not cheap. I do not want to think about how much I’ve spent.
The real flood gates opened when the license controversy happened and I decided to try other RPGs. Multiple core books of multiple RPGs gets expensive fast 😁
I’m a few hundred dollars in and I’m actually on my way out thanks to their grossness this spring. I’m too slow to have gone for many modules, but rules books were super fun and thus a money sink. I’m trying to move my group over to PbtA (cheap by comparison) or Genesys (have you seen the cost of those DICE?!).
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