Not Worth It

I got a bit of a sticker shock at the weekend. We found ourselves in Static in Glasgow, where I had the intention of picking up "Hand of Corruption", the adventure compilation for "Black Crusade". And, indeed, I did pick it up... only to put it down again. Static were charging £27 for the book. (Even Amazon are charging £23, representing a 15% discount.)

Now, "Hand of Corruption" is no doubt a lovely-looking book. It's a reasonably thick hardback, with glossy paper, lots of interior art, and that generally looks awesome. It's also a licensed product, which pushes up the price.

The key problem is that none of these things actually do anything to improve the utility of the book. The content that is of interest is the three-part adventure, and that would be just the same presented in a softback, with little or no interior art, and in black-and-white. (But not the incompetent black-and-white that WotC used in "Scourge of the Howling Horde", which features light grey text in a dark grey box because the book was clearly conceived in full colour and then printed in greyscale!)

Now, for me the problem isn't the raw price of the thing. After all, I paid considerably more than that for the "Black Crusade" core rulebook, and indeed paid full price for it. And, despite only using the book twice thus far, I don't consider that an unreasonable expense.

But there's a difference between a core rulebook that will be used again and again, a supplement that will be used in parts and occasionally, and an adventure which will only be used once. And while £40 for a core rulebook is steep but acceptable, anything over £25 for a supplement is pushing it, and adventures really shouldn't venture above £20 without very good reason.

This book (and indeed the entire line of WH40k RPG supplements) leaves me looking at it, thinking about a purchase, and then thinking about all the other things I could spend the money on instead. Fundamentally, they've priced me out of the market.

(And, for what it's worth, WotC have done the same with their line of reprints. The reprinted "Spell Compendium" is set for sale at $60, the compilation of the Slavers modules A1-4 is set at $50, and so on. They're undeniably nice products, and the "Spell Compendium" in particular is tempting, but the price is just too high to justify buying them instead of something else.)

In the event, I may yet pick up a copy of "Hand of Corruption", thanks in no small part to having an Amazon voucher available for the purpose (and due to really wanting to like the game). But it's becoming increasingly apparent that this is no longer a cheap hobby, and when I already have more material than I will ever use, those new and expensive books are becoming ever-less appealing.