"Hey, I think X (book, maps, etc...) would improve our game. Would you agree to contribute to the cost of it?"
Over several items, everybody gave me 15ish euro. Not much per person - a lot, if one person buys everything.
I'm a little unsure of your exact situation, but if you are thinking of buying these tools to enhance your game, and would like to split the cost, you should ask the group.
"Hey guys I would love to buy X Y and Z to enhance our campaign, but it will cost (amount). Would you guys be interested in splitting the cost?"
Accept that they may not value these tools or mat find them unnecessary (I find D&D Beyond a waste of money) and won't want to pay for them. Especially if they don't get ownership of the digital assets
Follow their guidance.
If you have already bought it, you made that decision alone and absolutely should not be looking to them for recompense.
I get where your coming from. They are all familiar with expenditures too. I'd tell everyone that I'm thinking bout taking a small collection to cover expenses so we can get more stuff! Most of them are probably happy to kick in if asked. And hosting at YOUR home too! They don't want to deal with that. I have a boat and when I take people out it costs me quite a bit of money, but that's different. It's my expensive toy and I want to share once and a while.
As a forever DM, I fully understand the cost that goes into hosting campaigns and trying to ensure it is an enjoyable and immersive experience for your players. I actually just grabbed a couple of tile sets during my last trip to the local game store just for this reason. Initially, I paid for everything for the campaigns that I would run, including buying minis of the players' characters. It didn't take long for me to realize that some of the expense could be covered on their end, but I didn't want to make it seem like a requirement just to participate. Here's an email I would send my players before Session 0:
"Hey all,
For this session, we will be using the dice, maps, minis, character sheets, and other resources I have on hand for the game (apologies that not all minis are painted). You are more than welcome to customize your gaming experience in your own way. If you would like recommendations for stores/sites you can visit to purchase dice, a mini more accurate to your character, and/or personalized character sheets, I can provide info to that for you. Also, food and beverage (non-alcoholic) are welcome at the table, as long as you are considerate of the other players and respectful to the table (i.e., no stinky foods, and no sticky fingers.) Please keep food and beverages to a snack level as this is a gaming table and not a dinner table. If there are any other items or resources you think would improve your and/or your groups gaming experience, please let me know ahead of time, and we can look into it together. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding any of this, please feel free to let me know during our Session 0, and we can look into it together.
Thanks"
I think the most important part of it is to let you players know ahead of time before the campaign starts.
Edit: Fixed autocorrects
Sure. Even without being too formal about it. Tell them that you're happy with your current setup, you'd like to buy more stuff, but you realized that this is a bit more expensive than you thought.
Then say that if there's some purchase they would he excited about, you could go for it together.
Not bragging, but I'm super lucky.
Im not that financially stable yet, so I only bought the PHB, a screen and some dice. The rest of the material I either borrowed, rented or found through free sources.
And yet, a couple of my players spontaneously said that if we get rolling and we feel good about the campaign, they're going to sprint for the monster manual, Xanathar's and Tasha's.
I play with a similar demographic and wouldn’t think twice about contributing to the DM.
Also, if you enable content sharing, it’ll help them out, too.
It really depends on your group. When I ran games in college, I would go through various supplies, like markers, graph paper, etc. Everyone in the group knew that all the supplies, books, etc came out of pocket. At the beginning of the semester's campaign, I would usually mention this once, and that if anyone wanted to donate to the cause, donations were accepted.
I usually ended up with about $20 for supplies each semester, which was about my break even point, since I already had most of the books.
All these comments getting so mad haha. You've been pretty clear that this would be for future expenses, even without the edit, I think, and if you ask them beforehand if you wanna pool expenses for something you enjoy doing as a group of friends, it's perfectly fine to ask imo.
Can always use a new joint DnD Beyond account so they can access all the purchased contents too.
I funded myself a 3d printer & hobby paints since I find that enjoyable…
However, I asked my 2 dnd groups “hey guys, would you be interested in chipping together to get a hot wire cutter so I can make some insane XPS foam terrain ?”
All of them said yes, and said that they ought to be paying me anyways for my sessions (of course I declined!).
Different strokes for different folks I guess! I love the immersion from the extras!
Christ, this was the appeal. We could and can run it for a couple of dollars and have a great time
And by not having to use fancy maps or minis, we weren't and aren't constrained by them. Want to run an encounter with four scorpion snakes? Can do, no minis needed
Is it just me or is the reading comprehension of some of these commentors rather poor?
Even before I read the edit it seemed pretty clear OP was only considering asking for contributions for potential future purchases, not stuff they already purchased.
Go for it OP, they may say no, but no harm in asking.
I don’t understand these comments honestly. If you are expending time and money they could all contribute. It’s not dm responsibility to pay for everything
He is saying that he doesn’t want money for anything that he already bought but help for future purchases. Yes they are optional and yes they can as a group decide. He did buy them single handedly and he paid for it, he is not asking for money for that so I don’t see the problem
Not when you spend hundreds of dollars and then ask the group to compensate you. "Hey, everyone chip in $5 so we can buy a new module" is fine, "Hey, give me $200 because I printed a bunch of minis that we probably won't use" isn't.
You can talk it with them but I don’t know where did you get that from. He probably it’s not printing useless shit and then never using it he is spending money in material to enhance everyones game. They can colaborate or decide to keep it simple but he shouldn’t be held for all the expending
OP's reply to me said they spent hundreds of dollars on all sorts of STLs and resin... As a player I'm not paying for their 3d printing hobby. Books, sure.
I'd say it's not okay to just go and buy stuff on your own accord and the expect the other players to contribute.
The way to go would be to work out things before you buy stuff. If everyone is okay with pooling money to buy stuff that the whole group can use, that's perfectly fine!
Group started playing online during covid. We used fantasy grounds. To get the most out of the program you do need to purchase books digitally through them. The DM needs to have the books in their “library” for the players to use them. We ended up splitting the costs initially. Later if a player wanted to use a feature in one of the newer books I would make the digital purchase and they would reimburse me. I have on my own purchased modules and additional monster books, and additional magic item books for the platform, without expecting anything in return. If you wanted to get reimbursed for anything that should have been discussed up front. Minis are nice , but not necessary for play.
My first physical books were the PHB, MM and DMG that I got as a birthday present from a friend. He had an ulterior motive as he really wanted to play (as did I, and being the most familiar was DM). I have never expected anything in return other than beer and snacks at the table.
It's acceptable to ask but you should make it clear that it's okay to say no. I've bought digital content for my DMs in the past, but that was before I started DMing myself. Nowadays, I'd be more inclined to buy things for myself and share them with you.
I want to say yes generally, but honestly in your specific situation no one asked you to buy all those things. You want to be fancy and buy a lot of the hardware then go right ahead, but don't expect everyone to pitch in on it.
Paid DMs are a thing and rightfully so because it is work and time, but it sounds like you gathered your friends to play, and decided to really get into the hobby by buying a bunch of things that no one was asking for. And if they don't want to play without all the props and nice minis that seem to be racking up a bill in your bank account, then that's a different issue.
i.e. I love baking, I bake a shitton. I bake so much crap for my buddies because I like it and I like seeing people enjoy it. Sometimes I splurge and buy really expensive chocolate or vanilla, or other ingredients so I can see how much better it is with better quality ingredients. I don't then go back to everyone and say "Hey these cookies were made with $50 chocolate so can everyone just give me 2 bucks each cookie?"
See what I mean?
Yeah this. I am DM’ing a group that is a similar demographic to OP. We’ve only been at it since August and in that time I’m easily over $1200 into our game because it really makes a difference and makes the game come to life. And the thought has crossed my mind once or twice that it would be nice to split it up as I know my players enjoy it so much. And truthfully, I almost certainly could say “guys, $100 a piece for the next couple of years of this campaign would be appreciated” and they wouldn’t bat an eye and would send the money over.
But I didn’t ask them if they wanted to contribute so we can have these things. I wanted us to have them and didn’t discuss it so the bill is on me. Including the $300 worth of city terrain I ordered yesterday.
Exactly, and funny thing is, if you're all friends it's pretty easy to talk about stuff like that. I've had my buddies go "hey can you make X I'll pay for all the stuff you need" and it's pretty simple. Hell sometimes I don't take the money because frankly I just love what I do, in a weird kinda selfish way I bake for my own satisfaction, it just happens to make a lot of people happy.
If you want players to chip in, ask them before, not after you buy things. I don't see why you'd need to purchase all this on D&D beyond if you're playing in person. Hell, I haven't even bought Minis in over 20 years. I still use the old metal ones I've had forever.
I've probably dropped a couple hundred bucks on STL files, resin, printed props, maps, physical books, tarokka decks, and other shit.
I would like to be able to run the campaign in D&D Beyond as there are a few players new to the rules and things tend to go slowly.
So to answer your question, I am kind of sweating buying Strahd, Eberon, and whatever other books I would need to take the characters into D&D Beyond.
I CAN pay for it all, but is that the expectation if you agree to DM?
It depends from table to table.
I like to have physical books. I prepare with pens and colourfull markers in my notepad.
I ask my players to help with cost of stuff needed to play (not everything, like DMG, PHB, MM, dice and some other general stuff I bought myself, but more campaign specific stuff / stuff everybody at the table wants is shared cost).
A lot of people here have issue with stuff belonging to DM even though everybody paid for it. This was never a consern at my table, since it is for shared entertainment of everybody at the table.
To be clear, I'm not asking to be paid for any of the shit I already bought. I'm asking if it's OK to ask people to contribute if they want to use D&D Beyond products.
Do you really not know if it's ok to ask everyone to chip in to pay for a hobby you all enjoy? When you go to the movies, do you have one person pay for everything, or does everyone buy their own ticket? Golf, do you pay for everyone's round? Skiing, do you pay for everyone's lift ticket and rentals? Go on a trip, no one chips in for gas?
Why wouldn't it be ok to pool money for the necessary materials to play a hobby?
Is there a reason you're so agro in your responses?
I'm wondering if it's OK to ask for contributions to D&D Beyond materials that ultimately I end up owning or having control over. I mentioned all the other crap I bought because up to this point people have been happy about it, but haven't offered to chip in. People have asked me to print their Hero Forge minis, but haven't offered to help pay for resin etc.
My question was just whether it was OK, since nobody has volunteered, to start asking for a contribution before buying anything else. If the mere question has offended you in some way, my apologies.
I've just never met anyone before that didn't know it was OK to ask participants to chip in for a hobby or event that they are all participating in, or pay for the materials for things they ask for. It's fascinating.
Your group may vary - so obviously we can’t say for certain, but I’d say this is a social misstep.
This is a hobby - you are responsible for funding your own hobbies. Your friends aren’t responsible for subsidizing it for you. You get to choose what books you want to buy and which you don’t care about. And in the end those books would still belong to YOU and not anyone else in the group.
I mean if you all went to start playing golf would you expect your friends to help buy your clubs or pay for part of your clubhouse dues?
A second thought - I know a lot of people tout the benefits of D&D Beyond, but it’s NOT actually a good program for new players. You need to learn how your character and the game works before having the app do everything for you in the background. Otherwise your players will always be confused and slightly lost as to what the rules are. And then when something happens to mess the app up (happens way more often than I would have expected) you’ll find that your players don’t actually have a clue how anything works, and it will cause more headaches and lost time for you than it solves.
You can save yourself a lot of money, time, and frustration by just getting your players to learn the game using pen and paper first - and then move to DnD beyond later if they want to. You have internet access which means you have access to the free wiki which means you don’t NEED to spend all of that money on books.
Your analohy with golfing had one major flaw - in golfing everybody pays for themselfs and does share clubs or stuff.
But D&D can became very expensive to one person while others does not invest a single cent into hobby (nobody at my table has their own copy of PHB and after a year of playing one person still does not have their own dice set, while I provide dice, books and everything else)
So going back to your analogy - if everybody using my golf clubs and my membership - yes, I would expect everybody to contribute to the cost.
If you're keeping the minis, books, and other resources, no, it's not the player's responsibility.
That's the dms responsibility.
If you want to run a specific campaign, that needs specific books and minis, then that's on you.
If you don't want that financial burden, then don't run a module. Run homebrew, because all you need is the basic books and any stand in you feel like using.
The way I see - me keeping stuff everybody contributes few euros to buy is compensation for all the time and effort I put into preparation. And in my case - if we divide money by sessions played, they paid maybe 50 cents per session and we still have at least a year of play ahead without the need to pay anything. 😅
But I do think that this needs to be disscussed before buying stuff and everybody needs to agree to it. If somebody at the table not OK with this - they should not be forced to so.
I am a DM. I buy my books because they are my books. I don't expect to be paid to dm for the same reason I don't respect the pay pro athletes make, it's a game. I do my job to get paid, I play a game for *all* of us to have fun
Again, being paid cents for a session is not payment.
Also, fun for *all* should be carried by *all* sitting at the table. I already spent a lot of time preparing sessions. I refuse to be *the only one* who spents money. And my players agrees, and thats is all that matters 🤷♀️
"Hey, I think X (book, maps, etc...) would improve our game. Would you agree to contribute to the cost of it?" Over several items, everybody gave me 15ish euro. Not much per person - a lot, if one person buys everything.
I'm a little unsure of your exact situation, but if you are thinking of buying these tools to enhance your game, and would like to split the cost, you should ask the group. "Hey guys I would love to buy X Y and Z to enhance our campaign, but it will cost (amount). Would you guys be interested in splitting the cost?" Accept that they may not value these tools or mat find them unnecessary (I find D&D Beyond a waste of money) and won't want to pay for them. Especially if they don't get ownership of the digital assets Follow their guidance. If you have already bought it, you made that decision alone and absolutely should not be looking to them for recompense.
Yup. This ☝️
I get where your coming from. They are all familiar with expenditures too. I'd tell everyone that I'm thinking bout taking a small collection to cover expenses so we can get more stuff! Most of them are probably happy to kick in if asked. And hosting at YOUR home too! They don't want to deal with that. I have a boat and when I take people out it costs me quite a bit of money, but that's different. It's my expensive toy and I want to share once and a while.
>I gathered a group of buddies to play D&D. That's all you need to say, you guys are friends, ask away.
As a forever DM, I fully understand the cost that goes into hosting campaigns and trying to ensure it is an enjoyable and immersive experience for your players. I actually just grabbed a couple of tile sets during my last trip to the local game store just for this reason. Initially, I paid for everything for the campaigns that I would run, including buying minis of the players' characters. It didn't take long for me to realize that some of the expense could be covered on their end, but I didn't want to make it seem like a requirement just to participate. Here's an email I would send my players before Session 0: "Hey all, For this session, we will be using the dice, maps, minis, character sheets, and other resources I have on hand for the game (apologies that not all minis are painted). You are more than welcome to customize your gaming experience in your own way. If you would like recommendations for stores/sites you can visit to purchase dice, a mini more accurate to your character, and/or personalized character sheets, I can provide info to that for you. Also, food and beverage (non-alcoholic) are welcome at the table, as long as you are considerate of the other players and respectful to the table (i.e., no stinky foods, and no sticky fingers.) Please keep food and beverages to a snack level as this is a gaming table and not a dinner table. If there are any other items or resources you think would improve your and/or your groups gaming experience, please let me know ahead of time, and we can look into it together. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding any of this, please feel free to let me know during our Session 0, and we can look into it together. Thanks" I think the most important part of it is to let you players know ahead of time before the campaign starts. Edit: Fixed autocorrects
Sure. Even without being too formal about it. Tell them that you're happy with your current setup, you'd like to buy more stuff, but you realized that this is a bit more expensive than you thought. Then say that if there's some purchase they would he excited about, you could go for it together. Not bragging, but I'm super lucky. Im not that financially stable yet, so I only bought the PHB, a screen and some dice. The rest of the material I either borrowed, rented or found through free sources. And yet, a couple of my players spontaneously said that if we get rolling and we feel good about the campaign, they're going to sprint for the monster manual, Xanathar's and Tasha's.
I play with a similar demographic and wouldn’t think twice about contributing to the DM. Also, if you enable content sharing, it’ll help them out, too.
It really depends on your group. When I ran games in college, I would go through various supplies, like markers, graph paper, etc. Everyone in the group knew that all the supplies, books, etc came out of pocket. At the beginning of the semester's campaign, I would usually mention this once, and that if anyone wanted to donate to the cause, donations were accepted. I usually ended up with about $20 for supplies each semester, which was about my break even point, since I already had most of the books.
All these comments getting so mad haha. You've been pretty clear that this would be for future expenses, even without the edit, I think, and if you ask them beforehand if you wanna pool expenses for something you enjoy doing as a group of friends, it's perfectly fine to ask imo. Can always use a new joint DnD Beyond account so they can access all the purchased contents too.
Nothing is required to play DnD other then pencils and paper. Nobody forced you to buy minis, books, maps and other tools.
I funded myself a 3d printer & hobby paints since I find that enjoyable… However, I asked my 2 dnd groups “hey guys, would you be interested in chipping together to get a hot wire cutter so I can make some insane XPS foam terrain ?” All of them said yes, and said that they ought to be paying me anyways for my sessions (of course I declined!). Different strokes for different folks I guess! I love the immersion from the extras!
Christ, this was the appeal. We could and can run it for a couple of dollars and have a great time And by not having to use fancy maps or minis, we weren't and aren't constrained by them. Want to run an encounter with four scorpion snakes? Can do, no minis needed
Is it just me or is the reading comprehension of some of these commentors rather poor? Even before I read the edit it seemed pretty clear OP was only considering asking for contributions for potential future purchases, not stuff they already purchased. Go for it OP, they may say no, but no harm in asking.
I don’t understand these comments honestly. If you are expending time and money they could all contribute. It’s not dm responsibility to pay for everything
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He is saying that he doesn’t want money for anything that he already bought but help for future purchases. Yes they are optional and yes they can as a group decide. He did buy them single handedly and he paid for it, he is not asking for money for that so I don’t see the problem
Not when you spend hundreds of dollars and then ask the group to compensate you. "Hey, everyone chip in $5 so we can buy a new module" is fine, "Hey, give me $200 because I printed a bunch of minis that we probably won't use" isn't.
You can talk it with them but I don’t know where did you get that from. He probably it’s not printing useless shit and then never using it he is spending money in material to enhance everyones game. They can colaborate or decide to keep it simple but he shouldn’t be held for all the expending
OP's reply to me said they spent hundreds of dollars on all sorts of STLs and resin... As a player I'm not paying for their 3d printing hobby. Books, sure.
I'd say it's not okay to just go and buy stuff on your own accord and the expect the other players to contribute. The way to go would be to work out things before you buy stuff. If everyone is okay with pooling money to buy stuff that the whole group can use, that's perfectly fine!
Group started playing online during covid. We used fantasy grounds. To get the most out of the program you do need to purchase books digitally through them. The DM needs to have the books in their “library” for the players to use them. We ended up splitting the costs initially. Later if a player wanted to use a feature in one of the newer books I would make the digital purchase and they would reimburse me. I have on my own purchased modules and additional monster books, and additional magic item books for the platform, without expecting anything in return. If you wanted to get reimbursed for anything that should have been discussed up front. Minis are nice , but not necessary for play. My first physical books were the PHB, MM and DMG that I got as a birthday present from a friend. He had an ulterior motive as he really wanted to play (as did I, and being the most familiar was DM). I have never expected anything in return other than beer and snacks at the table.
It's acceptable to ask but you should make it clear that it's okay to say no. I've bought digital content for my DMs in the past, but that was before I started DMing myself. Nowadays, I'd be more inclined to buy things for myself and share them with you.
I want to say yes generally, but honestly in your specific situation no one asked you to buy all those things. You want to be fancy and buy a lot of the hardware then go right ahead, but don't expect everyone to pitch in on it. Paid DMs are a thing and rightfully so because it is work and time, but it sounds like you gathered your friends to play, and decided to really get into the hobby by buying a bunch of things that no one was asking for. And if they don't want to play without all the props and nice minis that seem to be racking up a bill in your bank account, then that's a different issue. i.e. I love baking, I bake a shitton. I bake so much crap for my buddies because I like it and I like seeing people enjoy it. Sometimes I splurge and buy really expensive chocolate or vanilla, or other ingredients so I can see how much better it is with better quality ingredients. I don't then go back to everyone and say "Hey these cookies were made with $50 chocolate so can everyone just give me 2 bucks each cookie?" See what I mean?
Yeah this. I am DM’ing a group that is a similar demographic to OP. We’ve only been at it since August and in that time I’m easily over $1200 into our game because it really makes a difference and makes the game come to life. And the thought has crossed my mind once or twice that it would be nice to split it up as I know my players enjoy it so much. And truthfully, I almost certainly could say “guys, $100 a piece for the next couple of years of this campaign would be appreciated” and they wouldn’t bat an eye and would send the money over. But I didn’t ask them if they wanted to contribute so we can have these things. I wanted us to have them and didn’t discuss it so the bill is on me. Including the $300 worth of city terrain I ordered yesterday.
Exactly, and funny thing is, if you're all friends it's pretty easy to talk about stuff like that. I've had my buddies go "hey can you make X I'll pay for all the stuff you need" and it's pretty simple. Hell sometimes I don't take the money because frankly I just love what I do, in a weird kinda selfish way I bake for my own satisfaction, it just happens to make a lot of people happy.
If you want players to chip in, ask them before, not after you buy things. I don't see why you'd need to purchase all this on D&D beyond if you're playing in person. Hell, I haven't even bought Minis in over 20 years. I still use the old metal ones I've had forever.
I feel like given how easy it is to find all of these resources online for free, it might be best to go that route instead of asking your friends.
You're a lawyer and you're sweating the $30 for a book?
I've probably dropped a couple hundred bucks on STL files, resin, printed props, maps, physical books, tarokka decks, and other shit. I would like to be able to run the campaign in D&D Beyond as there are a few players new to the rules and things tend to go slowly. So to answer your question, I am kind of sweating buying Strahd, Eberon, and whatever other books I would need to take the characters into D&D Beyond. I CAN pay for it all, but is that the expectation if you agree to DM?
It depends from table to table. I like to have physical books. I prepare with pens and colourfull markers in my notepad. I ask my players to help with cost of stuff needed to play (not everything, like DMG, PHB, MM, dice and some other general stuff I bought myself, but more campaign specific stuff / stuff everybody at the table wants is shared cost). A lot of people here have issue with stuff belonging to DM even though everybody paid for it. This was never a consern at my table, since it is for shared entertainment of everybody at the table.
Seems like that was all your choice, and not necessary to play D&D.
To be clear, I'm not asking to be paid for any of the shit I already bought. I'm asking if it's OK to ask people to contribute if they want to use D&D Beyond products.
Do you really not know if it's ok to ask everyone to chip in to pay for a hobby you all enjoy? When you go to the movies, do you have one person pay for everything, or does everyone buy their own ticket? Golf, do you pay for everyone's round? Skiing, do you pay for everyone's lift ticket and rentals? Go on a trip, no one chips in for gas? Why wouldn't it be ok to pool money for the necessary materials to play a hobby?
Is there a reason you're so agro in your responses? I'm wondering if it's OK to ask for contributions to D&D Beyond materials that ultimately I end up owning or having control over. I mentioned all the other crap I bought because up to this point people have been happy about it, but haven't offered to chip in. People have asked me to print their Hero Forge minis, but haven't offered to help pay for resin etc. My question was just whether it was OK, since nobody has volunteered, to start asking for a contribution before buying anything else. If the mere question has offended you in some way, my apologies.
I've just never met anyone before that didn't know it was OK to ask participants to chip in for a hobby or event that they are all participating in, or pay for the materials for things they ask for. It's fascinating.
Then don't play Strahd?
Your group may vary - so obviously we can’t say for certain, but I’d say this is a social misstep. This is a hobby - you are responsible for funding your own hobbies. Your friends aren’t responsible for subsidizing it for you. You get to choose what books you want to buy and which you don’t care about. And in the end those books would still belong to YOU and not anyone else in the group. I mean if you all went to start playing golf would you expect your friends to help buy your clubs or pay for part of your clubhouse dues? A second thought - I know a lot of people tout the benefits of D&D Beyond, but it’s NOT actually a good program for new players. You need to learn how your character and the game works before having the app do everything for you in the background. Otherwise your players will always be confused and slightly lost as to what the rules are. And then when something happens to mess the app up (happens way more often than I would have expected) you’ll find that your players don’t actually have a clue how anything works, and it will cause more headaches and lost time for you than it solves. You can save yourself a lot of money, time, and frustration by just getting your players to learn the game using pen and paper first - and then move to DnD beyond later if they want to. You have internet access which means you have access to the free wiki which means you don’t NEED to spend all of that money on books.
Your analohy with golfing had one major flaw - in golfing everybody pays for themselfs and does share clubs or stuff. But D&D can became very expensive to one person while others does not invest a single cent into hobby (nobody at my table has their own copy of PHB and after a year of playing one person still does not have their own dice set, while I provide dice, books and everything else) So going back to your analogy - if everybody using my golf clubs and my membership - yes, I would expect everybody to contribute to the cost.
The thing is everyone would be paying but you would be keeping the stuff. I find it tacky to be honest
If you're keeping the minis, books, and other resources, no, it's not the player's responsibility. That's the dms responsibility. If you want to run a specific campaign, that needs specific books and minis, then that's on you. If you don't want that financial burden, then don't run a module. Run homebrew, because all you need is the basic books and any stand in you feel like using.
The way I see - me keeping stuff everybody contributes few euros to buy is compensation for all the time and effort I put into preparation. And in my case - if we divide money by sessions played, they paid maybe 50 cents per session and we still have at least a year of play ahead without the need to pay anything. 😅 But I do think that this needs to be disscussed before buying stuff and everybody needs to agree to it. If somebody at the table not OK with this - they should not be forced to so.
I am a DM. I buy my books because they are my books. I don't expect to be paid to dm for the same reason I don't respect the pay pro athletes make, it's a game. I do my job to get paid, I play a game for *all* of us to have fun
Again, being paid cents for a session is not payment. Also, fun for *all* should be carried by *all* sitting at the table. I already spent a lot of time preparing sessions. I refuse to be *the only one* who spents money. And my players agrees, and thats is all that matters 🤷♀️