Anyone who walks past the RPG shelf at a game store tends to come away with the same impression: thick, expensive rulebooks, dice in every color, painted miniatures, maps, Game Master screens. It looks like a hobby that demands a serious investment just to take the first step. That impression is understandable, and it's almost entirely wrong. Let me show you what it really costs to start playing RPGs, because it's far friendlier than the store window suggests.
How much does it cost to start playing RPGs?
Far less than it looks, and it can cost exactly nothing. The basic rules of the major systems are available online for free, character sheets are free to print, and to roll dice all you need is a free app on your phone. You can learn and play without spending a cent. If you want a little more comfort, a real set of dice and a starter set are cheap. The expensive hobby in the store window is a choice, not a requirement.
The myth of the expensive hobby
The store shelf is misleading because it shows the high end, not the entry point. It's the same logic as looking at a wall of pricey running shoes and concluding that running is expensive, when really you just need to lace up whatever you already own and head out the door. RPGs work the same way. Those gorgeous rulebooks and lovingly painted miniatures are for people who are already in and want to go deeper, not for newcomers. Nobody needs them to play their first adventure.
You can start for free
The free route is real, and complete enough that plenty of people never feel they're missing a thing. The official basic rules can be downloaded for free and give you enough to play. You print the character sheets for free, or just fill one out on any scrap of paper. The dice, if you'd rather not buy them, become a free app, or you simply ask a search engine to "roll a 20-sided die." And for playing remotely there are free virtual tabletops that run in your browser. You can put together a whole campaign spending nothing but time.
And if I do want to spend a little
If the urge to invest hits, the first steps are still cheap. A set of dice costs little and lasts for years. A starter set, where one exists, usually packs everything a beginner group needs at a friendly price: pre-made characters, dice, an adventure and the essential rules. The full, pricier rulebooks can wait, and even then only the Game Master needs their own, so the cost is split across the table. None of it is a prerequisite for getting started.
What really weighs on you isn't the money
Here's the most honest part of this article. The biggest cost of getting into tabletop RPGs is almost never financial; it's in gathering people, finding a willing Game Master and getting everyone's schedules to line up on the same night, with some regularity. That's the price that hits hardest, and it isn't paid with money. That's exactly why formats you can play on your own, with no group and no GM, have always been so precious, and still are.
In Mysteries & Perils, getting in is cheap on purpose
It was with both barriers in mind, money and the group, that I built Mysteries & Perils. Access to it will be cheap, and that's deliberate: the idea is to bring the gamebook to as many people as possible. Because it runs in your browser, it comes with everything inside, the adventure, the 2024 fifth edition rules, the dice, the art, so you don't buy a book, or dice, or miniatures, or anything extra. And you don't have to gather anyone, because you play solo, on your own time.
Even better for early birds: whoever joins the waitlist gets a head start. At launch, the first players will get to try it free for a few days, and we'll also raffle off free accounts among everyone who signed up. If price was never what held you back, but rather the lack of time or a group, join the waitlist and come start the easiest, cheapest way there is.
By Mario, creator of Mysteries & Perils, a Baldur's Gate 1 fan raised on gamebooks.
