So a few weeks back I told you guys why you should play D&D (or any other tabletop game). Those that read it and did take an interest might have run straight off to their local game store or amazon website and looked into making the necessary purchases to begin your fantastical journey. The more zealous of you might have gone ahead and made those purchases; but some of you, I'm sure, saw the price tags and thought "not worth it, not even a little." Well, for those frugal gamers out there who can't stand the entry fee, I'm here to give you a few ways to play tabletop games on a Zen Master's budget (that is to say, free.)

First and foremost you need access to the rules, and for a lot of introductory level players, this is the biggest price gap. The standard cost of a Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master's Guide (the three standard books for running D&D) in the new edition are $50 a piece. Savvy buyers can always get them online for cheaper, but still, that'll run you between $20-30 a book, and if your bank account looks anything like mine, $60-90 on books just isn't in the cards. So how do you gain access to the rules set while spending zero dollars? There are a few ways. First, you can always try to find someone local who plays and already owns the book, invite them to your group if they're willing to share. If you don't like that the thought of that strategy is a little too close to using a perfect stranger for their possessions, take a look here (http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules). These are free legal PDFs containing everything you need to know to get started, and absolutely nothing else. It's bare bones, but it'll get you going while you figure out your next step, and any rules are better than none. You can also look into free systems: there are a few games out there that allow you access to their content through what's called an SRD online.

Okay, so now you've got your system and you're ready to play. Only you don't have a battle map (a grid used to display combat), dice, or miniatures (figures used to distinguish different players in combat). All of these things are going to cost you. The good news is if you're playing a system like Dragon Age or Shadowrun, all you need is six-sided dice, so go raiding your old board game closet. The bad news is that most every system uses polyhedral dice (essentially a set of seven different dice, all with a unique number of sides to them). Now one set costs maybe $5-7 and if that's all you buy for your game, that's not a bad price point, but we're looking for a zero in the cost department, so let us look at some free alternatives. For dice, you can always use a random number generator or dice generator. Any laptop or phone can be used for this, and if you're comfortable letting the players have these out during the game, everyone can roll their own dice. If you don't trust them to behave with Clash of Clans installed on their iPhones, have only the person running the game bring a laptop, and they can make all of the dice rolls for the group. As for a battle map and miniatures, remember when I mentioned your old board game closet? Chess boards make for decent grids, especially if you can find a few to put all together, and you can use any color-coded game pieces or even chess pieces to stand in as minis, free of charge.

Alright, so now I've solved the why of picking up tabletop games, and the how. Only questions you need to answer now are with who and when?

Helpful Links from the Article:
SRD's:
http://www.5esrd.com/
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/
http://www.dungeonworldsrd.com/

Dice Generators:
https://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm