I have been engaged in a debate on social media about whether it's acceptable to refuse to try any roleplaying game that isn't Dungeons & Dragons. One of the arguments that I keep hearing people make is 'I'm poor, and roleplaying games are expensive.'
This is a valid point, but I have a solution.
Ok, I have a solution and a comment. First, the comment: Hasbro has worked very hard to make people believe that you have to have every book in order to play (and more to the point, that each player needs a copy of the Player's Handbook, at the very least) in order to take full advantage of Dungeons & Dragons. That is very much not true. Most games work just fine if all you have is a single copy of the core rules. Supplements are optional, and in some circumstances, it's annoying to share a single rulebook (I remember trying to level up a character in D&D 3.5 when sharing a single copy of the Player's Handbook, and it was a challenge to say the least), but many games don't require the rulebook as much when advancing characters.
But now, on to the solution. There are a ton of free roleplaying games out there. Let's talk about some of them.