The Two Dollar Game Session

Ive found most of the time if your the DM your also the host. After a while it can get expensive getting snacks and drinks for people.

I'm my group everyone brings their own item, and usually someone brings the Dr. pepper.

However this idea is how you the host can improve upon the overall game experience by charging players $2, or asking for a $2 donation. $2 might not seem like a lot of money but if your group plays four times a month, with 5 people you have a solid $48 dollars.

Miniatures
With 48 a month i can easily get 3-4 packages of miniatures from my local gaming store, i can also buy more miniatures miniatures if i do my shopping online and buy a bunch of the cheap deals. This is a good way to get miniatures as a group. Over time you'll find having pretty much everything you need for your encounters

Books
WotC isn't releasing more than one book a month right now, and with $48 you can easily start building a group library of books. Once a month purchase a book and keep it in the game area for easy reference.

DDI
Using the money you can easily throw it back to the players and buy a few copies of the DDI membership, in fact after two months you can have a yearly membership, and use the rest of the money for other items. I would recommend putting it on a laptop and allowing your players to use it to create their players. This gives them access to items they might not normally have, gives you a copy of their character sheet, an ensure no one messes up on the math and has a +14 when they should only have a +7

Snacks and Drinks
Of course the easy solution is just to get more snacks and drinks, this is more of a weekly cost so your looking at around $12 a week you can spend. This may not sound like much but you can easily get a large bottle of pop, carrots, and celery and have everyone snacking all night long.

Printing and Office Supplies
With the introduction to 4e there has been a lot of customization in encounter setups in my opinion, and this money can help offset the cost of custom material such as home made bloodied markers, status tokens, and even if you send your maps off to the printers for every encounter. One thing i do, is when i build out my adventure for the next level i send it off to staples and have it printed and bound. It makes running my game that much easier. You as the DM can also build a campaign handbook for your players with custom rules and history.

Better chairs
Lets face it, we all have that one crappy chair that's reserved for the latecommer, the one that wiggles and wobbles and you just can't stand it anymore. You don't have to spend a fortune on chairs you just need to know where to go to get a deal. Your not turning your house into a d&d headquarters (just 1 room) i highly recommend heading out to your local ReStore and pick up some chairs there. I was lucky and got some chairs for $5 each. You can also take a look in your local paper and see if there are any auctions coming up. Most auctioneers will try and sell off anything and everything they can, you might be able to get a good deal there.

Better Table
Again every so often its a good idea to go out and get a new table. You can always head up to wallmart and get a plastic folding table. You again can head up to ReStore and find some nice tables, for again at the auction get a nice big meeting table and really impress your friends. Or you can use it to build a ultimate gaming table.

Now $2 isn't a lot and i would not force it on your players, but if you show them how eaisly the money can snowball into something big for your group then more people may come on board.

Well that's it for today, in case your wondering about the one picture, its a toonie, a canadien two dollar coin.

Until next time, keep your dice on the table.