Post originally by Aka-Chan at 2004-10-21 12:41:29
Converted from Phorums BB System

Honestly, I don't know exactly why. My best guess is the type of paper/cardboard the screens are made out of, and their irregular shape. 4 panels, and they have to bend just so. For most screens, anyway.

As for an example of this, you can check out the front page and forums at Infernal Funhouse's website. They're the guys who do Random Anime. They're new to the biz, and were originally going to package the screen with the Miniomicon supplement. But due to the screen alone costing more to print than the entire Minionomicon, they had to split it up into two products.

Also, for core books and supplements, there was a thread about this a while back. The conclusion was that comparing them to novels, or even coffee table books of similar size, is a bad comparison. Comparing them to TEXTBOOKS is far more accurate -- in fact, due to playtesting and whatnot, an RPG book can be even more work than a textbook. So yeah, RPG books are cheap when you consider what you get for your money and the sheer amount of work that goes into them.