We're Finally Mainstream! Now What?

ICv2's recent announcement that hobby games have become "mainstream" heralds a new age for role-playing games. How did this happen and why should gamers care?

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[h=3]How Did We Get Here?[/h]Role-playing games have steadily been increasing in popularity and media attention. Several factors are likely at play, ranging from older players returning to the hobby (as evidenced by the Old School Renaissance ), to an increased media awareness of role-playing games (Stranger Things being one example), to a wave of nostalgia as 40-somethings now have enough buying power to introduce their kids to the hobby.

The rise of video and podcasting has also introduced gaming to a much larger population on the Internet. Conventions are more popular than ever before -- to the point that they have difficulty keeping up with the demand. Wizards of the Coast has released a new Open Game License and a distribution platform via DM's Guild. It helps that Dungeons & Dragons has also broadened its audience, with millennials (ages 25 to 34) the largest group, followed closely ages 35 to 44 and 18 to 24 — 30% of which are female.
[h=3]Six Million an Hour?[/h]According to WOTC, six million people are playing D&D at any given hour. UPDATE: I asked Nathan Stewart to clarify this number. This was his response:

There was more context given, wasn't supposed to mean every hour, but yes the aggregate was videogames/boardgames/TRPG (not novels)
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The "per hour" seems to be egregious, and is inclusive of D&D-branded video games and board games. Ethan Gilsdorf, author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, said :

For those in the know, for those who follow popular culture, the game has gained a kind of legendary status. It's almost like a badge of honor. People who used to play D&D in the 70s, 80s, and 90s are now reaping the benefits.
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The data backs up the RPG renaissance, as per ICv2:

The number of people playing hobby games, the number of people shopping at game stores, the number of stores, and exposure of hobby games at major retailers were all up in 2016, reflecting the now-mainstream nature of the hobby.
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Mike Mearls, senior manager of D&D research and design, confirmed ICv2's findings:

We're seeing a bigger audience than we've seen in a very long time—in decades. It's so easy to cast this idea that technology will be the death of D&D, but it's been really interesting to see how that has been absolutely incorrect.
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[h=3]Will the Bubble Burst?[/h]Rob Salkowitz at ICv2 predicts that mainstream geek culture will affect other industries, as they take notes on what works for geek fans and apply it to other forms of fandom like sports :

It’s been clear for a while that the fan convention template that we’ve known since the 1960s is fraying at the edges as geek culture becomes mainstream consumer culture. On one hand, this means outside players who smell the money are making their play for the fan audience, with increasingly mixed results. But on the other, it means that longtime convention organizers within the space are looking to push their shows into neighboring territory.
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Salkowitz calls this "peak geek" and it has consequences beyond geek circles:

The danger is that, even with a fresh infusion of smart nerds in strategic spots, mainstream media is still more liable than their niche counterparts to credit know-nothings on an equal basis with informed sources, misinterpret nuances, impose faulty narrative frameworks and just plain get stuff wrong when it comes to covering the business of pop culture--especially if they are taking their cues from some of the more excitable fever swamps of online fandom. The result is a much more treacherous environment for the big companies and big name creators unaccustomed to attention from these quarters.
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For tabletop games, the primary concern is that eight straight years of growth is unsustainable:

For 2017, there’s widespread concern that the number of releases is going to be greater than the market can support. "I think we're facing some challenges coming into the new year, just on the basis of the breadth of releases," one distributor told us.
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But for the moment, things have never looked better for gaming. As more and more media launches -- from videos to streaming to podcasts to television shows to movies -- geek culture will become so normalized that it may well lose some of its identity. Chris Perkins, principal D&D designer, summed up the current state of affairs:

Geek culture and nerd culture is now just culture.
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Whether or not that is a good or bad thing will be determined by us.

Mike "Talien" Tresca is a freelance game columnist, author, communicator, and a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to http://amazon.com. You can follow him at Patreon.

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[Jester David]

Following the "6 million" claim to the cited article, that article gives its source as WotC, but doesn't provide a larger reference. But the passage immediately below implies that number is including Neverwinter.
So "playing D&D" to WotC means "playing a D&D game" but not necessarily "playing the tabletop RPG D&D game".

 

[Charles Rampant]

I had wondered about that number - it seemed extraordinarily high!

 

[Mercule]

So "playing D&D" to WotC means "playing a D&D game" but not necessarily "playing the tabletop RPG D&D game".

This is where I start to have a real problem with the WotC "brand management" and have for quite some time: D&D is the tabletop game.

If the tabletop game dies (hypothetically speaking, hopefully), then D&D is dead. Period. I don't care how many people are playing NWN. D&D is an inherently interactive activity where one player (the GM) acts as referee and lead storyteller. D&D can be played wholly without electronic aids.

So, here's what I really want to know: Are 6 million people playing D&D -- or are 6 million people playing D&D-related games? Keep in mind that NWN doesn't actually count as D&D. Nor do cards. Nor do the various board games that have been released w/ the D&D logo on them.

 

[Hussar]

Why doesn't something like Neverwinter Nights not count as "playing D&D"?

Just because that's the way we've played D&D doesn't really mean that we get to define what that is, does it? I mean, I've been playing via VTT for about 15 years now. Does that mean that I'm a second class citizen because I don't play face to face?

What I'm trying to say here, and probably failing, is that tribalism is bad. We SHOULD be as welcoming as possible to all players who are entering the hobby, regardless of how they enter.

 

[Jester David]

This is where I start to have a real problem with the WotC "brand management" and have for quite some time: D&D is the tabletop game.

If the tabletop game dies (hypothetically speaking, hopefully), then D&D is dead. Period. I don't care how many people are playing NWN. D&D is an inherently interactive activity where one player (the GM) acts as referee and lead storyteller. D&D can be played wholly without electronic aids.

So, here's what I really want to know: Are 6 million people playing D&D -- or are 6 million people playing D&D-related games? Keep in mind that NWN doesn't actually count as D&D. Nor do cards. Nor do the various board games that have been released w/ the D&D logo on them.

Part of me feels like that. Because the heart of the D&D brand very much is the tabletop game.
But I'm not sure I want to saying that someone playing a board game or video game isn't "playing D&D". Not anymore than I want to say someone watching a Batman movie rather than the comics isn't a "Batman fan".

 

[redrick]

This is where I start to have a real problem with the WotC "brand management" and have for quite some time: D&D is the tabletop game.

If the tabletop game dies (hypothetically speaking, hopefully), then D&D is dead. Period. I don't care how many people are playing NWN. D&D is an inherently interactive activity where one player (the GM) acts as referee and lead storyteller. D&D can be played wholly without electronic aids.

So, here's what I really want to know: Are 6 million people playing D&D -- or are 6 million people playing D&D-related games? Keep in mind that NWN doesn't actually count as D&D. Nor do cards. Nor do the various board games that have been released w/ the D&D logo on them.

If Wizards were to abandon the tabletop game in favor of these derivative products, that would definitely be a bad thing, but, on the plus side, if people are playing D&D-branded games, that is taking them much closer to D&D the tabletop game than any other non-rpg. So many of the folks I've played with over the years had their first exposure to D&D from Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale. Even for those of us who played D&D first, the Baldur's Gate re-release helped to fuel our return to the tabletop game after a long hiatus. So the success of D&D as a brand really does make it easier for us to recruit players to the game, which is a good thing.

I think, for the time being, Wizards sees the tabletop game, which is the heart of the D&D brand, as essential to the success of everything else. Without that game, any D&D product just becomes another fantasy game and, honestly, one without very good world or character identity. The fact that there is this arch-nerd game of high imagination behind any D&D product lends it some additional cachet. That's why so much (from an RPG perspective) energy went into developing and building fan support for the 5th Edition. And the 5th Edition is great and getting all kinds of people into the game is very easy. I love it.

 

[Queer Venger]

Accept the fact, D&D is supreme, it reigns in glorious majesty, NOTHING can stop it. Bow down and worship the &!

Seriously, D&D is in a renaissance, this makes me very happy

 

[Mercule]

Part of me feels like that. Because the heart of the D&D brand very much is the tabletop game.
But I'm not sure I want to saying that someone playing a board game or video game isn't "playing D&D". Not anymore than I want to say someone watching a Batman movie rather than the comics isn't a "Batman fan".

I see your point. Games like Baldur's Gate definitely used the D&D system mechanics, so I have mixed feelings about it. When you get to, say, Skyrim, though, that's clearly not "playing D&D" (not that anyone is claiming otherwise). So, where to draw that line?

Going back to my statement about "if the tabletop game dies, then D&D is dead," I still hold to that. If DDO/NWN stayed around, but the PHB (etc.) went out of print, I'd consider D&D to be gone. I think it's a branding issue. D&D is a medium. It's the comic.

Forgotten Realms is Batman. You can have Batman in the comics, on TV, in a novel, in a video game, or on the big screen. You could even have a Batman Musical on Broadway (though that chills me to the bone). Ditto to Forgotten Realms. You can have a FR movie, an FR video game, a novel, etc. You can also have a Forgotten Realms D&D game. Or, a Forgotten Realms GURPS game (which is about as interesting, to me, as the Batman Musical).

Asking whether people are consuming Batman is different than asking whether people are reading comics. Asking who is playing D&D is more like asking who is reading comics. My interesting isn't in whether the Realms or Eberron or Planescape (Batman, Superman, Spiderman) are selling well. It's in whether D&D (comics) is doing well.

Carrying your analogy a bit further, the consistent mechanics/different delivery between the TTRPG and the video games might be a bit more like the difference between monthly comics and graphic novels. They're close, but (I suspect) have somewhat different audiences that don't always cross-over. Actually, that might be an extremely good analogy: to the casual player/reader, there's little difference because they get a story told in pictures (or via a set of mechanics), either way. To a fan or author/GM, there's a big difference because one is a finite story/package and the other is ongoing and open-ended.

Ultimately, I'm most interested in what keeps DMs in business, so to speak.

 

[ZeshinX]

My own definition of D&D is the table top game. When I say or refer to playing D&D, I mean the table top game (I suspect that's what a lot of people mean when they say "play D&D"). The various other media like video games, novels, comics, etc certainly offer a D&D experience for that medium's strength(s), and that's excellent, but to me, D&D is the table top game (I consider VTT just tabletop played with webcam...yes, I know they go beyond that basic definition lol). The rest are ancillary and derivative of the table top game (like the D&D table top game is derivative of various war game concepts smooshed together).

That's how I define it myself, others can define it as they wish of course.

I never take what WotC says about the success of its products at face value. This is not to suggest I find them dishonest or shady. Not at all. Merely that they have a vested interest (necessary I would say) to present their product in a positive and successful light (basically to encourage more sales...if they were more specific in the breakdown of their numbers, that risks being perceived as negative towards some of those areas, thus likely impacting sales). I have no data to corroborate this, it simply seems logical. Lumping all forms of D&D games together (tabletop, video games, VTT, card games, board games, etc) does make sense, but I do find some of them more of a stretch than others. For example, a card game based D&D (if one exists) I would not consider playing D&D in much the same way I wouldn't call a game of poker using Magic the Gathering themed cards a game of Magic the Gathering. For most, I suspect it's a matter of degrees how they define what is and is not playing D&D.

I'm glad it's successful. I like the 5e table top game (even if I find it a bid threadbare in product I can buy, since I don't touch adventure/storyline stuff). I'd also like to see a proper and good 5e video game, not the mighty pile of goblin dung that was Sword Coast Legends (they were on the right track, going for Baldur's Gate with Neverwinter Nights toolset...but massively botched the execution).