General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
A series of questions that arise: Is D&D "doomed" to cult/underground status? Even death? Are tabletop RPGs in general? Consider:
1) The continuing rise of computer games.
2) The imminent breakthrough of virtual technologies.
How (long) can D&D survive?
Personally I don't think D&D is dying but that it may be entering a major "shrinkage" phase, from a major hobby of several million players to a large cult following of a few hundred thousand. I don't ever see it dying, per se, at least until some kind of Singularity occurs (!). But given the seemingly incontrovertible fact that tabletop RPGs are a "graying" hobby, there are always more folks leaving the hobby than entering it. Even by polishing it with a World of Warcraft veneer, it won't draw the supposed goldmine of computer gamers simply because it is not a computer game.
Let me posit four "waves" of tabletop RPGers:
First Wave - Mainly Boomers (late 40s and older); those that started playing before 1980, either with OD&D or 1ed; the Founders. Second Wave - Mainly Gen-Xers (roughly 28-45); most started in the 80s with BECMI, 1ed or 2ed D&D. Third Wave - Mainly Gen-Yers (ages 10-27); most started post White Wolf, in the 90s or later, or with 3ed D&D. Fourth Wave - ? These would be those folks who haven't played tabletop RPGs yet, or are just starting with 4ed.
I have no idea what the actual demographics are, but my guess is that the largest portion of D&D players is from the Second Wave (2W), with a sizable portion in 3W and a smaller portion in 1W. Those that are in 1W will probably continue playing until the day they die ("From my cold, dead hands"); the problem is that mortality rates rise, as we've seen with the many older game designers that have died in the last couple years (Gygax, Arenson, Wujcik, Crossby). Those in 2W are the backbone of D&D; some came back to playing with 3rd edition, perhaps after an early career/family hiatus; some with 4th. Many will gradually dwindle away, but a solid group of them could play for another decade or two. 3W is not quite as large as 2W, or at least more diluted by other games. Many of 3W haven't reached the crisis of "career/family vs. hobby," so it remains to be seen how many will last. 4W...we just don't know yet, but considering the two points above--computer games and virtual technologies--things don't look promising.
Tabletop rpgs are there with other society-board games. They wont gonna die but perhaps current kind of hardcore fan demographics are going to decline sharply.
What this means?
It means no more big business models based on selling character optimization stuff with legions of crunch books but rather smaller and simpler games, more freeform, more casual regarding out of play time investment as far as rules go.
Perhaps subscriptions to living campaigns organized on the net but with the games still played with friends on the table (you just fill a form of the results of a scenario and send it to a server: based on everyone's results, the people that organize the living campaign bring new scenarios). Think of something like dungeonaday.
Even by polishing it with a World of Warcraft veneer, it won't draw the supposed goldmine of computer gamers simply because it is not a computer game.
Attempting to fight fire with fire is foolish, especially when you bring a zippo and your opponent has a flamethrower (okay, I don't think that's how that saying is supposed to work, but it was a fun visual).
There are things at which tabletop RPGs can excel that MMOs can't do, and won't be able to do without significant advances in AI. These are the things they need to focus on if the pen and paper hobby is to survive with anything more than cult followings.
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I'd contest where you think the largest portion of D&D players came from. The first wave was frickin' HUGE and no later edition ever outsold what 1e and OD&D were selling in a five year or so period in the early 80s. Second edition wasn't nearly as successful and a large chunk of the player base was carry over from 1e and Basic D&D. Some new players came on but the game nearly died. You can blame Williams, sure, but the fact is that the stuff didn't sell as well as they'd hoped. The third wave began with the WOTC buyout and the Baldur's Gate games resulting in a huge surge that was further fueled by 3e being such a huge improvement over 2e. 2e nearly killed the game. Not saying it was a bad game, D&D will never be as huge as it was in the early 80s.
Attempting to fight fire with fire is foolish, especially when you bring a zippo and your opponent has a flamethrower (okay, I don't think that's how that saying is supposed to work, but it was a fun visual).
There are things at which tabletop RPGs can excel that MMOs can't do, and won't be able to do without significant advances in AI. These are the things they need to focus on if the pen and paper hobby is to survive with anything more than cult followings.
Yes, although I think AI would be the death of what tabletop RPGs are really about, which is imagination.
Computer Games = simulation
Tabletop RPGs = imagination
From one perspective they are close kin; from another they are opposites, even antithetical.
I see the long-term survival of tabletop RPGs either occuring through an almost kitsch effect where they are co-opted into a larger/newer structure (like 70s funk in rap music), and/or through and increased embrace, development and exploration of the imagination itself, which may occur as a kind of backlash against the prevalence of simulative technologies. Not unlike the "back to the land" movement which was a reaction to industrial civilization. So with a cybernetic/simulative/data-stream civilization you might have a "back to the imagination" movement. But even in the business world "right-brained thinking" is becoming more en vogue; a lot of businesses are looking more for creative thinkers than simple number crunchers. If right-brained thinking becomes more valued by society especially at the corporate level, we might see a trickle down into education where imaginative development--and not simply data analysis and processing--is valued and encouraged. If this occurs then imagination-based activities like tabletop RPGs could receive a renewed spike in interest. But we shall see.
It seems like there are people who play table top rpgs, and people who don't. I doubt that online games are stealing players. They just don't offer the things that most hard core gamers come to the table for. Maybe this will change as the tech improves. But right now, I feel pretty lonely when I play WoW. When I first played a table top roleplaying game when I was 11, it was being able to use my own imagination that got me interested. I had video games at home. But I could picture stuff in my head, that wowed me. And those images were under my control, not dictated by a bunch of 0s and 1s. Plus there is the social element. You are there with your friends, interacting and telling a story. But lets face facts. Gaming has had cult status for some time. We are a small portion of the population. And saying you play D&D has the same social consequences as saying you're a star trek fan. It is regarded as just a bit quirky.
We have always been in a cult with DnD, we dress in black robes and worhip Satan, I know I saw it on a TV show once
Anyway Dnd, here in NZ anyway, is certainly cult. I dunno what percentage of people out here play RPGs but it is vanishingly small. AFAIK there is not another group within 45 minutes drive of me, and I keep up with the board gamers etc (a few groups of those) and war gamers. The nearest shop is on the capital 1.5 to 2 hours drive. And that is one of 2 RPG shops in the capital, there is another 1 or 2 in largest city and one or two more AFAIK. So we are looking at about 1 shop per 3/4 million population, 1 per 500,000 max, which I thinks gives you an idea of how tiny RPGs are over.
I really think RPGs is a dying hobby, which is sad but thats the way of things. Won't stop me playing and enjoying it
Anyway back to chanting and goat sacrifice!
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Last edited by mach1.9pants; 10th April 2009 at 06:06 AM..
I'd contest where you think the largest portion of D&D players came from. The first wave was frickin' HUGE and no later edition ever outsold what 1e and OD&D were selling in a five year or so period in the early 80s. Second edition wasn't nearly as successful and a large chunk of the player base was carry over from 1e and Basic D&D. Some new players came on but the game nearly died. You can blame Williams, sure, but the fact is that the stuff didn't sell as well as they'd hoped. The third wave began with the WOTC buyout and the Baldur's Gate games resulting in a huge surge that was further fueled by 3e being such a huge improvement over 2e. 2e nearly killed the game. Not saying it was a bad game, D&D will never be as huge as it was in the early 80s.
This meme has been around for as long as I can remember and it's been shot down any number of times. D&D is NOT smaller than it was back in the day. There are estimates of D&D players pegging regular players at around 3 million players currently.
How anyone can post on a forum with 80 000 + members and claim that D&D is dying off is beyond me.
No, we are not in the twilight of gaming. Sure, there was a two or three year spike when the game was a fad. Sure, those numbers, for that very brief span of time might have been bigger than now. But, the vast majority of those players dropped the hobby very quickly.
If they hadn't, we would STILL be playing 1e.
Is D&D as big as it was during the height of the fad? Maybe not. But, I will stand by the idea that we have far and away more dedicated players now than back then. People for whom gaming is a major hobby and not just something they got for Christmas, played three times and never looked at again.
I really, really hate the simplicity of this idea. That because we sold more PHB's back in the day, no version of D&D ever really measure's up. It's ridiculous. It's like saying all video games are a pale shadow of the popularity of Space Invaders since no game since has ever caused a coin shortage in Japan.
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I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
I really, really hate the simplicity of this idea. That because we sold more PHB's back in the day, no version of D&D ever really measure's up. It's ridiculous. It's like saying all video games are a pale shadow of the popularity of Space Invaders since no game since has ever caused a coin shortage in Japan.
I think he has a point though. I remember being a kid in the early 80s, and D&D was much more prevalent. It was just around in a way it hasn't been since. I don't know the numbers or anything; but I do know I saw ads for it on TV, there was a D&D cartoon on saturday morning and the kids in ET were even playing D&D. It felt kind of mainstream.
I have often been accused of being overly pessimistic, but it would appear I have been outdone.
(very militant look)
Yes, from my Cold, Dead Hands. And, as I plan to be around for a while, the Game will live on.
I am a 2nd Generationer. And stubborn. And obsessive. And I'm not going anywhere.
WE will make our Hobby into chess (a game played for centuries, venerated, honored, respected, and known throughout the world) before this is over.
A bunch of setbacks occurring in the space of a few years - 1996 through 2009 - are not going to stop OUR hobby.
I hereby declare the formation of D&D's Army (think of Dumbledore's Army.)
We are going to practice the Hobby, in open and in secret, no matter how many Dolores Umbridges ( *** by that analogy, I refer to the economic woes, competition from computer games, virtual reality, and everything else threatening our hobby *** ) are out there that try to beat the Hobby down.
I think he has a point though. I remember being a kid in the early 80s, and D&D was much more prevalent. It was just around in a way it hasn't been since. I don't know the numbers or anything; but I do know I saw ads for it on TV, there was a D&D cartoon on saturday morning and the kids in ET were even playing D&D. It felt kind of mainstream.
I was a kid back then too. I remember being able to buy D&D in the Sear's catalog. Fair enough. But, after that very brief spike, numbers went down. Way down.
Then came White Wolf and a whole new crowd came into the hobby.
Then came 3e and a whole bunch of new people came into the hobby.
While we might not have that huge bubble number, we have a very, very stable number of players world wide. And the big thing is, this number hasn't radically changed for almost a decade. That few million players number has been batted around since 2000. There hasn't been this huge drop in player numbers.
We have a stable, mature (as in non-fad, not age related) body of gamers who continue to play and support the hobby. Some are leaving, some new ones come in. The overall numbers have been reasonably static for almost a decade. Yet, the doom and gloom predictions keep rolling in like clockwork, completely ignoring all of this.
It's like those who gleefully tell all and sundry that SF is dead. That no one reads SF anymore, despite there being far and away more SF out there, selling far and away more than at any time in the past.
If the hobby is dying, going grey, fading out - let's see some proof. I've got pretty decent numbers going back for ten years saying that the gaming body hasn't changed a whole lot. What do the doom and gloom sayers got?
__________________ Currently running: Sufficiently Advanced over Maptool. Soon to change. If you'd like to join in a short 3-8 session campaign for various systems, drop by our forums.
I double-dog-dare you to make your game sound super cool without comparing it to other editions. - paraphrased from Umbran.
I think he has a point though. I remember being a kid in the early 80s, and D&D was much more prevalent. It was just around in a way it hasn't been since. I don't know the numbers or anything; but I do know I saw ads for it on TV, there was a D&D cartoon on saturday morning and the kids in ET were even playing D&D. It felt kind of mainstream.
Yep. The local library was full of D&D games on weekends, there were ads for players on bulletin boards at school (until the teachers pulled them because D&D was satanic). You couldn't go anywhere without seeing something of D&D. Now? Now I see D&D once a week when I game, and maybe at the bookstore.
This meme has been around for as long as I can remember and it's been shot down any number of times. D&D is NOT smaller than it was back in the day. There are estimates of D&D players pegging regular players at around 3 million players currently.
How anyone can post on a forum with 80 000 + members and claim that D&D is dying off is beyond me.
No, we are not in the twilight of gaming. Sure, there was a two or three year spike when the game was a fad. Sure, those numbers, for that very brief span of time might have been bigger than now. But, the vast majority of those players dropped the hobby very quickly.
If they hadn't, we would STILL be playing 1e.
Some of us STILL are. I've bounced around dozens of game groups over the years, and EVERY single one of them had a majority of people my age, and I'm 40. There was the occasional 20 something who came into the game with 3e or 3.5, but for the most part it's been us old fogies that have been around since the beginning or damn near it. We haven't dropped the hobby, far from it, we keep it alive.
D&D is not dying, I doubt it ever will, no matter how WOTC bastardizes it, but it's far, far from as popular as it was in the day.
And despite biting more off than they can chew, WotC IS actively courting the youth market.
That's partly what this whole online initiative is all about. They failed in some parts, but succeeded well enough in others that I'm confident that they won't be left behind when we're all hooking up to our virtuacasts via our cortex cables in 20 years.
They've invited guys from Penny Arcade to play D&D and record the podcasts. They're directly reaching out to people who are currently in the electronic gaming industry (all types of gaming). I'm not sure if any of you guys go over to those forums or not, but there are tons of people who have never played any version of D&D wanting to play just because of what they heard on those podcasts, of people just having fun.
Heck, even the basic rules of 4e are designed to make the first time experience as fun as possible.
The only way that WotC could possibly do more to court the youth market is to make saturday morning cartoons again (or do a Back Yardigans game supplement).
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In the 80s, I'd never find myself drinking at a gentleman's club while a rather attractive young stripper tells me about her Elven Paladin.
It's a lot more mainstream than you think, as a lot of geek culture is now mainstream.
Sure the nerds still do it, but at one point my group consisted of an amateur MMA fighter, a local sous-chef, a goth diva, and a construction yard foreman.
I worked in tech support at the time, so I got to be the resident nerd.
It might not be advertised out the wazoo, but it's accessed by a lot more of the populous, and isn't restricted to certain subcultures.
I'd contest where you think the largest portion of D&D players came from. The first wave was frickin' HUGE and no later edition ever outsold what 1e and OD&D were selling in a five year or so period in the early 80s.
We know that in 1989 the Basic Set sold 1,000,000 copies.
In 1991, TSR stopped producing an all-in-one introductory version of the game and replaced that product with a pay-to-preview boxed set. When the Rules Cyclopedia went out of a print a few years later, the only true ruleset for D&D became (for the first time ever) a set of three rulebooks clocking in at 700-900 pages and costing in the ballpark of $100.
That remains the case today.
So if there is a problem getting new players into the hobby, it certainly might be due to factors beyond WotC's control. Maybe video games have irreparably harmed D&D (although weren't video games incredibly popular during the '80s, too?). Maybe people just don't play games face-to-face any more (although Monopoly and its ilk seem to be doing all right). Maybe the game's popularity was entirely fad driven (although it seems to be a fad with an unusually prolonged drop-off).
But I just can't stop looking at the lack of a product like the 1981 or 1983 Basic Sets and saying: "Ya know, the complete lack of a gateway product might have something to do with it."
And maybe the abandonment of mainstream advertising by TSR (and WotC's failure to re-establish it) also contributes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JRRNeiklot
Some of us STILL are. I've bounced around dozens of game groups over the years, and EVERY single one of them had a majority of people my age, and I'm 40.
There are a couple of factors here:
(1) Everyone tends to associate with people close to their own age (for a myriad number of reasons). This is just as true for gamers as it is for anyone else. I recently had cause to be exposed to a crowd of much younger people and, unsurprisingly, I was suddenly exposed to a number of much younger gamers.
(2) You're playing a game that's been OOP for 20 years. That's some pretty heavy self-selection bias for playing with older gamers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hussar
That few million players number has been batted around since 2000. There hasn't been this huge drop in player numbers.
There's also been no indication that WotC has ever commissioned fresh market data. It's certainly possible that the number has remained steady. It's also more than possible that WotC is doing what lots of companies have done throughout history and continued using an old statistic because there's no new data to replace it.
We know that in 1989 the Basic Set sold 1,000,000 copies.
In 1991, TSR stopped producing an all-in-one introductory version of the game and replaced that product with a pay-to-preview boxed set. When the Rules Cyclopedia went out of a print a few years later, the only true ruleset for D&D became (for the first time ever) a set of three rulebooks clocking in at 700-900 pages and costing in the ballpark of $100.
That remains the case today.
This is untrue. See below.
Quote:
So if there is a problem getting new players into the hobby, it certainly might be due to factors beyond WotC's control. Maybe video games have irreparably harmed D&D (although weren't video games incredibly popular during the '80s, too?). Maybe people just don't play games face-to-face any more (although Monopoly and its ilk seem to be doing all right). Maybe the game's popularity was entirely fad driven (although it seems to be a fad with an unusually prolonged drop-off).
But I just can't stop looking at the lack of a product like the 1981 or 1983 Basic Sets and saying: "Ya know, the complete lack of a gateway product might have something to do with it."
Actually, if you must know, H1 has a complete copy of basic D&D rules, characters to play with those rules, and gives you everything you need to play up to 3rd level, and a complete adventure to get you there.
That is, if nothing else, exactly what a gateway product should do.
Quote:
There's also been no indication that WotC has ever commissioned fresh market data. It's certainly possible that the number has remained steady. It's also more than possible that WotC is doing what lots of companies have done throughout history and continued using an old statistic because there's no new data to replace it.
While there's no direct indication, when WoTC acquired T$R, one of the first things they mentioned was that T$R wasn't gathering market data, and was out of touch with their market as a result.
WoTC has always gone forth with the intention of managing the D&D brand with competance and to be successful with it, and they have been. It's hard to argue that they've been negligent in collecting market data; the company is a whore for market data with their other flagship line, as is their parent company. It's unreasonable to assume they wouldn't.
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