Forked Thread: [Ryan Dancey's D&D Death Spiral] - D&D doomed to cult status?

Mercurius · Apr 10, 2009

Forked from: Ryan Dancey - D&D in a Death Spiral

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.

Thoughts?

Umbran · Apr 10, 2009

VR tech has been in "immanent breakthrough" status since the 1980s. Color me skeptical.

xechnao · Apr 10, 2009

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.

GnomeWorks · Apr 10, 2009

Mercurius said:
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.

teitan · Apr 10, 2009

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.

Mercurius · Apr 10, 2009

GnomeWorks said:
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.

ProfessorPain · Apr 10, 2009

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.

mach1.9pants · Apr 10, 2009

- D&D doomed to cult status?

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!

Hussar · Apr 10, 2009

teitan said:
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.