The Escapist on D&D Past, Present, and Future

[Jeffrey]

The RPG industry will never be more expensive than the cost of a book and a set of dice. . .

Agreed, even more so if you consider that borrowing/using a friends book and dice at the game table, which I suspect many did when first getting into this hobby, drops the dollar cost to zero.

 

[Mark CMG]

The Giant's Bag, a D&D encounter from 1975, refereed by Rob Kuntz, players, Gary and Ernie Gygax.

Good stuff! (Out of XP for now. I'll have to owe you one for this fine example of the noncombat focus of early D&D.)

 

[Lum The Mad]

Paul Stormberg has run a number of scenarios at Gary Con using the Chainmail rules ...

Thanks.
But I am more interested in your thoughts about that:

I also played a number of games of each edition (except 2E) of D&D in 2011. It's interesting to play them all in such a short span and get the chance to compare them more closely.

Though this might be worth a new thread.

 

[Erik Mona]

Ryan Dancey is quoted as saying that tabletop RPGs will go the way of model trains. I would be interested to hear what people think about that.

I think it's wrong, obviously.

--Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing

 

[Mark CMG]

Thanks.
But I am more interested in your thoughts about that:

Though this might be worth a new thread.

I might need to write up some blog posts about it over on the CMG Blog Triad as we get into the new year.

 

[Cergorach]

Ryan said:

"I think the tabletop RPG market is enduring a kind of death. I think it is transforming into something that isn't a viable commercial business for more than a handful of people,"

Which isn't exactly weird. I'm pretty sure RPG paper book sales are in the toilet compared to the 3(.5)E era. Paper/printing is getting more expensive, people have high expectations and the writing/editing/illustration/design costs on a high quality RPG title is huge. More and more people demand ebook sales instead of physical book sales (such as myself, no room anymore in the bookcases).

Computer games are getting better and better visuals, are getting more flexible, and are getting budgets in the AAA+ movie ranges. Sure they might seem more expensive at release then pnp RPGs, but they are not. PHB + DMG + MM is $105, Pathfinder + Bestiary is $90, any FFG 40k core rulebook is $60. And that's without an adventure (you don't expect new gamers to produce their own adventures right out of the gates) or dice (or terrain and miniatures if you want a visual experience). Skyrim might be $60 on release, you might require a console, but it's playable on a PC and most folks have one. Having a PC that runs all the Skyrim eyecandy is a whole other story, you can make that as expensive as you want. Sure there are discount stores for both sides, but the PHB is still $23 after 3-4 years, AAA title like Mass Effect 1 & 2 are $5 during the Steam sale, same goes for titles like Oblivion and Fallout 3. Many a MMO is now F2P.

A RPG game is only fun when you have a decent to good DM, so there are a lot of folks that play in groups with not so decent DMs. The choice is quickly made to go play that fun video game instead of that mediocre RPG session.

Let's also not forget that folks have been social without RPGs for years, they can play many other games, and the market for quality board games is huge. And just talking to each other can be fun as well...

So we have less demand for physical books and higher costs, so from a classic commercial business point of view RPGs are dying. You might notice that most recent successful RPGs are tied to other hot properties.

Sure pnp RPGs will never die out, but the market will change significantly. More ebooks, less physical books, more projects funded through community efforts, more open source, etc. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if 4E is the last pnp edition for a couple of decades, if the property gets any more damaged Hasbro might just decide to put the property on ice (and that can be a long time)....

 

[Morrus]

Ryan said:


Which isn't exactly weird. I'm pretty sure RPG paper book sales are in the toilet compared to the 3(.5)E era. Paper/printing is getting more expensive, people have high expectations and the writing/editing/illustration/design costs on a high quality RPG title is huge. More and more people demand ebook sales instead of physical book sales (such as myself, no room anymore in the bookcases).

Computer games are getting better and better visuals, are getting more flexible, and are getting budgets in the AAA+ movie ranges. Sure they might seem more expensive at release then pnp RPGs, but they are not. PHB + DMG + MM is $105, Pathfinder + Bestiary is $90, any FFG 40k core rulebook is $60. And that's without an adventure (you don't expect new gamers to produce their own adventures right out of the gates) or dice (or terrain and miniatures if you want a visual experience). Skyrim might be $60 on release, you might require a console, but it's playable on a PC and most folks have one. Having a PC that runs all the Skyrim eyecandy is a whole other story, you can make that as expensive as you want. Sure there are discount stores for both sides, but the PHB is still $23 after 3-4 years, AAA title like Mass Effect 1 & 2 are $5 during the Steam sale, same goes for titles like Oblivion and Fallout 3. Many a MMO is now F2P.

A RPG game is only fun when you have a decent to good DM, so there are a lot of folks that play in groups with not so decent DMs. The choice is quickly made to go play that fun video game instead of that mediocre RPG session.

Let's also not forget that folks have been social without RPGs for years, they can play many other games, and the market for quality board games is huge. And just talking to each other can be fun as well...

So we have less demand for physical books and higher costs, so from a classic commercial business point of view RPGs are dying. You might notice that most recent successful RPGs are tied to other hot properties.

Sure pnp RPGs will never die out, but the market will change significantly. More ebooks, less physical books, more projects funded through community efforts, more open source, etc. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if 4E is the last pnp edition for a couple of decades, if the property gets any more damaged Hasbro might just decide to put the property on ice (and that can be a long time)....

As you say, it will change (more ebooks is the biggest example) but they are still PnP RPGs. They aren't video games, or even virtual tables. The market for small publishers is a million times larger than it was 15 years ago. Thousands make money from it, and dozens make a living from it.

So I believe the evidence suggests the opposite is true; the only difference is if you limit it merely to retail print products. But so many have shown that you don't need those, and that a PDF strategy is perfectly viable.

 

[Cergorach]

As you say, it will change (more ebooks is the biggest example) but they are still PnP RPGs. They aren't video games, or even virtual tables. The market for small publishers is a million times larger than it was 15 years ago. Thousands make money from it, and dozens make a living from it.

So I believe the evidence suggests the opposite is true; the only difference is if you limit it merely to retail print products. But so many have shown that you don't need those, and that a PDF strategy is perfectly viable.

Sure the market is way bigger for small publishers, but a lot of small publishers are a short step away from vanity publications that are very far from a 'viable commercial business' model.

I would say that ENWorld is one of the better performing small publishers, but would you characterize it as a viable commercial business? Would you advice investors to invest in a small publisher as a viable commercial business?

I would rate a viable commercial business as a business where you get a return on a product range within a reasonable period of time at a decent hourly wage.

 

[darjr]

The folks who write Pathfinder aren't keen on 4E, and Mearls has been looking at what the issues are? Yeah. We know.

That's it for me, except I get this feeling from the last article that it isn't Mearls searching so much as stating that he's made some conclusions. That he has conclusions about what happened and what is going on and an idea about what to do about it.


Is it just me?

 

[Dark Mistress]

I think I'm going to have to take the exact opposite stance here. As technology keeps pushing the boundaries of social interaction, facilitating conversation and cooperation from anywhere at any time, RPGs will experience a golden age like nothing prior. I hope it'll be D&D that does this, but it could be anyone, even a current unknown.

I don't believe AI will ever eclipse the living DM, at least not until I have a robot butler and machines headline comedy clubs, but I think I know what you're alluding to from a rules/calculations standpoint and I think Mearls addresses this need to return to the DM as creative font AND arbiter. For many of us, though, I don't think that's a problem, but he's talking about making it the baseline assumption of all games... tricky if you don't have a skilled DM. Just one of the many balancing acts he's left with.

RPGs through social media is the natural evolution of a very social hobby, with many benefits and really no draw backs (you can still play in person, too). I've played online since high school, and it's provided me with steady, creative games, and a certain ease of play/interaction that live games weren't able. Now, more than ever, I have the tools to run some really visually games, with all manner of short cuts and aids, though it worked even back in 2000 with mIRC and FreeDraw (I still use mIRC, actually, hehe).

I see people all over playing turn-based games on phones, handhelds, and consoles, as well as live matches, throughout the course of their days and in their free time. There is an essential human element, and a spirit of cooperation or competition, that really engages us. I think that's the heart of RPGs, as well, which gives me hope they'll be moving hand-in-hand with social media into the future. Right now we're seeing the awkward first steps, is all, as old media companies try and utilize the confounding new medias in a way that engages the public. Like I said topside, so long as there's a love of fantasy, science fiction, horror, imagination in general, there'll be people working to unite our loves and technology.

The nice thing, is, when they do, there will still be a need for places like EnWorld and people like us, familiar with the roots, adept in gaming, even if the particular methods have changed. There will always be such things as a great game, that feeling we get, plots, NPCs, treasure, monsters, traps. That's not going anywhere. All that changes is accessibility, which should really only threaten the abnormal elitists.

*leaps over Dancey and onto the pulpit* Let go of your fear, my friends! We are not obsolete! We are COMPATIBLE! Social media, technology, will breathe MORE life into this glorious hobby.

To be fair I was talking way in the future. I think once computers get to a certain point it will happen. I doubt I will still be alive then though.