The State of Our Hobby

[Midknightsun]

Enlarge the pie, hombres. Enlarge the pie.

Lucky for you, this site is grandma-friendly.

 

[MichaelK]

There's a big difference between the business of roleplaying games and the actual hobby itself.

The truth is that I could roleplay for the rest of my life without ever buying another RPG book ever again. The only reason that I don't is that I like buying RPG books. Not only could I use the ones I already own, I could download one of the many free games off the internet or simply write my own game, (or not use a system).

Nor do I need the RPG industry to provide me with new players. I can teach someone how to roleplay quite easily and I've taught a lot of people already.

I fail to see how WoTC success or failure would affect me in the least.

 

[TerraDave]

The most fractured point for the hobby I remember was in the 90s. Go into a game store (you used to be able to find them back then), and there would be so many different kinds of rpgs, many current, with new releases planned. This included any number of fantasy rpgs. And yes, as JRT noted above, serious gamers would play many systems.

D&D also had big divisions then. A lot of people did not do (straight) 2E. You had groups playing RC, playing classic 1E, and playing 2E with bells and whistles. They where playing pretty different games.

Was this good, was it bad, was it sustainable? (on the last, apparently not). In any case, we are not even close to that now.

 

[EATherrian]

The most fractured point for the hobby I remember was in the 90s. Go into a game store (you used to be able to find them back then), and there would be so many different kinds of rpgs, many current, with new releases planned. This included any number of fantasy rpgs. And yes, as JRT noted above, serious gamers would play many systems.

D&D also had big divisions then. A lot of people did not do (straight) 2E. You had groups playing RC, playing classic 1E, and playing 2E with bells and whistles. They where playing pretty different games.

Was this good, was it bad, was it sustainable? (on the last, apparently not). In any case, we are not even close to that now.

Personally I consider that and the mid-80s the Golden Ages of Gaming. There were so many games and so many companies producing extra material it was great. The OGL and d20 created a small renaissance of that, but we've yet to see those levels again. Heck if it wasn't for Marvel Super Heroes and Traveller I would have never got most of my gaming friends to start playing. *Sniff* now I'm all nostalgic.

edit: For D&D I also think that while the BECMI and AD&D coexisted were the best times for the game. BECMI made a great entry point for new people, and then they often moved to AD&D. I think WoTC would be smart to try and recreate that.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I'm less concerned about the industry today that I was many years ago. I think the rise in choices, the passion that is present in some gamers is a good thing and shows that there is and will continue to be a market for games. It is possible that, should 4e not be a success, there will no longer be an 800 pound gorilla of the industry, but that doesn't mean the hobby itself will shrivel and die. Maybe it will shrink if loyal D&D players won't play something other than their official game, but there are more than enough options to keep the hobby itself alive.

Ultimately the market will take care of itself. Well-crafted, fun products will succeed, while others will fail to find a foothold, but there are now enough seeds out there ready to accept new gamers and grow that the industry will be around for a long time.

And one last note regarding the power of the individual gamer: the smaller developers and publishers are typically more responsive to their customers than the bigger ones, simply because they have much more to lose if they abandon a portion of their customer base because they are less likely to be able to replace those they lost.

 

[Phlebas]

.........
* One obit for Gary claimed approximately "25 million" D&D players worldwide. I think that's wildly too high. I think the last print runs of Dungeon mag were about 25-30 thousand. Read into those what you will; they're the only numbers I've got.

In my university days (early 90's), the RPG group was the 3rd largest society on campus (200+ paying members) - outnumbered most of the sports society's

Although i personally like D&D, & really enjoyed the change to 3,5E, people in our group play Earthdawn, Palladium, Dragon Warriors, Mage, Vampire, Warhammer, Mordheim and tend to try anything coming out at least once.

I'm sure 4e will be tried to (one of our regulars has pre-ordered stuff) though the others of us have a 'wait and see' attitude but frankly the hobby survived the death of TSR, enjoyed the re-birth under WoTC and will ensure 4E lives or dies on its merits - with plenty of independents waiting in the wings if it doesn't live up to the expectations.....

 

[king_ghidorah]

I may get stoned or burned alive for saying this, but...

I invest a lot of time and energy and money into D&D as my hobby of choice.
I invest far more time and energy and in some ways money into my friends.
If D&D goes away, I still have my friends and we can find another social activity.
If my friends go away, I don't need D&D any longer.

WotC made a calculated choice to put forth a new edition.
Paizo made a calculated decision to put forth Pathfinder RPG.
Other companies have made their calculated decisions also.
At least part of that calculation for all of them was "How do we make more money?"
If the decisions of these companies, especially the big one, ultimately fracture the customer base to the point that the game / hobby dies; then maybe they should have used a different metric in their calculated decisions.
My choices as a single consumer / purchaser of products are infinitesimal compared to the decisions of corporations.
If the game dies, it is on their heads, not mine.

I am baffled that anyone would argue that a company trying to take risks to make more money is a bad thing. Sure, if they were being unethical to make money, that's a problem. But for a game company to produce what they think is a superior product that will expand their customer base seems not only inevitable, but admirable -- even if the attempt fails. Any other path is sure to lead to financial losses and the end of producing any products. The hobby is littered with failed companies that didn't care to focus on profits and stopped having enough capital to produce, publish and distribute goods. Such failures threaten hobby stores, visibility of RPGs. This is a lose-lose proposition for everyone but hard-core gamers who would play without publishers anyway.

 

[Belen]

Agreed 100%. You put your finger on something that has eluded me.

You see - us gamers are a giant "pie". When companies try to grab more money, they splinter the pie into smaller slices. That's one way to increase profits, and that's the only way anyone (excepting perhaps WotC) works in our market. Malhavoc, GR, Moongoose - they're all sitting around the table with forks and knives and big gobs of purple pie dripping from their mouths.

Now...you can do something else to make more money. You can enlarge the pie. That's what, I'm hoping, WotC is trying to do with 4E.

Enlarge the pie, hombres. Enlarge the pie.

W.P.

4e is not going to enlarge the pie. A cartoon series, celebrity endorsements, a basic game on toy stores shelves, myspace page and youtube commercials would grow the hobby. If Wizards plays the same old game with their utter lack of marketing, then things will stay the same.

 

[king_ghidorah]

Well, since the late 70s at least.

But the point is good. I haven't played D&D in years, and didn't play any RPGs for most of the 90s. But the hobby was still there, new games were still coming out from various publishers, and the hobby didn't die.

I grew up with D&D (AD&D and the boxed sets), and it makes me sad that the game has morphed into something I don't particularly don't, and stewarded by folks I don't particularly trust; but even given that, I think this is a great time in our hobby, and somewhat unique. There are some GREAT games out there that don't have the label D&D on them made by some GREAT publishers, and having that kind of quality and competition is good for our hobby, not bad.


I think the best thing anyone can do for the hobby right now is to reach out to others in your community, play different games with different folks and promote the games you like. Run one shots. Get new and different people to your table. Recruit folks that haven't played before. Teach your kids how to play (my daughter was wavering on doing her biography report on either Gary Gygax or DaVinci). That kind of thing.

In the 28 years that I have been gaming, the industry has expanded and contracted multiple times. Much of that time has involved times when I and my friends have turned away from D&D to try new things. I started with 1e, I returned to D&D with 3e, but in the meantime, I have played many many systems. As far as I can see the hobby is diverse, will be diverse, and should be diverse. There is less a splintering than a healthy growth in interest -- usually followed by a reasonable decline because the hobby's demands in time, people, and interest -- lead to booms and busts in the size and activity of groups, which affects recruitment, play, and market pressure. All this is healthy, even the declines.

The only danger I see is not that the pie is being split, but the size of the pie. So long as the gaming hobby as a whole can grow, everybody will be fine. So those companies that take risks to expand the hobby are the best hope for everyone. And stagnation in products is not the best hope for that.

 

[Tetsubo]

By you perhaps, but not unwanted by me. IMO, D&D 3.5 is too complex and broken in many ways. I would be moving on to another game in any case and I can't wait to give 4e a try.

I never saw 3.5 as complex, so it wasn't an issue for me.

3.5 isn't perfect. But we didn't need a new edition. We just needed thorough and consistent errata. I see 4E as a pure money making venture on the part of Hasbro. To the detriment of our hobby.