We need a unified optional game system or this hobby's gonna die

[Philotomy Jurament]

The hobby is dying again? I just can't muster up any concern.

I look at it like this. The hobby is what it is, at whatever level it "should" be. It doesn't necessarily need to grow/expand. It doesn't necessarily need to shrink. It doesn't need to be "managed" for better growth. If it grows, that's fine; if it contracts, that's fine, too. It's a bunch of people gathering together to play games they enjoy. The market for these games will adjust to whatever the level of demand is. Systems will succeed or fail based on their merit (e.g. how well they deliver fun), and also based on the need/desire for them (thus, you might have a "better" system than D&D, but if most gamers are satisfied with D&D, it doesn't matter).

Don't try to "save the hobby" or try to come up with a plan to expand and manage it. Play the games. Get some new friends to try it. Publish stuff you like (there's where you can focus a plan to expand and market something rather than planning for the hobby as a whole). Play and buy stuff you like because you like it (i.e. NOT to support the hobby or the company or whatever).

My $0.02. (Worth less, these days, for some reason...)

 

[jadrax]

Everyone on this thread should check out this link:

WotC Demo

You'll learn a thing or two about the community you thought you really knew and understood. Some of it seems like a no brainer. Other data are quite surprising.

Nice link, thanks mate.

 

[jinnetics]

I don't really care if "the hobby" dies. I have my imagination and various rules sets that no one is going to take from me. What more is needed?

 

[Wyrmshadows]

We do not need more RPGs.

We just need a few that do what they do and do it well. Lets say for example True20, Pathfinder, and Runequest

Then we need the cross pollination of several publishers that cross pollinate each of these increasing their visibility with gamers and distributors.

D&D is supremely popular in the RPG niche market because it is ubiquitous. It was never the most well crafted, innovative, creative, etc. rpg, it was good-enough, easy to learn and enough of a toolkit that a DM could pretty much beat it into shape to fit nearly any genre. It gobbles up any popular fantasy trope it can and attempts to shoehorn it into its rule set. Its a mishmash of goofiness that can be played as goofy or it can be pruned and shaped into something more adult.

D&D is what many think when they think "role playing game" and therein lies the true strength of D&D...branding. 4e looks nothing like 3e, the same way 3e lookednothing like its predecessors. 90% of our purchasing decisions are emotionally based. Then after making the decision to buy and investing time, money, and energy into a thing do we decise to rationally come up with reasons for our investment.

There is also a direct corrolation between intensity of investment and depth of loyalty. Once we spend our money, time and energy on something we are prone to be loyal to it for a variety of reasons. The greater the investment, the greater our loyalty. We create rational reasons for our loyalties after the loyalties have first been emotionally established.

Can anyone really claim that Necromancer's "3e rules 1st edition feel" tagline and Goddman Games' retro Otusesque adventure covers are not designed to plug into an emotional resonance....nostalgia in this case.

D&D is a good game and though I am no fan of 4e, its design philosophy, or mechanics D&D from OD&D through 3.5e has been a love of mine for years. 3.5e's mutant offsping True20, Runequest, Arcana Unearthed and Conan D20 finally knocked the D&D brand from my radar and got me to look outside of D&D for good RPing games.



Wyrmshadows

 

[Aus_Snow]

I don't really care if "the hobby" dies.

It won't, regardless.

Even if the industry died, *temporarily* that is (which I don't see as likely in the short or medium term) RPGs would still be in abundance all over the place. And they have that unique appeal, so that it would only be a matter of time before someone came along and got inspired to make some more stuff.

It'll probably always be a niche hobby though. Not that this matters. I can see it still being one when we're travelling from galaxy to distant galaxy. Yes, seriously.

RPGs bring the awesome in a way nothing else has, or ever will. They're here to stay, seasonal doom-saying be damned.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

I dunno how many more systems you can get when there's already a lot of mesh up. If there are new systems, I dunno how they're going to get things across in a very new manner - granted, that's precisely why those systems haven't come out yet, people haven't found them yet. It doesn't mean they won't be found, mind you.

But really, there's tons of systems out there that are incredibly easy to use and are wonderful. I can't understand the idea of only playing D&D for time constraints - when the D&D game ends, you bring up something else. Dogs in the Vineyard, for example, takes about two minutes to fully understand, and I guarantee that you'd never be able to run that kind of game in D&D. I don't really see the money thing either - to use the aforementioned example, Dogs in the Vineyard has one book, and it's twenty two bucks, fourteen if you go for the .pdf. Look at Baron Munchausen, which you don't even really need the book for - it's literally about telling tall tales, and nothing more. It's something you've been doing since you could first talk. All you need to pay for there is the brandy you'll be drinking while playing, if you're doing it right

 

[Doug McCrae]

It'll probably always be a niche hobby though. Not that this matters. I can see it still being one when we're travelling from galaxy to distant galaxy. Yes, seriously.

Nah, we'll all be playing that game from Star Wars Episode IV with the animated pieces.

 

[jmucchiello]

I can't understand the idea of only playing D&D for time constraints - when the D&D game ends, you bring up something else. Dogs in the Vineyard, for example, takes about two minutes to fully understand, and I guarantee that you'd never be able to run that kind of game in D&D.

You've apparently never met Steve, the ranger. No matter what kind of game you want to play, he wants to be a ranger (and only his interpretation thereof -- silent, aloof, woodsman/tracker).

"But Steve, it's a political intrigue story that takes place in the king's court."
"Then I'm the ranger who goes out a spies on the foreign kingdoms."

You see, some players only play one character type and if the campaign doesn't support that type, they force it to. I don't know DitV but I doubt Steve would enjoy it.

So Steve doesn't play right? Wrong. Many D&D groups are composed of friends who play RPGs in order to hang out together. If Steve isn't playing, the rest of the group doesn't see Steve for a couple weeks/months/years. This in itself decreases the fun level of the game for the other players.

You play in a group open to other games. That's great. Not everyone does. Your experience is not universal.

 

[Aaron L]

I just want to be able to play CthulhuTech. My group will ONLY play D&D, and I REALLY, REALLY don't like 4E. But I'm STUCK with it. I'm about this close to shucking it all together and giving up gaming, because there's no one else around here to play ANYTHING with.

 

[Emirikol]

I just want to be able to play CthulhuTech. My group will ONLY play D&D, and I REALLY, REALLY don't like 4E. But I'm STUCK with it. I'm about this close to shucking it all together and giving up gaming, because there's no one else around here to play ANYTHING with.

That's EXACTLY my situation too. Group wants 4e and there's no other unified systems out there that they want to try (except star warts..which is essnetially 4e!!!!).

ARRRRGH!

jh