We're Finally Mainstream! Now What?

ICv2's recent announcement that hobby games have become "mainstream" heralds a new age for role-playing games. How did this happen and why should gamers care?

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[h=3]How Did We Get Here?[/h]Role-playing games have steadily been increasing in popularity and media attention. Several factors are likely at play, ranging from older players returning to the hobby (as evidenced by the Old School Renaissance ), to an increased media awareness of role-playing games (Stranger Things being one example), to a wave of nostalgia as 40-somethings now have enough buying power to introduce their kids to the hobby.

The rise of video and podcasting has also introduced gaming to a much larger population on the Internet. Conventions are more popular than ever before -- to the point that they have difficulty keeping up with the demand. Wizards of the Coast has released a new Open Game License and a distribution platform via DM's Guild. It helps that Dungeons & Dragons has also broadened its audience, with millennials (ages 25 to 34) the largest group, followed closely ages 35 to 44 and 18 to 24 — 30% of which are female.
[h=3]Six Million an Hour?[/h]According to WOTC, six million people are playing D&D at any given hour. UPDATE: I asked Nathan Stewart to clarify this number. This was his response:

There was more context given, wasn't supposed to mean every hour, but yes the aggregate was videogames/boardgames/TRPG (not novels)
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The "per hour" seems to be egregious, and is inclusive of D&D-branded video games and board games. Ethan Gilsdorf, author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, said :

For those in the know, for those who follow popular culture, the game has gained a kind of legendary status. It's almost like a badge of honor. People who used to play D&D in the 70s, 80s, and 90s are now reaping the benefits.
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The data backs up the RPG renaissance, as per ICv2:

The number of people playing hobby games, the number of people shopping at game stores, the number of stores, and exposure of hobby games at major retailers were all up in 2016, reflecting the now-mainstream nature of the hobby.
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Mike Mearls, senior manager of D&D research and design, confirmed ICv2's findings:

We're seeing a bigger audience than we've seen in a very long time—in decades. It's so easy to cast this idea that technology will be the death of D&D, but it's been really interesting to see how that has been absolutely incorrect.
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[h=3]Will the Bubble Burst?[/h]Rob Salkowitz at ICv2 predicts that mainstream geek culture will affect other industries, as they take notes on what works for geek fans and apply it to other forms of fandom like sports :

It’s been clear for a while that the fan convention template that we’ve known since the 1960s is fraying at the edges as geek culture becomes mainstream consumer culture. On one hand, this means outside players who smell the money are making their play for the fan audience, with increasingly mixed results. But on the other, it means that longtime convention organizers within the space are looking to push their shows into neighboring territory.
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Salkowitz calls this "peak geek" and it has consequences beyond geek circles:

The danger is that, even with a fresh infusion of smart nerds in strategic spots, mainstream media is still more liable than their niche counterparts to credit know-nothings on an equal basis with informed sources, misinterpret nuances, impose faulty narrative frameworks and just plain get stuff wrong when it comes to covering the business of pop culture--especially if they are taking their cues from some of the more excitable fever swamps of online fandom. The result is a much more treacherous environment for the big companies and big name creators unaccustomed to attention from these quarters.
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For tabletop games, the primary concern is that eight straight years of growth is unsustainable:

For 2017, there’s widespread concern that the number of releases is going to be greater than the market can support. "I think we're facing some challenges coming into the new year, just on the basis of the breadth of releases," one distributor told us.
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But for the moment, things have never looked better for gaming. As more and more media launches -- from videos to streaming to podcasts to television shows to movies -- geek culture will become so normalized that it may well lose some of its identity. Chris Perkins, principal D&D designer, summed up the current state of affairs:

Geek culture and nerd culture is now just culture.
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Whether or not that is a good or bad thing will be determined by us.

Mike "Talien" Tresca is a freelance game columnist, author, communicator, and a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to http://amazon.com. You can follow him at Patreon.

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[Shasarak]

The characters have stats, these stats progress over time, you actually Level, just like many CRPGs, and you actually have to put time and effort into improving these stats, even moreso in some ways than a pen and paper TRPG. (When was the last time D&D actually made you physically travel to gain a level?)

I've seen Pokemon Go participants actually get quite attached to their creatures, and it's mandatory to join a faction, and what you do reflects on your faction, encapsulating one of several actual social elements in the game. It's not an RPG, but it shares many RPG elements, enough so that a person who enjoys playing P-Go who wouldn't otherwise think twice about D&D would more readily see similarities and give it a try.

Yes, it has a lot of game elements but does it let you talk that other faction into giving you their gym?

What I am asking is where is the R part of the RPG? I got quite attached to my city in Cityville but it aint no RPG, no matter how many times I spam my Facebook friends to help me out.

And since when have you ever had to physically train to do anything in DnD other then going to the fridge to get another Coke or answer the door to get your Pizza?

 

[PMárk]

You need to get some Hungarian translation company on to Gale Force 9, stat!

If that'd be that easy! Sadly, Hungary is just too small a market now to sustain viable rpg publishing. It's a bit complicated, since back in the day we had several native rpgs, translated ones and stuff, but then a bunch of social and economical things happened and now, we have nothing new in the... last 10 years maybe? Although, because the average level of knowledge in English improved in the youth and now we have digital products (in most rpgs) we don't really need translations and hardcopies and thus it's even less of a reason for publishers to, well, make/license and publish rpgs. It's sad, it was great to read those books at age 16. I still have my poster-map of Faerün on my wall from the translated 3e FRCSG. It's worn and weary, but it just brings up such good memories.

 

[Henry]

I did not say it was an RPG, I said it had enough RPG-like elements that someone who enjoys playing it would not have to make much of a stretch to see the appeal of RPGs, because they understand so many of the basic concepts already. You might not be able to talk a faction into handing over a gym, but you're interacting, with other local players, face to face n a way that is not seen in MMORPGs, or most other computer games, frankly. The "Role" they're playing is a trainer, interacting with other trainers.

And if D&D made me do stuff physically to gain a level, I'd probably be better off.

My point is that someone playing the game would understand the concept of time and effort to improve a character in-game, just as your D&D PCs don't hit 10th level overnight (unlike, say a Fallout 4 or Skyrim character, who hits Level 20 in a couple days' play). So rather than dismissing similarities, why not capitalize on them to introduce new players to a hobby that takes all those facets and improves upon them?

 

[MichaelSomething]

I am sorry man, but since when is Pokemon Go a RPG or actually anything like a RPG?

Instead of searching dungeons for loot, you search the world for Pokémon?

 

[LordEntrails]

This is where I start to have a real problem with the WotC "brand management" and have for quite some time: D&D is the tabletop game.....

To you. Obviously not necessarily to the millions who see it as something else.

 

[Mercule]

To you. Obviously not necessarily to the millions who see it as something else.

And, that's the problem I have with it. If the "D&D brand" has become something other than what one does with the PHB, then they've done a disservice to it. Yeah, the video games are debatable, but they're still more "D&D adjacent".

Note: I do not, in any way, begrudge WotC for making additional money off their IP. I absolutely think they should be doing stuff with the Realms, Eberron, etc. to expand their influence. Novels, movies, video and board games, action figures, illithid-scented car hangers, whatever. All that stuff has its origin in the D&D TTRPG, but it is not the same thing as playing D&D.

I could be persuaded that the "D&D brand" is the bigger umbrella. What, then, is the brand of the D&D TTRPG? That's actually about the only thing I care about. I want to follow the health of that specific brand. The rest is academically interesting, because it indicates the potential to drive people to the TTRPG.

Put another way, I don't enjoy the video games or novels and the popularity of those has little-to-no bearing on whether my hobby is mainstream. I'd like to know if I'm part of the "we" being referenced in the thread title.

If the news is that playing fantasy/pseudo-RPG video games or fantasy novels is mainstream, then my response is "That's not news and hasn't been for over a decade."

 

[cmad1977]

My criteria for being mainstream is if I can wander into a mainstream bookshop and find the latest book there waiting for me.

So nope unfortunately not mainstream yet.

By your definition I guess it's mainstream where I am.


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[Celebrim]

Part of me feels like that. Because the heart of the D&D brand very much is the tabletop game.
But I'm not sure I want to saying that someone playing a board game or video game isn't "playing D&D". Not anymore than I want to say someone watching a Batman movie rather than the comics isn't a "Batman fan".

Someone playing fantasy football isn't playing football. And if interest in football dies, no one will play fantasy football.

 

[Jester David]

Someone playing fantasy football isn't playing football. And if interest in football dies, no one will play fantasy football.

D&D isn't football. RPGs are football, while D&D is a particular brand. The NFL if you will. (Or FIFA.) The NFL could die but football would remain and other teams would rise up.

Neverwinter isn't the equivalent of Fantasy Football. It's Madden NFL 17. Are people playing that not playing football?

 

[Celebrim]

Ultimately, I'm most interested in what keeps DMs in business, so to speak.

So should WotC or any other table-top RPG publisher. The success of a table-top RPG depends entirely on the ubiquity of people willing to put in the work - and let's not mistake it for anything else - required to run the game. If you aren't going to find people willing to sweat for your game, and if you aren't making more of those, and if you aren't supporting those, your game is dead. You'd be better off printing RPG-lite games like 'Zombiecide - Black Death'.

Speaking for myself, games like 'Car Wars' and 'Battletech' and 'Star Fleet Battles' that used to make me so excited (to say nothing of hexpaper war games) are largely dead for me because computers can so much better do math during play without detracting from the game than any paper tabletop game can. Even rules-lite-ish games like 'Necromunda' that still excite me some strike me as delivering an experience of play that probably would be more fun on a computer. The only thing that computers can't compete with is a good GM, or the sort of play you can create as a GM when you do your job well.

It would be really interesting to see information about not players, but tables. How many GM's does a game have. How many players does a GM have. How many players are there who would play, but can't find a GM and how many GM's are there but can't find players. I've always felt that D&D achieved its legendary status, not merely by being first, but by properly supporting the games 'ambassadors'. I can think of tons of older games that arguably had better rules than D&D, but none that supported play as well as D&D. Ultimately, it's the play that sells the game, not the rules.