Forked Thread: Is ENWorld an accurate cross section of gamers?

[the Jester]

Dude, your poll question and thread title are completely different.

Please take this in the spirit in which it's intended (in other words, a gentle request, not BOSSIN U AR0uND), but... next time, please don't use "false advertising." The "DM or player" poll comes up about every three weeks, and I just answered it last night in another thread. This advice is for everyone- when you post a poll, the thread title should be the same as, or at least relatively close to, the actual poll question. YMMV and all that... but personally, I usually skip polls that are significantly different than the thread title, because you've pretty well already invalidated the poll, since half the respondants aren't going to read the question in the poll, just the thread title.

As to the actual question of the thread title- NO, ENWorld is pretty darn far from a representative sample of gamers.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Simply, no, Enworld is not a reliable cross-section.

 

[Filcher]

As to the actual question of the thread title- NO, ENWorld is pretty darn far from a representative sample of gamers.

This is my vote as well.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

ENWorld is a self-selected population who share a number of common traits, including...

(1) Using their discretionary free time to read and post about gaming
(2) Desire to engage in gaming-related conversation with strangers
(3) Desire to keep up with the news in gaming releases

Any self-selected, non-random population is - by definition - not a representative sample.

This. This community differs in distribution from gamers in general because of its level of investment in gaming, not (directly) because it skews towards DMs. It just so happens that DMing and level of investment are correlated.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

And, of course, there's the fact that ENWorld is seriously skewed towards D&D/d20 so...no...not accurate as far as the overall gaming populace is concerned.

 

[Umbran]

The more accurate term is "representative sample", rather than "cross section". I have to agree with several others - EN World members don't constitute a representative sample of RPG players. Most gamers don't go onto internet messageboards to get D&D news - ergo, we different beasts.

(4) tends to be open to 3d party and house rule additions to the RAW

History (and personal experience) suggests that RPG players in general are open to house-rule additions. House rules aren't specific to RPGs - they're an aspect of playing games, in general. So, I'd not use that as a differentiator.

 

[Wormwood]

DM on Sunday. Player on Thursday.

And for the first time in years, both roles are equally fun!




That said, I'm the only one out of the 10 or so gamers I roll with who has any interest in ENWorld (or any gaming forum).

 

[amysrevenge]

I'm the only one out of the 10 or so gamers I roll with who has any interest in ENWorld (or any gaming forum).

And I'm one out of forty or so.

 

[ki11erDM]

The idea that enworld is an accurate cross section of people that play D&D is laughable and horribly egotistical, you can safely ignore anyone that says that it does as a troll.

Is Enworld an important and great sight that more games should come to? Yes.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Define serious gamer. I am the only person from several groups that I know posting here . Yet, nearly every one of those players games at least 2-4 times per week (including larps, but not PbP or MMORPGs which would double the number of games ) whereas I only game 3-4 times a month total (no larps, no pbp and no computer games).

Other have given pretty good definitions. I'd basically say it comes down to investing time and money.

Also not that were just talking about tendencies here. I (and I don't think anybody else) is saying that every person on Enworld is a serrious game, or that every serious gamer is on Enworld. It just has a higher percentage that the world at large.