D&D 5E (2024) DnD 5e designer [Mike Mearls] explains how INDIE RPGs are taking over

[Bae'zel]

Agreed; I tried to express the same confusion much earlier in the thread. When he says "indie" does he mean "NOT WotC"? Big companies like Paizo or Free League? Or does he mean truly independant, Kickstarter-reliant 2-person teams working out of their basements?

Or both?

 

[Parmandur]

Agreed; I tried to express the same confusion much earlier in the thread. When he says "indie" does he mean "NOT WotC"? Big companies like Paizo or Free League? Or does he mean truly independant, Kickstarter-reliant 2-person teams working out of their basements?

Or both?

Kind of all one thing, yeah.

 

[Lanessar]

Agreed; I tried to express the same confusion much earlier in the thread. When he says "indie" does he mean "NOT WotC"? Big companies like Paizo or Free League? Or does he mean truly independant, Kickstarter-reliant 2-person teams working out of their basements?

Or both?

You need to watch the interview. All of this (and most of the questions being raised in this thread) are completely answered there. He is VERY clear.

The biggest takeaway I have from all of this: There is no one who can count tables. Convention tables are not equivalent to real world tables. Of the eight people I've had play at my table, zero have ever played at a convention. Sales numbers likewise are heavily skewed by collectors, not people playing the games.

I have not participated in a convention since 1991.

I have run over 230 games since that time. My shortest campaign was 1.5 years.

I've talked to or traded notes in-person with around 25 different DMs. Most had run 5E games, most were not running one at the time I talked to them. But their tables had run 20-40+ games per year or more, with four to eight people (some are even larger). These DMs also had not been to a convention in 20+ years ("Always been meaning to go, but...")

I have never been surveyed or quizzed or ended up as a statistic on some chart or large-scale survey for RPGs. The other 25 DMs likewise have flown under the radar. Anecdotally, I have come to consider that a VERY LARGE portion of this hobby is not reflected in any metrics. They have not been asked what they play.

They have never attended a convention, answered a survey.

They have between 4-10 players per table, accounting for another LARGE chunk of people in the TTRPG hobby. These numbers are completely hidden. Their system of choice is completely unknown, and can be fueled for years by the purchase of one or two books by one person (the DM).

So I find all the musings and sales numbers to be funny, because most of the people I've talked to who purchase are collectors, not the DMs like the people above. They may run games, they may run games online, but they do not have a constant group, do not run games weekly/monthly, and are still the very small but money-heavy librarians of the hobby - not the consumers and users of the material in the sense that it was made for.

I know it's unhelpful to say "we cannot really know", but I have seen nothing IRL that changes my mind, even being present for a number of DragonCons (not as participant) and seeing the staggering numbers there - still a drop in the bucket and not representative of these "quiet but numerous" tables I encounter every few weeks at FLGS.

 

[bedir than]

still a drop in the bucket and not representative of these "quiet but numerous" tables I encounter every few weeks at FLGS.

and even the FLGS snapshot is a drop in the bucket for the even quieter groups -- at home play, at the neighbor's, at school, at a library, etc.

I've played in an FLGS twice since I returned to D&D with 5e in 2014. I've run over 300 sessions with more than two dozen players. Similar to you, no convention play. But also no FLGS play even with the half-dozen of those who DM and their playing circles. Of those two dozen players well under half bought a single book. Only two non-DMs bought more than one book.

We play in public, therefore we talk to a lot of other players, and despite playing in the home county of WotC there's no one I've spoken with who has played at a convention and nearly zero play at game stores.

 

[Reynard]

If the argument is "we can never know" then the discussion is moot. Or worse, circular. It is certainly possible to know more about peoples' ply habits, but it would require people dedicated to researching it.

 

[bedir than]

If the argument is "we can never know" then the discussion is moot. Or worse, circular. It is certainly possible to know more about peoples' ply habits, but it would require people dedicated to researching it.

A Pew survey of several nations is more likely to get a number than Kickstarters or conventions, etc

And there's only one company in the games space that has the money for such a project. No one here believes them when they share that info.

 

[Lanessar]

I posited this response not to shut down discussion, but mainly because the metrics involved aren't pertinent to the correct answer - most of the answers here aren't answering and cannot answer of "what is played the most". Re-framing the question is going to be the most useful thing here.

"The most-purchased" or "the most played at cons" are tangible and can be answered. But the question inferred by Mike's answer here (what is being played the most) is the wrong one in the context of the data supplied. Bought systems are definitely a false equivalence to played systems. Convention play is a metric of how popular a system is at conventions - but are you playing new systems at conventions or playing a system you already have?

If I was going to blow 5K going to GaryCon (considered it this year, but expenses prevented it), I would play games in systems I haven't bought yet - but maybe I'm the odd man out?

I think it would be interesting to metric out something like Shadowdark - because we have a set number of books sold, we have a date and timeline for the system, and we have an adoption rate, and we could even probably find the number of people using it at the table versus sitting on a shelf or being resold on eBay.

That would make the data useful, we could draw certain conclusions from that? Just musing out loud at this point...

 

[Reynard]

A Pew survey of several nations is more likely to get a number than Kickstarters or conventions, etc

And there's only one company in the games space that has the money for such a project. No one here believes them when they share that info.

I am advocating for a industry non profit group.

 

[bedir than]

I am advocating for a industry non profit group.

GAMA could include RPG surveys in their role

 

[Parmandur]

A Pew survey of several nations is more likely to get a number than Kickstarters or conventions, etc

And there's only one company in the games space that has the money for such a project. No one here believes them when they share that info.

Yeah, WotC has probably the best idea.