D&D General As of 1998, 4,007,685 people played AD&D in the US, as estimated by Ben Riggs.

[darjr]

Really? Because I get the opposite impression from my limited dips into these threads.

It’s the condescending that bugs me mostly. And I do think you’ve been mostly wrong. I can appreciate skepticism even if I think it’s incorrect.

But Dangit the belittling isn’t appreciated.

 

[darjr]

And I know I’m FAR from perfect.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Bluh. I particularly dislike estimates of this kind which are obviously much, much more exact than the actual data permits.

From the given data, anything between 2 million and 10 million could be perfectly consistent. The former if the re-buy rate is higher and the average number of players per DM is lower (e.g., if it was typical for players to also become DMs down the line.) The latter if the re-buy rate is low and most DMs had more than four distinct players.

Specifying down to individual people is silly. Just call it 4 million and be done with it. You're making assumptions which shift these values by hundreds of thousands, specifying down to thousands, hundreds, tens, and ones is false precision.

 

[overgeeked]

It’s the condescending that bugs me mostly. And I do think you’ve been mostly wrong. I can appreciate skepticism even if I think it’s incorrect.

But Dangit the belittling isn’t appreciated.

I've done neither. I've pointed out that we only have Ben's word on those numbers. I've pointed out that he's making a long string of pure guesses and bad assumptions in his math to reach the number touted in this thread. That's neither condescending nor belittling. I get that people react poorly when someone they've decided to trust is questioned, but again that's neither condescending nor belittling.

 

[darjr]

Shannon Appelcline and Ryan Dancy comment i the Facebook post.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I've done neither. I've pointed out that we only have Ben's word on those numbers. I've pointed out that he's making a long string of pure guesses and bad assumptions in his math to reach the number touted in this thread. That's neither condescending nor belittling. I get that people react poorly when someone they've decided to trust is questioned, but again that's neither condescending nor belittling.

I would disagree with the assertion that your tone has been perfectly neutral. Things like, "As reported by you, with zero corroborating evidence. But, okay...sure." "Sigh." Etc. That's pretty condescending. You clearly have some beef with the (many, and highly arguable) assumptions flying around here, and I generally agree that this is speculative at best and misleading at worst. I would still say you expressed your point with discourtesy.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Shannon Appelcline and Ryan Dancy comment i the Facebook post.

Any summary for those of us who keep the Tome of Visages at arm's length?

 

[rooneg]

Any summary for those of us who keep the Tome of Visages at arm's length?

Shannon Appelcline thinks it could be much larger, due to bigger groups (10-20 people in some cases) and the fact that people go in and out of them, so individual DMs could have many players. Ryan Dancy thinks it‘s a reasonable estimate, probably the right order of magnitude, within a few million of the correct number.

 

[John Lloyd1]

Bluh. I particularly dislike estimates of this kind which are obviously much, much more exact than the actual data permits.

From the given data, anything between 2 million and 10 million could be perfectly consistent. The former if the re-buy rate is higher and the average number of players per DM is lower (e.g., if it was typical for players to also become DMs down the line.) The latter if the re-buy rate is low and most DMs had more than four distinct players.

Specifying down to individual people is silly. Just call it 4 million and be done with it. You're making assumptions which shift these values by hundreds of thousands, specifying down to thousands, hundreds, tens, and ones is false precision.

I do thinking going down to 7 digits of precision on this was being deliberately cheeky. I appreciate that it's giving us a rough idea of the player base at that time. It could be 2 or 10 million. Or even a bit outside that.

 

[overgeeked]

Shannon Appelcline thinks it could be much larger, due to bigger groups (10-20 people in some cases) and the fact that people go in and out of them, so individual DMs could have many players. Ryan Dancy thinks it‘s a reasonable estimate, probably the right order of magnitude, within a few million of the correct number.

Considering the early default assumption of large groups, and longer established record of history/research on the topic, I’m more inclined to agree with Shannon.