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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
As of 1998, 4,007,685 people played AD&D in the US, as estimated by Ben Riggs.
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8708691" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Well.... that's not entirely true. There is a claim being made here that depends on the value being pretty close to the listed value, and not merely within an order of magnitude of the actual value.</p><p></p><p>That claim is implied in the graph shown which compares the expected number of players in different eras. Because, as it stands, it is communicating the idea "there are ten times as many D&D players now as there were in 1998." That claim is...dubious. Given some of the assumptions that are questionable (such as only 4 players per DM and not 6 or more, and assuming a <em>very</em> high re-buy rate, among other things), it seems this is specifically aiming to he a low-ball estimate of yesteryear's player count and a rather inflated estimate of current player counts, leading to that dramatic comparison when the actual comparison is likely to be much closer together.</p><p></p><p>Given further things, we expect high retention and low attrition. That is, US population growth (e.g. we've gained about 60 million new bodies since the late 90s and about another 60 million between 1974 and 1998) means there are literally millions of young people who could join up. Further we expect a comparatively slow rate of losing old players by death: someone who was in their 20s in 1998 is in their 40s-50s in 2022, attrition by death is going to be fairly low. Further, major growth is likely with three new product lines (or four, it you count 3.5, or five, if you count PF1e, both of which I do). That means whatever numbers we claim for 1998 should mostly stick around and be part of the current numbers today. If the actual values are closer to 8 million and 20 million, that would be more than double, but far far less than over 10x as much.</p><p></p><p>That graph is really where the claim is being made that we should take this estimate as actually representative and not simply a plausible guess.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I have seen these "irrefutable" claims. They suffer from the same faults that tell us that the "Doomsday Argument" does, which asserts that, by the Copernican Principle (that is, "you are probably not a special observer") and a few other things, humanity is essentially guaranteed to go extinct within the next ten thousand years, purely based on average human lifespans and the estimated number of humans that have ever existed. The "irrefutable" nature of these claims is not nearly as ironclad as you imply. Merely choosing the wrong kind of prior (one of the main objections to DA-type arguments) is enough to trash the entire approach.</p><p></p><p>There are also issues like addressing the "grabby alien" hypothesis which can explain the divergence between the Drake equation estimated value and the actual amount of intelligent life observed, among other concerns.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8708691, member: 6790260"] Well.... that's not entirely true. There is a claim being made here that depends on the value being pretty close to the listed value, and not merely within an order of magnitude of the actual value. That claim is implied in the graph shown which compares the expected number of players in different eras. Because, as it stands, it is communicating the idea "there are ten times as many D&D players now as there were in 1998." That claim is...dubious. Given some of the assumptions that are questionable (such as only 4 players per DM and not 6 or more, and assuming a [I]very[/I] high re-buy rate, among other things), it seems this is specifically aiming to he a low-ball estimate of yesteryear's player count and a rather inflated estimate of current player counts, leading to that dramatic comparison when the actual comparison is likely to be much closer together. Given further things, we expect high retention and low attrition. That is, US population growth (e.g. we've gained about 60 million new bodies since the late 90s and about another 60 million between 1974 and 1998) means there are literally millions of young people who could join up. Further we expect a comparatively slow rate of losing old players by death: someone who was in their 20s in 1998 is in their 40s-50s in 2022, attrition by death is going to be fairly low. Further, major growth is likely with three new product lines (or four, it you count 3.5, or five, if you count PF1e, both of which I do). That means whatever numbers we claim for 1998 should mostly stick around and be part of the current numbers today. If the actual values are closer to 8 million and 20 million, that would be more than double, but far far less than over 10x as much. That graph is really where the claim is being made that we should take this estimate as actually representative and not simply a plausible guess. I have seen these "irrefutable" claims. They suffer from the same faults that tell us that the "Doomsday Argument" does, which asserts that, by the Copernican Principle (that is, "you are probably not a special observer") and a few other things, humanity is essentially guaranteed to go extinct within the next ten thousand years, purely based on average human lifespans and the estimated number of humans that have ever existed. The "irrefutable" nature of these claims is not nearly as ironclad as you imply. Merely choosing the wrong kind of prior (one of the main objections to DA-type arguments) is enough to trash the entire approach. There are also issues like addressing the "grabby alien" hypothesis which can explain the divergence between the Drake equation estimated value and the actual amount of intelligent life observed, among other concerns. [/QUOTE]
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As of 1998, 4,007,685 people played AD&D in the US, as estimated by Ben Riggs.
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