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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5148127" data-attributes="member: 80487">Yes, there is a point. It is what I pointed out to Hussar. It is what was meant in the original D&D introduction by:Now, plenty of people just are not cut out -- as referees or as players -- for what that meant. And there are plenty of games designed as anti-"sandbox", or whatever you will call it.Beyond that, there are even more people who find the demands placed on participants in those games too odious.In case you haven't noticed, RPGs are a pretty small niche of the game world.If you think we have already crossed the finish line in a race to the bottom, think again. The lowest common denominator is a lot lower.There is a shifting demographic. The relationship between RPG and video-game markets, for instance, may be interesting. At any rate, the early appeal of the original (1974) D&D game far beyond its target audience quickly suggested the potential of fantasy games with different aims.If memory serves, there were a number of studies in the 1970s-80s that found FRPers (the common term back then) were indeed above the general population's average in some characteristics. To some extent, play itself developed those -- but at least partly by placing greater demands on them.There is a synergy in the selection for an audience and what the audience subsequently selects. A design that takes a firm stand that A, B and C are "not fun" is likely to select against people who have the opposite view. With them removed from the field, the polling trend is only enhanced.The discarded demographic is still an audience, still a market, just no longer for the brand they previously bought (which now stands for what they do not want).To insist that they must be permitted no publication to their taste is absurd, at least in a fairly free market both for ideas and for commerce!</blockquote>

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