Dragon Con: A Sight of the Schism in action

[Toben the Many]

I believe a large proportion of the LG games reported were home games as well. I don't have any citation but I seem to recall seeing a report that the majority of LG games were home games. So, if the speculation of the RPGA organizers is true, why would LFR be in decline at DragonCon compared to the home game? Or has it just not penetrated that particular community yet?

Yes, indeed, many LG games were played at home. However, the RPGA organizers at DragonCon stated that the trend seems to be going over more to the home games at this point. They cited a number of reasons, the economy being one of them. Obviously, going to a convention is expensive.

However, they also stated that people are simply skewing further in that direction naturally. From my completely armchair perspective, what this would indicate to me would be a case of, "Hey, I found a group I like. I'm going to go home and game with them." Back at the advent of 3rd Edition, there was this massive buzz and many people either came into the hobby or returned to the hobby. So there was a need to find other people to play with.

In terms of penetration, 4th Edition clearly penetrated the DragonCon crowd very well. There were a fair number of 4th Edition games last year at D*C. However, the word about them at the time was fairly negative. One comment that stuck out in my mind was a lack of any role-playing in the demo module that was run for a table.

 

[MrMyth]

One thing that a lot of the RPGA organizers speculated is that most of the Living Forgotten Realms games now are being played at home. This is (according to them) killing small, regional gaming conventions. If this is true, I think it would be rather sad. One awesome thing about the advent of 3rd Edition and the RPGA at that time was the explosion of small conventions and the opportunity to meet other gamers from around the country. That said, I have no idea what a good solution would be. Allowing RPGA games to be played at home is great and necessary. But it would be nice if we could give people who went to conventions some kind of carrot.

There is definitely a much smaller focus on conventions - but rather than it all going into home games, what I've actually seen is it instead resulting in a much bigger focus on game days. Living Greyhawk was all about the conventions - and as a dedicated player in the setting, they were great, and filled with opportunities to deal with major plot and special events. But... they were also really for the hardcore and most dedicated players, requiring a much larger investment in the plot - not to mention the simple time investment of spending a weekend gaming.

LFR, instead, is very much geared for bringing in more casual players, and focuses on making things much easier and more welcoming for new players. Emphasizing game days were you have a few tables running, and pretty much anyone can come and join in and check it out. More dedicated elements will surely show up as the campaign continues, but the initial focus has very much been on making things accessible. And... from my experience, it has been very successful. (And according to WotC, the RPGA has been seeing record numbers with LFR.)