I can't help but wonder--how many AD&D 1e players ARE there out there?

[Chainsaw Mage]

Every once in awhile people speak of "lost tribes" of AD&D 1e groups, still happily playing 1e after all these years. Dragonsfoot seems well-populated. I can't help but wonder, how many AD&D 1e players ARE there, really? (You can throw in AD&D 2e and D&D B/X if you want as well).

I remember hearing that some industry insider (Monte Cook, perhaps? I'm not sure) had speculated that out-of-print versions of D&D/AD&D were the *second largest* group of RPGs being played (after D&D 3.5, natch). I don't know if anyone has a reference for this, tho--it's just something bouncing in my head that I'm sure I read once.

Any thoughts? How many OOP D&Ders are there, really?

 

[pawsplay]

I know quite a few, including one guy with an entire wall of AD&D products.

 

[hafrogman]

Well, in my personal life (not including the posters on this board I mean). I know precisely zero. Now, we extrapolate the number of people I know (anyone's guess) to the population of the globe (~6 billion iirc) . . . carry the three. . . divide by pi . . . square root of the inverse of the cosine of the arctangent . . .

none.

With a possibly margin of error of ~3 billion.


Honestly? No way to know.

 

[painandgreed]

About two years ago, a friend said she was going to run a 1E game. We grabbed our old books and showed up and played weekly for several months without issue. The books are cheap and ever present at used book stores. Many people know how to play by 1E rules. It is definatly an option I have used.

 

[Henry]

Nobody has a friggin' clue. Best estimates come from sales figures of various companies willing to share, but no one has done a statistically successful poll because, frankly, there's no monetary gain in doing so. All we have are figures like Kenzer's from three years ago saying their Hackmaster PHB sold about 25,000 copies at the time and their DMG sold 15,000 copies, and so forth.

The pool of INTERNET ACTIVE AD&D players is possibly a little easier to find; Just based on message boards, I'm guessing about 1,500 to 5,000 or so. If each one accounts for a group of 2 to 6 players, you're looking at somewhere between 3,000 to 30,000 total players that internet groups account for. Of those, the ones who buy products online are pretty devoted; in other words, if there's something out, they'll scoop it up.

Note this also does not include the current player base, which has no hard figures released, and this does not cover those who play AD&D less than once per month but more than zero times per year; I myself even fall into that category. I'm mainly talking those who play at least once a month. Note finally this is all total anecdotal speculation based on the number of boards I've visited and in some cases just gazed at.

 

[Lanefan]

I can vouch for 10 - the nine players in my dual-party game, plus me. If that makes us a "lost tribe", here we are!

That said, the 1e we play has had 25 years worth of modifications done to it...but it's still vaguely recognizable as 1e, I think.

Lanefan

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I think Henry's figures might be a bit low -- perhaps the numbers he gives could be doubled or tripled. (This is based on the distribution figures for my 1e .pdf's which are hosted on Dragonsfoot.)

 

[jdrakeh]

I'd be a player if I could find other people who were interested in it locally (I own all of the essential hardcover, plus a ton of FR 1e material).

 

[Mistwell]

I wonder if there is a viable market for making and selling NEW 1e products?

 

[jdrakeh]

I wonder if there is a viable market for making and selling NEW 1e products?

Sure. Witness Hackmaster's success -- it's a heavily house-ruled version of AD&D (in point of fact, it's actually licensed for that purpose by Kenzer).