D&D 5E Interview with Wolfgang Baur and Steve Winter about their 5E adventures.

[Ruin Explorer]

The rise of video games? In 1983? I highly doubt it. Console games were just getting started and computer games were in their infancy. Hardly something that was going to come up and crush the D&D juggernaut at the height of the fad. In the 90's, when those studies were done? Sure, I'd buy that.

But I really don't think you can point to Pac Man as the reason people stopped playing B/X back in the day.

I tend to agree, here. I was introduced to D&D in 1989. I'd been playing video games since 1984. D&D was approximately four million times more exciting, right from the moment I heard it described, and didn't draw on the same time pool (being social/group-based). The only time I saw a genuine conflict was with MMOs post-1999, which drew on so much of my free time that they hurt all other activities, and were also social. Plus 1983 was the year of the video game CRASH! So... hmmm...

 

[Neonchameleon]

I've seen more DMs burn out during the 3e/4e era than during the AD&D era.

I counter your anecdotal evidence with my own.

I've seen more GMs burn out from 3.X than every other RPG I've seen combined. As for 4e, it's actually far simpler than AD&D - I couldn't for example put the AD&D rules onto a trifold. (I could get many of them on there - but I'm not even sure in my reads through I've found all the 1e rules).

4e's biggest problem for new GMs is that Keep on the Shadowfell was one of the worst adventures ever (even The Forest Oracle was funny), and adventure quality matters a lot. And the 4E red box was ... not great. If I'd started by trying to run KotS I'd wondered why I even bothered. (And pre-Essentials most of the other published adventures weren't much better).

 

[Mistwell]

But, that's the point Rem. There is no evidence either way.

That's not true, and this equivalency game you're trying to play holds no water. We know sales were very strong for those rules-lite systems. We know "DM Burn-out" or quitting was not an answer returned on surveys for why people quit - even if taken years later if that was a serious issue it would have shown up somewhere on those answers. So we have some evidence rules-lite systems don't have that impact. We have NONE that they have that impact.

which is simply not true. Not for B/X D&D anyway. The rise of video games? In 1983? I highly doubt it.

That was 5 years after the Atari 2600 came out, and nearing the peak of video game arcades.

But I really don't think you can point to Pac Man as the reason people stopped playing B/X back in the day.

It was the downward trend in ALL TABLETOP GAMES is what I said. AD&D was dropping as much as B/X, so it had no relationship to rules-lite or rules-heavy or even board-game.

 

[Cybit]

Regardless; the game should be easy to run, period. The game needs to be fun from the get go. KotS really, REALLY hurt that initial perception of 4E in my opinion, and I think WotC realized this with Hoard of the Dragon Queen / Rise of Tiamat.

Have a fun test tonight of how easy 5E is to DM - one of the kids has been working on a single shot session; I'll report back how it goes.

 

[SkidAce]

Humorous side note

But I really don't think you can point to Pac Man as the reason people stopped playing B/X back in the day.

Anecdotal, cause you knew someone was going to say it...

I did have a several occasions where folks cancelled from our game to go to the video arcade at the mall...Joust was the culprit I suspect, along with Tempest.

 

[Remathilis]

But, that's the point Rem. There is no evidence either way. Trying to claim that there was, in any direction, doesn't actually prove anything. All we have is anecdote. I mean, if we want to pull up experience, of the 20 or 30 people I gamed with regularly in the 80's (not at the same time obviously - different groups), I'm the only one who is still in the hobby. So, it's not like losing large numbers of gamers hasn't been a thing all the way along.

Precisely. NC made a claim, and Misty asked for proof. NC backed it up with Anecdote. I refuted with anecdote. Since you can't claim either one of our anecdotes are not valid, they cancel each other out.

Mistwell claimed, "Not all conjecture is equal, and yours is not sound. We have a lot of data from those years, and "bad DMing" didn't even make the top 50 reasons people left. They had strong sales for many years, they did surveys, and they know a big part was the rise of video games and the changes in society that led away from tabeltop gaming in general.

I won't defend Mistwell, he does a good job of that himself.

which is simply not true. Not for B/X D&D anyway. The rise of video games? In 1983? I highly doubt it. Console games were just getting started and computer games were in their infancy. Hardly something that was going to come up and crush the D&D juggernaut at the height of the fad. In the 90's, when those studies were done? Sure, I'd buy that.

Yeah. Remember, D&D was sold all through the 80s. During that time lots of fantasy games came out: Heroes of Might and Magic, Ultima, Legend of Zelda, Dragon Warrior, and others were available. They were a niche market, but so is D&D. I'm fairly certain some gamers who would have wandered into D&D found games like Ultima and never played PnP gaming.

 

[Hussar]

Yes, but the D&D bubble was burst by about 1983. None of the games you are talking about were even on the market by then, let alone before then in order to have any impact on the number of players.

Yup, B/E sold like hotcakes. Everyone and their mother wanted in. D&D was pretty mainstream. But, it didn't last. And it was largely done as a mainstream thing by 1983. That wasn't video games. That wasn't the rise of home consoles. And it certainly wasn't Everquest. The research that Mistwell is talking about, is talking about the late 90's where you do actually have video games taking over the hobby.

Why did the bubble burst? Well, it just wasn't able to hold people's attention. How many of those purported million copies of Mentzer Basic wound up being stuffed away on a shelf, never to be looked at again? Who knows that if maybe those rules had a been a bit more user friendly, maybe people would have stayed with it. Probably not, IMO. It was a fad and fads fade. That's just life.