Is 4e bringing new players to the game?

[Joshua Randall]

Anecdotal, and twice removed, but I have heard from people "in the know" that Living Forgotten Realms (the 4e RPGA campaign) is absolutely surging in popularly, way ahead of where Living Greyhawk was in the equivalent 3e life-cycle.

Of course, we don't know how many of those LFR players are new to RPGs completely, but surely some of them are.

 

[Mercutio01]

Vin Diesel is most definitely *cool* still in the 14-18 year old market, at least where I work. As is Stephen Colbert who talked about Dungeons & Dragons as well. However even as popular as he is, Wil Wheaton is still a geek.

But it would be cool to get Jessica Alba to play.

 

[crash_beedo]

My group was playing 1E right before 4E came out, and converted straight over; they went from non-buyers (who used my 1E books) to players that owned their own player's handbooks and a couple of supplements spread about the group. Not exactly "new to the industry" but definitely new to buying books to support the current industry. I don't know as any of them have ever stepped into a game store, not when 4E is in B&N, Borders, on Amazon, etc.

Through word-of-mouth, I know two spin-off groups have formed (one of the Dad's who is a regular player for me formed a kid's game where he DM's for a bunch of 12-13 year olds) and chatter about my game got a friend to start DMing his own local 4E game as well.

You know, since all we have is anecdotal evidence anyway...

 

[Festivus]

I am at every gameday since I am the LFR coordinator on scene. Here is what I have seen since the launch of 4E, the bulk of the players at the gamedays event are split evenly between these three groupings:

1) Former D&D players from 1st edition who used to play when they were kids, and are now like me, 40-somethings looking to regain their youth. Yeah, D&D is my Ferrarri.

2) New D&D players, but played online MMORPG type games or Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale, etc.

3) d20 Players who were curious about how it worked mechanically.

Of these three groups, the ones I have seen with the most sticking power for continued play has been group 1. There are smatterings of other demographics, like M:tG players who overheard the D&D game whilst playing and decided to try it, but those are the big three I see.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

I have two people in my group that played RPGs before but were "PHB nah why?" guys - never getting into the game enough to see the need. Now they own PHBs and DDI subscriptions. I think the Charbuilder is going to be a real boon - eTools felt like a DM-Tool, never like a "have fun building your char" tool. I know loads of people who loved to create Baldurs Gate Chars - that fascination is going to be a very important factor.
I think the free version of the charbuilder could become the Red Box of the new millenium.

 

[S'mon]

4e-curious people often turn up at my games club, and end up playing my 3.5e game.

 

[tmatk]

...

1) Former D&D players from 1st edition who used to play when they were kids, and are now like me, 40-somethings looking to regain their youth. Yeah, D&D is my Ferrarri.

...

That's me, although I'm in my 30s. I played O, 1st, and 2nd, then went to college and didn't play at all. The only thing I knew about 3rd was from NWN - "WTF, now a HIGH AC is good? "

About a 2 years ago I got back into mini painting, which led to Warhammer. Realizing GW was getting way too much money from me, I kicked that to the curb. In my search for a smaller scale mini game, I discovered DnD minis game about the same time 4e was coming out. I eventually bought the phb.

I'm glad I did, it's a lot of fun and way cheaper then large scale miniatures game. I'm also blissfully ignorant of 3rd edition, so I have no idea what you're all fighting about!

 

[Grydan]

Wrote a really long post, then decided that brevity was best:

I play in one group, DM another.

I never played D&D before 4th edition, and probably would never have started without it. I enjoy playing it enough that, when I found that my group couldn't play often enough for my tastes, I bought the DMG and started another group.

3 out of the 5 players in the campaign I run have never played an RPG before, and likely wouldn't be playing one now if I hadn't asked them if they'd like to try.

EDIT: I should note that I work in a comics/game store, so had plenty of exposure to D&D before 4E was announced, but had never gotten interested.

Just the other day I sold a DMG, a PHB, some dice, and a Chessex mat to a couple of guys who had never played an RPG, but heard the Penny Arcade/PVP podcasts and thought it sounded like fun.

 

[gamersgambit]

Wellp.

At my store (which I've owned since April 1, 2007) there were roughly 20-25 people I could count on to buy 3.5 books when they came out. There were about 18 people who had weekly games at the store every week in about 4 groups.

Since September of 2008, when I started hosting 4E RPGA games at my store, I've seen those numbers grow exponentially. I now have 20-30 people at my store *every single Sunday* for two slots of D&D and every Thursday for one slot. I got parents bringing kids in, husbands bringing wives, boys bringing girlfriends; I got the 40-somethings undergoing their second coming, and LARGE numbers of new players who find 4E's simplicity to get into a huge boon over deciphering 3.5E books and rules.

So...yeah, I'd say, from my perspective, that D&D 4E is awesome for bringing in new players.

Just by way of comparison vis a vis copies sold:
Magic Item Compendium: 15
Monster Manual V: 18
Rules Compendium: 16

Adventurer's Vault: 37
Monster Manual: 45
PHB: 96

I know that the comparison is indirect, due to the "enthusiasm" factor and the "end of the production cycle" factor, but it's still been a huge boon to business and to new player purchases. Frankly, though, people are clamoring for new 4E content and seem to really enjoy the game.

 

[Nightson]

It's almost always easier to bring new people in near the beginning of the edition. Early on there's few books and there's still lots of new people. Later on with more splatbooks and fewer and fewer new players it gets more intimidating.