People who read games but don't play...are there more than me...

[Pseudonym]

What I am wanting to ask is--are there more of us like that out here? I remember hearing from somebody at TSR or WoTC said that there was an audience of people who just read and collected the games and didn't play them.

I guess I'm like that in regards to Burning Wheel. Mainly because I can never seem to get a game going.

I do recall a few folks over the years who never played, but buy and read everything. Mainly they were hangers-on at the local game shop or obsessive world-building DMs who never actually had players.

 

[Fifth Element]

If I were to play all the games I read, I would need to be independently wealthy and live on a planet with 27-hour days.

I only have so much time for actual gaming, but I enjoy reading games even knowing I'll never have the time to play it.

 

[Steel_Wind]

After the first... ten years or so as a player, I never played very much after that. Basically, after law school about 20 years ago, I stopped playing RPGs as a player (we probably share that in common, I'm guessing), though it's not quite the same thing as I have always continued to be the DM/GM quite regularly over the years.

Funny thing is, recently I started actually playing in a Pathfinder campaign. Tournament participation as a player aside, it's the first time I've been playing regularly in an ongoing campaign in 23 years.

I can admit to the same phenomenon when it comes to me and boardgames, however. I have a very large collection of boardgames - the overwhelming percentage of which I have never played. Mostly, this is not out of choice - I simply have a very hard time finding people to play boardgames with. The guys in my gaming circle are not much for boardgames.

I do think there is one element of "reading/collecting" RPGs where most of us can relate to your experience - and that's reading RPG adventures.

I can assure you that I have a vast collection of Dungeon Magazine. I'm missing 3 issues in the entire print series. There are hundreds of other EN Worlders with similar complete collections. And I can also assure you that the overwhelming majority of those adventures have not been played by any single collector of Dungeon, ever. No way - no how.

But unlike RPG rule material, I have read that vast majority of those adventures. "Readability" of a Dungeon adventure was always an important element in distinguishing what made a "good" Dungeon adventure from a "bad" one. There was more to it than that of course - but readbaility was always an important element.

I have frequently been inspired by a good Dungeon adventure and often swiped stat blocks or a map here and there. But actually running the entire adventure? Relatively rare. I'm guessing that's happened maybe 20 times or so, in total.

So reading the adventures for entertainment purposes has always been an important element in enjoying adventure material in Dungeon among all or nearly all RPG enthusiasts.

But also, my group plays D&D. I am interested and inspired in all kinds of games. I enjoy reading about games I'll likely never play. i've read Agone, Cthulhu, Og Unearthed, Mousegard, Star Ship Troopers, Buffy and Angel, etc. I've not played any sessions of those.

Experiences similar to this are also very common amongst gamers. Many groups have a predisposition towards a particular genre and tend to default to D&D in some form as their game of choice. I would guess that a significant number of non- D&D rpg books are read and collected more than they are ever played and used in a game setting as they were intended to be used.

 

[Shemeska]

I have almost the entire print run of W:tA for oWoD and V:tR for nWoD. Have I ever played either game? Nope. Were/are they fun to read as inspiration for other games or just because they're freaking cool to read? Heck yes.

 

[ggroy]

I've scavenged through 2nd handed bookstores and FLGS bargain bins over the years, and picked up all kinds of stuff which I've never really played or used much. Stuff like GURPS supplements, oWoD, Palladium stuff (ie. Rifts, etc ...), etc ...

(Sometimes older rpg books at 2 to 5 dollars a pop, is hard to resist as an impulse buy).

Despite rarely (or never) playing many of these games, some of these books are great reads.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

I haven't played at all since shortly after 4e came out. Hadn't played before that since.... somewhere between when 3e came out and the advent of 3.5.

Hadn't played before that since freshman year of college.

So.... yeah, I fit into the category. I'd like to play substantially more, in theory.

 

[BryonD]

I used to be that way.
I'd buy a lot of games never expecting to play them, I just enjoyed reading them.
Sometimes I'd get some good ideas, and sometimes I'd even decide the game needed some playing. But those were bonus. Mostly I just enjoyed reading the ideas.

For whatever reason, I haven't been a collector nearly like I used to be for quite a few years though.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I have done a lot of rules reading and find it entertaining. I do prefer a good novel though. I am not surprised that you (op) don't like playing, but like the rules. It gets YOUR imagination going, while in an actual game you have to cooperate. It might be that you would actually prefer DM-ing. Although DM-ing requires some flexibility...

I am lucky enough to have a stable RPG group and have had for over 10 years now. (Not all the same people, but many).

Regarding having tried with several DM's... Well, for me it is actually the game system as well. I have found that I am basically set in the Dnd mindset. Nothing else I have tried have really gotten me interested. Maybe it's like this for you too, except you haven't found what you like.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I am sort of in this situation right now. I am involved in some PBP games right now, but I have not played in a F2F group since last summer. I do not buy many books, but I do find myself hanging out at different RPG forums reading what is up with the RPG world.

 

[JohnRTroy]

Nice cross-section of responses.

I guess I'm a lot like Festivus, because that's a lot of what I do with adventures and source books and the like.

For me it's not a temporary thing but rather the whole tabletop experience I think "interferes" with my imagination. It's probably the same reason I don't like Live Theater and (both live and TV) sports events. I consider it a personal quirk. I have found I like Computer RPGs, though I more enjoy ones with plots akin to Bioware than rogue/nethack clones.

Steel Wind's readability statement is important as well for me. I loved articles that are a good read. One major reason I find 4e alienating to me is that while it may be a good game, it's a bore to read, and I found some of the newer adventures (where they were setting up the battle maps on dedicated pages for each encounter) kind of boring.

I guess what I am curious to find out is if game companies ever took this into account. I remember somebody from TSR or WoTC say that they did and/or realized that this market existed.