Board gamers are even more into trying new board games than the people here saying "yeah just give a different rpg a try sometimes." Board gamers have their favorites that they play more often, but yeah they are really into trying new stuff.
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Play Something Else
- Thread starter Reynard
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Golden Bee
Explorer
My board game club plays 50+ new games a year.
Mannahnin
Scion of Murgen (He/Him)
This was a particular stance he held for a couple of years in the 70s, into the beginning of the 80s. It was a product of first, his territoriality over the concept of RPGs and rival publishers horning in on "his" territory, second, his legal disputes with Arneson and desire to differentiate AD&D from the more open-concept, always-customized OD&D, and thirdly, his desire to standardize play to support tournament consistency and what we might call now a consistent customer experience. These words got immortalized in the 1E DMG and stuck in the memories of us older gamers forever. That being said, he also said in the same book that once you had tried out the rules as they were and understood them, you had every right to change things.
There's a somewhat parallel case in miniatures wargaming with Warhammer / 40k. Lots of younger gamers who're only really familiar with and invested in that one massive brand.
I can certainly see a Warhammer/40k player being distinct from a Miniature Wargaming player -- every new one you take on is a lot of $$$ right?
I guess we have Chess (or other particular board game) player vs. Board Game player, Bridge player vs. Card player, MtG player vs. CCG player, etc... And a lot of those feel pretty common.
In those other areas, I wonder how common it is for the specific player to show up in the more general groups discussions, or vice-versa.
Potentially, I guess, but TTRPGs are a special case because of the way they are played. Unlike with most other games, the participants of a TTRPG actually create the game they are playing as they play it. As such, a broad base of experience with other games provides a real effect on the rest in a way that playing Monopoly won't have on playing Clank!
Wofano Wotanto
Hero
As someone who self-defined more as a minis gamer than a roleplayer for many years, that isn't entirely true. You can certainly spend a lot of money on a new game, sure, but there are lots of options that won't cost you anywhere near as much. The costly stuff is either GW stuff (which is simply overpriced because they can get away with it) or rule sets that call for large (often triple digit) numbers of models, the latter of which are frequently historicals from an era where blocks of troops were the norm and the figure-to-manpower ratio is small so 20 figures only represent (say) 200 men rather than 200 or even 2000. There are other exceptions. Games that call for very specific, elaborate scenery drive costs up, and there's enormous variation in price norms even within the same genre and time period - historical figures are generally cheaper per model when compared to the same scale of fantasy/scifi, but (for ex) Old Glory historicals are much cheaper than, say, Artizan's are.
But those high-buy-in games are an exception these days, not the rule. "Skirmish" or "warband" gaming has expanded a lot since 2000 or so, and there are hundreds of them on the market now. Most only require a rulebook and 20 or so figs per player, with many only needing a handful of models. Those are generally pretty inexpensive, with buy-in as low as $30-50, easily on par with RPG costs. Even GW keeps their small-skirmish games down in the $100-200 range, and that's mostly due to high starter box pricing. Moreover, many rule sets are designed to work with as wide a range of figures as possible rather than being linked to a bespoke range, so you can often use things you already own in your new game system - including ones you've 3D printed yourself at home, which is stupidly cheap once you have teh equipment in the first place.
One of the bigger successes in the last few years was a Car wars-style game called Gaslands that was specifically designed to work with toy Hot Wheels cars (which cost less than $2 most of the time and are often found on sale) that you've converted by gluing on some weapons and armor plates. You rarely needed more than a few cars for that, so you could get what you needed off a $30-35 rulebook and maybe $10 worth of figs - or for those with kids, by quietly looting the toybox. The fact that it also played well helped, but the low price tag was a big draw too.
It's definitely one of those hobbies where the more stuff you've accumulated for it over time, the less it costs you to expand further. The initial cost of painting supplies and a rule set and figures for it is steeper than most RPGs, but from there on you can often pay less going forward by using your existing collection. Does tend to take up a lot of storage space though, especially terrain pieces.
Minis are really only a super-expensive hobby choice if you buy into GW's nonsense about being the hobby. They aren't, any more than all roleplaying is D&D. There are minis rules that fit just about any budget and set of interests out there, just have to find them.
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GrimCo
Adventurer
I'm strongly in the camp: "Play what you enjoy playing".
Learning new system requires time. TTRPGs are collaborative play, so it requires time from all the people in the group. If you all spend couple of hours reading and learning new system (for more crunchy stuff), then couple of hours playing game and if you don't have fun, or if it's less fun than your usual game of choice, one can make argument that it's time wasted. Time is very precious and limited resource. Also, there is monetary cost, but that is secondary.
For some people, TTRPGs in general are their hobby. For others, Game (insert your favourite system) is their hobby. FE at this point, i would call myself D&D and WH40K player. Those 2 games are my hobbies. I have certain amount of time per week for each of my hobbies, so to play another game, my usual game goes away for that week.
I think someone mentioned conventions for trying new games. That's awesome. If you live in USA. There aren't that many conventions outside of USA, and majority of european conventions are in UK ( UK alone has about same number as the rest of the Europe combined). Non gaming conventions that do have gaming in their programs, usually have only PF/D&D games, since those are most popular and easiest to find GM-s.
Learning new system requires time. TTRPGs are collaborative play, so it requires time from all the people in the group. If you all spend couple of hours reading and learning new system (for more crunchy stuff), then couple of hours playing game and if you don't have fun, or if it's less fun than your usual game of choice, one can make argument that it's time wasted. Time is very precious and limited resource. Also, there is monetary cost, but that is secondary.
For some people, TTRPGs in general are their hobby. For others, Game (insert your favourite system) is their hobby. FE at this point, i would call myself D&D and WH40K player. Those 2 games are my hobbies. I have certain amount of time per week for each of my hobbies, so to play another game, my usual game goes away for that week.
I think someone mentioned conventions for trying new games. That's awesome. If you live in USA. There aren't that many conventions outside of USA, and majority of european conventions are in UK ( UK alone has about same number as the rest of the Europe combined). Non gaming conventions that do have gaming in their programs, usually have only PF/D&D games, since those are most popular and easiest to find GM-s.
SableWyvern
Adventurer
Encouraging convention play also tends to assume that the gaming is more important than the people you're gaming with -- a lot of meta-advice about gaming seems to come from people for whom the gaming is the thing, and who they're doing it with is a secondary concern.
I have zero interest in playing RPGs with random strangers, and while I might have fun should I choose to do so, I have plenty of things I'd much prefer to be doing with my time.
The actually leads into another point being overlooked in this discussion: even though I think we all probably agree that experiencing new things is, in general, a good thing, that doesn't mean there's any particular reason those new things need to include new RPGs. It's a pretty big reach to suggest that someone playing Traveller as their only RPG would gain more value out of also playing Shadowrun, Ars Magica and Dungeonworld, than they would if they used the time they're being encouraged to allocate to new RPGs to instead play a full campaign of World in Flames, read The Guns of August, and try out some new restaurants with friends.
GrimCo
Adventurer
@SableWyvern
I get you and I'm currently in the same boat. Our weekly game isn't only about gaming, it's primarily about us as a group of friends getting together and spending time together alone. We do play, but we talk, laugh and hang out. D&D is just "excuse". We are bunch of mid 30-early 40s married guys with small kids. Time to hang out with friends is limited and at the premium. While i do like to meet new people and i meet almost all my now good friends trough the D&D, it wasn't in conventions, but rather home games where i knew somebody from group.
I run occasional session or two of some other games, but guys like what they like, we found system that ticks all the boxes and we have most fun playing that. TBH i think just goofing off and talking smack is more fun for us than trying to learn and play new game that's more complex than Knave or Cairn.
I get you and I'm currently in the same boat. Our weekly game isn't only about gaming, it's primarily about us as a group of friends getting together and spending time together alone. We do play, but we talk, laugh and hang out. D&D is just "excuse". We are bunch of mid 30-early 40s married guys with small kids. Time to hang out with friends is limited and at the premium. While i do like to meet new people and i meet almost all my now good friends trough the D&D, it wasn't in conventions, but rather home games where i knew somebody from group.
I run occasional session or two of some other games, but guys like what they like, we found system that ticks all the boxes and we have most fun playing that. TBH i think just goofing off and talking smack is more fun for us than trying to learn and play new game that's more complex than Knave or Cairn.
SableWyvern
Adventurer
We definitely enjoy the gaming, and we wouldn't be gathering every two weeks for lengthy sessions if we didn't, but the people and the shooting-the-naughty word parts are equally important.
I like to run different systems; generally I run out of steam with a given game after 18 - 24 months. Everyone else is happy for me to run whatever I want. There was some disappointment when I announced last session that I intend to wrap up the current campaign, but everyone is on board for the next one (which will be Dark Sun using Mythras). I have to admit, I have it pretty good, with complete power over the style of game, and a stable group of eager players, most of whom are pretty committed.
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