RPG Society: The 2005 Thread

[Ghostwind]

Want to make a difference to gaming and the survival of your favorite publisher(s)? Introduce two people to gaming and convince them that they need it in their lives. The more people enjoy and learn to plat RPGs, the better chance of becoming more mainstream. It's that simple.

 

[jmucchiello]

BU, you start this thread every few months and every time it devolves into a call for grass roots effort. Have you considered that grass roots always comes out on top in these threads for a reason? Most people enter the hobby by word of mouth. Always have and it seems they always will. Perhaps there is some other pipedream you could post about because you have done this one many times already to no effect.

 

[reanjr]

I do not care about game companies. Rather, I care about the hobby and getting new blood.

Great thing about this hobby is that it doesn't require any of the companies. They could all go out of business tomorrow and all the RPG books in the world could spontaneously combust and I can still play. If I need to find players, I simply look for them myself. I don't need advertising to bring more players into the hobby. If more players need to be in the hobby, I'll go get them.

 

[reanjr]

Isn't that what we have been doing? It does not seem to work.

How many people recruit on a regular basis? How many have had the same group for years?

The greatest explosion of new gamers occurred when the game was mass marketed. We need to be agressive, debunk myths, and charge into the future.

Out of the half dozen people I regularly play with:

2 are brand new to the hobby (months)
1 is newly returned (months; from 2e)
2 are new to the hobby (couple years)
1 is old school like me

And the two who are new to a couple years did NOT start playing because of marketing. They started playing because of me. I've never met anyone who started playing because of an ad.

 

[reanjr]

I disagree. There was a cartoon, lunchboxes, even D&D foodstuffs. It was everywhere.

From what I understand, the licensing blitz came only after D&D was all over the media due to religious haters.

 

[reanjr]

No - we should instead spread the word that RPG's promote rampant teen sexuality, underage drinking, and public nudity.

Sales would skyrocket in a month.

Don't forget clouded judgement, hallucination, and possible sudden kidney or heartfailure to proove just how intense it is.

 

[kenobi65]

You might get a decent amount of change if all members of this website donated just ten dollars to the cause, and if you somehow included people from rpg.net, the wotc boards, etc... wishful thinking and all, but unless it somehow gets started, how the hell are we gonna know if it would work or not?

Wishful thinking, indeed. Of the thousands of ENWorld visitors and subscribers, 375 donated to the Server Drive, raising a little over $13,000. And *that* was for something tangible (better site performance), and with the dangling goodie of free loot for donating.

TV SHOWS that are canceled have more fan outcry than the RPG industry.

The key word there is "outcry." Fairly few people believe there's a sword of Damocles hanging over the RPG industry, beyond some vague thought of "there's not enough new players." Fans get behind about-to-be-cancelled TV shows because they feel they have a chance to affect a particular decision, and know that they have a finite amount of time in which to do it.

Now, if there was some definite, impending doom facing RPGs -- say, Congress considering a bill that would ban RPGs, or Hasbro / WotC announcing they were pulling the plug on D&D -- that's be a comparable threat that I'd expect would be enough to mobilize RPG fans to do what you're proposing. Beyond that, I just don't see it.

 

[reanjr]

Another thing... word of mouth and some of you getting 3 new gamers a year is fine and all, but that's just 3 people. If you could somehow target more people, to get a growing interest, then how would you do it?

Of the people I currently play with, two of them have actively recruited about a dozen players between them. And some of them probably have recruited or will recruit more. I'd say words from my mouth will probably be responsible, in the long run, to bringing about two dozen gamers.

Two dozen.

From one.

Advertising can't even touch those kinds of results.

 

[DragonSword]

We recently found a guy who had loads of RPG books, but had never played it. He even had stuff that I didn't have, as our groups big bad GM. But he just read them, and never acted on it. We're doing an all-nighter next week, so we're gonna see how he holds up.

 

[CarlZog]

We recently found a guy who had loads of RPG books, but had never played it. He even had stuff that I didn't have, as our groups big bad GM. But he just read them, and never acted on it. We're doing an all-nighter next week, so we're gonna see how he holds up.

That's wild -- and very cool! I'd bet there are a LOT of folks like him out there.

Reminds me of the old days of board wargaming. Like a lot of others, I bought tons of Avalon Hill and SPI games only to play most of them by myself. It was hard finding players, and many people were happy to do it alone. Setting it up and playing both sides, thinking out all aspects of the strategy, was a sort of intellectual exercise.

Carl