Slice of gamer pie?

[Longtooth Studios]

What an interesting place we find ourselves as tabletop gamers today. We have all seen systems move up and down on our shelves, and some games are all but unheard of now. Now it would seem that our options far exceed our time to invest. Several editions of D&D, Pathfinder, Warhammer, White Wolf. the list goes on. So you have to wonder how the next few years are going to pan out.

Who is going to get the biggest slice of the gamer pie?

To be honest it is exciting to me. I like the thought of gamers sampling individual systems and finding what works for them. The more energy that is place into tabletop gaming, the longer we will get to enjoy the hobby. Personally I think we are heading into a golden age of tabletop RPGs, but that is another subject entirely.

I am interested in see what this respectable community thinks.

Will we see a dividing of the gamer base, or will players dabble as they have done over the years. Will there be one system to unite the clans?

 

[ggroy]

Will there be one system to unite the clans?

I would be skeptical of this happening again in the near future. The bursting of the d20 bubble and subsequent d20 glut, put an end to that.

 

[caudor]

I suppose it depends on how successfully table top vendors can bring new players into the community.

I know WotC appears to be trying this with the upcoming Essentials line of products.

With the rise of online gaming (I'm looking at you WoW), getting new players is the key to keeping the hobby alive.

 

[Longtooth Studios]

I have been seeing new players thankfully. Warhammer has become a gateway from the MMORPG in my opinion. Defecting digital players seem to be picking up miniature war games first, and at our FLGS we are seeing huge crowds at the big tables. I have managed to net a couple of them.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I started with Warhammer before getting into D&D myself, including going to gaming stores to buy and play with Warhammer minis. Not sure if Warhammer had a direct link to me trying D&D, though. On the one hand, the same guy who introduced me to Warhammer also introduced me to (and DMed) my first D&D (one-shot) game. On the other hand, I had long since known of D&D by then, and I can only wonder why I didn't bother checking it out before then.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Will we see a dividing of the gamer base, or will players dabble as they have done over the years.

Dabble mostly, is my guess. It seems to me that the majority of the divisive crap is online.

Will there be one system to unite the clans?

I hope not. Also, it's unlikely, so hoping is a bit redundant anyway.

 

[TerraDave]

I agree that there seems to be a lot of games and gaming out there.

However, I also think 3E/d20 was a one time event driven by excitment at a new D&D that seemed to be all things to all current and former D&D players (it wasn't, but that is another story) and the OGL. In that sense things have gone back to normal.

Of course, Ryan Dancy and others felt that this fragementation helped bring the market down...

 

[delericho]

Will we see a dividing of the gamer base, or will players dabble as they have done over the years. Will there be one system to unite the clans?

All of this has happened before; all of this will happen again.

We'll probably see a long, slow period of decline, lasting about 10 years, before someone (someone new? someone old?) comes along with a "hot new thing" that brings in a lot of new blood, followed by a period of revival.

At around that time, we'll probably see a new version of D&D that somehow goes a long way towards healing the rifts in the gamer community. But we're a ways off from that yet, and any attempt to artificially create such an edition are doomed to failure.

 

[Longtooth Studios]

Branching out strengthens the game overall. Individual GMs incorporating into their games all the best elements that are presented by system developers.

I really don't mind spending a little money on a new system as things progress. It is fun to figure them out and glean from them the richest morsels.

I guess I started thinking about this because my son has started playing in my weekly game, and soon he will be grouping with his own friends to play. The future of the game is his, and so I ponder where it may be going.

 

[renau1g]

My thoughts are when someone can find a way to combine all the strengths of the tabletop game, which IMHO is the roleplaying and general social setting that the games provide, with the strengths of the digital age, taking care of a lot of the crunch-y bits, so players can focus on what the fun part is, whether it be hack n slash or deep immersive story telling (and everything in between).

I think WoTC has a decent first step with the CB (which is not without faults, but it's the best character generating software I've ever used).