So What IS Happening to Tabletop Roleplaying Games? Dancey & Mearls Let You Know!

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At PAX East a panel took place entitled "What Is Happening to Tabletop Roleplaying Games?" It featured Ryan Dancey (CEO of Goblinworks which is producing the Pathfinder MMO, architect of the Open Gaming License, and one of the people who spearheaded D&D 3E), Luke Peterschmidt (CEO of Fun to 11), Derek Lloyd (owner of the game store 'Battleground Games and Hobbies'), Luke Crane (Tabletop Games Specialist at Kickstarter and RPG designer of Burning Wheel, Mouseguard and more), Matt McElroy (Marketing Director at DriveThruRPG/OneBookshelf and Onyx Path which currently handles WoD products) and Mike Mearls (senior manager of D&D Next). [threadcm]http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?354586-So-What-IS-Happening-to-Tabletop-Roleplaying-Games-Dancey-amp-Mearls-Let-You-Know![/threadcm]

It's well worth listening to the whole recording if you have an hour to spare, as it contains plenty of interesting summations of RPG publishing over the decades, plus a lot of discussion about how great Kickstarter is and why it's the latest of a series of industry expansions which included the advent of desktop pubishing, the Open Gaming License and d20 System License, and now Kickstarter. It also touches on the various times the RPG industry has almost died (from what Dancey says, the rise of World of Warcraft seriously hit the industry, and later surveys while he was at CCP working on Eve Online indicated that a lot of people playing these MMOs had once played tabletop RPGs but now played MMOs instead, not in addition to).

Ryan Dancey also goes into the various surveys from ICv2 over the last few years (those ones which have put Pathfinder as the world's leading RPG since 2010 or so, although he acknowledges that this isn't a great way of determining sales - they call a number of retailers and simply ask what their top five selling RPG products are within a given month; no numbers, just a ranking), which leads to an interesting exchange between him and Mike Mearls.

[pf]x[/pf]Dancey: ...some of those games we talk about being mid-market kind of games, they're on this list. Some of the games that are coming out of Kickstarter are on this list... you know, FATE is on this list, Exalted is on this list.. and then we've got this classic duel between Pathfinder and D&D. I wish I could stand up here today and say, like, you know, any given game you ask me and I can tell you how much it's sold, sales, I have no idea, it's impossible to tell. Y'know anecdotally I can tell you that most of the games on this chart, with the exception of Pathfinder and D&D, they're probably not selling more than 20,000 units of whatever their core product is, and some of them are probably selling less than 10. It's hard to say, especially with games that might have a lot of supplements and add-on products, what the total volume is for any one of these games. And ICv2 lumps them all under one category so every sale of Mutants & Masterminds is in that one line, not just the core books.

But here's the thing I want you to see... some of these games are the classic games, the games that we've seen, y'know, for four decades, and some of these games are relatively brand new games that no one's ever seen before, and they change. So the thing that was really interesting to me is that if we had looked at this data from the 90s - and I have data that's kind of similar to this that was collected by an out-of-print magazine called Comics & Games Retailer - and if you just looked at the top five games from like 1990 to 1995 they were essentially the same five games every month, month after month after month. It was very, very predictable. The frothiness, the rate at which these games change and appear on these lists and go away is new. And certainly the fact that D&D is not the number one game on this list is definitely new, that has never happened before in decades. So, there are some weird things going on in this market. We don't have any quantitative data, I can't put a number on it, but we have this kind of qualitative sense that there has been change, that it's easier to get success but it's harder to keep that success.

Mearls: Oh, I think what's interesting about this graph if you were to take the word "sales" off - I can't see the graph [something]... there's actually [something] well who's releasing the most supplements this actually maps almost perfectly to that measure. And I think the big change we're seeing is in the 90s there was a sort of expected tempo of .. for a tabletop roleplaying game you expected every month that you played Mage or Werewolf or D&D or some of the D&D settings, every month there's a new book. And what we're seeing now is that's not really, no longer the case for a wide variety of reasons. Really, outside .. I realise there's only one or two companies that are still able to do that ... we're not seeing the book-a-month pubishing pattern that we saw ten years ago. And I think that's one of the real big disruptions, where, you know, and there's a lot of questions and is that a good thing for the industry, is it a bad thing for the industry, and what does it actually mean for the ongoing tabletop hobby.

Dancey: And I think, one of the things you mentioned to me before the panel, too, Mike, was that this is really myopic, it's really only going to talk about retail sales, it's not capturing book trade, it's not capturing online, it's not capturing Kickstarter, it's a really myopic slice of the data.


The conversation continues amongst the panel about Kickstarter and the way companies use it to produce sequential different products rather than extended product lines - new games, not expansions.

Dancey: Yeah. Ok, so here's our last topic, which I suspect a fairly significant number of people in this room would like to hear Mike talk about.

(A short sequence of show-of-hand questions establishes that of the people there in the room about an equal number have played Pathfinder and D&D in the last month).

Dancey: OK, so here's my giant spiel. I do not work for Paizo Publishing. I'm not a member of the Paizo Publishing staff, and I'm not here to represent Pathfinder. I'm just moderating this panel. So, Mike is now going to debate an empty chair [laughter]... so, and, prior to this panel I sent the slides round to everybody and I said 'Hey Mike, this is kinda how I see, like, the next three years of life in the, at the top of the chart. Two big, muscular sluggers are gonna duke it out and when that's done one of those guys is gonna be laying on the mat'. And Mike said "I don't see it that way", so Mike, why don't you say what you told me about your theory.

[dnd]x[/dnd]Mearls: Yeah, so this kinda goes back to what I was talking about earlier about the change and about how we look at the ongoing support for D&D and how I think this ins actually interacting with tabletop games in general. So I kinda have this theory I developed, I call it the Car Wars theory. So back in 1987 when I was 12 I bought Car Wars, it was the game I bought that month, and it had a vehicle design system. And I spent hours and hours and hours building new Car Wars vehicles and drawing maps and just playing with all the things around the game but very rarely able to actually play the game, because in order for me to play the game I had to get my parents to drive me to a friend's house and then get that friend to actually want to play Car Wars and then teach him all the rules and all that other stuff, right? And in addition to having Car Wars, and D&D and other stuff, I had my Nintendo and I had my Apple, too. And I bought new video games at about the same rate, maybe once a month if I did chores or I had a little part time job, I'd get maybe one new game a month.

What has changed now is that a game like Car Wars can work very well if I'm not getting a new constant stream of games. Because I have all this time wherer I want to be gaming but I can't play a game, so I'll do all the stuff that exists around the game. But now thanks to, like, this phone... [something] smartphones, tablets, Steam, uh, XBox Live, PSN, I can buy games whenever I want. I mean, I was at the airport yesterday and I was bored so I bought Ten Million for my iPhone and I just started playing. Because I have other games on my phone, but I thought, nah, I'm sick of the games I have, I'm just gonna buy a new one. That would have been perfect time, back in the 80s, to like work on my D&D campaign, or read that month's D&D expansion, or work on new designs for my, uh, for for Car Wars. But what's happening is we have so many new games coming in that the amount of time that one game can take up without having you actually play that game, like World of Warcraft where you just log in and play, or you do things like in the auction house, thta's part of play, right, trying to get resources, you're selling stuff for actual money that's helping you play the game.

I believe that's what's really happening to tabletop roleplaying, is that it used to be a hobby of not playing the game you want to play. And there are so many games now that you can play to fill all those hours of gaming, you can actually game now, and that what's happening is that RPGs needed that time, we, a GM or DM needed that time to create the adventure or create a campaign, a player needed that time to create a character, allocate skill ranks and come up with a background, and come up, you know, write out your three-page essay on who your character was before the campaign. That time is getting devoured, that time essentially I think is gone, that you could play stuff that lets you then eventually play a game or you can just play a game. And people are just playing games now.

And what we're really doing with D&D Next is we're really looking at thriving and surviving in that type of market. If you've playtested the game, you see we've run much simpler with the mechanics, things move much faster when you play... one of our very early things was was to say, look, I was playing Mass Effect 1 or 2 at the time. I can complete a mission in Mass Effect in about an hour and a half. So why can't I complete an adventure in D&D in that time? Why does it take me 4, 8, 12 hours just to get from page one of the adventure to the end? I mean, yeah, you can have huge epic adventures but I can't do it in less than four hours.

Dancey: You didn't want to have 20 minutes of fun packed in 4 hours.

Mearls: Exactly, exactly, yeah. And so it's looking at the train and saying, well, things have changed, and tabletop roleplaying in a lot of ways hasn't changed with the times. We've been doing the same thing, the same way, that we were doing back in the 80s. I mean, the game mechanics have been refined but really until indie games [something] no one had taken a look at the core essence of what makes a tabletop roleplaying game tick and taken it apart and rebuilt it. And so in a lot of ways with D&D, and you know Ryan has the slide, that's really not how we see it at all because for me that boxing match, it isn't D&D against any tabletop roleplaying game, it's D&D versus the entire changing face of entertainment, of how a tabletop roleplaying game... that's the best thing you can do with your friends. But what about when you're home alone, or when you're online, or when you're waiting in line at the airport and you just want something on your smartphone. The big question for, specifically for D&D is, if you're a D&D fan, what can we do to fill that time in a way that's engaging and fun for you? To take those settings and characters and worlds, the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, or whatever, and bring those to life for you in a way that we haven't been able to before. Because in the past it's always been.. we have a new setting, we have Eberron, we're gonna do the 300-page book, and it's gonna be for the TRPG and that's where it' gonna begin, and that's where it's gonna end. All of our back-catalogue and settings, if we're not publishing it for the RPG line, are we doing anything with them, probably not, that's it, all we do is the TRPG. And so for us, it's really been looking at the entertainment, not just tabletop roleplaying, but entertainment as a whole, everything that people do now to engage themselves in stories, thinking where can D&D thrive within that terrain? And what can we do, starting with the tabletop roleplaying game, to make it more acessible, to get that new generation of players in. And even the current generation who are strapped for time and have a million other options, what can we do to live within that environment?


The too-long-didn't-read version of that, I think (and this is my own interpretation of what Mike Mearls was saying) is that much of the stuff we used to enjoy around an RPG we don't do any more, and we do other entertainment-related things with that time instead. So D&D (as in its settings and characters) is focusing on doing those other entertainment things rather than just being a tabletop roleplaying game - the goal, obviously being that "D&D" as a brand flourishes. And, further, that that means it doesn't matter to them what Paizo is doing with Pathfinder, because D&D doesn't need to be the top-selling tabletop RPG (not that I'm saying it won't be - I expect it will be again come next year, though time will tell) as long as D&D as an overall entertainment property is doing a whole bunch of things.
 

TerraDave

5ever, or until 2024
I support streamlined and faster play as much as the next person...but from what Mearls says (and Mearls says a lot of things, so we have to keep that in mind), he seems to be drawing exactly the wrong conclusion from current times.

PF is obviously not a light game. Its very AD&D. And you can kill a lot of time with it. In game, out of game. In lots of ways. (yes, like AD&D in the early 80s, it has lots of adventures, but again that may be part of the time killing part).

I find the interwebs allow me to spend more time on gaming and related things then I have in years. I mean, look at what I we are doing right now.

And look at the wider culture. Game of thrones, again, not really an 1.5 hour experience.

What he was really saying is that you should have an app to make car wars cars, and then play it through a virtual table top. Thats what he meant to say.
 

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delericho

Legend
But in regards to the former, there isn't time because that's just a symptom of adulthood.

While that's true, it's a reality that D&D will have to face if it wants to survive*. Simply saying, "oh well, that's just the way it is" and then carrying on as though it isn't won't really help.

So... If time is precious, and especially if big blocks of time are very hard to come by, what to do? And here I think Mearls is broadly correct:

- Ideally, we want a game that requires minimal preparation, that can have that preparation done in a snatched few minutes here and there, where that preparation can be done without needing access to the physical books that are on our shelf at home, and where that preparation is itself fun.

- We want a game that allows us to fit the maximum fun into the time available. If I've got a three hour session once every two weeks, I don't want to spend two and a half of those hours slogging through a single throwaway encounter - I want to resolve that battle quickly and move on. (Conversely, though, if that encounter was the climactic battle of the multi-year campaign, I'm probably more than happy to dedicate a whole session to it. And yes, both of the above are real examples from actual play. :) )

Of course, what constitutes 'fun' differs from group to group. :)

* Note quite true, of course - they could sack their current, greying customer base and bring in a whole load of kids to replace us. But assuming they've tried that and it didn't work so well, they're stuck with us. :)
 

Kramodlog

Naked and living in a barrel
I wonder if this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You produce less RPG books and more apps and then you say "Look! The apps are doing better than the books!".

I agree with those who are saying part of the fun is preparing the next quest. Just sitting and imagining what players could do next, what that vilain is thinking or what the artifact can do is a lot of fun. It is like being a playwright. Granted it is not for everyone, but RPGs aren't for everyone.

Campaigns take way too much time? They do. I've spend years as a player and a DM on the same campaign with the same PCs. And we didn't finish most of them. It didn't stop us from doing an other, still do it now and still have tones of fun!

I think Mearls' strategy is to make D&D be everything except a PnP RPG. Maybe there is money there. Maybe.
 

delericho

Legend
I wonder if this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You produce less RPG books and more apps and then you say "Look! The apps are doing better than the books!".

Well, that depends what your agenda is. I would expect WotC's agenda to be "make as much money as possible", so if they say the apps are doing better then it's because the apps are genuinely doing better. But, of course, I could be wrong about that.

Campaigns take way too much time? They do.

Actually, I'm not sure I agree. Almost all of my best game experiences, and all of my most satisfying ones, have been in campaign form. Seeing the whole thing come together over time (sometimes a long time) offers something that a one-shot just can't. (And I've had some wonderful one-shots over the years.)

So I'm not sure it's as simple as asking how much time they take - a better question is probably how good a return of investment do they offer?

I think Mearls' strategy is to make D&D be everything except a PnP RPG.

I hope it's to make D&D be everything as well as a PnP RPG. But, again, I might be wrong.
 

Kramodlog

Naked and living in a barrel
Well, that depends what your agenda is. I would expect WotC's agenda to be "make as much money as possible", so if they say the apps are doing better then it's because the apps are genuinely doing better. But, of course, I could be wrong about that.
But if you want to make as much money as possible, wouldn't you want to milk the RPG a bit more? Not enough to saturate the market after 1-2 year, but produce a bit more than what we are seeing? The currents rants about the RPG boils down to people saying they do not have the opportunity to give WotC their money and are losing interest into doing so.

Actually, I'm not sure I agree. Almost all of my best game experiences, and all of my most satisfying ones, have been in campaign form. Seeing the whole thing come together over time (sometimes a long time) offers something that a one-shot just can't. (And I've had some wonderful one-shots over the years.)

So I'm not sure it's as simple as asking how much time they take - a better question is probably how good a return of investment do they offer?
We're saying the same thing. I thought that was clear originally.

I hope it's to make D&D be everything as well as a PnP RPG. But, again, I might be wrong.
I was being a bit dramatic, but is does seem like the RPG is secondary in his strategy.
 

delericho

Legend
But if you want to make as much money as possible, wouldn't you want to milk the RPG a bit more?

I'm not sure. From a simplistic point of view, sure - I would. And yet... Mearls' comment about too many books of any sort being bad for the game blind-sided me rather. I would never have seen that coming.

And assuming that is, indeed the case, I would need to re-think my suggested strategy.

(What doesn't change, though, is that I'd certainly prefer more material - specifically, I'd like a full conversion of Eberron. What we've got so far is good as far as it goes, but it's necessarily brief.)
 

GameDaddy

Explorer
I imagine D&D has quite the challenge on it's hands - instead of competing with other tabletop games, it's now putting Drizzt & Co. up against Tolkien, Star Wars, Marvel, and the like. Hope it can deliver!

Actually it does just fine, The Boy is 12 and we did our first D&D Friday night last Friday with the Moldvay B/X set. Somehow this managed to get stretched into an all day Saturday affair, and we played D&D for half of Sunday too. So it turned into an epic 3 day D&D Marathon This week the boy has been running around with the Red Book and Rules Cyclopedia close at hand. Now he could play playing Xbox or Wii, or hanging out with his friends, but he wants to be playing tabletop D&D... it is, and I quote from him;

"Better than video games! The dungeon tiles are great! When can we play again?"

Tonite of course for a short spell anyway.

Never did get cramming 20 minutes of fun into four hours. Here D&D was always, and continues to be three hours of fun, with a half an hour for lunch, and half an hour or so to socialize and catch up on what happened last time.

10,000 ways to die, The Friday Night D&D Thread;
http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=31647

...and a couple of new pix from the Saturday and Sunday games! And of course dinner, and moar D&D tonite! The boy has an iPhone 5 but he's rather be playing tabletop B/x, so there! Also got a request to run a Middle Earth game. Just haven't decided on the rules set for that, but are leaning towards Runequest at the moment.


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...and the rest of the photobucket collection from last weekend!

http://s158.photobucket.com/user/aw...iday Night Dungeons and Dragons?sort=3&page=1
 

Umbran

Mod Squad
Staff member
Supporter
But if you want to make as much money as possible, wouldn't you want to milk the RPG a bit more?

That depends on how much in money and resources is required to milk that market. As I believe others have said - it isn't about just absolute number of dollars, but on return on investment.
 

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