That old WotC survey of gaming habits...

[Chacal]

Our average number of players is a little bit more than 4, but our campaigns last much much longer than one year on average ( 3-10+).


Chacal

 

[Grazzt]

No and no. My original campaign ran from about 1985 to 2000. We started a new one with 3e (and converted to 3.5 as well), which has been going ever since.

 

[Arnwyn]

* An average D&D campaign lasts about 1 year.
* An average D&D campaign has 1 DM and 4 Players.

I have two questions:

* Were you one of the players surveyed?
* Do the above conclusions match your experiences of D&D?

*No, I was not surveyed.
*Absolutely not. In fact, none of the WotC conclusions matched my experiences. Not even one. (WRT the examples above: I have 6-7 players, and my campaigns run for *years* - in fact, they don't stop until there's a TPK.)

 

[KB9JMQ]

I wasnt surveyed.
My experience is 3 players and a DM and campaigns usually last 6 months.
Then schedules conflict and we end up restarting a new one later. Usually with the same people though.

 

[RyanD]

In fact, none of the WotC conclusions matched my experiences. Not even one.

How about "most players of D&D are older than 18?"

How about "people who DM spend more money than people who just play?"

How about "people who play with miniatures spend more money on the RPG hobby than people who do not?"

How about "more people play with homebrew settings & campaigns than use prepackaged D&D worlds?"

How about "more men than women play D&D?"

Ryan

PS: For anyone who is curious, the actual data we released can be found here:

http://www.thegpa.org/wotc_demo.shtml

 

[Crothian]

Yes, I was surveyed. And yes that seems about right.

 

[RFisher]

* Were you one of the players surveyed?

No.

* Do the [below] conclusions match your experiences of D&D?

* An average D&D campaign lasts about 1 year.

Over my RPG career, the average has probably been much, much lower than that. The really good campaigns last probably 9 to 15 months, but there are many more that die prematurely.

* An average D&D campaign has 1 DM and 4 Players.

That seems about right. For every group of 6 or 7 there's probably been a group of 3 or 4. The largest group I ever played with was 10 or 11, and I have no desire to try that again.

 

[Davelozzi]

No, I wasn't surveyed, and no they don't match my experiences. I've generally had groups of 7-8 players and campaigns that run several years. But we generally don't play as often either. The past couple of years we've played regularly every 3-4 weeks for 3-4 hours each. Earlier campaigns were much more sporadic, sometimes being several months between sessions, with sessions lasting 6-8 hours.

As for Ryan's questions...

Yes, all the gamers that I know are over 18.

Yes, as DM, I spend far more on games than any of my players.

Yes, I spend more money on games when we use minis.

Currently, yes, we use a homebrew setting. Historically, no, all my previous campaigns have been in published settings (FR, Dark Sun, Star*Drive).

Yes, more men than women. When we were young, the players were all male. Currently, I'd say the average is more like 1 girl for every 4 guys.

 

[diaglo]

I have two questions:

* Were you one of the players surveyed?
* Do the above conclusions match your experiences of D&D?

yes, i was surveyed.

not all of the conclusions matched my experiences with D&D.

but some did. at the time....i was playing CRPGs a lot.

i still hadn't gamed with any female gamers other than at conventions.

i was a DM and i spent the most money.
i had 14 players in my original group. we gamed for 10+ years. we incorporated rules from all the editions as they were added.

our homebrew world had all the other settings included (Known World, Harn, Wilderlands, Greyhawk, Lankmar, etc...)

 

[T. Foster]

Thanks for posting that link, Ryan! That study has some interesting information in it, but I disagree with some of the conclusions drawn from it. For one thing, there's a *huge* swing between the Current age of the players surveyed and the age at which they learned D&D:

current age: <18=41%, >18=59%
learned D&D: <18=79%, >18=21%

This seems extremely significant to me, but isn't really remarked on at all in the summary (or at least the part of the summary released to the public). The following conclusion is drawn based on the current age breakdown alone:

More than half the market for hobby games is older than 19. There is a
substantial “dip” in incidence of play from 16-18. This lends credence to
the theory that most people are introduced to hobby gaming before
high-school and play quite a bit, then leave the hobby until they reach
college, and during college they return to the hobby in significant numbers.

It may also indicate that the existing group of players is aging and not
being refreshed by younger players at the same rate as in previous years.

The last bit as presented as an afterthought, but when the second set of data is factored in it becomes increasingly obvious (at least to me) that this is THE explanation, and the notion that gamers quit playing in high school and return in college is nothing more than an illusion. Gamers generally start playing at age 12-15. Many/most of them quit by the time they reach age 16-18. The high number of over-18 gamers represents not people who stopped playing for awhile and started back up but rather the fact that when the currently over 18ers started playing at age 12-15 (in the 80s) there was a larger pool of total gamers, and thus even factoring in attrition their numbers will still look significant compared to the diminished total player pool of 1999. It also suggests (at least to me) that players who began play under the earlier editions of the rules (OAD&D and Classic/'Basic' D&D) are more likely to have kept playing the game than those who bean play under 2nd edition (more on this below).

The other thing which stuck out to me and doesn't seem to have been factored into the survey (or at least the portions of it released to the public) is the effect of changes in the game itself over the years -- from OAD&D and Classic D&D to core 2E to 2E+splatbooks & product-glut -- on the attitudes and habits of players. Repeatedly conclusions are drawn in the study based on age of players and length of time spent playing the game that are extrapolated into age and experience-based trends with no apparent consideration given to how changes in the shape of the game might also factor in. For instance:

This data tells us that the longer a person plays the game, the longer the
game sessions get, the more people play in the game, and the longer the game
progresses before a character restart. In fact, if you look at the >5 year
group, you realize that the big jump in long sessions and in average
sessions before a restart means that the 5+ year gamers are playing the same
characters, on average, vastly longer than anyone else.

One conclusion might be that it takes 5 years for a player to really master
the system and really figure out what kind of character that player likes to
play.

Is this really what the data tells us? Who's to say that these differences in playing style are really due to experience alone and not to what ruleset the players were originally introduced to? Certainly OAD&D and Classic D&D (which encouraged play all the way to level 36!) emphasized long-running campaigns and characters, but in 2E -- when new campaign settings and option-filled splatbooks were being pumped out at lightning-pace -- this emphasis doesn't seem to have been nearly so prevalent, making it unsurprising that players introduced in that era would have less propensity towards long-term campaigns and characters.

Another similar observation from the study:

(Interesting note: Monthly spending in the first five years after adoption
of the game is higher than the spending beyond that point – though the
older, longer gamer plays the game more, they spend less. This may relate to
the frequency of a character/game restart.)

Or it may relate to the fact that they started playing the game before TSR started glutting the market with mediocre product and are more discerning in their purchasing, whereas the less experienced gamers think of product-glut as the 'natural' state of the game and are thus more willing to buy products of dubious quality and utility...

Anyway, even though I disagree with some of the conclusions drawn from it, I'd still like to give a big thanks to Ryan for providing this link (and condusting the survey in the first place ). I'd be interested to see a new survey like this done in the 3E/d20 and D&D Miniatures Game environment so see how things might have changed.