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Message: <blockquote data-quote="delericho" data-source="post: 5012185" data-attributes="member: 22424">To hit a "mass market", an RPG would need to cut the buy-in right down - the rules would need to be massively simplified, the emphasis would need to be on pre-gen adventures, and those would almost need to be written so that the DM can run them without having read them beforehand. It's also likely that most games would use pre-gen characters, and the whole thing would have to be set up to run from start to finish in an evening (~3 hours).Problem is, once you do all of that, you have probably generated a game that is of little interest to the existing core of gamers. And if they desert the game en masse, the game is dead in the water.(And, besides, once you do that you've probably reached a point where there's very little to recommend tabletop RPGs over boardgames or WoW. The latter already does an adequate job of simulating the 'important bits' of D&D for a great many people.)I'm inclined to think RPGs will always remain a minority hobby, and that RPG companies would be wise to accept that and work accordingly. (Arguably, WotC already do.) What they probably could do is work to "expand the minority", by highlighting the things that D&D does do better than other games (ongoing freeform play), but also be working to reduce the minimum 'buy in' that is required of new players.</blockquote>