The Next TTRPG (nomenclature)

Desdichado · 2026-03-12T17:16:31+0000

GMMichael said:
It could just be me... but the majority of tabletop RPGs seem to be played on computers now - not tabletops. Choose your medium: Discord, Roll20, D&D Beyond, Zoom, etc. Take Champions of the Realm: it's played on Youtube and some interesting tablet-device. With props placed on it anyway. Take a theater-of-the-mind game, like Titansgrave (?): all the table does is support dice, which could happen on a device, die tray, or the floor for all anyone cares!

I'm thinking "TTRPG" refers only to something we'd see in Stranger Things now (or Fear of Girls). What do we call today's non-video-game role-playing games? Game Master Role-Playing Games? Human Operated Role-playing Games (HORGs)?

It's just you. We play on a table.

But we never called them TTRPGs. I don't know when that somehow replaced RPGs, but it never did to me. This is the RPG hobby. TTRPG is needlessly pedantic.

...m... · 2026-03-12T18:35:52+0000

Desdichado said:
But we never called them TTRPGs. I don't know when that somehow replaced RPGs, but it never did to me. This is the RPG hobby. TTRPG is needlessly pedantic.

...when public discourse regarding CRPGs became more common than that regarding TTRPGs, the distinction became relevant: a substantial portion of the general population presumes that the term RPG, without qualification, refers to videogames...

Desdichado · 2026-03-12T18:45:39+0000

...m... said:
...when public discourse regarding CRPGs became more common than that regarding TTRPGs, the distinction became relevant: a substantial portion of the general population presumes that the term RPG, without qualification, refers to videogames...

That had already happened, and we called them CRPGs for years. It's a moot point, I also don't really care when people started adding the superfluous TT to the front of it.

RenleyRenfield · 2026-03-12T19:23:52+0000

aramis erak said:
Since Covid, finding local players got hard in Corvallis. D&D AL didn't restart.

Oh gosh you are right! AL didn't restart here either. And then I think that led to downturn of Pathfinder Society... and we also had far more Savage Worlds "Savages" .... ahhhh.... I was never part of any of that (though I was aware of it.) But I was told it has a huge decline year over year.

And Corvallis, what a lovely city name! (never know of that place until today! ) But yeah, I can see why within 45min drive of Denver I have 2 milling population - would skew my perception for sure!

RenleyRenfield · 2026-03-12T19:27:40+0000

Desdichado said:
That had already happened, and we called them CRPGs for years. It's a moot point, I also don't really care when people started adding the superfluous TT to the front of it.

Funny side note: i was yesterday years old when I first heard/read the term Crpg... and I am nearly 50

For me, until 2020, it was just "RPG" or "JRPG" = computers. And "Roleplaying" was = D&D et al.

Reynard · 2026-03-12T19:40:31+0000

Looks like someone is trying to make fetch happen.

Umbran · 2026-03-12T19:51:09+0000

GMMichael said:
I'm thinking "TTRPG" refers only to something we'd see in Stranger Things now (or Fear of Girls). What do we call today's non-video-game role-playing games? Game Master Role-Playing Games? Human Operated Role-playing Games (HORGs)?

The current nomenclature still works.
If the rules are built for in person play (presumably at a table), it is a ttrpg.
If you play that game online, that's an example of online play. If you play with electronic support, it is electronically supported play of a ttrpg.

Until you get a game that is designed for online play, rather than in-person, the nomenclature doesn't have to change.