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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7848925" data-attributes="member: 996">Yes, D&D had enjoyed a fad period, fueled by the usual effervescent, ephemeral, confluence of pop culture factors that make a property hot for a while, seem unstoppable, then flop - quite possibly retaining a cult following that never gives up on it, maybe to stage a come back some day.I mean, that's just like "in 1492 Columbus sailed from Europe to America.  How did he do it?  Was it witchcraft?  Divine providence?  Did Aliens transport him to the Bermuda Triangle?  Or could the world have been round?"Yeah, the world was round.Now, the broader RPG hobby, never really rose to the level of fad, and it's questionable if the broader hobby has ever remotely mainstreamed, at least in TT.  LARPs got some mainstream exposure for a while, especially with Vampire in the 90s, and LARPers stuck their heads up in pop culture more in the oughts than TTRPGers did.  And, of course, CRPGS, and, especially MMOs are well known to the mainstream. Also, the demise of 2e was largely on TSR business missteps, not any sort of fan dislike of the system.  And, there were other things crowding D&D in the 90s.  Storyteller pulled in new players (older, and less exclusively male than the traditional D&D audience of junior-high boys) from the LARP side, and waged an early version of edition warring against AD&D on UseNet: the infamous ROLE vs ROLL 'debate,' with 2e (mostly wrongly, really) defamed as "ROLL-playing."  And, of course, CCGs exploded on the scene with a fad of their own, sucking away time, $$s, buzz, table space (and even floor space!) at conventions, and, of course, the afore-mentioned usual target audience.I think it's important to remember that the Basic set was the on-ramp to 0D&D, AD&D, and X/ECMI, and that the sales figure sited for "D&D" is presumably picking up & double-counting everyone who took the Basic Set->AD&D path. I'm sure some of those gifts were appreciated, and played, too, but:a.i: Appreciated and played it but lost interest.a.ii: Played then 'graduated' to 0D&Da.iii:  Played then graduated to AD&Da.iv:  Played then graduated to the next box in the series.b.i.  People who played AD&D, but eventually picked up copies of 0D&D, either boxed sets or individual supplements, out of historical-perspective curiosity or collector impulse,b.ii:  People who played AD&D, and, because there were so few AD&D books, at most 1/year, at the height of the fad, also bought other D&D supplements, either hoping to glean something, or because the trade-dress didn't heavily differentiate them.d.i:  and never played AD&Dd.ii:  and tried AD&D but rejected it.d.iii: and also played AD&D a whole lotd.iv:  but eventually moved on to AD&DThere's a lot of ways to explain the comparison of total books for 0D&D, B/X, BECMI, and the Rules Cyclopaedia, as 'D&D' and 1e & 2e as 'AD&D.'  But, I think, what's interesting is that choice of statistics.Core Books, which excludes modules and supplements, and, maybe even MM, going by the opening cite of Players Handbook & DMG figures, to 'units' (of course, Core books were an AD&D thing, there was no 0D&D or BECMI PH or DMG)  That is, not comparing, say, AD&D Player's Handbooks sales to Expert Set Sales (which'd be very comparable products, in that both are meant to follow the Basic Set). Or simply 'units' (all books, sets, modules &c) to 'units' (likewise)...  Or compare OD&D core (3-book box) to AD&D core to B/X......or, compare 0D&D to AD&D to Red Box to 2e... which, I expect, would have very clearly illustrated that fad cycle.</blockquote>

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