Were the 80s really the Golden Age of D&D?
- Thread starter Mercurius
- Start date
Mercurius
Legend
If 3E only sold in the hundreds of thousands, which I can believe that it did, where did Ryan Dancey get the figure that there were (around 2000?) 6 million D&D players worldwide? That is a number that I have a hard time believing. I mean, what is the current estimate? I would be surprised if more than a million people are currently playing in a D&D campaign of whatever edition.
Can you shed light on this, Erik?
Bullgrit
Adventurer
I like hearing from people I trust with inside information, but you have to watch how to present your information. For instance:
"The boxed sets were ubiquitous in the 1980s . . . in just about every 12-year-old's house."
That's stretching it a bit, isn't it?
"Most modern gamers got their start with it, etc."
You're saying that more than half ("most") modern gamers started D&D ~25 years ago.
No matter how factual your information may be, you weaken my ability to trust you when you throw hyperbole around in your statements like this. It makes me doubt everything else you say.
Bullgrit
Desdichado
Hero
As far as I'm concerned, the 80s were not the golden age of D&D. The products, art, layout, design and general feel of those were fun enough for me at the time, but they're embarrassingly amateurish, hackneyed, and arbitrary in annoying and difficult ways. I played a fair amount, but even then I was always fighting against the system, because it positing a model of play that wasn't what I was looking for.
Plus, I was a goofy teenager, and so were the kids I gamed with. My games, regardless of what rule system I use, have matured and improved light years since then.
So for me personally, no... the Golden Age started about five or six years ago when we had more or less assembled our current gaming group, we were all playing 3.5; a system we all liked a lot, and our games were more regular and more interesting than anything that had come before.
Plus, I was a goofy teenager, and so were the kids I gamed with. My games, regardless of what rule system I use, have matured and improved light years since then.
So for me personally, no... the Golden Age started about five or six years ago when we had more or less assembled our current gaming group, we were all playing 3.5; a system we all liked a lot, and our games were more regular and more interesting than anything that had come before.
I'll leave it to Ryan to explain that number, but were I to guess I'd say it was based on the extensive survey data WotC collected circa 1998 or so, in preparation for the new edition. At that time they likely determined the average length of a customer's association with the brand, and extrapolated the 5 million number from some combination of that percentage and the total number of D&D rules sets sold to date, possibly also with a "bump" from what in the magazine business is called "pass along" readership, which is to say some representation of players who play regularly, but who are not regular buying customers.
To put it another way, I'm certain that the survey asked questions about how many players were in each person's group, and what percentage owned the Player's Handbook, etc.
I noticed that WotC is now quoting 6 million, and have no clue where the additional 1 million gamers came from (except perhaps an extrapolation based on the time that has passed since the original survey).
I seem to remember that the number is meant to represent all editions, so that's one reason why it's a lot higher than the unit sales on any particular edition.
Put simply, I don't have a tremendous amount of faith in that number, since it's obvious that no one surveyed everyone in the world and it's thus an extrapolation, or "best guess" based on other data. I have no concrete reason to think it's lower than that, but I must admit to feeling some frustration during my tenure at both the RPGA and Dragon magazine, because even when we felt like our numbers were really high, they never amounted to more than a small percentage of the "total" number of worldwide D&D players quoted by marketing.
But then, by that metric, even the enormously successful third and fourth edition core rules sales combined only reached a fraction of this worldwide player base, so I would guess that selling any one product to a significant cohort of this extrapolated number would have a very high Difficulty Class regardless of the product in question.
--Erik
To put it another way, I'm certain that the survey asked questions about how many players were in each person's group, and what percentage owned the Player's Handbook, etc.
I noticed that WotC is now quoting 6 million, and have no clue where the additional 1 million gamers came from (except perhaps an extrapolation based on the time that has passed since the original survey).
I seem to remember that the number is meant to represent all editions, so that's one reason why it's a lot higher than the unit sales on any particular edition.
Put simply, I don't have a tremendous amount of faith in that number, since it's obvious that no one surveyed everyone in the world and it's thus an extrapolation, or "best guess" based on other data. I have no concrete reason to think it's lower than that, but I must admit to feeling some frustration during my tenure at both the RPGA and Dragon magazine, because even when we felt like our numbers were really high, they never amounted to more than a small percentage of the "total" number of worldwide D&D players quoted by marketing.
But then, by that metric, even the enormously successful third and fourth edition core rules sales combined only reached a fraction of this worldwide player base, so I would guess that selling any one product to a significant cohort of this extrapolated number would have a very high Difficulty Class regardless of the product in question.
--Erik
Fine. It doesn't really bother me one way or the other if you trust what I'm saying or not.
I agree that the "most 12 year olds' house" thing is hyperbole, but it comes pretty close to my experience as a 12-year-old in suburban Minnesota in the middle 1980s.
I was at a convention here in London on Saturday when this very topic came up in a seminar attended by about 30 gamers. When I asked who had started gaming with a version of the 1980s basic set, far more than 50% of the audience raised their hand. Granted, that's anecdotal, but it's an anecdote I've seen repeated every time I've ever asked that question at a convention, and I'd be interested in seeing a poll here on EN World that proved otherwise.
Granted, convention attendees and EN World regulars are a self-selecting bunch and the plural of anecdote is not data, but I'm willing to rely on my personal experience on this one.
You, of course, are left to your own devices.
--Erik
Well, probably sometime in the decade 1981-1990. Earlier and later basic D&D releases were similar in content, but not packaged in red boxes.
If it is so, then it seems pretty clearly to reflect a decline in growth. If you're attracting as many players in the first place, you're not retaining them at the same rate.
Glyfair
Explorer
Good art, design, layout, etc. are not necessarily something that shows a "golden age."
In my experiences, the most common usage of "Golden Age" is comic books. The comic book Golden Age is considered to be the late 1930s through the 1940s. During that Golden Age comic books were first published, starting defining how the genre worked, and were very popular (hugely popular, in fact the best selling comic book then probably sold more than every comic book sold today).
One thing that wasn't true about the comic books is that the art and stories would not be considered acceptable today. Some was pretty good, but even then they were limited by the technology and economics of the products.
The defining characteristics of a "Golden Age" of D&D would probably deal with when a framework for what was expected as part of the game started to form, and when it started a surge of popularity.
I wouldn't necessarily say the 80s were the Golden Age of D&D. It was probably late 70s, early 80s. I would, however, say that the 80s were the Golden Age of roleplaying games. The early 80s saw a burst of diverse games hit the market. Most roleplayers I met tended to avoid D&D and tended to play a large variety of RPGs, with their favorites tended towards their individual tastes.
DrunkonDuty
he/him
Well as far as I can tell Golden Ages are very much in the eye of the beholder. I remember my grandad talking about what a wonderful time he grew up in: the Great Depression and WW2. I mean, WTF?
So I say YES! The 80's were the Golden Age. Not just for DnD but for feathered mullets, pastels, leg warmers, bad synth pop and oh so many things I can't list them all.
cheers, off to listen to my Spandau Ballet collection.
So I say YES! The 80's were the Golden Age. Not just for DnD but for feathered mullets, pastels, leg warmers, bad synth pop and oh so many things I can't list them all.
cheers, off to listen to my Spandau Ballet collection.
Hussar
Legend
/me slinks in to bring this up again.
Please don't beat me, I'm just bringing it up.
Instead of golden age/modern age, how about different terms? If you look at the artist critical meaning of Rennaissance and Post Modern, I think that better mirrors the 1980's/present day differences.
Note, I specifically DO NOT MEAN the historical meaning of Renaissance. I'm ONLY referring to its art criticism points. Which, in broad strokes are: talented amateurs working mostly independently to create works that follow some fairly similar general lines. Whereas post modern works tend to be much more self examining, and much more likely to be cross-examined by many more people before the finished work is presented.
In other words, its the difference between garage bands and professional ones.
Please don't beat me, I'm just bringing it up.
Instead of golden age/modern age, how about different terms? If you look at the artist critical meaning of Rennaissance and Post Modern, I think that better mirrors the 1980's/present day differences.
Note, I specifically DO NOT MEAN the historical meaning of Renaissance. I'm ONLY referring to its art criticism points. Which, in broad strokes are: talented amateurs working mostly independently to create works that follow some fairly similar general lines. Whereas post modern works tend to be much more self examining, and much more likely to be cross-examined by many more people before the finished work is presented.
In other words, its the difference between garage bands and professional ones.
Similar Threads
