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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 5013238" data-attributes="member: 59082">You both bring up some interesting points here that fit well together. RPGs may very well be stabilizing into a sustainable size which will likely be toned down from the heydays of the mid-80s and the early 00s, and will also probably gradually dwindle (just as wargames apparently have) as Gen-Xers age and more and more stop playing or eventually die (eek!). We are seeing this already: While there is a very strong core of perennial RPGers, it still seems that the community is losing more than it is gaining. I could be wrong, though.But what may happen is that, as Kafen implies, we enter a (new) Golden Age as the cycle comes full circle. And it is partially because of the fact that it stabilizes into a smaller, sustainable size that this could happen. I think this has something to do with finances--that when money (and profit) become too deterministic you invariably end up crashing. A sign of this might be if Hasbro eventually decides to sell the D&D IP and a group of fans/designers get together to buy it and reinvigorate D&D "for the people." Don't know if this could or would happen, but one does wonder what Hasbro would do with D&D if they decided it was not worth the trouble of publishing a 5th edition. They could just put it away in cold storage (which might benefit a company like Paizo enormously if they stick around long enough).Eventually what I think may happen is that the industry will dwindle to the point where it is held aloft by a relatively small, although still strong, core of diehards. The interesting thing is that there will still be new players, just not that many. But I remember meeting a guy in his 20s that was into Big Band music; one of my current high school students is really into Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies, while the vast majority of students don't even know who those two guys are. My point being, RPGs will probably be "relegated" to that sort of cult classic status. I say "cult classic" rather than "classic" because they'll never be accepted by the bulk of the mainstream or even the academic world as classic in the way that a violin or bebop jazz or oil painting is; but they will be cult classics in the mould of 1950s scifi or 1970s fusion or 80s alt rock.</blockquote>

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