What does it take for an RPG to die?

[Reynard]

Yeah, there are. Most years there’s a release or two for it, and they do sell and get discussed in ways that suggest they’re getting played.

This underscores a important point too: our bubbles will make us think a game is dead when outside our bubble it might have a thriving community and new material. I would have guessed FUDGE died with the rise of Fate, but that is apparently untrue.

 

[Sketchpad]

There's several RPGs I own (and sometimes play) that I'd qualify as "dead" - Alternity, Boot Hill, Gangbusters, Fading Suns, Spycraft, Star Frontiers, TSR Marvel FASERIP, Gamma World, FASA/Last Unicorn/Decipher Star Trek, WEG Star Wars, Rolemaster & Middle Earth Roleplaying (by Iron Crown) - just to name a few.

Thing is, there are communities for some of those games. MSH, d6 Star Wars, and MERP all have thriving online communities. Rolemaster has had some new stuff released lately from Iron Crown. I think I heard new rumblings about a new edition of Spycraft as well.

Oh, wow. People who play dead games are actually necromancers!

Necrogamers for the win. Games never truly die. Like artifacts in Indiana Jones, they just need a person to discover them again.

 

[chuckdee]

No game is 'dead' as long as it's alive for someone, IMO. Now, it might be little heard of or very hard to obtain, but the thing about this particular medium is that it doesn't take much for a game to be played and enjoyed.

 

[Stormonu]

Thing is, there are communities for some of those games. MSH, d6 Star Wars, and MERP all have thriving online communities. Rolemaster has had some new stuff released lately from Iron Crown. I think I heard new rumblings about a new edition of Spycraft as well.

TBH, I was not aware of any of this.

 

[Thomas Shey]

TBH, I was not aware of any of this.

Its much more obvious if you hang out in spaces that are more general-RPG oriented and/or soem Old School spaces (when you avoid the ones that seem to think its scandalous to refer to anything but D&D like that).

Sometimes some of those communities may well be bigger than recently published games of some note. They may be eroding over time (they're often centered around people who played them back when they were still going concerns, and as those of us in that category, well, die, there may not be younger people with the interest picking up the slack in the same numbers, but that kind of thing can take a long time.

 

[Sketchpad]

No game is 'dead' as long as it's alive for someone, IMO. Now, it might be little heard of or very hard to obtain, but the thing about this particular medium is that it doesn't take much for a game to be played and enjoyed.

Exactly.

Its much more obvious if you hang out in spaces that are more general-RPG oriented and/or soem Old School spaces (when you avoid the ones that seem to think its scandalous to refer to anything but D&D like that).

Sometimes some of those communities may well be bigger than recently published games of some note. They may be eroding over time (they're often centered around people who played them back when they were still going concerns, and as those of us in that category, well, die, there may not be younger people with the interest picking up the slack in the same numbers, but that kind of thing can take a long time.

Hey, I resemble that remark. In all seriousness, that's why I try and keep my favorite games alive by discussing or running them. There are some fun games that have come out in the last decade or so, but I enjoy introducing some lasting favorites to new players. How else do we infect... err... induct... I mean... introduce new players?

 

[numtini]

No game is 'dead' as long as it's alive for someone

And this thought has left me pondering when the last game of KABAL was played.

 

[Gradine]

I am interested in how many TTRPGs (whole games or even supplements) are lost media. A recent study found that 87% of all video games created before 2010 are no longer legally available, and I imagine the ratio for TTRPGs isn't much better. I also know that because legal archiving is difficult at the best of times, the best actual archivists are so there's a lot fewer individual games that are actually fully lost. But I also imagine that that number isn't zero. I wonder what games or supplements we know used to exist, but nobody bothered to scan it and nobody knows where to find a physical copy anymore.

 

[Sketchpad]

I am interested in how many TTRPGs (whole games or even supplements) are lost media. A recent study found that 87% of all video games created before 2010 are no longer legally available, and I imagine the ratio for TTRPGs isn't much better.

Surprisingly enough, there are quite a few "old school" games that have had success as PDFs through DriveThruRPG and it's affiliated sites. Many of the older TSR games have found their home there, including different editions of D&D/AD&D, Star Frontiers, and more. I've seen older Rolemaster books up on the site, and the generic branded d6 stuff and older Traveller books are listed as well. Not to mention a successful DC Heroes RPG kickstarter that reprinted the whole line.

 

[Autumnal]

Yeah. A fair number of gamers dislike PDFs. Many of them will pay substantially more for print over PDF. (Insert 400 pages of argument over format here.) But the fraction who outright refuse to ever use PDFs even when they’re the only alternative for a product is pretty small.