What does it take for an RPG to die?

[Wofano Wotanto]

When a game is no longer being published it's pretty much dead, even if PDF copies are available for sale, or 3PP continue to publish material.

Ha. By that standard, D&D 5e is a dead game - as well as every single previous edition. Don't think many people will agree with that, somehow.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

A stake through the heart, cut off its head, stuff its mouth with garlic.

I feel like this is pretty basic knowledge, folks.

 

[SlyFlourish]

So many! And as many as you block, more keep springing up. It's so frustrating.

I think that's fairly reasonable. Though, while groups like mine exist, #6 will never be true. We'll play anything any of us wants to run.

Would your contention be that all 7 of these need to be true to consider a game dead?

I think of that list as "ranges of dead-ness".

When a game's growing popularity begins to soften, some might say its dying.
When a publisher stops publishing, others say it's dying.

But waaay down at the bottom is "I can't find it and I can't find anyone who's playing it".

@TheSword's idea that games die like gods die in D&D -- only when they have no followers left. That feels pretty close to dead for me.

But I see an interesting wide range of opinions here in this thread which is great.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I'd argue that Dogs in the Vineyard is dead after the publisher withdrew the game from sale.

I'd be more inclined to agree if pdf piracy didn't exist. A trivial search tells me it's been plundered repeatedly.

The publisher may want it gone, but like anything else, once the internet has it good luck making it go away for good.

 

[darjr]

Warlock might fit the bill, as well as Moldvays The Callenges System.

Though I was in a chat were we discussed trying either if them. Warlock was almost comically noped out of


Edit to add I don’t mean the British Warlock! but the US West coast Warlock from the early 70s. It did live in for a good long while but I think finally died in the 90s.

 

[Jim Cummins]

I think "dead" for RPG's is a spectrum rather than a binary state.

The spectrum would span everything from Vibrantly alive ( publisher actively and profitable producing content, to the undead zombie king, ( copies only rarely available through the second hand market and more for collectors than players); and everything in between. I know from personal experience, old games can be pulled from the bookshelves, dusted off and enjoyed with new players in a one shot. ( the zombie shuffles again). So because of the nature of RPG's they are never really inanimate, unless all the rules books are gone. They all have the potential of a little life still left in them.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

I dunno, what does it take for them to finally cancel The Simpsons?

 

[Kannik]

I concur that "truly dead" might be an unlikely scenario these days. Using an RPG-adjacent game, I'm part of a semi-active community of Renegade Legion fans, though the game in its heyday was never super large (especially to it's Battletech sibling) and it's been out of print for 30+ years. Big numbers? Certainly not. Growing? There are a handful of people who join the group every year who didn't play the game at the time of it's publication, though the net number is likely still negative.

So it's not dead-dead, and there'll still be its fans out there for a long time. But functionally dead? Yeah, I'd say it's still safe to call it that. Always the possibility of a resurrection of course! But unlikely.

Now something like Cortex Prime is an interesting middle ground -- it's still in publication, both as it's toolbox and an RPG based on an external property, and there's supposedly more material coming. But it's mindshare is still very low. It's alive, but not very vibrant/vigorous. (Not YET, anyway!)

In the same way a God dies and moves to the Astral plane when it has no more followers, a roleplaying game dies when it has no more active players.

To which I like this analogy, especially as a deity can revive and come back into status if they accrue more followers. So too with RPGs, growing from heroes to demi- to lesser- to intermediate- to greater- as their mindshare waxes and wanes.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

The great thing is this is easily testable.....name a game you think is dead; someone just needs to come along and say, "Yeah, we're still playing that." Games I think are dead:
Amazing Engine System (any of them)
Synnibarr (EDIT: scratch that, the wikipedia page suggests that there Synnibarr supplements coming out as recently as the last couple of years!!!!!)
Jorune
Space Opera (though I did know a guy about 25 years ago who still loved this one)
Dragonquest (1st, 2nd or 3rd editions)
Powers & Perils
Lords of Creation
Swordbearer (maybe....maybe not....I mean, FGU still sells it on their website)

Games I can confirm still have a following/players:
Bushido (I have a buddy in Seattle who loves this one)
Villains & Vigilantes (seems to be getting new content on the FGU site)
Metamorphosis Alpha (any edition; I personally will run this on occasion)
Runequest 3 (I also will run this if I can find anyone willing to put up with playing it!)

Etc.

 

[MGibster]

I don't think there are people actually using it to talk to each other though? i.e. for its intended purpose.

For a game, presumably people are using it to play with each other, which is a game's intended purpose.

I don't want to get caught up in discussing the most applicable similes. If a dead game only refers to one that isn't played, then what a useless term it is. If two people are playing Cyborg Commando somewhere in New Zealand, then the game isn't dead. In effect, there's no such thing as a dead game because it's impossible to declare one dead because there's no way for us to know if something isn't being played somewhere by someone.

Dead when it comes to languages has a specific meaning. Maybe we should decide what dead means in the context of role playing games.