Why aren't RPGs poplular

[Ariosto]

Most P&P RPGs - D&D included - have quite involved rules that you have to know in order to play. Each player has to read, for the very least, the whole character creation, skills, feats and combat sections of the PHB (players playing spellcasters have to read even more) at least cursorily, and understand it at least to some degree BEFORE THE VERY FIRST GAME.

It did not really start out like that for players! For most participants, the entry-level knowledge-base requirements in Original or Basic D&D, for instance, can be nil. (It could be so with AD&D as well, but the "Advanced" ethos and special Players Handbook bode against that.) Even for players really into rules, the complexity is low at least at first.

For the DM? I would put it right up near or at the top of the complexity scale because the challenge is so much more than just rules-mastery. Adding more rules can cut both ways, saving on demands on judgment at the expense of more need for look-ups. (Which is less intimidating may depend on mental makeup more than on experience, and likewise whether a rough sketch of suggestive background or a lavishly detailed "canned" setting is preferable.)

 

[PaulofCthulhu]

I think tabletop RPGs are less popular because:

1) Computer RPGs require less start-up investment in time and don't require physical "meeting organisation" to play. They also demand less imagination, literacy and numeracy. i.e. overall less effort. These days RPG books also tend to be multi-hundred page beasts, not the 64 pages or less of long ago. Modern RPGs seem aimed purely at an existing market. Which can then saturate quickly.

2) Once other enterainment companies (for a similar audience) get the money they can afford a lot of advertising to get more "mind share" - type in RPGs into search engines and you'll get a lot of computer-related rather than table-top hits.

3) RPGs are very cheap (in entertainment per hour terms). More time playing RPGs means less time paying for some other, perhaps more financially profitable entertainment. Companies with big advertising budgets want you to play their game.


Basically, once another (similar?) form of entertainment starts to promote over your own it can be a Catch 22 unless you do something about it. Tabletop RPGs didn't - mostly relying on the initial natural groundswell in interest. Advertising for RPGs has always been very low compared to many other forms of entertainment.

The whole advertising thing is really just one aspect. Lots of things already mentioned have also contributed.

Lots of people don't want or like RPGs (as with anything else). Identifying likely receptive audiences and trying to promote there would be a better bet (if possible). At least I think so!

 

[Kzach]

More time playing RPGs means less time paying for some other, perhaps more financially profitable entertainment. Companies with big advertising budgets want you to play their game.

This reminds me of a comment made by a player the other day that really peeved me off.

"I could be playing L4D2 instead of this..."

Ooh, if it was a face to face game I woulda done regrettable yet satisfying things.

 

[Derren]

Roleplaying games are massively popular, having gone mainstream some time ago in the form of crpgs. WoW had 11.5 million subscribers as of Dec 2008.

You can't really compare those two.

PnP RPGs mean playing a character different from your own-
VG RPGs mean having a character you can level up to kill things with.
Practically, every videogame were you "level up" is a RPG.

Of course there is some overlap. Some PnP RPGs focus nearly exclusively on killing stuff and getting better at killing and there are RP guilds in MMOs (a minority).
But it the end it comes down to:
"Killing imaginary creatures is socially accepted. Talking to them is not".

 

[NewJeffCT]

Result: I'm not embarrassed by this hobby, but I don't let everyone I know know I'm a gamer.

I'm in the same boat on that - not embarrassed by D&D, but I don't bring it up at a neighborhood gathering/picnic, this despite the fact I live on a cul-de-sac and the D&D games are at my house every other Friday night. So, the neighbors know I have friends over every other Friday.

 

[NewJeffCT]

I think tabletop RPGs are less popular because:

1) Computer RPGs require less start-up investment in time and don't require physical "meeting organisation" to play. They also demand less imagination, literacy and numeracy. i.e. overall less effort. These days RPG books also tend to be multi-hundred page beasts, not the 64 pages or less of long ago. Modern RPGs seem aimed purely at an existing market. Which can then saturate quickly.

2) Once other enterainment companies (for a similar audience) get the money they can afford a lot of advertising to get more "mind share" - type in RPGs into search engines and you'll get a lot of computer-related rather than table-top hits.

3) RPGs are very cheap (in entertainment per hour terms). More time playing RPGs means less time paying for some other, perhaps more financially profitable entertainment. Companies with big advertising budgets want you to play their game.


Basically, once another (similar?) form of entertainment starts to promote over your own it can be a Catch 22 unless you do something about it. Tabletop RPGs didn't - mostly relying on the initial natural groundswell in interest. Advertising for RPGs has always been very low compared to many other forms of entertainment.

The whole advertising thing is really just one aspect. Lots of things already mentioned have also contributed.

Lots of people don't want or like RPGs (as with anything else). Identifying likely receptive audiences and trying to promote there would be a better bet (if possible). At least I think so!

excellent points - I agree with you on this. I think you've basically nailed it. I have a large group of gamers (myself +7 players) and we have sometimes found it hard to get together regularly. There was a stretch this summer when we went 6 weeks between sessions because at least 2 people would have been absent any time in between. Normally, I say 1 person missing is okay and we can still game, but 2 or 3 makes it awkward.

 

[El Mahdi]

I was thinking more the extreme nerdy fatbeard in his parents' basement image which, rightly or wrongly, got firmly attached to it.

Who are you calling "Fat"!?

 

[Hussar]

It's something that I think bothers a lot of us. Why aren't RPGs as popular as video games, board games - even CCG's? Back in the early 80's, during the 1E heyday, I could walk into a Toys-R-Us and buy D&D books. Nowadays, I can walk into the store and buy video games, videos, board games and even CCG's but the only RPG item I've even seen is the D&D starter set - even though Hasbro now makes D&D. After 30 years in existence, they still seem to be a fringe hobby instead of a mainstream hobby. Even in bookstores, I see entire aisles of comics and magna, and only about an arm's width section of RPGs.

Just wanted to pull this particular point out for a bit of a dust off. I see this bandied about an awful lot about how popular the game was back then because you could see it in places like Toys R Us and how it's so hidden now.

A point that gets lost in there is distribution. In 1980 it was a heck of a lot easier and cheaper to get your product into a lot of different stores. Shipping and postal rates were a tiny fraction of what they are now, production prices as well. You don't get a game into fifteen different stores now, not because they're any less popular or selling less well perhaps, but because the cost of doing so would be so phenomenal that you would lose money on the deal.

Far better to concentrate sales in certain places where you know sales are going to happen in order to reduce distribution costs.

I'm not saying that the game wasn't popular then. Far from it. But, claiming that the game is no longer popular because it's not in certain places ignores a much more complicated issue.

 

[The Ghost]

And do you know what else Fantasy Football and Poker have in common?

They are both competitive pastimes. Every hand, every week, you either win or lose and you have a definitive measurement of how well or how poorly you did. You either gain or lose chips, you pick up or lose position within your fantasy football league.

RPGs do not generally have a purely competitive basis, most of them being collaborative in nature. Many do not have clearly defined metrics for winning or losing and often lack any sort of mechanism for defining an endgame entirely.

And, depending on which league you're in or what table you sit at, Fantasy Football and Poker also have $$$$ winnings at stake.

Certainly. But neither of these statements disproves my point that people will read and do math for fun.

 

[Than]

A friend of mine at work said "But who wins it?". And I said it's usually players against the environment.

I think this shows that most people see it not as a real game and are a bit consfused by it as they don't understand it.

Of course it is a real game and perfectly makes sense to all of us in the know.

Also there are many people who are never going to get the roleplay aspect.