Why aren't RPGs poplular

[DMfromdimensionX]

Its been touched on a bit but IMO its really a matter of convenience. I've been playing for years and i love RPG's but sometimes they are really damned inconvenient. The time involved, the scheduling, the other people (wives,gf's, kids, etc) that want to get your time instead of a game getting it, all work together to make RPG's second fiddle to video games.

Its video games that took a huge bite out of the RPG market and unfortunately a table top RPG will never be able to compete with the convenience of being able to sit down at your computer or Xbox or whatever after work, pop in a game, play for an or two and then shut it off and go get dinner and get back to your life.

I think its the time and the inconvenience involved more then anything that keep table top RPG's from gaining dominance in the hobby market. Virtual table tops, especially if a big company like WOTC can ever get their crap together and make a decent one with lots of premade adventures you can load and play quickly and easily can help overcome that but its a long way off at this rate and would have to be done really well at a low price to make a difference.

 

[Umbran]

I'm going to add one that I didn't see as I skimmed through the thread - personal taste.

There's a basic fallacy to the idea that because we like it, lots of others should also like it, or that it is some weakness of character (like laziness, or several other things mentioned) that is the major issue. I haven't seen many here suggest that RPGs simply may not be everyone's bag, that not everyone finds them fun to do.

It seems to me that pretty much all hobbies that require some personal commitment are niche activities, taken on by only a small segment of the population. It doesn't matter if it is bowling, making ships in bottles, model trains, gardening, or RPGs - if it takes a whole lot of your time, you have to really like it before it becomes one of your regular things.

It isn't all that much different from other matters of taste, like reading literature. Even those of us who read a lot have genres and authors that we prefer, and tend to stick to. Me, I'm not that much into "chick lit" - not because it is somehow inferior to the frequently-not-that-well-written fantasy and sci-fi that I read, but simply because its themes and style don't do a whole lot for me. I am not a big fan of pistachio ice cream, either. There's pretty much nothing you can do to "chick lit" or pistachio ice cream that will make me a devoted fan of either. This is not a fault in me, or in the books or ice cream. We simply don't match up well.

 

[Hippy]

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".

I don't fully agree with your last statement on "killing imaginary creatures is socially acceptable but talking is not". The aspect of RP with imaginary beings, creatures, etc. is what has made mmorpg or ttrpg more palatable to a larger audience. Many of the women I have gamed with over the years have stated that if it was all hack-n-slash they were not interested in playing. They wanted character developement and a story. While I firmly believe that you get a more interactive and immersive story with a well run ttrpg than a computer rpg or mmorpg, computer rpgs still offer a story line to follow in most instances and that has an appeal to more people than simply "killing creatures and taking their stuff", which I agree is a staple of many ttrpg be it fantasy or other genre.

In the end I believe it comes down to more personal taste in game play than social acceptance. The market will pander in the end to what the majority of people want to play. If a game is good (computer or ttrpg) word gets around and sales result. For those that want something else, there is the nich market (Indy games) to fill that void. In many ways I think it is the best time to be a gamer as the availability of types of games is far more diverse now than when I started gaming in 1978.

Just my two coppers worth- Cheers!

Hippy

 

[roguerouge]

Ask the sci-fi/fantasy literature readers why their hobby wasn't considered cool. Gamers pretty much inherited the social bias against their hobby.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Above all else, I just think it's not everyone's cup of tea, just like not everyone likes jigsaw puzzles or fantasy football.

The fact that it's social leads to scheduling conflicts, especially as peoples' lives evolve beyond university and family, career, travel, etc, compete for time. I suspect this is partly why CRPGs are so popular: to satisfy the "itch" it's easy to hop online and hack some monsters, or chit-chat, or game the economic system, or whatever else the game allows-- even if it's not as involved as a PnPRPG.

The "factions" of PnPRPGers might also be considered: The are competing systems with loyal adherents. Within each, there are (often heated) differences in play style. Different settings give rise to sub-populations.

Net result is that, while RPGs might be popular in principle, in practice, truly successful games are few and far between.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Who are you calling "Fat"!?

That would be me.

 

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[ggroy]

In the end I believe it comes down to more personal taste in game play than social acceptance.

Personal tastes can also change with time. Of my old gaming friends from back in the day, many of them today have very little to no interest in playing any tabletop rpgs. Not even an evening "pickup" game of the old basic D&D box sets or 1E AD&D, which we played a lot of back in the day. Quite a number of them stopped playing over 20 or 25 years ago. A few of them didn't even know that TSR doesn't exist anymore.

 

[Ariosto]

I'm going to add one that I didn't see as I skimmed through the thread - personal taste.

Maybe nobody used that particular two-word phrase, but that's because the language permits so many other ways of saying it -- including less vague ways, of which there have been examples aplenty.

There's a basic fallacy to the idea that because we like it, lots of others should also like it ...

As in the thread's titular question ...

... or that it is some weakness of character (like laziness, or several other things mentioned) that is the major issue. I haven't seen many here suggest that RPGs simply may not be everyone's bag, that not everyone finds them fun to do.

... but I think you have made a very selective reading of the answers! You (and/or someone else) might regard it as "weakness of character" not to enjoy reading hundreds of pages of game manuals -- but that is neither here nor there as to whether such lack of enjoyment is in fact a particular way in which the activity is "not everyone's bag".

 

[Ariosto]

Personal tastes can also change with time. Of my old gaming friends from back in the day ...

Yes, yes indeed. No doubt their playing of, e.g., Candy Land has also plummeted -- unless they now have little children of their own.

The point is that if it were just "an age thing", then perhaps the demographic should not have changed so much? Whereas, what I see is a "graying" hobby, skewing older than in the 1980s -- primarily because it's not attracting new players at the same rate. (It's possible that it's attracting new older players at a greater rate than before, but that does not appear to be the significant factor here.)