Why aren't RPGs poplular

[amysrevenge]

A friend of mine at work said "But who wins it?".

I reckon that we are understimating this particulat element. This is the one that none of my non-gamer peeps understand.

 

[Mercurius]

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.

Your point about distribution is a good one but I think secondary to the fact that people just aren't buying stuff in "meatspace" as much anymore. That is the main reason RPG books aren't in toy stores or other non-specialty locations (aside from major bookstore chains). It isn't just RPGs that aren't being purchased in "real life," and therefore this issue isn't confined to RPGdom (despite what many gamers seem to believe). However, RPGs--as played primarily by male slightly-to-hugely nerdy types--are especially prone to the online sale.

I honestly can't remember the last time I bought a game book in an actual store at full cover price. I've used Borders coupons and I've bought used books, but MSRP? That is, what an actual game store would sell a book for? It has been years.

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

True, however it is slightly different than jigsaw puzzles and fantasy football. Take this as purely my humble experience, but I've noticed that non-gamers tend to enjoy their first experience on an RPG much more than a non-football fan would enjoy running a fantasy baseball team, or a non-puzzle oriented person would enjoy slogging through a 5000-piece Monet painting. Furthermore, the immersion factor is so much greater with RPGs, which both explains why many don't try them, and why many games fail, but it also means that the people that aren't RPGs are really into them. Sure, the majority of D&D players are casual, but the percentage that are serious or hardcore is much greater than in many hobbies, I would guess.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

"I'm just big boned!"

According to an actual MD, I am big boned.

I also happen to be fat.

No joke though...if I got down to about 3% body fat- you know, where elite athletes roam?- I'd still be about 28lbs overweight for my height according to the charts.

 

[Hippy]

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.

I have experienced the same thing. My best friend quit playing after high school and I have really missed him at the table these last 22 years. But different strokes for different folks as the saying goes. We just hang out and do other things when he is available. Which is not often unfortunately, even though he lives in the same town as me We both are family men now and that really cuts into personal time with friends. I still game on a bi-weekly basis with the rest of my original gamer group and have made new friends that have joined us over the years, so I am fortunate and thankful that I get to hang-out with close friends and catch up on each others lifes before game time.

Hippy

 

[Krensky]

Another big part IMO is the distribution model. RPG books are not books as far as retailers are concerned. With books, if you buy some and they don't sell, you return them. This is not possible with RPG books. They languish if they don't sell, sucking up space and making retailers hesitant to try new things.

And thank whatever divinity you choose that the RPG industry doesn't use the consignment model. Books would cost twice as much since you'd be paying for the copy you're taking home and a copy that's going to be pulped.

 

[haakon1]

If you only game when everyone can make it, you'll play like 3 times a year.

Hey, you've been spying on my group!

 

[haakon1]

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

Right. And this probably keeps down our numbers by making it harder to connect.

I've found wherever I go, there are gamers. But it usually takes me a good while to figure out who's a gamer, because people DO NOT talk about it with non-gamers, for the most part.

To me, it seems like gay folks with being in or out of the closet. People don't seem to hide it anymore, but they don't usually openly mention it unless they know you either, and may talk around it a bit when in mixed company of people they know and people they don't. For example, one of my co-workers is in Mexico with his partner this weekend . . . he mentioned the Mexico but not the partner part with most of his co-workers. Most of us know, but I'm not sure everyone does.

And when I game on a weekend, I say I had friends over, but I don't go into details about what we did . . . my geeky co-workers known, but the mundanes don't need to know.

I live in Seattle, which is a very liberal and very geeky place (home to both WOTC and Paizo). Your mileage may vary, and sorry if I've offended anyone.

 

[pawsplay]

I'd like to throw out two things that I think have been insufficiently examined. First, for high school students, the school day has been getting longer and the school year longer, while more homework is being assigned per class (test scores have still barely budged, but that's another topic). Far from being lazy, the modern teenager is far more likely to be overworked. Time to do their own thing is a commodity, and many times, I can easily imagine something fairly brainless being the focus of interest. College students, too, more credit hours each semester, more papers per class. Thus, the feeder group is really pressed for time compared to twenty years ago. Adolescence is not what it was. Let's toss in, too, smaller family sizes and kids being born later, which means kids these days are less likely to be recruited by an older sibling.

The second aspect is economic. Since the mid 50s, many luxuries have become more available, resulting in greater overall wealth, but wages have relatively shrunk compared to basic living expenses. Thus, for people in the 18-24 range, single income, with little experience, their usable gaming budget, in real dollars, is likely 2/3 or maybe even just a half of the equivalent college student/grocery sacker of the 1980s. Does young people being unable to afford impulse RPG purchases sound bad for RPGs to anyone else besides me?

Apart from that, I can only echo what has been said before, and expand on it. In the 1980s, Tolkien was a classic, Conan was a comic book, and the Greyhawk novels were a significantly available source of genre fantasy for fans. Fantasy itself has shifted. To someone who grew up in the late 80s to early 90s, fantasy is overflowing bookshelves at Borders stocked with recent bestsellers, and the genre itself has become more romantic, more psychological, more science-fictional, and more character-driven. As a result, D&D hearkens back to what is now a vintage flavor high fantasy. Its popularity has declined as surely as anything related to Buck Rogers, Dick Tracy, or singing cowboys. 4e was able to gain some ground, I think, by catering to the more bombastic tastes of "kids these days" as well as older gamers who have started mixing manga styles, video game references, and Hollywood blockbusters into their fantasy tastes... unfortunately, that demographic is not significantly more likely to read, and hence it's a fairly finite pool of new players. I think it's no accident that stuff like CoC has gotten a revival because it parallels shifts in mainstream fiction toward urban fantasy, dark fantasy, and surrealistic fantasy and away from classic swords-and-sorcery tropes. Even the modern fairy tale has shifted, away from high dramatics and toward the psychological. As I noted in my blog (entry "The Unhappy Medium") certain genres are harder to game in, and many of these shifts are away from game-friendly tropes and toward characters talking and talking and talking.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Right. And this probably keeps down our numbers by making it harder to connect.

I'm an Army Brat who moved every 2-3 years for most of my life, and even after my Dad retired, I still went away to college and grad school before returning to the area in which I spent my teen years.

And I've never had a problem finding a game.

If I'm looking, I'll start at my FLGS. If that doesn't work, I'll try a variety of methods that have worked in the past, like checking out bulletin boards (virtual and real), or hanging out where RPG products are sold. Since most bookstores that carry RPGs stash them near the Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror books, I seldom regret this, since I can browse for new novels while I'm "stalking."

In addition, when I say I don't let everyone know I game, I'm not saying I'm "closeted." I simply don't bring it up with everyone. I also don't let everyone know I design jewelry or play guitar.

Those who know me well know these things about me. Others get the info piecemeal.

But I'm vocal & visible enough about the hobby that people have actually asked me to teach their kids about D&D or other games...

Heck, I'm high-profile enough that I founded and ran the RPG club at my Catholic HS in the 1980s...and once put "Wargaming" on a resume.

(The club died after I graduated, and my resume was quickly re-edited after an interview with the City of Dallas that gave me a very pointed view of how gamers are perceived in the "Real World"...at least, outside of the military, that is.)

I've found wherever I go, there are gamers. But it usually takes me a good while to figure out who's a gamer, because people DO NOT talk about it with non-gamers, for the most part.

You just need to improve your "game-dar."

 

[haakon1]

And I've never had a problem finding a game.

. . .

You just need to improve your "game-dar."

My deficient game-dar hasn't prevented me playing. I got into a group where I'm a player through an online bulletin board.

The group I run over email is people I've collected over the years:
- 3 people from college gaming group (I graduated 18 years ago!)
- 2 people from a job I left 9 years ago (one a player in the 1980s who I re-upped, the second a new player who was into Civil War history and fantasy baseball, so I took a shot at conversion that stuck)
- 1 guy brought in by another player
- 1 friend for non-gaming reasons who I converted (he was very into fantasy literature, so I gave it a shot)

The game I run live I've built on my own:
- the last guy mentioned above
- his wife, also a big reader
- his college friend who's into computer and video games
- that guy's friend who he brought in
- my very geeky current co-worker who is into guns, R. Lee Ermy, and computers


So there you go. If you can convert people, you'll never run out of gamer buddies.