Ha ha, nice find - and I love the poll options.
[MENTION=52734]Stormonu[/MENTION], I like what you say and would like to riff off that for a moment. I feel that tabletop RPGs have something to offer that video games don't, even
cannot, offer, because they're not based on human imagination. As long as TTRPGs don't go too far into the realm of simulating and replacing imagination, they will continue to have niche.
When this thread was started it was at the height of, or just after, 3e D&D. If I remember correctly, it was after the first "OGL bubble" burst around 2002, and the D&D industry stabilized a bit. Over the next couple years, D&D went into gradual, and inevitable, commercial decline - which led to 4e. Now the problem with 4e, at least in the light of my first paragraph, is that it tried to go further into simulation, tried to compete more directly with video games, but in so doing it alienated the more traditional TTRPG players who liked the Theater of Mind.
I'm thinking that Mearls & Co get this, and are trying to "go back and forward" with 5e - back to a more Theater of Mind approach, but forward with incorporating some of the gadgets and gizmos of 3e and 4e.
But the big question is, can TTRPGs remain relevant to younger generations? How appealing are they to "Gen Text?" TTRPGs could eventually become a retro-hobby centered on Gen Xers (those born in the 60s and 70s) and Gen Y (born in the 80s and 90s), but I'm not sure if what I'm calling Gen Text (born in 00s and 10s) will/are find them appealing, because they are true digital natives.
So the question is: will TTRPGs experience a renaissance with the younger generation as they seek something outside of their digital domain, or will it gradually fade away as a retro-hobby, like model railroad or stamp collecting? Both of those two have cult followings, but they don't acquire as many new converts as they do have old stand-bys die off. The first generation of TTRPG gamers - those who were born in the 40s and 50s and started playing in the 70s, are already starting to die off; think of how many early game designers have died within the last decade. One would think as the second generation - the Gen Xers - enter their 60s and 70s, there might be further decline, and by the time they reach their 80s, TTRPGs could be nearly gone...but that wouldn't be until the 2040-50s.
Now here's a monkey-wrench thrown into the works. If
futurists are correct, Gen X might be, because of advances in medical techology the first generation to
live indefinitely. So that itself might not put a hard-cap on the expiration date of TTRPGs. On the other hand, if it is really true - if we Gen Xers actually attain
lifespans of 200+ years - then life might be so different to make all speculation questionable. And this doesn't taken into account climate change, energy crises, and other technological changes.
So, really, we can only talk about the next decade or so. In that sense, I think RPGs will continue in a relatively steady state, with ups and downs. We can
hope for a renaissance (and not just OSR), but I think its unlikely that we see more than further rises and falls. The good thing is that 5e is going to be coming out as those first wave of Gen Texters reach middle and early high school, so we'll get a sense of how attractive D&D is to them -
if WotC is able to market it efficiently.
