# Why aren't RPGs poplular



## Stormonu (Nov 28, 2009)

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.

What went wrong?  Is there anything that can be done to bring RPGs into the mainstream or are they destined to slowly moulder away into obscurity - a fad that dies out when the original generation of RPGers has gone?

And I'm not just talking about D&D - I'm talking about all RPG games, in general.  Why have they become second fiddle to other pursuits, such as video game RPGs and MMOs, games like Descent & Warhammer Quest/WF3 and even DDM (before it was "cancelled")?  Heck, I'd almost believe even fantasy & sci fi novels are more popular than RPGs.  We have RPGs inspired by movies, but only one of the reverse, and it was recieved very poorly.


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## Derulbaskul (Nov 28, 2009)

RPGs take effort.

I think that's the basic problem and a lot of that effort is spent by a DM/GM "alone in his mother's basement". That's not socially acceptable.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 28, 2009)

Its not just the effort the _DM_ has to put in.

Consider the time it takes to design a PC- especially if you're an "Amateur Thespian" or a "Power Gamer"- for a typical RPG as compared to the time it takes to do one in a CRPG.

Designing a deck for a CCG might take a comparable amount of time to designing a PC, but you can change it's design seconds after you've seen it in play.  A single deck design might change in an ever evolving form over several editions of a game.  That evolution can branch in many directions.

In contrast, a typical PC is designed once and only evolves in a linear fashion.

So, in a sense, its a commitment thing.


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## El Mahdi (Nov 28, 2009)

It's an immediate gratification world (at least in the states - predominantly).

People want the payoff with minimum work and set-up.  30 minute or 1 hour shows (actually 20 minutes and 45 minutes respectively) rule.  90 minute movies rule.  Anything longer than that and you ususally lose your audience (with occasional exceptions of course).

RPG's require work.  More setup on the part of the GM, but preperation work for all involved.  And it takes work during gameplay - a collaborative effort - for no real winner, just continued survival and a group sense of accomplishment.  In our cookie cutter, accomplishment on demand world, people want to be entertained.  They don't want to have to entertain themselves.

The sad thing is, IMO, the sense of accomplishment in an RPG, through a group effort, is so much more satisfying.  But that's probably one of the reasons we here at ENWorld play RPG's while the majority of people don't.


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## Aus_Snow (Nov 28, 2009)

Stormonu said:


> After 30 years in existence, they still seem to be a fringe hobby instead of a mainstream hobby.



Oh well. 



> What went wrong?  Is there anything that can be done to bring RPGs into the mainstream or are they destined to slowly moulder away into obscurity - a fad that dies out when the original generation of RPGers has gone?



They're not marketed as cool, which doesn't help. Put another way, those things that *are* relentlessly advertised and kewlified at people, tend to sell more. A LOT more. . . But then, it's also far too much like work, as others have said. When picking a hobby or two, how likely is it for someone to choose those that have _that_ particular quality. Yeah. It's destined to be niche, IMO, but also to stick around for the foreseeable future. So it's hardly all doom and gloom.



> Heck, I'd almost believe even fantasy & sci fi novels are more popular than RPGs.  We have RPGs inspired by movies, but only one of the reverse, and it was recieved very poorly.



The first bit there. . . reads like comedy.  '_Almost_'?! '_Even_'?! Uh, well let's just say, yes to that.  As for movies, no, more than one. OK, not many more than one, it's true. Still. And again, oh well. 

There have been several notable CRPGs based on TTRPGs, however. Some have sold rather well, if I'm not mistaken. So that's something, right?


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## Ariosto (Nov 28, 2009)

If we're talking RP games in general, we're talking D&D (whatever goes by that brand name lately)!

I think a big part of the "bubble" back in the 1980s was people who found in D&D the next best thing to what they really wanted -- what computer games especially deliver today.

Then there was the general games market, in which the latest "hot thing" gets a season of bumper sales. Mille Bornes, Twixt, Diplomacy, Acquire, Pente, Othello, Civilization, Axis & Allies, Trivial Pursuit, Taboo, Settlers of Catan ... all of those may still be around -- each remained in print for at least a decade -- but I'm sure none of them is the "It" game everyone is talking about in salons or on playgrounds. I was surprised to find that people bought Avalon Hill's *1776* in that American Bicentennial year who _never played it_ -- or, for that matter, _any_ "hex-and-counter war game". It just gathered dust in closets.

D&D actually did remarkably well, I think, in keeping up sales as much as it did from year to year.

A lot of little kids like to play "let's pretend" by running around with toy swords or whatnot. A fair number of older kids are into online, text-based games I gather are sort of like the old MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons, precursors to the graphic MMORPG) and more like free-form collaborative storytelling.

The mix of "let's pretend" and wargame-style rules just does not seem to be most people's cup of tea. The leaps and bounds in complexity that keep the hardcore happy probably don't help, but whatever market there is beyond that probably is not _lucrative_ enough, at least for WotC. "Lite RPGs" are not in the same league as CCGs!

Commercially, there's a built-in problem: People with the smarts and imagination, the time and energy, to play the game much in the first place have what it takes to _keep_ playing indefinitely without buying anything beyond a basic set of rules (in the event they don't just make up their own rules, as, e.g., Ken St Andre did).

One might over-rate that, as TSR did at first in leaving the business of modules entirely to Judges Guild. On the other hand, it's not as profitable as selling rule books.

Who wants to buy a mass of rule books in the first place, much less keep on buying whole sets again through "edition" cycles? Not Connie Casual, who is likely to flee in horror with one look at that. So who needs her anyway? To please her would be to disappoint the serious "gamers" who really pay the bills.


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## Morrus (Nov 28, 2009)

Well, it doesn't bother me particularly.  As long as I know a few other folks who like to play, I'm good.

But I'd say the reason is the level of investment required, coupled with the bad image it acquired in the 80s, along with a lack of flashy, expensive TV ad campaigns (which the size of the industry simply doesn't support).


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## Kzach (Nov 28, 2009)

My vote would go to RPG players. They're the biggest reason why the industry and hobby hasn't flourished.


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## AllisterH (Nov 28, 2009)

Personally, I think it historically has to do with the DM/GM.

D&D in particular never really made DMing easy and never really explained it well IMO. Throw in the HOURS that you need JUST before the game and the HOURS for the actual game itself?

You can see why RPGs never took off


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## Ariosto (Nov 28, 2009)

> coupled with the bad image it acquired in the 80s



I don't know how that went down in the UK, but here in the USA that seems to have been more of a boost to sales. Seemed to work for heavy metal rock, too, at least over here ... if that's the kind of "bad" you mean. ( 	             "Could it be, oh ... I don't know ... SATAN?")


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## Morrus (Nov 28, 2009)

Ariosto said:


> I don't know how that went down in the UK, but here in the USA that seems to have been more of a boost to sales. Seemed to work for heavy metal rock, too, at least over here ... if that's the kind of "bad" you mean. (      "Could it be, oh ... I don't know ... SATAN?")




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


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## maddman75 (Nov 28, 2009)

Stormonu said:


> We have RPGs inspired by movies, but only one of the reverse, and it was recieved very poorly.




Well there was also Underworld, which was based on Vampire: The Masquerade, but they had to sue to get credit and compensation.  



Kzach said:


> My vote would go to RPG players. They're the biggest reason why the industry and hobby hasn't flourished.




This is a part of it.  I've been to GenCon and know that 99+% of the people in this hobby are perfectly normal folks.  Its that fraction of a percent, the ones that have problems with hygene, personal space, and not acting like a child, that make people hesitate before gaming.  Heck, *I* hesitate before gaming with new people sometimes!  But that's not all of it.

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.

I place some blame on the current model for traditional RPGs as well.  They want to push books out to gamers.  The way to sell lots of books is to market them to hardcore gamers, so we'll make games that appeal to hardcore gamers.  Thus we get 4e (and 3e wasn't any better) with three books required for play and the assumption that each PC will buy at least one.  New books rather than being aimed at GMs are aimed at players, to get them to get new powerups for their character, regardless of whether this makes the game more fun for the group as a whole.  The other companies aren't much better, don't mistake this for a 'WotC sux' rant.  The hardcore loves this, but the hardcore grows slowly if at all.  And this makes games less accessable to new players, looking at mountains of books needed to play this game.  The distributors are partly to blame here as well.  The whole reason there's a PHB, DMG, and MM is because they wouldn't distribute a game line back then if it didn't have at least three books.

The hardcore also tends to make for long term games as well.  Even if they aren't expected to buy books, dice, and spend time outside the game working on their character, the casual is expected to dedicate one night a week for the forseeable future.  I think this is the biggest obstacle to getting new people interested.  What if they don't like it?  What if everyone expects them to come every time?  What if there's a conflict?

The gaming companies need to get off the suppliment treadmill.  The Indie games get around most of these problems.  Many are written to be easy to start, have simple, direct rules, and are intended for short term play, if not one shots.  Players play a favorite game for a couple of months, then decide to play something else.  But the small-press nature of the beast means they are out of the distribution channel.  Unless a store goes to a special effort, they won't realize that games like Dread, Mouse Guard, and Dogs in the Vineyard even exist.


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## Doug McCrae (Nov 28, 2009)

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.

So what does WoW have that pen n' paper rpgs, such as D&D, don't?

1) Pretty graphics.
2) Easy to start playing right away.

(2) is key imo. You don't need to read 100s of pages of rules, you don't need to create a world like Tolkien did. Choose race, class and name, and that's all.

Now ofc a lot of people who play pnp rpgs *like* creating worlds in the manner of Tolkien, and they like 100s of pages of rules. Turns out that sort of person isn't very common. In fact they are a lot less common than people who like games and fantasy and all that kind of stuff but don't like the work that pnp rpgs attach.


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2009)

It also requires:

1) having friends who are interested. 

2) Reading and math. 

3) Willing to be creative and imaginative.

That makes it unattractive to the average person. 

Here's another thing that I think has cropped up in the last few years: SCHEDULING. Among gamers, it's incredibly hard to get everyone to have the same amount of time off every week/two weeks for several consecutive hours. Of the non-college attending adults I know, they can only manage one game a month.


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## haakon1 (Nov 28, 2009)

maddman75 said:


> The hardcore also tends to make for long term games as well.  Even if they aren't expected to buy books, dice, and spend time outside the game working on their character, the casual is expected to dedicate one night a week for the forseeable future.  I think this is the biggest obstacle to getting new people interested.




My experience varies -- it's not necessary to play every week to be a dedicated player and consumer with a long-term game.

I'm running two campaigns, one on email, one live.
-- The email game never "meets" at all, and is slow moving (about one year per adventure, max 7 levels gained in the 10 years we're played).

-- The live game has met 13 times in 4 years.

I'd say about 1/3 of my players are DEDICATED D&Ders (buying a lot of materials, posting on EnWorld, running their own campaigns), while the rest are fairly casual but into it when playing.

None of us -- not even the guy who has attended GenCon multiple times -- are "hard core" in the sense you mean, of being Crunch Focused and wanting lots of new rules for new builds all the time.  We're definitely more story oriented.



maddman75 said:


> The gaming companies need to get off the suppliment treadmill.




I wouldn't say they "need to", but I will say rules supplements don't gain gaming companies any of my money.  

Nor do rules changes.  I played AD&D from 1981-2001, and 3e thereafter.  Twenty years per edition seems to work for me and my friends, and we can envision playing 3e forever, just as we thought we would be playing AD&D in the nursing home someday -- and looked forward to that!


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## Mark (Nov 28, 2009)

Stormonu said:


> Why aren't RPGs poplular?





My bad!  Sorry bout that.


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## haakon1 (Nov 28, 2009)

Doug McCrae said:


> So what does WoW have that pen n' paper rpgs, such as D&D, don't?
> 
> 1) Pretty graphics.
> 2) Easy to start playing right away.
> ...




About two weeks ago, one of my players got a call from a friend while we were playing, and told him to come over.  We handed him an NPC (a big paladin) and continued with the adventure.  He asked to see pictures of a goblin and so on, but he clearly got it and had figured out movement, AOO's, etc. by the end of the afternoon.  I think it helps that we were in the middle of a hack-'n-slash dungeon crawl, with an established party that knows the rules and some tactics and already knew why they were there from a plot perspective.

So he got to walk in where the explosions start and miss all the exposition.  

So, D&D doesn't HAVE to have a huge learning curve to start playing, but by default, it does.  And I've never started someone quite this way before.

We'll see if he attends next time/is into it, or not.


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## haakon1 (Nov 28, 2009)

Rechan said:


> SCHEDULING. Among gamers, it's incredibly hard to get everyone to have the same amount of time off every week/two weeks for several consecutive hours. Of the non-college attending adults I know, they can only manage one game a month.




Even without attempting a frequent game, getting the guys together once every few months is tough.  We all have jobs, most of us have kids, someone is always moving or on a business trip, whatever.

Much easier when we were all in high school or college, or on summer break!


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## ScottS (Nov 28, 2009)

Rechan said:


> Here's another thing that I think has cropped up in the last few years: SCHEDULING. Among gamers, it's incredibly hard to get everyone to have the same amount of time off every week/two weeks for several consecutive hours. Of the non-college attending adults I know, they can only manage one game a month.





Turn that part around by saying WOW is ridiculously convenient...  You can play whenever you damn well feel like (except for patch/maintenance days), and you literally don't have to get out of bed to play.  The only scheduling you have to do is for raids and arena (and even those you can PUG as long as you're tolerant of some degree of fail...).


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## Ariosto (Nov 28, 2009)

Rechan said:
			
		

> Here's another thing that I think has cropped up in the last few years: SCHEDULING.



Why has it "cropped up in the last few years"? Hmm ...


			
				haakon1 said:
			
		

> We all have jobs, most of us have kids, someone is always moving or on a business trip, whatever. Much easier when we were all in high school or college, or on summer break!



_To live, love
While the flame is strong
'Cause we may not be the young ones
Very long

And some day
When the years have flown
Then we'll teach the young ones
Of our own_


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## Garmorn (Nov 28, 2009)

Rechan said:


> It also requires:
> 
> 1) having friends who are interested.
> 
> ...




These and the same reasons that science has never been popular.  Most people don't want any entertainment that requires thinking.  Heck most don't even like to get out and play sports, or do easy physical exercise like walking.  People are lazing.



Rechan said:


> Here's another thing that I think has cropped up in the last few years: SCHEDULING. Among gamers, it's incredibly hard to get everyone to have the same amount of time off every week/two weeks for several consecutive hours. Of the non-college attending adults I know, they can only manage one game a month.








haakon1 said:


> Even without attempting a frequent game, getting the guys together once every few months is tough.  We all have jobs, most of us have kids, someone is always moving or on a business trip, whatever.
> 
> Much easier when we were all in high school or college, or on summer break!






ScottS said:


> Turn that part around by saying WOW is ridiculously convenient...  You can play whenever you damn well feel like (except for patch/maintenance days), and you literally don't have to get out of bed to play.  The only scheduling you have to do is for raids and arena (and even those you can PUG as long as you're tolerant of some degree of fail...).




I never had a general problem with scheduling just the occasional 3 or 4 times a year can't come.  Well except while I was in the military but we had ways to get around that.  But I am an old fart who got a lot of problems by turning my entire family into RPG player.


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## LostSoul (Nov 28, 2009)

Stormonu said:


> 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?




Logistics and creative risk.


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## Barastrondo (Nov 28, 2009)

It's a tough thing to require a certain amount of bookwork prep, open scheduling _and_ a good dose of social chemistry to deliver an ideal RPG experience. If you can only manage two out of three, traditional RPGs aren't as competitive.


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## LostSoul (Nov 28, 2009)

Rechan said:


> It also requires:
> 
> 1) having friends who are interested.
> 
> ...




Oh please.  Reading and math?  Might as well say, "2) Gamers are snobs."

The third isn't a problem - people don't mind being creative and imaginative.  What they do mind, or fear, is judgement of their creative contributions.

Which is what the hobby is about.


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## Rechan (Nov 28, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> Oh please.  Reading and math?  Might as well say, "2) Gamers are snobs."



One in Four Read No Books Last Year - washingtonpost.com



> One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and older people were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices.
> 
> The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year _ half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn't read any, the usual number read was seven.



It's also not about not being able to *do* math, but not *liking* math. I can count many who I've known that cross their eyes and push the books away when trying to make a character, given the math involved. 

Hell, I'm a gamer who *hates* math to begin with. The fewer rules and numbers, the better.

Finally, there's a stigma. Gaming involves doing things that are nerdy. Call me a snob for saying it, but reading and doing math FOR FUN is perceived as really nerdy. Add in the perception that RPGs are predominantly a hobby of nerds, and you have an unattractive stigma.


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## frankthedm (Nov 28, 2009)

The  video game took a huge chunk of the market D&D had in the early 80's. The escapsm offered by the march of technology as video games went beyond quartermunchers meant D&D's heyday would have been far more glorius had it begun a decade beforehand.


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## Ariosto (Nov 28, 2009)

> Add in the perception that RPGs are predominantly a hobby of nerds, and you have an unattractive stigma.



Man, back at the height of the Disco Era, lots of hot older chicks played D&D. Of course, most of us guys weren't fat and didn't have beards (being only 11 or 12 years old). That didn't seem to change much in the '80s.

Now, though, yeah, some of us look sort of like 







 ... funny how that happens!


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## Kzach (Nov 28, 2009)

haakon1 said:


> Even without attempting a frequent game, getting the guys together once every few months is tough.  We all have jobs, most of us have kids, someone is always moving or on a business trip, whatever.
> 
> Much easier when we were all in high school or college, or on summer break!




Yeah, this is one of the primary reasons why I do a lot of gaming online these days. Maintaining a group is very difficult.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 28, 2009)

Mark said:


> My bad!  Sorry bout that.




That is some awesome funny!





Rechan said:


> LostSoul said:
> 
> 
> > Oh please.  Reading and math?  Might as well say, "2) Gamers are snobs."
> ...




I'm with Rechan on this one.

When I was in law school, I took time- even during the 1st year grind- to make sure I did some reading for fun...often when I took lunch at the school's cafeteria or grabbing a snack between classes.

You'd think that the majority of those in law school would be used to the sight of someone reading, but when I did it, it was like I was an exotic animal in a zoo!

On multiple occasions, I actually had people stop to ask me why I was reading a non-law book, and were incredulous when I said "For fun."

Even our valedictorian read only newspapers and business/news periodicals.  No reading for fun.

Now, I know its not a universal affliction- our _Profs_ often made classical allusions...which I then had to explain to my classmates- but it was pretty widespread.

Again, this in an environment devoted to reading.  A LOT.

Participation in a (moderately _expensive_) hobby that involves significant reading and non-trivial math (at least in amounts if not in actual difficulty) is going to be almost a foreign concept to many people under age 40.


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## The Ghost (Nov 28, 2009)

Rechan said:


> Call me a snob for saying it, but reading and doing math FOR FUN is perceived as really nerdy. Add in the perception that RPGs are predominantly a hobby of nerds, and you have an unattractive stigma.




I disagree (partly). Reading and Math on their own are not the problem. Poker has surged in popularity over the past decade. Lots of the poker players I know, myself included, have spent countless hours reading Super Systems, Card Player magazine, etc. Part of success in poker is understanding the math (statistics) behind the game. 

Fantasy Football (or, as a good friend of mine put it - D&D for jocks) is another very popular activity that spawns countless magazines devoted to player statistics. I spend a good hour each day on ESPN's website reading about football, analyzing how I suspect each of my players will fare in their upcoming games. Basically reading and analyzing statistics. Most of the guys/girls I play with do as well. 

I think you are underestimating the amount of reading and math people do "for fun". 

I do think you are absolutely right on the perception issue. Sadly, when I mention D&D to many of my friends the image is the overweight bearded guy living in his mother's basement.


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## maddman75 (Nov 28, 2009)

haakon1 said:


> None of us -- not even the guy who has attended GenCon multiple times -- are "hard core" in the sense you mean, of being Crunch Focused and wanting lots of new rules for new builds all the time.  We're definitely more story oriented.




Yes they are, by my meaning.  They buy books, they buy miniatures, they post on forums.  A majority of my players do these things seldom, if at all.

My main game no one has any books for it except me.



haakon1 said:


> Even without attempting a frequent game, getting the guys together once every few months is tough.  We all have jobs, most of us have kids, someone is always moving or on a business trip, whatever.
> 
> Much easier when we were all in high school or college, or on summer break!




The best approach I've found is spisodic play and a quorum.  Each game ends with the PCs returning to home base, making for simple explaination if someone can't make it.  If X number of people show up on game day, its on.  Makes cancellations easier to deal with.  If you only game when everyone can make it, you'll play like 3 times a year.


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## Jack7 (Nov 28, 2009)

I think if RPGs had more violence, reading, math, a little bit more violence than the first time I mentioned that, imagination, and people with weird personalities it would probably prosper more.

But sometimes it takes itself awfully seriously to be filled with so much violence, reading, math, imagination, and weird personality types. Plus sometimes I don't think the pictures of Elven females have enough in the way chain-mail armored hotpants to appeal to the average Joe. That's just a word to the wise for my art buddies. 

A bit more seriously though, I think that if you're gonna be slaughtering monsters then maybe the bloody images in video games might have something on hit points.

I mean you kill something in a video game or a film or TV show and all you really get is blood and entrails. But you kill a monster in an RPG and gory statistical number sets and complex differential calculations squirt everywhere. (I once nearly had my eye put out when a THACO round went off accidentally. I guess I deserved it though, like an idiot I lost a base modified initiative throw by miscalculating all possible positive number sequences as applied to racial traits. Go figgur.) But anyway, I guess the whole thing just might be too visceral and graphic for some people. Do we really wanna sully our children's mind with vicious pre-algebraic formulations of paper peryton,  graphite griffons, ink-stained imps, and cardboard catoblepas? I'll leave it up to you of course, but some people might have standards.




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




The term fatbeard made me laugh. That's what my buddies and I used to call people in the Beta Club. I'm still not sure what it means though.


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## cattoy (Nov 28, 2009)

The Ghost said:


> I disagree (partly). Reading and Math on their own are not the problem. Poker has surged in popularity over the past decade. Lots of the poker players I know, myself included, have spent countless hours reading Super Systems, Card Player magazine, etc. Part of success in poker is understanding the math (statistics) behind the game.
> 
> Fantasy Football (or, as a good friend of mine put it - D&D for jocks) is another very popular activity that spawns countless magazines devoted to player statistics. I spend a good hour each day on ESPN's website reading about football, analyzing how I suspect each of my players will fare in their upcoming games. Basically reading and analyzing statistics. Most of the guys/girls I play with do as well.
> 
> ...




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.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 28, 2009)

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


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## ScottS (Nov 28, 2009)

LostSoul said:


> The third isn't a problem - people don't mind being creative and imaginative. What they do mind, or fear, is judgement of their creative contributions.
> 
> Which is what the hobby is about.





Was there some sort of "negative value judgment" in this part (i.e. do you think that RPGers are overly ready to crap on each other's ideas), or are you just saying that people don't really like collaborating?


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## LostSoul (Nov 28, 2009)

ScottS said:


> Was there some sort of "negative value judgment" in this part (i.e. do you think that RPGers are overly ready to crap on each other's ideas), or are you just saying that people don't really like collaborating?




Not at all.

Judgement isn't a bad thing.  Without judgement, you can't say, "That was awesome!"

So when you're playing, the other players are all looking towards you to contribute something to the game.  (The lion's share of this lies on the DM.)  Do you do something the group likes?  Or not?

Since it's all imagined stuff, it's all creative.

People judge that stuff, and that can be difficult.  It's scary to put forth your own ideas.


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## Shades of Green (Nov 28, 2009)

I guess that it has to do with the learning curve, especially for the DM/GM. Most boardgames require a few minutes of reading the first time you ever pull them out of their box, and then you are ready to start actually playing. Some boardgames such as Talisman work on a "need to know" basis, with the majority of the specific rules clearly stated on their relevant cards/squares and thus appearing only once you encounter them (and then they are very simple and easy to understand in most cases); all you need to learn in advance are the basic rules which are quite simple.

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. The DM/GM has to be at least superficially familiar with the contents of THREE WHOLE BOOKS (in D&D; in some other games it's one whole book) in order to prep for the game. And that's not including the setting that the DM/GM usually has to invent and/or read about from YET ANOTHER BOOK.

And all of this comes before you start playing.

And then there's prep - most RPGs aren't playable straight out of the box.

In other words, you can't just crack the books open once you buy them and try out the game in some free evening you got with your friends. You need to read a lot and the DM/GM has to do some prep. All of these take time and effort. Most boardgames, on the other hand, are playable straight out of the box.

Of course, actually playing an RPG once you learn it and prep for it is an extremely rewarding experience, but you have to get there in the first place.


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## Kzach (Nov 28, 2009)

One thing that just got brought up recently for me was the stigma of cultism and D&D.

An online friend with whom I'd conversed for over ten years recently said something to me that led to a falling out between us. I mentioned I'd been spending a lot of time playing D&D lately and she blurted out that she was worried for my mental health.

Given we had been online friends for so long, this came as a real shock to me. We had spent hours conversing about personal details, numerous times, and this had never come up. But apparently she thought D&D people were all part of some bizarre cult, and that only mentally disturbed people played it.

Try as I might, I couldn't convince her that it was a sane hobby that regular people played. I tried to explain to her that it was a hobby I loved and I was deeply offended by her comments, but after a ten year friendship, she felt that D&D was an evil cult and that I'd been brainwashed.

Now, it may seem like she had a severe reaction but looking back, I've experienced a lot of these kinds of reactions from people. People linking D&D to suicides and cult killings. Whenever some kid in America blows his classmates away they always seem to manage to find some link to D&D. Not because it's true or has anything to do with psychosis, but because it's just a standard beat-up angle for journalists to latch onto.

Up until this discussion with her, she had seemed pretty normal and decent. I'd say her attitude is more prevalent than mine.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 28, 2009)

Kzach said:


> _<snip>_
> Try as I might, I couldn't convince her that it was a sane hobby that regular people played. I tried to explain to her that it was a hobby I loved and I was deeply offended by her comments, but after a ten year friendship, she felt that D&D was an evil cult and that I'd been brainwashed._<snip>_




I've run into this myself- first with my Mom (who may or may not have gotten over it)- then a relative and one of my art teachers.

At one point, it seemed as if I couldn't go a year without SOMEBODY accusing me of being a satanist or in mortal danger of losing my soul due to D&D (and/or Metal).

This despite I'm a lifetime practicing Catholic who has been playing D&D only 10 years less than my involvement in my faith.

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

I understand its different outside the USA, but since I'm probably through with living abroad, I have to resign myself to this.


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## Keefe the Thief (Nov 28, 2009)

RPGs are immensely popular. They are an incredibly cheap hobby compared to other. The personal buy-in, of course is big: you have to be interested in rolling dice, talking to people, telling stories, thinking about characters, counting and managing numbers and being creative in your sparetime all at once. 

For a hobby that demands so much, we are really big. Remember the lawsuit? 20 million have played, perhaps 6 million are playing right now. For a hobby like that, that´s pretty awesome.

The 80s were just a blip: one in a million, will never happen again. The golden age of RPGs is right now.


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## Ariosto (Nov 28, 2009)

> 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.)


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## PaulofCthulhu (Nov 28, 2009)

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!


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## Kzach (Nov 28, 2009)

PIM68 said:


> 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.


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## Derren (Nov 28, 2009)

Doug McCrae said:


> 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".


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## NewJeffCT (Nov 28, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> 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.


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## NewJeffCT (Nov 28, 2009)

PIM68 said:


> 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.
> 
> ...




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.


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## El Mahdi (Nov 28, 2009)

Morrus said:


> 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"!?


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## Hussar (Nov 28, 2009)

Stormonu said:
			
		

> 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.


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## The Ghost (Nov 28, 2009)

cattoy said:


> 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.






Dannyalcatraz said:


> 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.


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## Than (Nov 28, 2009)

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.


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## DMfromdimensionX (Nov 28, 2009)

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.


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## Umbran (Nov 28, 2009)

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.


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## Hippy (Nov 28, 2009)

Derren said:


> 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.
> ...




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


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## roguerouge (Nov 28, 2009)

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


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## Theo R Cwithin (Nov 28, 2009)

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.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 28, 2009)

El Mahdi said:


> Who are you calling "Fat"!?




That would be me.


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## El Mahdi (Nov 28, 2009)

deleted


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## ggroy (Nov 28, 2009)

Hippy said:


> 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.


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## Ariosto (Nov 29, 2009)

> 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".


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## Ariosto (Nov 29, 2009)

> 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.)


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## amysrevenge (Nov 29, 2009)

Than said:


> 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.


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## Mercurius (Nov 29, 2009)

Hussar said:


> 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.
> 
> ...




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.



the_orc_within said:


> 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.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 29, 2009)

El Mahdi said:


> "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.


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## Hippy (Nov 29, 2009)

ggroy said:


> 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


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## Krensky (Nov 29, 2009)

maddman75 said:


> 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.


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## haakon1 (Nov 29, 2009)

maddman75 said:


> 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!


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## haakon1 (Nov 29, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> 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.


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## pawsplay (Nov 29, 2009)

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.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 29, 2009)

haakon1 said:


> 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."


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## haakon1 (Nov 29, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> 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.


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## S'mon (Nov 29, 2009)

The games are highly complex compared to in the '80s, because hardcore gamers like complexity and are the easiest to market to.   This restricts appeal to the wider market.  Same thing happened with wargames in the '70s.


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## Umbran (Nov 29, 2009)

Ariosto said:


> 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.




Less vague ways, sir, have this habit of looking at the trees rather than the forest.  Too much focus on the possible particulars means one can lose the larger picture.  The OP asks what "went wrong" - my assertion is absolutely nothing went wrong - RPGs are behaving rather like most hobbies do.

As with most matters of personal taste, there are probably as many particular reasons for not liking RPGs as there are people who don't like them.  Why focus on just a few?


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## Cadfan (Nov 29, 2009)

How popular do you think RPGs _ought_ to be?

I mean, its a hobby.  Its competing with a lot of other hobbies, starting with model trains and ending with programming Linux kernels.  Not everyone has hobbies.  But of the people who do, they can only have so many.  We're probably more popular than fly fishing.  We're probably more popular than storm photography.  What's the 'right' level of popularity?


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## BryonD (Nov 29, 2009)

Cadfan said:


> Its competing with a lot of other hobbies, starting with model trains and ending with programming Linux kernels.



And there are a lot more variations of options now than there were in the 80s.  

If there had been WoW in the 80s, some notable fraction of the D&D community would have been doing THAT instead.  And if MMOs did not exist now there would be some notable fractional increase in the number of tabletop RPGers now.  It isn't a simple direct relationship.  I'm sure some people actual discover D&D through WoW.  But ultimately people will tend toward what they enjoy the most.  And you don't have to stop enjoying tabletop RPGs to discover some new thing that you enjoy even more.

And I don't mean to imply that WoW is the answer or to blame, or is even necessarily a critical piece.  It is just an easy example.  There are tons of alternatives that did not exist before.  Some of them in the "gamer" related, others not.


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## samursus (Nov 29, 2009)

TLDR;

My experience points to a couple things: exposure and time/location constraints.

Firstly, many/most people don't even really know what goes on in a RPG.   When I asked my gf if she was interested in trying out D&D, she really had no idea what it was, except that you dressed up like a wizard or an elf when you played 

Now that she has 4 or 5 sessions under her, she has gotten into it with the best of them!   She bought her own dice, PHB 1 & 2, and is getting attached to her character.

She tells her friends about her Changeling Bard, and they kind of get a glossy-eyed look; they have no idea what she is going on about.

Secondly, many of the group I used to play with now don't have the disposable time OR have moved away from the friends they used to play with...  some have found other people to play with, but like any organizied group activity, its not always easy to get all the ducks in a row.

And, thirdly, I agree that many other leisure activities are easier to pick up and leave (CCG's, MMO's,vidya games,movies).  

After starting to play RPG's again after a long hiatus (thank you 4e), I have really come to appreciate what a great return I get for my time and effort.  My gf and I found something else we enjoy doing together.  We met a neat couple who we are starting to do other things with.  We are getting to be proactively creative, unlike most of the passive entertainment out there.  We are gettting better at basic math and I am becoming a mentat from keeping track of combat conditions/bonuses (thank you 4e ).  

But most of all we are having so much fun!


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## AllisterH (Nov 29, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> 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.
> 
> .




This is a good point pawsplay.

For all the bellyaching about the defiencies of the new generation, they ARE being subject to more homework, more hours in school and more "structured" time activities (every kid nowadays has some afterschool obligation it seems)

Hell, in Canada, they recently released a study showing that kindergarteners are actually subject to the same amount of time in homework that 20 years ago a 2nd grader would have to do.


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## haakon1 (Nov 29, 2009)

S'mon said:


> The games are highly complex compared to in the '80s, because hardcore gamers like complexity and are the easiest to market to.   This restricts appeal to the wider market.  Same thing happened with wargames in the '70s.




If hard core gamer = likes complexity and constant rules updates, then yes, but then all you're saying is "gamers who like complexity and rules updates like to be sold complexity and rules updates", which ain't saying much.

I postulate that a significant chunk (the majority?  the overwhelming majority of people I game with, at least) of the gamer audience isn't that interested in the rules and doesn't like updates (thus the popular non-acceptance of 4e), and that those who are "rules gamers" are very much segmented into their own little niches (thus the edition wars).

So the problem is that the games industry "has to sell something" and has chased down the rules gamer audience to exhaustion, leaving the "we just want to play" gamers, and the general public, far far behind.

Perhaps we're saying the same thing -- it's just that I blame the producers supplying niche rules-oriented products, while you blame consumer demand.


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## Ariosto (Nov 29, 2009)

> As with most matters of personal taste, there are probably as many particular reasons for not liking RPGs as there are people who don't like them. Why focus on just a few?



The only way _to_ focus is on one at a time. Are there not probably as many particular reasons for *liking*?

"Well, some people like this stuff and some don't. What if we could ask why, and try to add to the 'like' column? What madness! One might as well suppose that we could actually _advertise_ features of the product, so people could see that it's something they'll probably like and therefore decide to try it."


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## Ariosto (Nov 30, 2009)

> I postulate that a significant chunk (the majority? the overwhelming majority of people I game with, at least) of the gamer audience isn't that interested in the rules and doesn't like updates (thus the popular non-acceptance of 4e), and that those who are "rules gamers" are very much segmented into their own little niches (thus the edition wars).



Who is *buying* the most, and the most profitable, products?

Some business plans are fiduciary responsibility; some are not. WotC is not a "non-profit" corporation, and even the "profit enough" model seems to be as archaic as the "company man".


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## Victim (Nov 30, 2009)

S'mon said:


> The games are highly complex compared to in the '80s, because hardcore gamers like complexity and are the easiest to market to.   This restricts appeal to the wider market.  Same thing happened with wargames in the '70s.




I'd imagine that a lot of the time the wider market is perfectly happy use someone else's RPG rule book.  If they don't buy something, then why market to them?

Moreover, the overhead on even simple RPGs is generally a lot more than a computer game which handles the rules itself, has instant matchmaking online, doesn't require reading the manual, automatically does any record keeping needed (rpgs are generally played in campaigns which require multiple plays to get full value).  

Competing in terms of ease of play against video games and even many modern hardcore boardgames seems like a massively losing proposition.  

In some ways, the real question might be "how are RPGs this popular in the first place?" considering all the competing hobbies, time investments and coordination issues, cooperative nature, lack of monetary rewards (as opposed to a poker group/fantasy sports things), need for a dedicated referee player, etc.  What an amazing idea to hang on in spite of everything.


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## Hussar (Nov 30, 2009)

Victim said:


> /snip
> 
> In some ways, the real question might be "how are RPGs this popular in the first place?" considering all the competing hobbies, time investments and coordination issues, cooperative nature, lack of monetary rewards (as opposed to a poker group/fantasy sports things), need for a dedicated referee player, etc.  What an amazing idea to hang on in spite of everything.




See, now there's an interesting point.  The examples of hobbies that you bring up have all come in since RPG's became popular.  Texas Hold 'em Poker, Fantasy Sports leagues etc. are all pretty recent compared to D&D.

So, what competition did D&D have in the hobby market in the mid-70's, early '80's?  I would argue that there was a whole lot less then than there is now.


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## Ariosto (Nov 30, 2009)

> In some ways, the real question might be "how are RPGs this popular in the first place?"



As I recall, _Dungeons & Dragons_ exceeded even Gygax's expectations. The original target demographic of historical wargamers is probably a very small minority today.

Yes, I think the success the game form has enjoyed is pretty remarkable. To anticipate a rise to even greater heights of popularity at this point -- at least as a commercial concern -- seems to me far fetched. The iron was hot in the 1980s, and we've already got what came of that.

Separating the hobby from the industry, perhaps there can be some growth especially among more casual and infrequent players. As "an amusing and diverting pastime ... in no case something to be taken too seriously", the game has potential for players whether or not their wallets are worthwhile for Hasbro to target.


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## AllisterH (Nov 30, 2009)

Hussar said:


> See, now there's an interesting point.  The examples of hobbies that you bring up have all come in since RPG's became popular.  Texas Hold 'em Poker, Fantasy Sports leagues etc. are all pretty recent compared to D&D.
> 
> So, what competition did D&D have in the hobby market in the mid-70's, early '80's?  I would argue that there was a whole lot less then than there is now.




Looking back in the 70s and 80s, I'm actually blanking on anything other than war and boardgames and other model hobbies like trains and RCs. Wargames themselves tend to require as much buy-in (if not more) than RPGs while model trains and RCs would be more expensive than RPGs.

As a sidebar, Shelley's latest column was very timely.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Nov 30, 2009)

Hussar said:


> See, now there's an interesting point.  The examples of hobbies that you bring up have all come in since RPG's became popular.  Texas Hold 'em Poker, Fantasy Sports leagues etc. are all pretty recent compared to D&D.




Well, Texas Hold 'em Poker is just a very popular variant (one of hundreds if not thousands) of one of the world's most popular card games.  IOW, it ties into something bigger than itself that is also popular.  And there is the money thing.

Fantasy Sports leagues also do that- they tie into something much older and already popular.  Most people who watch or participate in sports wonder what it would be like to participate in or coach at a pro level.  Fantasy sports give you a taste of that, along with bragging rights and, of course, the potential to win money.



> So, what competition did D&D have in the hobby market in the mid-70's, early '80's?  I would argue that there was a whole lot less then than there is now.




Within the market?  Almost none.  D&D was, at one time, _the_ RPG.  All subsequent releases were, in some way, compared to it.  Its not an accident that Traveller is commonly referred to as "The D&D of Sci-Fi RPGs."

D&D's competition- at least as far as recreational $$$ spending- was mainly the very same sources that inspired it: genre fiction in all of its forms, and wargames.


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## Victim (Nov 30, 2009)

Hussar said:


> See, now there's an interesting point.  The examples of hobbies that you bring up have all come in since RPG's became popular.  Texas Hold 'em Poker, Fantasy Sports leagues etc. are all pretty recent compared to D&D.
> 
> So, what competition did D&D have in the hobby market in the mid-70's, early '80's?  I would argue that there was a whole lot less then than there is now.




The popularity of Texas Hold'em is new, but I seem to recall poker nights involving my father well before the current craze.  And I feel that comparison to Poker is especially apt since it too involves similar small group coordination issues.


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## Ariosto (Nov 30, 2009)

> Wargames themselves tend to require as much buy-in (if not more) than RPGs



Miniatures games, sure. Many board wargames had 4 pages of basic rules and were playable within 4 hours or less, and many more involved just a bit more. (Although I write in the past tense, there are still a few publishers and at least one concentrates overwhelmingly on what once was called the "micro game".)

GDW's Europa series (starting ca. 1984, IIRC) was probably the biggest of all "monster" games. Computer-moderated play-by-mail games (such as the classic Starweb, which I think Rick Loomis of Flying Buffalo offers to this day) could also get quite complex, but gave you more time to analyze data and formulate strategies ... sort of kind of World of Warcraft at snail-mail pace, if you can dig that.



> D&D's competition- at least as far as recreational $$$ spending- was mainly the very same sources that inspired it: genre fiction in all of its forms, and wargames.



Yep, and all pretty geeky. When we speak of D&D having been popular, of course we mean chiefly among high-level alpha nerds.

*Space: 1979 Adventure in a More Civilized Time*


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## Hussar (Dec 1, 2009)

Ariosto - sure, there were lots of 4 page wargames.  There were loads of more complicated ones as well.  I have a shelf of Yaquinto games (gack) that are just nasty when it comes to complexity.  The bloody things take 4 hours to set up, never mind play.  

But, I think the point I was trying to make is pretty strong.  There just wasn't anywhere near the competition for time or money at the time.  Particularly for the demographic that eventually became the backbone of RPG's - the teens and early 20's crowd.  No Internet, no computer games (at least not for a few years) and certainly very little that you could do with four or five of your friends.

Heck, back in the day, we could get groups of eight or ten (I think my record was 13 for a while) together for a weekly game.  Imagine a 16 year old trying to do that now, with all the competition for free time we have.  It's not a big surprise to me that the presumed party size has shrunk considerably over the years.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 1, 2009)

Ariosto said:


> Yep, and all pretty geeky. When we speak of D&D having been popular, of course we mean chiefly among high-level alpha nerds.




Hmmm...you're probably right about that, but as I've said elsewhere, I was an army brat.  At least in my formative years, wargames were pretty popular in the armed forces.  I still remember how there were all kinds of SFB, PanzerBlitz, Midway, Submarine and other wargames being played by the soldiers and other military brats around me.



> *Space: 1979 Adventure in a More Civilized Time*




You know, I'm a big fan of Space:1889- I have 4 copies of the main rulebook, for example- but I'd _love_ to see a similar treatment for an alt-hist game like that.

I mean...you could go all "Gil Gerrard" or BSG...or take it even further, decking out your fighters in "Starsky & Hutch" or "General Lee" car paint jobs.

Characters like Huggy Spacebear...or an interplanetary K.I.T.T. flying through the void with the Star-Hoff.


_Waka chika wow!_


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## Ariosto (Dec 1, 2009)

Pigs ... in ... spaaace!
"Cheech, toss the doobie out the airlock!"

On into the '80s:

"Fleshy headed mutant. Are you friendly?"
"No way, eh? Ra-... radiation has made... me an enemy of civilization."
"Alpha Base. This is Bob McKenzie. I have a fleshy-headed mutant in sector 16B."
_[shoots Doug]_
"Ahhh! Take off, you hoser."


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## diaglo (Dec 1, 2009)

investment of time.

when i was younger i could walk into toys r us and buy monopoly or any other board game right along side D&D. as well as cartridges for video games like the atari and intellivision (even a couple D&D ones).

playing the board games or video games required learning and setup too. once learned you were set for life.

but for D&D and other RPGs to work and progress since there is no winner it requires a time investment.

as an adult this investment competes with job, kids, mortgage, going to the store for milk, getting my tires changed, moving, etc...

i can still pick up the monopoly and play with little or no investment. spur of the moment deal. or the video game/ now computer game.

the rpg still requires me to have something prepared.


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## Holy Bovine (Dec 1, 2009)

Rechan said:


> One in Four Read No Books Last Year - washingtonpost.com




That makes me really sad.  I am actually having a hard time imagining 25% of the adult population never reading a book.  It is almost unfathomable to me.


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## Desdichado (Dec 1, 2009)

Stormonu said:


> Heck, I'd almost believe even fantasy & sci fi novels are more popular than RPGs.



You'd... _almost_ believe that?


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## Clavis (Dec 1, 2009)

The main thing that keeps down the popularity of RPGs, in my experience, is prejudice against gamers. The overwhelming number of people won't play PnP RPGs because it means associating with people they've been trained to regard as social outcasts. That people want to game is proven by the success of WOW. What WoW allows people to do is play an RPG while staying in the gaming closet. The WoW player doesn't need to associate with other gamers, so they don't have to feel like they'll be exposed to ridicule if anyone finds out about their gaming habit.

The second problem with attracting a wider audience to RPGs is that some of the stereotypes about us are sometimes true. There really are sexist, racist, extremely out-of-shape gamers with zero social skills and no conception of personal hygiene. If a newbie finds a group with just one of these gamers, they will tend to remember it because it fulfills their preconception of what gamers are like. The fact that the rest of the group is relatively attractive and stable people will often be forgotten, because generally people want to have their biases confirmed.

Now, let's say that someone overcomes their initial fear of social ostracism, and simply ignores any stereotypical gamers they actually encounter. Now the prospective new gamer is confronted with a 300 page rulebook that they have to read in order to play a game. A game that they will probably always be ashamed to admit that they play. At this point, the average person will simply give up.

I don't see how this situation is ever going to change. It's not as if Cosmopolitan is going to run an article extolling the sexiness of gamers. We can't kick the obnoxious people out of the hobby. And D&D is never going to be a rules light game in the future, because most of the money comes from  complexity-loving hardcore gamers.


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## Majoru Oakheart (Dec 1, 2009)

The Ghost said:


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




I'm not entirely sure.  I think a lot of people rationalize the chance of winning money as extremely important.  Ask someone to spend 3 hours researching player statistics for their Fantasy Football League and they'll likely think, "I may have to spend 3 hours staring at numbers, doing math and thinking a lot...which I don't really like...but I could win 50 bucks if I try hard enough.  So, at least it's for a good cause."

I've seen this in friends that are Poker players and people who like Fantasy Football.  If you asked them to put the same amount of effort into a D&D game they'd probably look at you as if you'd told them to cover themselves in honey and lay in a field of fire ants.

The difference is that in one they feel the money is worth the effort whereas the DM saying "And the Orc dies" is not.  Even if they don't win money, at least there was a chance of it.  Playing D&D, the only thing they had a chance of winning was the mocking of their other friends who don't like D&D.


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## AntiStateQuixote (Dec 1, 2009)

Stormonu said:
			
		

> Why aren't RPGs poplular?





Mark said:


> My bad!  Sorry bout that.



Exactly! 

Happy Holidays, Mark!


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## Mallus (Dec 1, 2009)

The main thing that keeps RPG's from being more popular is (relatively) few people enjoy pretending to be an Elf in front of other people. However, pretending to a _Night Elf_, alone in the privacy of your computer room, whenever you have a bit (hah!) of spare time, has proven to be exceptionally popular.

In a similar vein, the reason opera isn't more popular is (relatively) few people enjoy opera. But they love American Idol. There's no accounting for taste. Or rather, there is, but the numbers rarely add up to any sort of logical reasoning.

In other words, not everything will attract, or keep, a large, mainstream audience. Which is kinda ironic in this particular case, because RPG's _have_ over the past 35 years, albeit not in their original pen-and-paper form.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 3, 2009)

Ariosto said:


> Pigs ... in ... spaaace!
> "Cheech, toss the doobie out the airlock!"
> 
> On into the '80s:
> ...




I have a feeling that the Cheech & Chong version of the Millenium Falcon would look sort of like a Maple leaf...but with a little something extra.

And given the way Bob & Doug's movie went, I could almost envision Darth Hoser.


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## cattoy (Dec 3, 2009)

Three words:

Night

Elf

MOHAWK!

Computer games have seriously encroached upon the heartland of RPGs to the point that RPG have diminished to the point of running rinkydink bingo parlors and casinos to keep themselves solvent.

Don't get me wrong, the clever and efficient companies are going to be able to keep running for pretty much forever, but it'll never revert to the days when they rode the land from horizon to horizon chasing herds of endless buffalo.


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## ExploderWizard (Dec 3, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> 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.




Thats because those charts are out of date.  I think a great many people would be considered overweight at that body fat percentage. People are a bit larger on average than the official charts indicate. It reminds me of an old bit from MAD magazine in the early 80's that was about basketball players: 

20 years ago a 6'5" player was a giant.

Now a 7' tall player is considered average.

By the year 2050 the most common injury will be the banging of kneecaps against the backboard.


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## delericho (Dec 3, 2009)

TSR cancelled the Red Box.

Seriously, the (perceived) buy-in is just too great.

Take 4e: The three core rulebooks run to 832 pages and have an RRP of $105. In order to play the game, each prospective player has to be familiar with large chunks of at least the "Player's Handbook", and the prospective DM has to have read large chunks of all three. Then, each player has to create a character, made up of large numbers of complex options (many of which a new player simply will not understand), and the DM has to spend some amount of time putting together an adventure (or spend yet more money).

Or consider Pathfinder: The core rulebook and the bestiary together run to 880 pages or very dense text. Indeed, there may be as much as 50% more to core Pathfinder than to 'core' D&D 4e. And, again, there's the reading, the character creation, and the adventure generation.

Look at other RPGs, and you'll generally see much the same things over and over again: Vampire has two required books, one of which is very thick. Warhammer 3e has an RRP of $100. Shadowrun 4e is a thick book of complex rules and options. And so it goes.

Or, alternately, there's the Starter Set. A low-cost, easy-to-approach introduction to the game. Perfect, no?

Well, no.

Firstly, WotC made the mistake of releasing the Starter Set some months after the core rulebooks. Consequently, it usually gets displayed as one of 20-30 D&D products on a shelf, and doesn't exactly stand out from the crowd. Indeed, you might be forgiven for not even realising it exists. (Plus, a big shelf of endless supplements is every bit as intimidating as looking at the 832-page rulebooks that you 'have' to read before you get to play. ("You mean I have to buy all of that?"))

Secondly, the Starter Set doesn't have character creation rules. Thus, the game immediately loses one of its great selling points - the ability to play your own custom character.

Thirdly, Starter Sets past have not used the 'real' rules of the game, but instead a stripped down subset. (I don't know if this is true of the existing Starter Set.) So, when you graduate to the 'real' game, things are subtly different.

Fourth, and finally, the Starter Set becomes essentially worthless once you graduate to the 'real' rules. So, if you don't like the game, you've wasted $20 on the Starter Set, and if you _do_ like the game, you've wasted $20 on the Starter Set.

(The reason I mention the "Red Box" above was that that was the last time the Starter Set seemed to be 'done right'. Although, even there it fell foul of using the wrong rules, since it was for BECM D&D and the 'real' game was AD&D.)

How to fix this?

Actually, I don't think the buy-in issue _can_ be fixed with 4e, any more than it could be with 3e. The product line would require a fairly significant rethink, that almost demands a new edition to put into practice. Here's how I would do it:

Firstly, build the game around a single Core Rulebook, no more than 250 pages (fewer would be better). This would include a basic set of options (say four races and four classes, levels for the first tier, and basic sets of powers, magic items and monsters). Crucially, this would be the _same_ Core Rulebook that is used both in the Starter Set and the 'real' game.

On release day, release two products in parallel. The main product, called simply "Dungeons & Dragons", would be a big boxed set aimed at new players. It should include the Core Rulebook, a quick-start guide, pre-generated characters, a book of pre-generated adventures (each suitable to be run in 3 hours or less with minimal set-up required), character sheets, dice, dungeon tiles, miniatures, and anything else that you might need to play. Heck, it should even include pencils!

The second product would be the Core Rulebook, sold separately. This would be aimed at converts to the new edition.

Moving onwards, I would support the Dungeons & Dragons set with additional expansions over time, each adding another book of adventures, more pre-generated characters (maybe), more dungeon tiles, more miniatures, and so forth. Maybe one or two of these per year, in a nice shiny box of goodies.

For the more traditional crowd, I would support the game with three circles of supplements. The first circle would be the "expanded core". This consist of between 3 and 6 additional books, and would put back all the 'missing' options that we're used to from our core game. Crucially, these are supplements to the Core Rulebook, not replacements, but they would also be designed on the assumption that you're using them together or not at all.

The second circle would consist of the supplements we're used to - splatbooks for the races and classes, pre-generated adventures, and so forth. These will also assume you're using the expanded core, but will also (mostly) work with just the Core Rulebook - they should serve to intrigue the core player to investigate the expanded core.

And the third circle would consist of things like the settings, perhaps also the DDI, and so on. Again, these would assume the use of the expanded core, but again they should mostly work with just the Core Rulebook. I think WotC have actually handled the settings lines mostly right with 4e - I would be inclined to support a setting a year, each with an intentionally limited run. (Perhaps a Setting Guide, a Player's Guide, maybe a Bestiary, and a couple of adventures.)

Regarding the Rules:

Character creation in 3e, 4e and Pathfinder is too damn complex. Players have to roll and then assign six stats (or use point buy, which is even more complex), choose from seven races, choose from eight classes, and then choose three different types of powers, each from their own unique lists, choose skills, choose feats, choose equipment, choose a name... why am I not playing WoW again?

(And, especially in 3e, Heaven help you if you make the wrong choices! You're a half-orc bard, are you? Cool, enjoy playing a character that doesn't work quite right for the next several months!)

So, I would strongly advocate bringing back the Basic tier (though not the ultra-fragile characters - 4e is right in eliminating these), and also making the choices less difficult up-front. Surprisingly, 4d6-drop-lowest _in order_ may be the best 'default' method of attribute generation. The choice of race should probably be mostly cosmetic, at least at first (racial feats, powers or talent trees can expand this later). Each class should probably provide a fixed set of iconic powers for the first few levels, with options opening later. (And it should go without saying that any halfway-decent set of attributes, race and class should be at least reasonably effective. 3e, in particular, has too many rubbish options available to the unwary.)

Feats should be deferred to second level, while skills should probably be a matter of picking the ones you have (as in SWSE), rather than assigning ranks. I'm not sure what can be done about equipment - perhaps each class should include a list of half a dozen quick choices, each of three or four options (choose scale mail or chain mail; choose a longsword and shield, or a greatsword, or two shortswords...).

For all those experienced players who are reading this dramatic reduction in options and swearing they would never play such a game, provide sidebars offering the ability to customise the character even at low levels (just not as the default), and also advice for starting the game at the first level in the Expert tier. (The goal is not to strip out options for the sake of it - the goal is to make it easy for new players to get playing their own custom character without spending an hour on doing so.)

For the rest of the rules, a similar mentality should prevail: simplify!

Part of this will be forced on the design by only having 250 pages to work with, at least initially. Things like special combat maneuvers should be deferred to the expanded core. Stacking rules should be really obvious (perhaps even going so far as "you can only have one temporary effect on you at a time"). Conditional modifiers (and especially trivial conditional modifiers) should be reigned in or eliminated. Oh, and do away with "system mastery".

And so it goes.

Reduce the buy-in, getting people playing quickly, ensure your "Starter Set" retains its value, and then provide the options desired by the hardcore later.


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## ExploderWizard (Dec 3, 2009)

delericho said:


> (The reason I mention the "Red Box" above was that that was the last time the Starter Set seemed to be 'done right'. Although, even there it fell foul of using the wrong rules, since it was for BECM D&D and the 'real' game was AD&D.)




  Classic D&D was very much its own game and every bit as "real" as AD&D. It was a simpler game but that very simplicity is what made a starter set that retained its value possible. 


Great observations otherwise.


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## Bedrockgames (Dec 3, 2009)

First off, this is an excellent topic. I think things are improving. I don't have any real numbers, but I just feel like I see more pen and paper RPGs at major book stores these days, than say ten years ago. But I hear what you are saying. 

When I was a kid in the early 80s, it felt like D&D (and maybe fantasy and sci fi in general) was all over the place: in movies like ET, at toy stores, on television, etc. Maybe that was just a special moment in time, when it was just more cool. Maybe it was also before D&D had really been branded as a game for "nerds and geeks" (if I were to be honest, I would probably have to say I am a geek myself). In my mind that is probably what makes it a harder sell now. I don't think it is that people wouldn't enjoy playing if they gave it a fair shot, they just don't feel comfortable making the plunge into gaming, because they associate with being uncool. Maybe if we experience another cultural shift (a bit like we did in the 90s) when being a little on the nerdy side is hip, there will be more acceptance of gaming. 

I saw the author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, Ethan Gilsdorf speak recently, and he had some interesting things to say about gaming culture and how even among different types of games (LARPING, Table Top, Online, Card Games, etc) there are mental divisions and hierarchies that make a person from one kind of gaming hesitant to cross over to another type. Probably a similar mechanism at work.


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## mmadsen (Dec 3, 2009)

maddman75 said:


> I've been to GenCon and know that 99+% of the people in this hobby are perfectly normal folks.



Some of us have drawn very different conclusions from the same sample data.


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## mmadsen (Dec 3, 2009)

Krensky said:


> 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.



It's not that simple, since publishing faces fairly high fixed costs (author, artists, etc.) and fairly low variable costs (each extra copy of a book is _relatively_ cheap).  And consignment makes stores willing to carry long-shots _at all_.


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## Mallus (Dec 3, 2009)

delericho said:


> Take 4e: The three core rulebooks run to 832 pages and have an RRP of $105. In order to play the game, each prospective player has to be familiar with large chunks of at least the "Player's Handbook", and the prospective DM has to have read large chunks of all three.



Wow is complex. So are the various Pokemon franchises (CCG's, console RPG's). Both are quite popular, the latter among young children, even (err, and some adults who shall remain nameless...). 

Why doesn't complexity limit their popularity?


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## Bedrockgames (Dec 3, 2009)

Mallus said:


> Wow is complex. So are the various Pokemon franchises (CCG's, console RPG's). Both are quite popular, the latter among young children, even (err, and some adults who shall remain nameless...).
> 
> Why doesn't complexity limit their popularity?




I think the difference is that WOW is a computer game, and does all the calculations and grunt work for you. But to make a pen and paper game work, you need to understand the rules well, which does involve some heavy reading.


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## Desdichado (Dec 3, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> Classic D&D was very much its own game and every bit as "real" as AD&D. It was a simpler game but that very simplicity is what made a starter set that retained its value possible.



I almost said that too, but I think he's got a point.  This is one of those "perception is reality" kind of things, and the perception was that the "basic" game was what you played around with for a little while, but the "advanced" game was the "real" game that you ended up playing when you were ready to take off the training wheels.

Looking back at it after the fact, if for some reason I were to go back and play with these older games again, I wouldn't touch AD&D and I'd play Basic and Expert instead.  But at the time, we "knew" that that wasn't what you were supposed to do.


mmadsen said:


> Some of us have drawn very different conclusions from the same sample data.



Indeed.  I've rarely felt thinner, more attractive, sexier, and more socially adept then when I was at GenCon.  And relatively speaking, I probably was.

GenCon has introduced us to the phenomenon of "The Running of the Fatbeards" too, where a whole bunch of stinky, sweaty middle-aged men kinda shuffle in a somewhat hurried fashion towards the booth that has the hot release of the year.  I don't think 99+% of the population would do that, either.


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## Mallus (Dec 3, 2009)

Bedrockgames said:


> I think the difference is that WOW is a computer game, and does all the calculations and grunt work for you.



Even so, there are still a number of complex options/interactions/systems for WoW players to master, which might explain the amount of fan-created online material devoted to teaching people how to master them. Ditto w/the Pokemon...



> But to make a pen and paper game work, you need to understand the rules well, which does involve some heavy reading.



I am a living testament to the fact you don't need to know the rules _that_ well to run successful RPG campaigns. For years. 

(what you really need is consent/buy-in from the your players, and I've found it's a mistake to believe that comes from rule mastery)


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## ExploderWizard (Dec 3, 2009)

Bedrockgames said:


> I think the difference is that WOW is a computer game, and does all the calculations and grunt work for you. But to make a pen and paper game work, you need to understand the rules well, which does involve some heavy reading.




Yes. I can log into WOW and play with very little thought or effort. Playing _well _and running endgame content takes a bit more effort but just playing the game questing/leveling barely requires a brain stem.

Add to that the convenience of on-demand play and the ability to play for only a few minutes at a time if you want and the attraction to the busy/attention defecit consumer is obvious.


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## Bedrockgames (Dec 3, 2009)

Mallus said:


> Even so, there are still a number of complex options/interactions/systems for WoW players to master, which might explain the amount of fan-created online material devoted to teaching people how to master them. Ditto w/the Pokemon...




This is a good point. And one of the reasons why I haven't really got into the online gaming thing. But when I have played, I can see how having the computer do calculations and record keeping for you (it basically runs all the behind the scenes elements of combat), would make getting into the game easier. 



> I am a living testament to the fact you don't need to know the rules _that_ well to run successful RPG campaigns. For years.
> 
> (what you really need is consent/buy-in from the your players, and I've found it's a mistake to believe that comes from rule mastery)




I agree 100%. Rules mastery is not required to play a game. In fact, dwelling on the rules too much (and looking things up when you really could just make it up on the fly to keep things moving) can hurt the flow of an RPG. But I can see how opening the D&D rule book for the first time, can be intimidating for someone who has never played. I also think the sheer number of books can be confusing to someone encountering the hobby for the first time. Let's face it, if you don't like to read much (but might be the type of person who enjoys gaming) and you see a 220 page rule book for the first time, you might decide it isn't worth the effort. 

Again though, your point about not needing to master the rules is totally true, but people may not be getting that impression when they are first introduced to gaming.


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## Bedrockgames (Dec 3, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> Add to that the convenience of on-demand play and the ability to play for only a few minutes at a time if you want and the attraction to the busy/attention defecit consumer is obvious.




I think this is important too. A table top rpg requires other players, and if you don't know anyone who plays, even if you bought all the books for a game, it may be hard to start a campaign. When I first realy got into gaming, this was the hardest part. I had a group in California was attended elementary school. But I moved accross the country in 7th grade, and it took about a year and half to find other players who could play consistently. With WOW, the players are all online. And you don't even truly need them, because the computer can still present you with challenges.


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## Desdichado (Dec 3, 2009)

Bedrockgames said:


> Again though, your point about not needing to master the rules is totally true, but people may not be getting that impression when they are first introduced to gaming.



I think that's heavily personality dependent, though.  I mean, _*I*_ strongly agree with Mallus, and I play that same way and only like games that are run under those principles.  But that's because what I enjoy out of the game is different than what some other, more gamist personalities enjoy.  For a lot of people, rules mastery is _important_ to their enjoyment of the game, and they literally don't enjoy it otherwise.  My wife, bless her soul, is like this.  She likes games that are simple enough that she can feel like she's _mastered_ the rules before she plays, because she hates playing a game feeling like she's not making the best possible choices out there because she doesn't understand her options.  I've tried to explain to her that she can focus more on the roleplaying and less on the game and it'll work better; "just do what makes sense in character, don't worry so much about whether or not it's the 'best' thing to do."  She gets it; she just couldn't enjoy a game like that.

Needless to say, I've failed spectacularly in getting her into the hobby, because the hobby is geared towards either people who don't care as much about the rules and just enjoy the experience, or people who are "gearheads" so to speak, who really enjoy rules mastery, and are willing to invest massive amounts of time to acquire it.


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## Bedrockgames (Dec 3, 2009)

Hobo said:


> Needless to say, I've failed spectacularly in getting her into the hobby, because the hobby is geared towards either people who don't care as much about the rules and just enjoy the experience, or people who are "gearheads" so to speak, who really enjoy rules mastery, and are willing to invest massive amounts of time to acquire it.




I share your pain. It does often boil down to personality.


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## avin (Dec 3, 2009)

Coming late to this topic, having read it, I bet it's because of the books.

Most kids just run away from any books they see.


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## delericho (Dec 3, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> Classic D&D was very much its own game and every bit as "real" as AD&D. It was a simpler game but that very simplicity is what made a starter set that retained its value possible.




Aye, 'tis true. I didn't mean to disparage BECM D&D - I remember it very fondly, and in hindsight it's obvious that many of the supposed improvements in AD&D were nothing of the sort.

What I was trying to get at was that I think TSR made a key mistake in supporting two parallel versions of D&D. Hmm, maybe I should have just said that? 



Mallus said:


> Wow is complex. So are the various Pokemon franchises (CCG's, console RPG's). Both are quite popular, the latter among young children, even (err, and some adults who shall remain nameless...).
> 
> Why doesn't complexity limit their popularity?




How much of that complexity is required before getting started playing?

I don't think complexity, in and of itself, is the problem. I think the major problem is the amount of time, money and effort required before starting play. Get people playing as quickly as possible, and I believe the game will sell itself. Require them to spend an hour juggling fiddly details to build a character, and they'll do something else instead.


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## Mallus (Dec 3, 2009)

avin said:


> Most kids just run away from any books they see.



Statements like this in the age of bestselling young adult book series like Twilight and Harry Potter seem, well, a little silly. 

I just read an article online somewhere (io9?) about how young adult fiction is the hottest part of the SF market right now. One of the my favorite new-ish SF authors, Scott Westerfeld, writes YA exclusively now, because that's where the money is.


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## ExploderWizard (Dec 3, 2009)

delericho said:


> How much of that complexity is required before getting started playing?
> 
> I don't think complexity, in and of itself, is the problem. I think the major problem is the amount of time, money and effort required before starting play.




That is the key. WOW pre-play time includes install/account creation, choosing a faction, race, class and appearance-done.

There are no decisions to make at all strategy wise until level 10 when you choose where to put your first talent point. Your abilities are dictated/taught by your trainer and you can start exploring/questing almost on autopilot. 

I have fun with my toons but playing doesn't provide the same satisfaction for me as a PnP RPG. It does provide that instant gratification gaming for solo play though.


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## billd91 (Dec 3, 2009)

Hobo said:


> GenCon has introduced us to the phenomenon of "The Running of the Fatbeards" too, where a whole bunch of stinky, sweaty middle-aged men kinda shuffle in a somewhat hurried fashion towards the booth that has the hot release of the year.  I don't think 99+% of the population would do that, either.




Perhaps not shuffle along as wheezy fatbeards, but every new toy craze from the Cabbage Patch Kids to Tickle Me Elmo, the Wii, and PT Cruisers tells me that the proportion of the population that would do that is far greater than <1%.


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## Oni (Dec 3, 2009)

Mallus said:


> Wow is complex. So are the various Pokemon franchises (CCG's, console RPG's). Both are quite popular, the latter among young children, even (err, and some adults who shall remain nameless...).
> 
> Why doesn't complexity limit their popularity?




I'll speak to WoW mostly since I have the most experience with that, though I feel what I'll say will apply to the other things you've mentioned at one level or another.  

WoW's complexity is really dependent on the user's desire to delve into that complexity.  A person may not be great at the game, but they can function even at higher levels of play with only a very basic understanding of how to play and roughly the intellect of a fence post. 

Really the same goes for most computer/console rpg's I've played, and even a game like M:TG can be played on a very simple level relative to how complicated the game can be.   I can't speak to Pokemon though, but maybe it's because they're so darn cute.  

Anyway I suggest that these are in no way popular because of their complexity, and that the reason that their complexity does not limit their popularity all comes back to a single reason.  

They are simple to learn to start with. 

Complexity only comes in in terms of extending the lifespan for those who want more than the starting simplicity.


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## avin (Dec 3, 2009)

Mallus said:


> Statements like this in the age of bestselling young adult book series like Twilight and Harry Potter seem, well, a little silly.




I don't know. I've always been a book/comics rat, but as I look around when was a kid, I was the exception.

Not to mention that this change from country to country.



Mallus said:


> I just read an article online somewhere (io9?) about how young adult fiction is the hottest part of the SF market right now. One of the my favorite new-ish SF authors, Scott Westerfeld, writes YA exclusively now, because that's where the money is.




Maybe things have changed, hope so.


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## Mallus (Dec 3, 2009)

avin said:


> Not to mention that this change from country to country.



True. In the US, young adult fiction is very popular now.


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## Theo R Cwithin (Dec 3, 2009)

ExploderWizard said:


> Yes. I can log into WOW and play with very little thought or effort. Playing _well _and running endgame content takes a bit more effort but just playing the game questing/leveling barely requires a brain stem.



Hehe...  Back during my brief WoW stint a couple years ago, my favorite part of the game was fishing.  Who needs a brainstem?   


ExploderWizard said:


> Add to that the convenience of on-demand play and the ability to play for only a few minutes at a time if you want and the attraction to the busy/attention defecit consumer is obvious.



 I really think this gets to the crux of it.  WoW can be done without any dependence on anyone else: there are no time or scheduling constraints, and you can still play the game even if none of your buddies are around, for as long or as short as you want.  

It's simply MUCH more convenient to CRPG than to PnP RPG.  And people are all about convenience!  

(Of course, whether _that's_ a good thing is a different topic  )


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## Mallus (Dec 3, 2009)

Oni said:


> Really the same goes for most computer/console rpg's I've played, and even a game like M:TG can be played on a very simple level relative to how complicated the game can be.   I can't speak to Pokemon though, but maybe it's because they're so darn cute.
> 
> Anyway I suggest that these are in no way popular because of their complexity, and that the reason that their complexity does not limit their popularity all comes back to a single reason.
> 
> ...



See, I agree with all of this, except for the implication that contemporary pen-and-paper RPG's like 3e or 4e are significantly more complex than the games you mention. You can start simple in later-edition D&D. In fact, a few of my players might argue your DM can _remain_ rather simple, even after years behind the screen... 

Again, If a kid can familiarize themselves with a (few?) hundred Pokemon, I suggest that it's not complexity that's keeping them from joining the ranks of D&D players.


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## Gentlegamer (Dec 3, 2009)

Doug McCrae said:


> 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.



Video games are not role-playing games.


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## ggroy (Dec 3, 2009)

delericho said:


> What I was trying to get at was that I think TSR made a key mistake in supporting two parallel versions of D&D. Hmm, maybe I should have just said that?




Wonder why exactly two parallel version of D&D were kept around for so long in the first place.  Only semi-plausible reason I can think of offhand, would be if the basic and expert D&D box sets (Holmes, Moldvay, Mentzer, etc ...) were huge cash cows for TSR in comparison to AD&D.  Most companies aren't willing to give up a cash cow, for whatever reasons.


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## Mallus (Dec 3, 2009)

Gentlegamer said:


> Video games are not role-playing games.



So the Ultima's, Wizardry's, Temples of Apshai --I'm really showing my age with that one-- Bard's Tales, Might and Magics, SSI Gold Box games, not to mention the Final Fantasy's, Dragon Quests, Star Oceans, Suikoden's, and veritable horde of Pokemons are something _other_ than role-playing games?

Despite being labeled, sold, purchased, played, enjoyed, and widely recognized and discussed as such? For the past 30+ years.

Really?

(don't mind me, I just have a thing against prescriptivism)


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## Oni (Dec 3, 2009)

Mallus said:


> See, I agree with all of this, except for the implication that contemporary pen-and-paper RPG's like 3e or 4e are significantly more complex than the games you mention. You can start simple in later-edition D&D. In fact, a few of my players might argue your DM can _remain_ rather simple, even after years behind the screen...
> 
> Again, If a kid can familiarize themselves with a (few?) hundred Pokemon, I suggest that it's not complexity that's keeping them from joining the ranks of D&D players.




You make a fair point, at their core 3/4e or instance really are not super complicated, and there are many extremely simple rpg's out there, much simpler than any recent version of D&D.  Unfortunately, most of the truly simple ones are so little known that the opportunity is not there, and something more mainstream like D&D, or maybe even one of those White Wolf games, with their thick multi-volume rules sets do not give come off as being simple, rather the presentation gives an air of extreme complexity.  

Of course I don't think the simplicity/complexity issue is the only at play here, but it certainly doesn't help.  Easy to learn, hard to master is an important aspect though, and table top rpg's just don't give off that vibe if you're not familiar with them.  The thing with those kids that know the name of all the pokemon is that they learned it gradually because the games were accessible both in ease of play/not being intimidating (for a least the handheld versions) and in terms of culture.


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## ggroy (Dec 3, 2009)

Mallus said:


> So the Ultima's, Wizardry's, Temples of Apshai --I'm really showing my age with that one-- Bard's Tales, Might and Magics, SSI Gold Box games, not to mention the Final Fantasy's, Dragon Quests, Star Oceans, Suikoden's, and veritable horde of Pokemons are something _other_ than role-playing games?
> 
> Despite being labeled, sold, purchased, played, enjoyed, and widely recognized and discussed as such? For the past 30+ years.
> 
> ...




You missed Nethack, the Sword of Fargoal, and the D&D cartridge for the Intellivision.

NetHack - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sword of Fargoal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## delericho (Dec 3, 2009)

ggroy said:


> Wonder why exactly two parallel version of D&D were kept around for so long in the first place.




Ah, now that I know. It all goes back to the falling out between Gygax and Arneson. They collaborated on OD&D, but Gygax took sole credit for AD&D. Arneson sued, and I believe the settlement included the agreement that Arneson would continue to receive royalties for his game, and that TSR would keep it in print to that end.

It wasn't until WotC bought out TSR that this was fully resolved - I presume they made some sort of agreement with Arneson that brought that dispute to a resolution.


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## delericho (Dec 3, 2009)

Mallus said:


> Statements like this in the age of bestselling young adult book series like Twilight and Harry Potter seem, well, a little silly.
> 
> I just read an article online somewhere (io9?) about how young adult fiction is the hottest part of the SF market right now. One of the my favorite new-ish SF authors, Scott Westerfeld, writes YA exclusively now, because that's where the money is.




That's another point. Early editions of D&D were very heavily influenced by Tolkien, Moorcock, Lieber, Vance, Lovecraft and others, to the extent that there were various lawsuits threatened and served. (Halflings were originally Hobbits, Treants were originally Ents, and the very first "Deities & Demigods" included the Cthulhu mythos!)

I suspect that one could construct a really kick-ass game and/or setting by taking elements from Pokemon, Harry Potter, Eragon, and the like, filing off the serial numbers, putting them into a blender, and spicing the result. And so, perhaps we would have a game where the characters are lords of elemental familiars, dragon-riders, and lapsed students at the great academy Grimcrest, out on their adventures for fun and profit. Put that together (have the lawyers take a _very_ good look at it), and market it heavily towards young adults, and you might well have a monster hit on your hands.


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## TwinBahamut (Dec 3, 2009)

Gentlegamer said:


> Video games are not role-playing games.



Someone beat me to this, but...

Video games are not _pen-and-paper/tabletop_ role-playing games. Those are indeed different things. That said, "role-playing game" has been an established genre of videogaming for decades, to the point where it would probably be pretty easy to find someone who knew the videogame genre definition but didn't know anything about the tabletop game definition (I was one such person when I was a kid). There is also enough similarity between the two that they are worth comparing (though I personally think many videogame RPGs would be a lot better off if they were less like tabletop RPGs).

Anyways, I think the simple point that tabletop RPGs are too time-intensive is far and away they biggest issue. In fact, I will say that in most cases tabletop RPGs are far more time-intensive than many other forms of entertainment but have few advantages to make up for that fault. The only thing I can think of is the extreme flexibility of a tabletop RPG's story, but that isn't a guaranteed part of the tabletop RPG experience and pulling that kind of thing off requires a lot of DM effort. A DM needs to put in an excessive amount of effort, far more than is required to just play the game, for a D&D game's story to be more flexible than a good videogame's story and still stay just as involving and fun.

Honestly, even ridiculously complicated boardgames like _Twilight Imperium_ have a lot of advantages over tabletop RPGs in this regard, simply because it is easier to jump straight into playing one and it doesn't require a DM to spend hours of prep work on.


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## cattoy (Dec 3, 2009)

Gentlegamer said:


> Video games are not role-playing games.



Often, so-called RPGs aren't, either.

You can go through a session of 4e without a shred of role playing. It's perfectly suited to be a small-unit tactical combat boardgame, if you want it to be. Been there, done that.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 4, 2009)

Mallus said:


> So the Ultima's, Wizardry's, Temples of Apshai --I'm really showing my age with that one-- Bard's Tales, Might and Magics, SSI Gold Box games, not to mention the Final Fantasy's, Dragon Quests, Star Oceans, Suikoden's, and veritable horde of Pokemons are something _other_ than role-playing games?
> 
> Despite being labeled, sold, purchased, played, enjoyed, and widely recognized and discussed as such? For the past 30+ years.
> 
> ...




I've played many of those myself on my Macs or even Apple IIe- why yes, I'm at least that old- and I'd have to agree that most of those _aren't _RPGs.  IMHO, they're fantasy-themed combat/strategy/puzzle games.  They're no more RPGs than Doom, except that you get to choose the name of your "character(s)."

Now, when you start getting into the online MMORPGs, though, its quite arguable that those _are_ genuine RPGs...and I think the key is interaction with other human beings rather than solely with AIs.


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## Hussar (Dec 4, 2009)

delericho said:


> That's another point. Early editions of D&D were very heavily influenced by Tolkien, Moorcock, Lieber, Vance, Lovecraft and others, to the extent that there were various lawsuits threatened and served. (Halflings were originally Hobbits, Treants were originally Ents, and the very first "Deities & Demigods" included the Cthulhu mythos!)
> 
> I suspect that one could construct a really kick-ass game and/or setting by taking elements from Pokemon, Harry Potter, Eragon, and the like, filing off the serial numbers, putting them into a blender, and spicing the result. And so, perhaps we would have a game where the characters are lords of elemental familiars, dragon-riders, and lapsed students at the great academy Grimcrest, out on their adventures for fun and profit. Put that together (have the lawyers take a _very_ good look at it), and market it heavily towards young adults, and you might well have a monster hit on your hands.




There's a bit of a nugget in there to remember as well.  In the mid 70's, when TSR was ripping off the IP of any number of people and jamming it into the game, the lawsuits were pretty few and far between.

Imagine, for a second, the power that J. K. Rowling and co could bring to bear if they caught a whiff of IP violation from an RPG company.  I've read around that Rowling absolutely refuses to consider making an RPG for the HP brand because she doesn't want people doing slasher fanfic with her characters.  ((I'm paraphrasing of course))

I'm thinking that, right there, is probably the biggest reason RPG companies are a lot more leery of "borrowing" ideas than they once were.  FASA being hammered for its IP violations with mechs makes a perfect example of what can happen to you if you get a bit careless with what you include in your game.


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## delericho (Dec 4, 2009)

Hussar said:


> Imagine, for a second, the power that J. K. Rowling and co could bring to bear if they caught a whiff of IP violation from an RPG company.  I've read around that Rowling absolutely refuses to consider making an RPG for the HP brand because she doesn't want people doing slasher fanfic with her characters.  ((I'm paraphrasing of course))




There's a lot of truth to that.

At the same time, there is absolutely nothing original in Harry Potter beyond the specific characters (and situations) themselves - we have wizards, giants, centaurs, flying brooms, dark lords, prophecies, school, bullies, teachers, friends, evil step-parents... (Okay, there's Quiddich.)

Even things like the house system is lifted directly from UK schools (my own school had a house system, although we completely ignored it), the "Ministry of Magic" is just a logical extrapolation from our government's other ministries, and so forth.

Indeed, part of the success of the stories is probably _because_ it all feels so immediately familiar. But this means that it really wouldn't take much to file off the serial numbers.

Similarly, with the dragon riders I suggested borrowing from Eragon, well, that's not exactly an original idea, is it? Heck, WotC can even show prior art - dragon riding has been a big part of Dragonlance for decades.

However, the "elemental familiars" borrowed from Pokemon are considerably more questionable.


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## Jhaelen (Dec 4, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I've played many of those myself on my Macs or even Apple IIe- why yes, I'm at least that old- and I'd have to agree that most of those _aren't _RPGs.  IMHO, they're fantasy-themed combat/strategy/puzzle games.  They're no more RPGs than Doom, except that you get to choose the name of your "character(s)."
> 
> Now, when you start getting into the online MMORPGs, though, its quite arguable that those _are_ genuine RPGs...and I think the key is interaction with other human beings rather than solely with AIs.



I agree with your first point - most of these games didn't really have any roleplaying elements (imho, Ultima being the exception (among the games I recognize)).

Regarding your second point:
While MMORPGs provide an interface that would allow roleplaying, it's rare to meet players who actually do it (though I might have played on the wrong servers). Back when I was still playing in MUDs, there were several that expected everyone to roleplay and offered a separate 'Out-Of-Character' channel for anything else.
That's the kind of setup required to call a MMORPG a 'roleplaying game' in the original sense.

Regarding the complexity question of WoW vs. pen & paper rpgs:
Oni already provided an excellent counter-argument. The exceptional success of WoW over other MMRPGs was a direct cause of it's accessibility. All MMORPGs that came before were fiendishly difficult to get started with by comparison. I remember, it took me over half an hour just to figure out how to move my avatar in the first MMORPG I tried.
In WoW it's super-easy to just start playing and you can easily reach two-digit levels without understanding much about the game.

Consequently, what pen & paper rpgs obviously need to become popular is dead-simple introductiory material that allows a group of friends to start playing right away. Once they're hooked, they'll be willing to invest more time to get and read the complete rules. 

Imho, the D&D 4e starter box does a pretty good job in that regard.


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## mattcolville (Dec 4, 2009)

Gentlegamer said:


> Video games are not role-playing games.




Seems a silly thing to say. In both you create a character and make decisions about what he's going to do, and as you play he grows and changes. What else is there?

Without having read the whole thread, I've never felt like RPGs should be popular, or that my life would somehow be better if it were. RPGs seem extremely weird and nichey to me compared to most things people do, so the fact that they'r obscure is probably for the best.

Now, that being said, I think that something happened in the late 80's, early 90's. Before then, my perception was that if people saw you playing D&D and asked "What's that?" the reaction would be "get this guy a character and some dice."

After that period, the reaction would be "nothing, go away." Or, worse, "it's like cops and robbers with rules!"

I swear no one is worse at describing why RPGs are fun than people who think RPGs are fun. 

So that shift in our own attitudes toward our hobby, from the "get this guy playing" attitude to the "I'm embarrassed by this" attitude is certainly a reaction to something, but I don't think the stimulus is to blame, we're to blame by reacting by being embarrassed.

But, at the end of the day, I have no reason to want RPGs to be more popular, I can't imagine them ever really being mainstream in the pen-and-pencil version, and I have no problem with this.


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## Gentlegamer (Dec 4, 2009)

Mallus said:


> So the Ultima's, Wizardry's, Temples of Apshai --I'm really showing my age with that one-- Bard's Tales, Might and Magics, SSI Gold Box games, not to mention the Final Fantasy's, Dragon Quests, Star Oceans, Suikoden's, and veritable horde of Pokemons are something _other_ than role-playing games?
> 
> Despite being labeled, sold, purchased, played, enjoyed, and widely recognized and discussed as such? For the past 30+ years.
> 
> Really?



Yes. There has been a genre of video game called "RPG" for many years, but such games aren't really RPGs any more than video game sports games are really the sports themselves. Other video game genres include Action, Adventure, Puzzle, etc (and combinations).

In the video game world, a game meets the criteria of being "RPG" by the character(s) advancing through "experience points" and "character levels," concepts borrowed from D&D, but insufficient to make them actual role-playing games.


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## Gentlegamer (Dec 4, 2009)

TwinBahamut said:


> A DM needs to put in an excessive amount of effort, far more than is required to just play the game, for a D&D game's story to be more flexible than a good videogame's story and still stay just as involving and fun.



A role-playing game's "story" is what the participants make at the game table, and is infinite in possibilities. A video game's "story" is confined to the "adventure path" (often a linear "railroad") in which the player is really just a spectator to a predefined "script" of events set up by the programmer. There's really no comparison nor should there be confusion about which is really a role-playing game.


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## Gentlegamer (Dec 4, 2009)

cattoy said:


> Often, so-called RPGs aren't, either.
> 
> You can go through a session of 4e without a shred of role playing. It's perfectly suited to be a small-unit tactical combat boardgame, if you want it to be. Been there, done that.



I've never played 4e, but if the players can still take actions using "descriptive action" (including parleying, bribing, etc) that fall outside of quantified menu of action choices given by the RAW, even if the whole session is combat, they are still playing a role-playing game. In an actual role-playing game, the entire activity, including combat, is role-playing.


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## Raven Crowking (Dec 4, 2009)

Gentlegamer said:


> A role-playing game's "story" is what the participants make at the game table, and is infinite in possibilities. A video game's "story" is confined to the "adventure path" (often a linear "railroad") in which the player is really just a spectator to a predefined "script" of events set up by the programmer. There's really no comparison nor should there be confusion about which is really a role-playing game.




Indeed.

Dungeons & Dragons is an RPG.  Let us denote this as RPG(1) to indicate that it fulfills the requirement of being an RPG under the original definition.

Some computer games are called RPGs.  Let us denote this as RPG(2) to indicate that the term "RPG" has been co-opted to serve a different definition.

RPG(1) =/= RPG(2).

Because language is living, one can refer to a computer game as an RPG, under the definition of RPG(2), but one should not confuse this with being an RPG under the original definition , RPG(1).

Were I to convince everyone that the term "egg" should be used to denote grizzly bears, then the term "egg" would be viable for describing said bears.  But it still wouldn't mean that chickens squeeze grizzlies out for farmers.


RC


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## Gentlegamer (Dec 4, 2009)

mattcolville said:


> Seems a silly thing to say.



Since I consider "silly" to be a Godwin, I'm tempted to ignore your question, but I'll give you benefit of the doubt.


> In both you create a character and make decisions about what he's going to do, and as you play he grows and changes. What else is there?



The ability to go "beyond the rules and script" by the adjudication of a game master of infinite possible actions and outcomes, unconstrained by anything other than the imagination of the participants. 

To paraphrase Gary, no video game short of something like the Holodeck from Star Trek could be an actual role-playing game (and even the Holodeck would have to be run by an actual intelligence, not just a program).


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## Gentlegamer (Dec 4, 2009)

I didn't intend to derail the thread to another topic, so if others would like to continue the "video game vs. RPG" discussion, I'll be happy to join another thread.


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## Theo R Cwithin (Dec 4, 2009)

Raven Crowking said:


> But it still wouldn't mean that chickens squeeze grizzlies out for farmers.



Surely I'm not the only one who sees the jaw-droppingly awesome monster potential in this statement? 

[sblock]DM: Well, you've defeated the formless demonic dragon god of the far realms and all his half-fiend aboleth minions and the entire world of their mindflayer allies.  Congratulations!

Player1: Well that's great!  Let's grab the Sword and get out of here.  But first I go to a tavern and get hammered.

Player2: And I check out the lovely elf ladies--

Player3:  What happens now? 

DM: Well, you defeated the BBEG.  That's awesome!  Do whatever you want.

Player3: Well, sure.  But what?  We still have 3 hours tonight.

DM: (beads of perspiration upon his furrowed brow)  Well, in addition to the Sword... ummm.... Roll a spot check.

(Players roll dice)

Player3: 64

Player1: 61

Player2: Woohoo! 78!  I spot lots of lovely elf chicks--

DM: Player2, you notice... ummm.... something covered in demon's ichor, entangled with its foul acidic entrails...

Player2: An elf chick?

DM: It's a... a statuette....

Player3: Does this have a point?

DM: (with hostility) Only if you think the *Ultimate Threat to the Multiverse* is "a point", you fool!   You see amongst the slime a weird stone statuette carved in an ancient, primitive form.  A statuette... of a chicken... squeezing out.... a grizzly bear.

(Players look dumbfounded)

Player2: Is there any Mountain Dew left?
[/sblock]
When CRPGs can do stuff like that,  I will abdicate my humanity, and humbly welcome our new electronic overlords.


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## mattcolville (Dec 4, 2009)

Gentlegamer said:


> Since I consider "silly" to be a Godwin, I'm tempted to ignore your question, but I'll give you benefit of the doubt.
> The ability to go "beyond the rules and script" by the adjudication of a game master of infinite possible actions and outcomes, unconstrained by anything other than the imagination of the participants.




In what manner is that a necessary component to an RPG?


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 4, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> Regarding your second point:
> While MMORPGs provide an interface that would allow roleplaying, it's rare to meet players who actually do it (though I might have played on the wrong servers). Back when I was still playing in MUDs, there were several that expected everyone to roleplay and offered a separate 'Out-Of-Character' channel for anything else.
> That's the kind of setup required to call a MMORPG a 'roleplaying game' in the original sense.




Well, that is one reason why I included the qualifier "arguably" in my statement.

Online RPGs may indeed be populated largely by "roll players." 

But the obvious counterpoint is to question how many people who play P&P RPGs actually roleplay either.  IME, many of the people I've shared a table with in the past 30+ years are "roll players," not "role players."  That, however, hasn't diminished my enjoyment of the games with them, nor their contributions to the game itself.  Its just like they put on a different name tag...kind of like when Sean Connery plays Russian submarine commanders.

(To be clear, I don't play MMORPGs at all, so I have no first hand experience with them.)


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## Bedrockgames (Dec 4, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Well, that is one reason why I included the qualifier "arguably" in my statement.
> 
> Online RPGs may indeed be populated largely by "roll players."
> 
> ...




That is an interesting point. I think with pen and paper games there is a spectrum on the roll v. role playing thing. Personally I have to admit, I am no thespian, and probably fall somewhere in the middle. I think a lot of it is about comfort zone. I don't feel terribly comfortable speaking with an accent or really getting into a "role", but I do enjoy the story aspect of the game and interactions between PCs and NPCs are a lot of fun. 

In most of my games it has been a heavy mix. For a while we had a lot of heavy role players in our group, but the siren call of LARPING was too much for them. I am in a once a month group made up mostly of Role Players (most of them much better than myself at the whole acting aspect of the game).


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 4, 2009)

In all honesty, I doubt anyone can claim that they are and always have been "Role Players"...except the Master Thespian.

I know that I personally vacillate between a young Olivier and the dude who joined the HS drama club to pick up chicks, depending upon the game, the campaign, the group and the PC I'm playing at the time.

I think I average out to a Bruce Campbell.


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## Umbran (Dec 4, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> But the obvious counterpoint is to question how many people who play P&P RPGs actually roleplay either.




Okay, I'm going to step in here and mark the point that will cause grief and argument for three days or more.

"actually roleplay"

This statement implies and requires that you have the one, only, and true definition of roleplaying, and that anyone who doesn't fit that isn't _really_ roleplaying.  Whether you mean it to or not, it basically says you have the One True Way.

Traditionally, such assertions start major arguments.  

"Roleplaying" is not by any means a well-defined term.  At this point, Gary Gygax himself could not make such an assertion in this thread and have everyone agree with him - and that's including the fact that he's dead, and if he were posting he'd be bringing perspective from beyond the grave to the discussion.

So, folks, if we have to hash this out, let us do it without the argument, please.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 4, 2009)

Umbran said:


> "actually roleplay"
> 
> This statement implies and requires that you have the one, only, and true definition of roleplaying, and that anyone who doesn't fit that isn't _really_ roleplaying.  Whether you mean it to or not, it basically says you have the One True Way.




I hope my last post before this illustrates that I'm not making any claims to knowing the One True Way.

If not, let me formally claim that I don't know of any One True Way to roleplay.

AFAIK, table behavior typically covers a broad spectrum of behavior from those who ought to have SAG cards (and some who _actually do_) to people who are just rolling die and reacting to the results are treating RPGs more like wargames.

And that can spectrum can be seen in any given player of my acquaintance within a given session...or even _minutes._


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## TwinBahamut (Dec 4, 2009)

Gentlegamer said:


> A role-playing game's "story" is what the participants make at the game table, and is infinite in possibilities. A video game's "story" is confined to the "adventure path" (often a linear "railroad") in which the player is really just a spectator to a predefined "script" of events set up by the programmer. There's really no comparison nor should there be confusion about which is really a role-playing game.



I think your definition of "role-playing game", which depends on this idea that all "role-playing games" have an infinitely variable story, doesn't work. It is restrictive enough that it probably excludes a significant fraction, if not the majority, of actual D&D campaigns. It is the kind of definition that can be used to say that certain styles of playing D&D are not true "role-playing games". It also ignores practical limitations based on the DM's ability to prepare for the game and allow for variation, which is indeed finite, and was the basis for my comparison anyways. If look at how D&D games are actually played, and the effort required to make them work, they tend to fall far short of your theoretical ideal.

As far as I am concerned, a role-playing game is any game which focuses on gameplay mechanics built around character growth within the context of an intricate story. This is more than an adequate definition for both D&D and Final Fantasy. I don't think things like an infinitely variable story or even the ability to create your own character are even remotely necessary for defining the term.


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## maddman75 (Dec 4, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Well, that is one reason why I included the qualifier "arguably" in my statement.
> 
> Online RPGs may indeed be populated largely by "roll players."
> 
> ...




Well, to counter your anecdote with my own, most of the people I game with, if not all, would call themselves 'role players'.  The general consensus is that there's nothing wrong with a good tactical game, but there's not much desire to mix it into roleplaying.  Most of us also play board games, miniatures games, and video games for when you just want some imaginary violence.

It doesn't get more hack and slash than Left4Dead.


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## Ariosto (Dec 4, 2009)

Yeah, Dannyalacatraz's "name tag" quip suggests to me the snobbery of folks who came along and started to dismiss what someone (Lew Pulsipher?) way back termed "vicarious participation" -- what seems to have been the primary mode of role-playing among the hobby's earliest pioneers.

At the same time, I don't think it was (or is) for nothing that RPGs got distinguished even from individual-scale war games. Part of the significant something, I think, is their open-ended nature. The player is not limited to any particular scenario, and can try _absolutely anything_ the role might reasonably allow to be tried.

Are *"first-person shooter"* (FPS) games a subtype of "computer role playing game" (CRPG)? It seems to me they have a lot more to do with the role-identification aspect of a p&p RPG, and the mainly text-based *"adventure games"* -- even the *Rogue-like* graphical games -- as well.

By contrast, the key point of similarity to p&p RPGs that stands out in my experience among computer programs explicitly distinguished as "RPGs" is in the number-crunching factors of "ability scores" and "character class levels" and so on. Most in fact seem to put the player by default "in the role" not of any one character but of *a whole party*! (I think the MMO games tend to get back mainly to the individual level, but they might also tend to get back more to the war-game scope of activities.)


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## Mark (Dec 5, 2009)

> Why aren't RPGs poplular?





Statistics show that one third of all gamers can be somewhat annoying.  So next time you are gaming, look to your left and to the right, if those guys seem fine . . .


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 5, 2009)

Ariosto said:


> Yeah, Dannyalacatraz's "name tag" quip suggests to me the snobbery of folks who came along and started to dismiss what someone (Lew Pulsipher?) way back termed "vicarious participation" -- what seems to have been the primary mode of role-playing among the hobby's earliest pioneers.




It wasn't just a quip.

There are 2 guys in my current group who have been playing variations of the same 2 PCs for at least the past decade- one of whom has done so for 20 years.  One guy plays Ranger types almost exclusively, one plays Wizards almost exclusively.  (Its almost like we have Dave "El Ravager" Bozwell and a married version of Brian Van Hoose at the table.)

By that, I don't mean the exact same character sheet.  What I mean is that, regardless of edition, regardless of RPG, they play essentially the same PC over and over again, right down to the spells and/or equipment.  Its like something from the Eternal Champion cycle, or the Multiverse of some comic book company.

In many of the campaigns, the PCs in question aren't even referred to by a name written on the character sheet, but almost exclusively by the Player's name.

IOW, its less them playing an RPG so much as a detailed wargame, like Battletech (which, BTW, both play, and try to mimic as closely as possible the PCs they play in RPGs).

Another guy in the group plays...whatever.  For him, participation in an RPG is like playing poker.  He's there for the friendship, food & booze and storytelling (as in personal, not game, stories), not to take on the alter ego on the paper in front of him.  He'd be just as happy with a pre-gen as doing the work himself.  Sometimes, he barely learns the rules, so each combat requires we remind him of how to do things.  And its the same regardless of what we're playing- D&D, M:tG, RIFTS, Texas Hold 'Em, Battletech...  He's not there to game, he's there to hang.

And I wouldn't kick any of the 3 from the table because they're fun guys to  game with.  I couldn't give a tinker's...darn...whether they were roleplaying because it doesn't detract from my or anyone else's experience.


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## Ariosto (Dec 5, 2009)

> It wasn't just a quip.



So I see. It is in fact just that very same snobbery and dismissal resurrected for the 21st century.

In the Blackmoor and Greyhawk campaigns, a lot of famous characters have names that are anagrams or other plays upon the players' names. Read the examples of play in the old books, and you won't find much (if any) Ren Faire dialogue; the emphasis is on "you are there", not on "some completely different person is there".

Not that there's anything wrong with the more theatrical approach, mind you. Putting it up on a pedestal, though, dismissing vicarious participation as "not role playing", is not only narrow minded but quite contrary to the ethos of the seminal role-players. Mr. Gygax, for all his acknowledgment of the "amateur thespian" angle as a worthy pursuit, had from what I gather very little tolerance for those who use "staying in character" as an excuse to _play the game_ poorly.

Dragondex says: Dragon #74 (June 1983), page 38.


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## ExploderWizard (Dec 5, 2009)

Mark said:


> Statistics show that one third of all gamers can be somewhat annoying. So next time you are gaming, look to your left and to the right, if those guys seem fine . . .






I must spread some XP around before giving it to Mark again. Somebody hook him up!!


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## Celtavian (Dec 5, 2009)

*re*

I doubt D&D would have ever gotten as big as it is if games like _Everquest_ and _World of Warcraft_ had been out when I was young. I'd love to be the kid that chose D&D instead of a fantasy MMORPG, but I don't know that I would have been that kid. It's real cool to see your fantasy character and an entire fantasy world brought to life.

We all used to do that in our heads. Game designers have given the kids now a visual world. It's attractive a majority of people.

MMORPGs are a huge reason pen and paper RPGs are a secondary option for entertainment for a smaller group of gamers. I wonder how many older RPGers might have opted for an MMORPG over a pen and paper RPG if they had had that option.


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## Pour (Dec 5, 2009)

RPGs aren't popular because RPG companies are not utilizing all the available methods to market and endear themselves to other, more popular forms of entertainment. It's time to grow out of their publishing sector into other venues. 

They need to follow the comic industry and work with what they do best, generating ideas, allowing those intellectual properties to take on new life as movies, cartoons, toys, apparel, video games, theme parks and the like. Then the publishing side will stabilize and in fact grow as more are exposed to D&D, investigate the original game, and then try third-party games.

I understand that takes money and relationships with other industries, but I think Hasbro certainly has the capability, and look at what Green Ronin has done in their partnership with Bioware.


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## Bedrockgames (Dec 5, 2009)

Pour said:


> RPGs aren't popular because RPG companies are not utilizing all the available methods to market and endear themselves to other, more popular forms of entertainment. It's time to grow out of their publishing sector into other venues.
> 
> They need to follow the comic industry and work with what they do best, generating ideas, allowing those intellectual properties to take on new life as movies, cartoons, toys, apparel, video games, theme parks and the like. Then the publishing side will stabilize and in fact grow as more are exposed to D&D, investigate the original game, and then try third-party games.
> 
> I understand that takes money and relationships with other industries, but I think Hasbro certainly has the capability, and look at what Green Ronin has done in their partnership with Bioware.




I have often wondered about this; mostly because I have such strong memories of the early 80s D&D cartoon and D&D action figures (fortress of fangs was one of my favorite toys as a kid). I feel that somehow embedded the idea of gaming into my mind, so when I had a chance to play D&D it was an easy choice to make. Not sure though. 

This does bring to mind the D&D movie that came out soon after 3E. Perhaps that was an attempt to do what you are saying.


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## Krensky (Dec 6, 2009)

mmadsen said:


> It's not that simple, since publishing faces fairly high fixed costs (author, artists, etc.) and fairly low variable costs (each extra copy of a book is _relatively_ cheap).  And consignment makes stores willing to carry long-shots _at all_.




No it doesn't. What it does is make retailers stupid and lazy and makes it very, very hard for new and upcoming authors since retailers stop paying attention to the market. If they take a long shot, it's almost always because the publisher made them to get the latest Twilight or Dan Brown book.

The rule of thumb in mass market print runs is for every book you buy, you are really paying for two.




			
				Eric Flint said:
			
		

> The reason I detest the consignment system has little do with the overall economics of the publishing industry. From the standpoint of publishing as a whole, it’s really no big deal. It simply means that they have to build into their price structure the fact that they have to print about twice as many books as they will actually sell. (What happens, in effect, is that when you pay eight dollars for a paperback in a bookstore, you’re actually buying two books—the one you’re taking home with you, and the extra copy of the same book that is going to get pulped to keep the whole circulation stream going.)   Well, they did that a long time ago, and things have been chugging along well enough since.
> No, the real problem with the consignment system from my standpoint is that, combined with the major changes in the distribution industry over the past two decades or so, it tends to make bookstores _stupid._ “Stupid” in the functioning sense that since _they _don’t take most of the risks of bad decisions they make but can pass them onto the publishers, they make a lot of bad mistakes. What’s probably more important, to me at least, is that they are also incredibly careless.
> What I mean by that is this: Because of the sloppiness of the consignment system, major chain bookstores typically spend little time and effort (much less money) keeping careful track of all their titles. Instead, they concentrate almost entirely on the few big blockbuster titles—which is where they make most of their profits—and tend to ignore everything else.
> But “everything else” means well over 99% of their titles. If any other retailer was as careless with most of their inventory as bookstores are, they’d go out of business pretty quickly. But bookstores don’t care that much, because most of the burden for their screw-ups winds up getting borne by the publishers thanks to the consignment system.
> ...


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 6, 2009)

Ariosto said:


> So I see. It is in fact just that very same snobbery and dismissal resurrected for the 21st century.




No, you *don't* see.

I'm not talking about anagram names.  I'm not denigrating people who don't use fake accents.  I'm not ridiculing people who only play alter-egos of themselves.

I'm talking about people who, not infrequently, do not even bother picking a name for the PC _at all._  The space may even be left blank.

The PC in question doesn't have the player's personality- it has no discernible personality at all.

In order to not say "The Wizard" or "The Ranger" every few minutes- especially since they may not be the only one of that class in the party, we are forced to refer to the PC by the player's name or "your PC."

This makes it even more difficult to deal with when there may be more than one campaign active.  We can't very well say "Next week, bring Bob, your wizard." when there are 20 years worth of virtually identical unnamed PCs- some of whom may have been active in the same campaign (due to deaths and new PC gen)- and only the HP and campaign-specific magic items may differ.  They are as interchangeable as chess pawns or Go pieces.

This is not a knock on their ability to play and contribute to the fun of all (including themselves).  It is an observation that they do not play a "Role"- at least in any sense that a psychologist or actor would recognize.  For them, the PCs are no more than waldoes for them to manipulate objects within the environment as defined by the DM- IOW, the campaign.

Or is it your assertion that someone playing the classic arcade game Gauntlet is also "role playing?"  That "Elf is about to die." and "Wizard needs food badly." are indicative of actual role play?  That someone playing the Scottie Dog with Boardwalk and Park Place is roleplaying?

If that is so, what separates playing a board game or arcade combat game from RPGs?

In the broad spectrum of role-play, it is equally possible and acceptable to play a PC in a detached, 3rd party manner as it is to play with an immersive style, complete with costume.  But you eventually reach an point on the spectrum when you are are no longer role-playing.  There is, at each extreme, a cutoff.

On one end, the person is merely rolling dice and taking actions based upon the results.  At the other, the person is delusional and can no longer discern the difference between real and fiction.


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## Ariosto (Dec 6, 2009)

> On one end, the person is merely rolling dice and taking actions based upon the results.



Ah, yes, at last I understand. If there is no interacting with the imagined environment from the imagined perspective, then, as you say, "what separates playing a board game or arcade combat game from RPGs?"

There actually seems to be rather a trend in that direction, though, and on a couple of vectors; your friends may have been set in their ways long enough to be on the next cutting edge!

One obvious way to make "RPGs" popular would be to apply the name to quite another kind of game that is already more popular.

On the other hand, 







> This is not a knock on their ability to play and contribute to the fun of all (including themselves).



 One thing D&D has long had going for it is the facility to incorporate people playing "different  games" at the same time.


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## BryonD (Dec 6, 2009)

I read an article a few weeks back (sorry, no link) that was about how WOW players think about characters.  They had actually studied what part of the brain was active while talking about various characters.
It was written in laymen's terms, and I'm nothing more than a layman on this topic, so perhaps some detail is lost, but the point was clear and interesting.

When players talked about themselves, the part of the brain that controls thoughts about self was active.
When players talked about other players, the part that controls thought about other people was active.
When players talked about other player's *characters* the part that controls imagination was active.
When players talked about *their own character* the part that controls thoughts about self was active.

I agree that there are very different kinds of roleplaying.  There are deep in character roleplayers who find it very important to know great details about their character's past and relationships and motivations and are really inside the skin of that character.  And their are players that are enjoying vicarious empowerment through a kickass fantasy avatar of fairly generic nature.  He may know little more than that his character is from vague, generic barbarian encampment, but that is made him tough and strong and damn good at killing orcs.  And the next five characters will be from, functionally, the exact same vague village and will be strong and tough and damn good at killing orcs.  But both these players are roleplaying.  Both of them are having fun.  And I am certain that if you read their brain activity, they would both be thinking of "self".

It is hard to even really describe the difference because it would not be accurate to say that the barbarian player is not "deep in character" or "inside the skin" of his role.  But there is clearly some difference.  

The difference can be a problem or not.  In extreme cases the generic character's lack of depth can be a source of disruption for the "in the skin" character's experience, like someone suddenly questioning you about a grocery list right when you were deeply engrossed in a great novel.  It jolts you out of the moment.  Whereas, from the other end, the "poser" is too hung up on admiring his character and wasting time that could be spent enjoying being potent, rather than just being else.

Fortunately, it is my experience that the extremes are rare and quality players of both camps (and yeah, it is much more a spectrum than two camps) can share and play off each other far more than they conflict.


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## mmadsen (Dec 6, 2009)

Krensky said:


> No it doesn't. What it does is make retailers stupid and lazy and makes it very, very hard for new and upcoming authors since retailers stop paying attention to the market.



I see. You understand the publishing industry much better than the people making a living at it.


Krensky said:


> If they take a long shot, it's almost always because the publisher made them to get the latest Twilight or Dan Brown book.
> 
> The rule of thumb in mass market print runs is for every book you buy, you are really paying for two.



Let me try again.

Publishing faces fairly high fixed costs (author, artists, etc.) and fairly low variable costs (each extra copy of a book is relatively cheap).  Thus, a publisher wants to think long and hard before deciding to publish a particular book at all, but once they've made that decision they're happy to print far more copies than they are _sure_ to sell.  If a book sells for five times its printing cost, they'd theoretically be willing to print books with just a one-in-five chance of selling.

Consignment makes stores willing to carry such long-shots rather than just carrying the latest Twilight or Dan Brown book.  If the retailer has to pay a substantial amount up front, then the retailer does not want to take any chances, and the retailer will stick to relatively sure things.

Read up on the news boy model for a more formal analysis.


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## Gentlegamer (Dec 6, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> In order to not say "The Wizard" or "The Ranger" every few minutes- especially since they may not be the only one of that class in the party, we are forced to refer to the PC by the player's name or "your PC."



I've personally never encountered anything like this despite having played with some who were not very "deep" into the role immersion aspect. Several needed help choosing a name, and were very receptive to the suggestions offered by other players.

In the event that a player deliberately did not choose a name for the character, our group would have probably provided a suitable nickname for the character, such as Cupcake, Tinkerbelle, Stinky Britches, etc. These nicknames hopefully would provide player/character motivation to choose a "real" character name.


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## Krensky (Dec 6, 2009)

mmadsen said:


> I see. You understand the publishing industry much better than the people making a living at it.




No, but I know how to read and cite my sources of 'insider' knowledge. Eric Flint's comments in his publisher's online magazine's editorial pages has more credibility and gravitas then J. Random forumite's sarcastic dismissal. Perhaps you could actually respond to his arguments in an intelligent, civil manner to explain where he is mistaken so I can adjust my valuation of his opinion on the matter.

Either that or call me an idiot directly.



mmadsen said:


> Let me try again.




Please do, and spend extra time explaining how higher prices and stupider local gaming stores would be good for the industry, especially considering TSR (to my understanding) operated under the consignment model for years and it didn't work out so well for them.



mmadsen said:


> Publishing faces fairly high fixed costs (author, artists, etc.) and fairly low variable costs (each extra copy of a book is relatively cheap).  Thus, a publisher wants to think long and hard before deciding to publish a particular book at all, but once they've made that decision they're happy to print far more copies than they are _sure_ to sell.  If a book sells for five times its printing cost, they'd theoretically be willing to print books with just a one-in-five chance of selling.




Not disputing that. Never did. I didn't mention the economics of it to the publisher at all since, as Mr. Flint said it's no big deal.



mmadsen said:


> Consignment makes stores willing to carry such long-shots rather than just carrying the latest Twilight or Dan Brown book.  If the retailer has to pay a substantial amount up front, then the retailer does not want to take any chances, and the retailer will stick to relatively sure things.




In theory. From what I've seen it results in them over ordering blockbusters and ignoring the rest of their inventory because it doesn't matter since it's only a fraction of their sales compared to the blockbusters and it doesn't effect them since they don't have to pay for their mistakes and stupidity regarding it.

Also, you didn't address the point about how it screws most authors (or, for RPGs, most designers) because it means they will never earn out their advances, so the publisher is less inclined to publish a sophomore novel. For game publishers, I'm not quite sure how it would work but considering it didn't work for TSR back in the 1980s, why should it work any better now?



mmadsen said:


> Read up on the news boy model for a more formal analysis.




While I never took an economics class, from what I can tell most of that model is invalidated under a consignment model since it obliterates the inventory cost.


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## Celtavian (Dec 6, 2009)

Pour said:


> RPGs aren't popular because RPG companies are not utilizing all the available methods to market and endear themselves to other, more popular forms of entertainment. It's time to grow out of their publishing sector into other venues.
> 
> They need to follow the comic industry and work with what they do best, generating ideas, allowing those intellectual properties to take on new life as movies, cartoons, toys, apparel, video games, theme parks and the like. Then the publishing side will stabilize and in fact grow as more are exposed to D&D, investigate the original game, and then try third-party games.
> 
> I understand that takes money and relationships with other industries, but I think Hasbro certainly has the capability, and look at what Green Ronin has done in their partnership with Bioware.




I doubt that would increase pen and paper RPGs. People would watch the movies, play the video games, and buy the toys, but not bother to play the pen and paper game. 

When I was growing up, we did pen and paper RPGs because it was the best option for playing a fantasy character. Video games were still in their infancy. The Internet wasn't around for the common consumer. If you were a fantasy enthusiast, RPGs, books, and movies were the only way to get your fantasy fix. Now you have many more options and video games are far advanced. And the fantasy book industry is robust. Alot of competition for the dollars that might be spent on fantasy RPGs.


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## Ariosto (Dec 6, 2009)

mmadsen said:
			
		

> I see. You understand the publishing industry much better than the people making a living at it.



Eric Flint makes his living as an author.



			
				Celtavian said:
			
		

> When I was growing up, we did pen and paper RPGs because it was the best option for playing a fantasy character.



I think many people got into the hobby "back in the heyday" who would (and did) find in newer options -- chiefly in computer games -- more of what they really wanted. Also, the hobby was once a novelty, and a timely fad striking just right a "hot iron" -- like superhero comic books in their first decade. It hasn't been 1940 for Captain Marvel in a long time, and it hasn't been 1980 recently for D&D either.


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## Pour (Dec 7, 2009)

Celtavian said:


> I doubt that would increase pen and paper RPGs. People would watch the movies, play the video games, and buy the toys, but not bother to play the pen and paper game.
> 
> When I was growing up, we did pen and paper RPGs because it was the best option for playing a fantasy character. Video games were still in their infancy. The Internet wasn't around for the common consumer. If you were a fantasy enthusiast, RPGs, books, and movies were the only way to get your fantasy fix. Now you have many more options and video games are far advanced. And the fantasy book industry is robust. Alot of competition for the dollars that might be spent on fantasy RPGs.




Any exposure to their intellectual properties never hurts, and if they ended up supporting just the movies, games or toys, well that's a victory too. Exposure is essential to grow the market by allowing potential new blood to find a reason to investigate the pen-and-paper games. Show new audiences how cool monsters, adventurers and traps can be. Excite their imagination and pique their interest. They'll buy an RPG, believe me, and some of them will get hooked.

Personally, I think this starts with returning D&D to television. The influence of even one good cartoon either in the Saturday morning lineup or the afternoon spot somewhere like Cartoon Network is invaluable. That generates all sorts of toy, apparel and game purchases. What's more, it builds a growing market who will follow into more mature live-action movies and direct-to-DVD releases as they get older. D&D is certainly robust enough to have multiple animated series running, too (much like comics).

Secondly, and frankly this is something they never should have stopped producing, single-player and module-friendly video games. I respect the DDO attempt, but their award winners were always in games like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. In light of the success of Dragon Age: Origins and the tremendous anticipation of Diablo III, there is life in non-MMO's, and even better now that console technology has caught up enough to run them. Announce something like Baldur's Gate III and just watch the madness (and despite the fact Bioware wouldn't be designing it, I have faith a dozen great companies would leap at the property). 

I mean the possibilities are so ripe I could keep going for hours: McFarlane Toys giving us Count Strahd, Takhisis and Orcus figures or a Tomb of Horrors roller coaster at Six Flags. These are the things that I think could really enable this industry to explode onto the scene, giving us new venues to enjoy our hobby and injecting new life at the same time.

I guess I don't equate all these amazing forms of entertainment as competition, but instead untapped mediums.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 7, 2009)

Gentlegamer said:


> In the event that a player deliberately did not choose a name for the character, our group would have probably provided a suitable nickname for the character, such as Cupcake, Tinkerbelle, Stinky Britches, etc. These nicknames hopefully would provide player/character motivation to choose a "real" character name.




We do that as well, with varied results.

IME, however, that tactic works best with people who actually have a vision of their PC as something other than "Stinky Britches."

So while most PCs manage to pick up a nickname or 2, the only ones that really stick are those where the player actually cares about the PC name.  Nicknames just seem to slide off of the "waldoes" eventually.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Dec 7, 2009)

Ariosto said:


> There actually seems to be rather a trend in that direction, though, and on a couple of vectors; your friends may have been set in their ways long enough to be on the next cutting edge!
> 
> One obvious way to make "RPGs" popular would be to apply the name to quite another kind of game that is already more popular.




Several of the guys in the group have always been "beer & pretzel" players, but some got more interested in the "role" aspects of the games over time.

One thing that's cool about those guys playing the "Waldoes" though- they can optimize their PCs virtually on autopilot.  That means that when I'm gaming with them, I know for a fact that the Wizard is going to built & played pretty much flawlessly.

Which means that they can often take up the slack for those in the group going for something "out of the box"- these days, usually me.

To illustrate, this week, we're dusting off a campaign that was put on pause at level 11, and we have at least one new face in the group.  So everyone is being permitted to try a new PC if they so choose, instead of continuing to advance the PC they were playing.

Since the group had no divine caster with access to more than 2nd level spells, I decided to fill that void (somewhat), retiring my SpecWiz: Div/Ftr/Rgr/Spellsword in favor of a Cleric of Obad-Hai/Sorc/Geomancer (with Mystic Theurge being tossed in when the party reaches 12th).  The announcement has left them...underwhelmed.


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## mmadsen (Dec 7, 2009)

Let my try once more to explain why everyone in publishing and retail is not *stupid and lazy* and why you aren't paying for two books (in a bad way) when you buy one.

I'll explain it with the canonical news boy model, which is analogous to book publishing and selling.

Our iconic 1920s news boy -- _"Extree!  Extree!  Read all about it!"_ -- buys newspapers from the publisher and sells them for 10 cents.

The publisher spends thousands of dollars paying journalists, editors, etc. and paying to run the presses -- it has high fixed costs -- but once everything's in place, it only costs the publisher, say, one cent to print one more paper than he was already printing.

How much should the publisher charge the news boy for papers?  The reasonable, but naive, response is that the newspaper is spending _a lot_ of money to print papers, and the news boy's time is not expensive at all, so the paper should charge him, say, 9 cents per paper.  The news boy then makes  a 10-percent commission.  Not bad.

But how many papers does the news boy then buy from the paper?  If he thinks he can sell around 100 copies, he doesn't necessarily buy 100 copies -- not if he's wise.  If he buys a paper he can't sell, he's out 9 cents.  (That is, his *cost of overage* is 9 cents.)  If he neglects to buy one more paper that he could have sold, he's out one cent of profit.  (That is, his *cost of underage* is 1 cent.)  So, if he's wise, he'll only buy papers that he's almost guaranteed to sell.  Optimally, he'll buy just enough papers that his last one has a 90-percent chance of selling.

So if he thinks he can sell 100±10 papers, he won't buy 100 and risk a 50-50 chance of "eating" that 100th paper; he'll buy 87 and be almost certain to sell the very last one.

If the publisher owned the news stand, and the news boy was a paid employee, then the publisher would only charge itself one cent per paper -- its own cost -- and it would maximize profits by distributing 113 papers to the news stand, because even a 10-percent chance of selling another paper is a worthwhile risk -- a one-cent cost to earn 10 cents in revenue.

But the publisher does not own the news stand, and it can't stay in business charging independent news boys one cent per paper.  It would never recoup its fixed costs.

Instead, the publisher arranges to buy back any unsold papers for, say, 8.9 cents.  (We'll ignore rounding problems.)  Now the news boy's cost of overage is just a tenth of a cent, so he's willing to risk carrying extra papers that have just a 10-percent chance of selling, because it's worth paying a tenth of a cent for a one-in-ten chance at earning a whole cent.

Or instead of buying back unsold copies, the publisher could deliver copies on consignment, demand nine cents the next day for each copy that sold and ask for a tenth of a cent for each copy that did not.  Wait, this is sounding familiar...

That, by analogy, is why a publisher is willing to distribute more books to retailers than it expects to sell and why it's willing to take them back if they don't sell -- because books have high fixed costs and low variable costs.


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## ForceUser (Dec 7, 2009)

RPGs require commitment, so much so that many of us look down upon folks who don't put in the time to familiarize themselves with the rules.

When most people think of games, they think of things short, easy to play, and not requiring a lot of thought. RPGs are the exact opposite. So there are many more people interested in genres that RPGs portray---fantasy, sci fi, and so on---than in RPGs themselves. 

At the end of the day this is a hobby, and like most hobbies, relatively few are willing (or able!) to invest the time required to make it fun.


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## Theo R Cwithin (Dec 7, 2009)

ForceUser said:


> At the end of the day this is a hobby, and like most hobbies, relatively few are willing (or able!) to invest the time required to make it fun.



Hehe, it's been said many times before, and yet it just now _finally_ sunk in that _RPGing a hobby_. At least for DMs, and likely for many players.

I'm curious now if CRPGs are considered to be hobbies by their players.  Or are they something else?


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## Jhaelen (Dec 7, 2009)

Dannyalcatraz said:


> But the obvious counterpoint is to question how many people who play P&P RPGs actually roleplay either.



Good point. It's true that some pen & paper rpg players never bother to roleplay. I generally try to encourage some roleplaying in my games, but it's not for everyone. Some players are really just interested in the tactical challenge. Most players fall somewhere inbetween, enjoying both.

Re Ariosto:
If I remember correctly, we have to thank Dave Arneson that D&D became a role-playing game. If Gary Gygax had been the sole creator, all we'd have today would be a small-unit wargame (and it probably wouldn't be anything anyone today would still remember or play).


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## cattoy (Dec 8, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> If I remember correctly, we have to thank Dave Arneson that D&D became a role-playing game. If Gary Gygax had been the sole creator, all we'd have today would be a small-unit wargame (and it probably wouldn't be anything anyone today would still remember or play).




At its core, 4e *is* a small unit wargame.

Ask anyone in the RPGA about making or breaking a table and they'll tell you all about class/role balance and say not a word about having a straight man, a comedy relief guy, a wingman, a FNG, star-crossed lovers, tragic hero or any archetype that a storyteller or author might be concerned with.

I think Gary would have loved 4e.


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## ForceUser (Dec 8, 2009)

cattoy said:


> At its core, 4e *is* a small unit wargame.
> 
> Ask anyone in the RPGA about making or breaking a table and they'll tell you all about class/role balance and say not a word about having a straight man, a comedy relief guy, a wingman, a FNG, star-crossed lovers, tragic hero or any archetype that a storyteller or author might be concerned with.
> 
> I think Gary would have loved 4e.



That's why I like it. It gives rules for things that need rules---swinging a sword, etc.---and leaves flexible things that don't require fixed solutions, such as sweet-talking a guard to get inside the city armory. As DM I can just assign a DC or hand-wave it, depending on the nature of the character.


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## Gentlegamer (Dec 9, 2009)

cattoy said:


> At its core, 4e *is* a small unit wargame.
> 
> Ask anyone in the RPGA about making or breaking a table and they'll tell you all about class/role balance and say not a word about having a straight man, a comedy relief guy, a wingman, a FNG, star-crossed lovers, tragic hero or any archetype that a storyteller or author might be concerned with.



Tournament =/= representative game-play


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## maddman75 (Dec 9, 2009)

Jhaelen said:


> Re Ariosto:
> If I remember correctly, we have to thank Dave Arneson that D&D became a role-playing game. If Gary Gygax had been the sole creator, all we'd have today would be a small-unit wargame (and it probably wouldn't be anything anyone today would still remember or play).




Actually, Dungeons & Dragons wasn't the first roleplaying game, just the first commercially available one.  The first was Braunstein.  A military style game where players took the roles of individual agents, trying to achieve different goals in a town.

Arenson was the first player, under the game's creator and first GM, Major David Wesely.



> He lied, swindled, improvised, and played his character to the hilt. He came to the game with fake CIA ID he’d mocked up, so when another player “captured” and searched him he could whip them out. Other players were still moving pieces around the board and issuing orders like a wargame while Dave Arneson was running circles around them and changing the whole scenario. He was winning the game entirely by roleplaying.
> 
> You may think of Dave Arneson as one of the godfathers of GMing, but even before that he was the godfather of players. He was, literally, the proto-player.




Arenson was the first player as we think of the term.  he and Gygax took off with D&D.  When they showed it to Wesely he had no interest in the game, as he had no interest in fantasy.


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## lewpuls (Dec 9, 2009)

Interesting discussion.

Tabletop RPGs aren't popular compared to computer RPGs because:
1) people don't need to read the computer RPG rules
2) you can play a computer RPG solo, can't do that with tabletop
3) while tabletop is generally more fun with a good referee, most referees aren't so good

It's not a matter of marketing.  Hasbro's biggest problem is, as Mike Gray (senior product acquisition guy) says in a solemn voice, "people have to read the rules".  And most people won't, or won't get it if they do.  With a TRPG the players might not have to read many rules, but the referees have to read tons of rules.

Lew Pulsipher


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## delericho (Dec 10, 2009)

lewpuls said:


> 3) while tabletop is generally more fun with a good referee, most referees aren't so good




Nitpick: I would argue you need a good _group_ (including a good referee). A single bad player can really ruin an RPG session, and not every group have the will (or sometimes even the desire) to kick out that one disruptive influence.


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## Jhaelen (Dec 10, 2009)

maddman75 said:


> Actually, Dungeons & Dragons wasn't the first roleplaying game, just the first commercially available one.  The first was Braunstein.  A military style game where players took the roles of individual agents, trying to achieve different goals in a town.
> 
> Arenson was the first player, under the game's creator and first GM, Major David Wesely.
> 
> ...



Thanks for the additional info - that's really an interesting article!


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## lewpuls (Dec 10, 2009)

delericho said:


> Nitpick: I would argue you need a good _group_ (including a good referee). A single bad player can really ruin an RPG session, and not every group have the will (or sometimes even the desire) to kick out that one disruptive influence.




Fair enough.  The really good refs will usually find/make a good group.  But the marginally good ones might not be able to arrange it all on their own.


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## Mark Chance (Dec 10, 2009)

Interesting thread. Still, I'm not quite sure what to make of it. I mean, almost all of my friends play RPGs. How much more popular do they need to be?

P.S. Hello, Lew!


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## lewpuls (Dec 10, 2009)

Hi Mark,

The problem is that tabletop RPG sales SUCK.  And have for several years, perhaps excepting sales of the very largest companies.

Most young people, even those who play video games a lot, have not played tabletop RPGs.

The point of my original response was, I guess, that there isn't much to be done about it.


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## BOZ (Dec 11, 2009)

I guess we soldier on, then!


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## Mark Chance (Dec 11, 2009)

lewpuls said:


> Most young people, even those who play video games a lot, have not played tabletop RPGs.




But is that anything new? Because I suffer from delusions of adequacy, I've always pictured me as being something of a rarity. I fell into gaming pretty much on accident and largely on my own. No one introduced me to RPGs. In the 6th grade, operating under the Finders Keepers Rule, I found the Basic D&D blue book and a hand-drawn, graph-paper map in a desk as school. A friend and I got together after school and tried to figure out what it all meant.

RPGs aren't a casual game. If I'm on the way to a dinner party and need to bring a game with me, it's not going to be an RPG. It's much more likely that we'll end up playing canasta or spades. If I'm eating with a brainier bunch, we might break out the Scrabble board.

That said, there are new gamers out there. My son Christopher has been granted Probationary Junior Man Status and now gets to play on Man Day. We also have a new adult member who's played less 3.5 than Christopher.

As far as sales being bad, I imagine that's largely due to two factors (at least in the U.S.): the double-digit unemployment rate coupled with a lot of what's being produced not being worth the cover price.

IOW, it's about priorities. I'm underemployed right now. I've been unemployed three times in the past two or so years. I'm trying to start up my own small-time PDF publisher (see link in sig). My bathroom needs remodeling. I've got to wash the algae off the stucco outside the house.

Shelling out money for luxury items like new RPG products is low on my list of things to do.

So, like BOZ said, I soldier on, and get by with what I have.


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## Bedrockgames (Dec 11, 2009)

Mark Chance said:


> But is that anything new? Because I suffer from delusions of adequacy, I've always pictured me as being something of a rarity. I fell into gaming pretty much on accident and largely on my own. No one introduced me to RPGs. In the 6th grade, operating under the Finders Keepers Rule, I found the Basic D&D blue book and a hand-drawn, graph-paper map in a desk as school. A friend and I got together after school and tried to figure out what it all meant.
> 
> RPGs aren't a casual game. If I'm on the way to a dinner party and need to bring a game with me, it's not going to be an RPG. It's much likely that we'll end up playing canasta or spades. If I'm eating with a brainier bunch, we might break out the Scrabble board.
> 
> ...




I agree the economy is a big factor. It may be possible the market is presently flooded with games and there is a watering down effect (but that seems to have been the case for some time).

Another possibility is gaming has made itself more and more niche over the years by codifying its lingo, adopting insider assumptions, etc. Basically, I think games have been more and more tailored for gamers specifically. Less and less for the general public. But it may be a chicken and egg thing, perhaps this is just a recognition of the reality that gaming is niche. 

Does anyone have some actual numbers to work with here. Numbers that chart the estimated number of table top gamers from the early 70s to present.


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## Mallus (Dec 11, 2009)

Mark Chance said:


> As far as sales being bad, I imagine that's largely due to two factors (at least in the U.S.): the double-digit unemployment rate coupled with a lot of what's being produced not being worth the cover price.



Don't forget there's so much more competition for people's leisure _time_ these days. There just so much more media readily (and cheaply) available now than there was 30 years ago --and there was quite a bit available then, too. Then there's all the new-media augmented socializing like Facebook --which is only, what, 5 years old?-- and Tweeting, or even simply texting friends. Certain gamers like to complain about 'those darn video games' taking away from pen-and-paper gaming time -- that seems quaintly out-of-touch to me.

Every older form of entertainment media has taken a hit recently. For example, network television. There are just so many new games in town. 

Sorry if this has already been stressed in the thread, obviously I didn't go back and check. If not, this really should be stressed...


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## Mark Chance (Dec 11, 2009)

Bedrockgames said:


> Basically, I think games have been more and more tailored for gamers specifically. Less and less for the general public.




I agree. If RPGs were a commercial product, there'd be commercials for them. I see and hear commercials for all sorts of entertainment items, but I can't recall when's the last time I saw or heard one for an RPG.



Mallus said:


> Don't forget there's so much more competition for people's leisure _time_ these days.




Exactly. When I say a lot of what's being produced for RPGs isn't worth the cost, I don't mean that the material isn't good. "Worth the cost" is a nebulous concept. RPGs don't exist in a vacuum. There is a whole bunch of entertainment options out there, and a lot of it costs less out of pocket (or is free).

In my house, for example, my wife and daughter don't like RPGs. If I've got an extra $20 to do something fun with, it won't involve going to a store and buying the latest RPG product.


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## rogueattorney (Dec 11, 2009)

There's another thread on the front page linking to a group of board game reviews from a newspaper in which the reviewer complains of the complexity of Ticket to Ride's rules.  That rule book is about 8 pages long, with big pictures and a lot of colors.

Give the current incarnation of D&D, and its 600+ pages of core rules to that same mainstream newspaper reviewer and what's he going to say?


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## lewpuls (Dec 11, 2009)

The economy?  No, the collapse of the RPG market considerably predates the collapse of the economy.  Boardgames are selling very well, because in economic bad times people move to forms of entertainment that are big value for money, but RPGs still suffer...

The majority of young people *are* gamers, perhaps moreso than ever before, but they are mostly video gamers.  Video games are easier (no rules to read and understand), provide virtually instant gratification, can be played when you have no one else to play with, and so forth.

The RPG market also became saturated; and from a professional point of view, it's unlikely to come back because there are too many fanboys and fangirls willing to give away their material, or sell it for peanuts, so many publishers have abandoned the genre entirely.  They can't make money.  It is a market that  "crowdsourcing" has driven into hiding, again excepting the very largest publishers.

Sorry if this seems doom and gloom.  I confess I only turned up here because someone mentioned my name and Google picked up on it.  The tabletop RPG hobby is... well, just not of interest to most publishers any more.  (As for me, when I do play, it's first edition AD&D, so "what's happening now" isn't relevant to me, either.)

Lew Pulsipher


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## Bedrockgames (Dec 11, 2009)

rogueattorney said:


> There's another thread on the front page linking to a group of board game reviews from a newspaper in which the reviewer complains of the complexity of Ticket to Ride's rules. That rule book is about 8 pages long, with big pictures and a lot of colors.
> 
> Give the current incarnation of D&D, and its 600+ pages of core rules to that same mainstream newspaper reviewer and what's he going to say?





I suppose if a major company took the RPG concept and tried to turn it into an easy to use party game, it might be possible to grow the market. We are so accustomed to giant rule books, and detailed mechanics for all circumstances, but maybe there are people out there who would game if the rules were more simple and shorter. But I suspect it is more than just the rules being large, that is the issue. There is a stigma associated with table top gaming as well, and I believe that makes people hesitant to give it a try.


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## BOZ (Dec 12, 2009)

lewpuls said:


> I confess I only turned up here because someone mentioned my name and Google picked up on it.




It's nice to see you around all the same, Lew.   I get a few hits here and here as well, although not as many as I'd expected.


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## lewpuls (Dec 13, 2009)

Bedrockgames said:


> I suppose if a major company took the RPG concept and tried to turn it into an easy to use party game, it might be possible to grow the market. We are so accustomed to giant rule books, and detailed mechanics for all circumstances, but maybe there are people out there who would game if the rules were more simple and shorter. But I suspect it is more than just the rules being large, that is the issue. There is a stigma associated with table top gaming as well, and I believe that makes people hesitant to give it a try.




I have a prototype that's a boardgame in which players make up very simple RPG characters (skill/module based, more or less) and either a referee or a set of cards (that's the tough part) control the opposition.   I'm not sure it will ever amount to anything, even if I figure out the cards-determine-opposing-actions.  Heroquest and similar games seem to be as close to an RPG as a big publisher might do.

Still, Mike Gray might say "too many rules".  Computer assist needed.


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## AllisterH (Dec 13, 2009)

rogueattorney said:


> There's another thread on the front page linking to a group of board game reviews from a newspaper in which the reviewer complains of the complexity of Ticket to Ride's rules.  That rule book is about 8 pages long, with big pictures and a lot of colors.




That's the one that concerns me...

If Ticket to Ride is too complicated, then even freaking BECM is WAY too complicated.


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## Greyscott (Dec 13, 2009)

(I just wrote a blog piece on this very subject...)

I think it's easy to see why RPGs aren't more popular, and that's because there's significant "buy in" to get an RPG group up and running, and most people aren't willing to make that "down payment" in terms of time, logistics, and resources.  In actuality, there just aren't enough "true gamers" to support our hobby on the wide-scale level that video games and their ilk enjoy.  There are plenty of "casual gamers"; i.e., people who don't mind showing up (semi) regularly, rolling some dice, knocking back some sodas/beer, and heading home, but those gamers aren't the lifeblood of the hobby and they're not generally expanding it.  Because of time, family, or life commitments they play if the "table is set for them" - but they're not the types to really read or master rules outside game night, religiously buy the books, or truly delve into our hobby beyond whatever immediate game that's been introduced to them.

All of the above often falls to the "true gamer" - and in most game groups, there is only one, and that's usually the DM/GM.  Thus, even in my group - which meets every weekend and has six regulars - if I want the other players to pick up a new game, I have to do all the work.  Buy the book(s), make the characters, teach the mechanics or create cheat sheets for combat, etc.  One of the great legacies of the D20 era was that once you mastered the mechanics, you could pick up a wide variety of games implementing that same "engine".  Now, it seems each new game has a set of new (often even more stratified) mechanics, and although for us "true gamers", that's not a problem (we're going to sit down and read them anyway, no matter how complex, because it's what we enjoy), for the people we're trying to broadly introduce our hobby too - that's a huge problem.

Thus, I would urge any company producing a new RPG to keep this in mind: make the game easy for me to teach and present, then I can teach it to that many more people.  Here are some simple things that I think work:

 - Premade PCs: Make a set for me, so I can tear 'em out and hand them out.  And make them self-contained: i.e., everything my player needs to run that character is right there are on the sheet.  Because usually only one person has the gamebook, and if I'm running a new game, usually I'm the one who needs it...

 - Combat Cheats/Tear Sheets: Prepare them for me so I can hand them out to the players.  Between their character sheets and these tear sheets, that should be all the new players need to dive in and actually start playing...

 - Intro Module: Make a real intro module, complete with all the monster/creature/antagonist stats and everything I need to run it "right out of the box", and make it so it highlights the features of this game...

 - Easy Rules: And I know this is "easy" to say but harder to quantify, but I sometimes think game companies make their games more complex for creditability rather than playability.  Complex rules are great for true gamers, because part of the reason we like these games is because we enjoy dissecting, exploiting, or rewriting the very rules themselves, but for casual gamers, it's a problem.  They don't care about the rules - they just want to play...

With these things in hand, I can throw a new game - even with new rules - at my group without much angst.  With premade characters, I can start a game without wasting a whole game night making PCs (and if the group likes the game, they will then eagerly invest the time into making characters later).  With combat sheets, I can get into the game without wasting hours explaining the rules, and with a premade adventure, I can highlight what is best about the game and why we should run a campaign in it, without spending hours having to do so by myself before we even sit down to give it a try.

And what I've found is that if I can introduce players to a new RPG in a quick, fluid, and "easy" way, many times I can turn those "casual gamers" into "true gamers", at least for that game...

...until I can spring another on 'em...


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## Mark Chance (Dec 13, 2009)

Greyscott said:


> Thus, I would urge any company producing a new RPG to keep this in mind: make the game easy for me to teach and present, then I can teach it to that many more people.  Here are some simple things that I think work:
> 
> - Premade PCs...
> 
> ...




Great minds must think a like, because I'm working on this sort of product myself. Regarding combat cheats/tear sheets, what sorts of information would you be looking for that wouldn't also be on the premade PCs?


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## BryonD (Dec 13, 2009)

lewpuls said:


> Most young people, even those who play video games a lot, have not played tabletop RPGs.



I'm setting up to start DMing a game for a group of home school kids in the 11 -13 range.  This group includes one of my daughters and one kid who has specifically expressed interest in DMing.

One grain of sand....


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## Greyscott (Dec 13, 2009)

Mark Chance said:


> Great minds must think a like, because I'm working on this sort of product myself. Regarding combat cheats/tear sheets, what sorts of information would you be looking for that wouldn't also be on the premade PCs?




I know that for some games I've introduced, I've created combat/skill cheat sheets that flesh out available alternative actions (things like grappling, disarming, bullrushing), the segments or sections of a round, the uses of action/drama points, and available combat modifiers (for range, cover/concealment), plus whatever "unique" aspects of the combat or skill resolution system are inherent to that RPG.  Since I'm often the only one who has the book (for a new game I'm introducing), that prevents 7 or more people from trying to pass around and desperately flip through the one book (for things like spell/power/action effects, etc) I really need to have while we play.

(Of course, I mourn the days when games came in a box, and had a Player's Booklet, a GM's Booklet, and a monster/equipment booklet).

And trust me, if that information can be codified right on the character sheet, all the better -


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## amysrevenge (Dec 13, 2009)

Greyscott said:


> Thus, I would urge any company producing a new RPG to keep this in mind: make the game easy for me to teach and present, then I can teach it to that many more people.




The difficult thing about this model is that it requires the publisher to admit to itself that it will be selling one product to a whole group, rather than one product to each person in the group.  Yes, I know that it is often that way already in real life, but it hasn't stopped the publishers from striving to sell to every player in the past.


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## UngeheuerLich (Dec 13, 2009)

IMHO it is because it is very situational. You can so easily make bad experiences with it. Especially when there are rules lawyers around...


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## Greyscott (Dec 13, 2009)

amysrevenge said:


> The difficult thing about this model is that it requires the publisher to admit to itself that it will be selling one product to a whole group, rather than one product to each person in the group.  Yes, I know that it is often that way already in real life, but it hasn't stopped the publishers from striving to sell to every player in the past.




Although my experience has been that once everyone in the group knows they like the game, and truly enjoy it, then everyone is willing to make the "buy in".  Particularly in terms of supplements and their ilk. Because that one night game becomes a long term campaign (or series of campaigns), the player's go on to buy the class and race books, the DM/GM then buys the monster and module books, etc.

But if the game never gets off the ground to begin with, because it's too hard mechanically or simply too hard logistically to present to new players, then no one buys anything, and that game in particular dies on the vine, and our hobby in general slowly withers with it...


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## Doug McCrae (Dec 13, 2009)

Bedrockgames said:


> I suppose if a major company took the RPG concept and tried to turn it into an easy to use party game, it might be possible to grow the market.



Already exists -

Murder Mystery Games

Murder Mystery Games Shop

I'm guessing Murder Mystery is more a British thing than American. We Brits really, really love murder.


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## Bedrockgames (Dec 13, 2009)

Doug McCrae said:


> Already exists -
> 
> Murder Mystery Games
> 
> ...




I actually considered the how to host a murder mystery games when making the post. But in the states those were big only in the 80s, and even they were for a niche genre--murder mystery here isn't terribly mainstream. 

What I had in mind was something done more like  party game, preferably with some sort of board because people are used to that (though not a complex series of mats, just a basic board of some kind), and from a more mainstream genre (not fantasy or sci fi, but something more like cop shows or sit coms).


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## Hussar (Dec 14, 2009)

I wonder if something like Dread isn't the way to go.  

Very basic mechanics, diceless, and add an element of physical gameplay that is instantly recognizable to all the players.

"Pick up Sticks" for fantasy might work.


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## WayneLigon (Dec 14, 2009)

UngeheuerLich said:


> IMHO it is because it is very situational. You can so easily make bad experiences with it. Especially when there are rules lawyers around...




Very true. In fact, I wish there was a way to determine how many people have tried tabletop RPG's _once_, and been forever dissuaded from them by one bad experience. I've read some terrible, _terrible _first experience stories and these are from people that for some reason decided to give it another try. I can't say I would have, if some of those things had happened to me.


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