The World of Old-School RPG's is Entering Its Twilight

[rust]

Originally Posted by sinisalo

As for Chaosium not having the resources to promote BRP - everywhere there is D&D for sale I see Cthulhu too.

This is true, and at least over here the (few) RPG shops stock the games their
customers ask for, whether the publisher does any promotion or not.

If an RPG is really good, there is few need for any kind of promotion, because
the players will inform each other about it - and if a game is bad, promotion
will not increase the sales considerably, because the players will warn each
other.

[sladethesniper]

I agree that it appears that there seems an imminent demise of our hobby...but...

My two children love gaming...though their level of "involvment" is still strictly dungeon crawls and battles...they lack the experience to do heavy role playing that CoC requires, so for now it is dungeon crawls...but they do love it and they will be very happily tossing cash into the gaming monster's gullet for years.

I think the new generation is being "grown" by old gamers plus there is good ol' WoTC creating new gamers with it's vastly popular D&D line, add in WizKidz with HeroClix and of course the massive amount of computer RPG's and MMORPG's...there are more than enough gamers...that isn't even counting the hard corps mini-crowds that old Wahammer/WH40K gamers are making out of their kids, and the thousands of CCG players out there...

So we have plenty of gamers, but instead of just pen and paper gaming, they have a choice of playing CCG's, MMORPG's, miniatures, computer games or table top...

And frankly, all of the other types of gaming take less investment in time, and time is the one thing that nobody has enough of...so while there isn't a lack of gamers, there is a lack of gamers with time, and when given a choice between playing a game that takes a bit of time but still scratches the gaming itch or reorganizing your schedule and the schedule of 1 to 5 other people to play a game...and repeat that schedule fixing on a weekly or bi-monthly basis for months or years...that just isn't going to happen.

There are two forces at work here. One is that there is not enough time. I know lots of gamers...and they all have the same problem, no time to game. I live in a house with 3 other gamers and we still have trouble finding time to just sit and game for 4 hours a week. When faced with school and work, bill paying and errand running, and of course extended absences up to a year...gaming, as much fun as it is, falls to the wayside. It is much worse for other people.

The other force here is divisiveness...I like to call it the false division...between gamers. Gamers are gamers...whether you play Magic, or D20 or BRP or World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy XIII or Warhammer 40K...all gamers. Each of those focuses on different aspects of gaming, but they all share the same focus...taking the gamer to a different more exciting place/reality as an active participant.

It would be nice if D20 gamers did not see Warhammer40K gamers as the enemy, but rather people who are gamers and play something different and just enjoy being a "geek".

On the subject of PDF's...I love them and I am happy I have a few gigs worth of them, but I like paper...I can sit down with an old CoC supplement for hours and be happy, but staring at some PDF for more than 30 minutes irritates me. I am happy that I have them as opposed to nothing at all, but I do much prefer hardcopy, but that is just me (as a dinosaur) speaking of a preference. My kids are trained to read off computer screens for hours and have no difficulty switching between electronic and hard copy. I am told that is due to the new "easy reading" fonts that are being used, but be that as it may, I still prefer to flip pages.

Just my opinion on a few things.

-STS

[Dredj]

I've been thinking that if video game stores also sold p&p rpgs (or p&p rpg stores selling video games), there would be a lot more people gaming with p&p as more people would be introduced to it.

I think the perfect rpg to get more younger people into gaming would be an rpg based on an established video game world like the Resident Evil series (I'm picking that as I'll be gaming in that world, soon), and make it into a source book like Amazon.com: Resident Evil Archives: BradyGames: Books

Then add the BRP system plus the Mythic GM Emulator Mythic Game Master Emulator
if you can get the Mythic creator to go along.

With the Mythic GM Emulator, you don't need a group to play and you can play anytime for as long as you need.

And with the Resident Evil (or other video game franchise) license, it can be sold in video game shops as a source book with an excellent p&p rpg system attached to it.

My personal thinking is that the p&p rpg industry simply isn't taking advantage of what people are gravitating to, nowadays, or of the resources they have on hand. Or I'm totally ignorant on how things actually work in that industry. Personally, it's long seemed to me that the Resident Evil series has been screaming for a p&p rpg license, as the series literally has everything in place for one.

[badcat]

More like, the world of real rpgs is fading fast, the last glimmers are disappearing fast...

[rust]

When I bought my first RPG, almost exactly thirty years ago, I had to mail
order it from Britain, because I was unable to find any RPG shop in Germany.
Somewhat later a first German RPG mail order firm was founded, and an RPG
shop opened in Munich, 65 km from my hometown. There I could buy the few
RPGs available at the time, mainly D&D, RQ and Traveller.

Today there are dozens of RPG shops in Germany, selling hundreds of RPGs,
both online as PDFs, by mail and at the shop. There has never been a higher
density of such shops, and all of these shops have enough customers to at
least survive.

True, there has been a kind of decline over the last five years or so, partial-
ly due to Germany's economic problems (people have less spare money to
spend, and RPGs are often quite expensive), partially to the rapid growth in
the time before. Some shops had to look for additional products like computer
games or comics, but almost all of the shops survived.

More important, there are still many more shops and gamers than thirty years
ago, twenty years ago, or ten years ago. The once rapid expansion of the
field has stopped, and there has been some decline, but this could as well
be a temporary development.

Twilight, fading fast, last glimmers and other Weltschmerz ?

No, not at all, at least not for me.

[Enpeze]

Originally Posted by badcat

More like, the world of real rpgs is fading fast, the last glimmers are disappearing fast...

Whats a real rpg? I dont know. But I think this term depends on the personal preference of the players. Many of us are not even able to agree on what makes a rpg worth playing or not despite beeing the hardcore fanbase of BRP. So everone has his own "real rpg" style. And his rpg style is most probably not the same like those of most others. This was 1990 not very different than today and I can preserve my way to play in just keeping playing and...playing and...playing (/bunny clap with hands...)
For me the only thing which has changed is myself. So I would not like to play the same games today I played back in 1990. Of course I like talking with my friends about the games in the past, but the more I look at them the more I see that we remember this good old stuff as idealized and somewhat distorted.

For me the different styles to play a mmorpg or play a board game "Junta" with a Fidel-Castro cap on their head are not more alien than those of roleplaying groups which employ a tactical D&D or "player-empowered" WoD style. (actually I prefer a fun game of "junta" or cutting my toe nails instead of playing WoD anyday)

So for me there has not been much change in my personal roleplaying world except that I am not the same as 20 years ago. But for my style of roleplaying till 2050 I just need the BRP basic book and a set of dice. Additional material is fine but not really a-must-have.

[badcat]

One where the players face and interact with each other, do not require on-line sources and have one individual who directs the action via rules interpretation.

[sladethesniper]

Originally Posted by badcat

One where the players face and interact with each other, do not require on-line sources and have one individual who directs the action via rules interpretation.

OK, yeah, that is fading a bit...that stuff needs time, and from what I can see, this generation and the next don't want to "slow down" in the least.

-STS

[MattyHelms]

I see signs of life with gaming. Some of my friends have kids around the same age we were when we started gaming. Those kids are gaming. My boss' kid, as an extreme example, is even designing his own naval battle wargame in between hanging out with his friends/girlfriend and playing soccer/D&D/video games.

I've had the chance to help run a local game store for four months now. Many families - with kids - come in and buy and play. We have a Pokemon league nights that attracts a healthy turnout every week.

The other big local game store has been in business for 20+ years and shows no sign of slowing, without having to diversify their product lines into non-gaming areas.

So, for suburban Chicago at least, the gaming future looks bright.

-Matt

[Shiba Homer]

Originally Posted by sladethesniper

OK, yeah, that is fading a bit...that stuff needs time, and from what I can see, this generation and the next don't want to "slow down" in the least.

-STS

Ah, I wonder if the economic depression that's just around the corner will remedy that? Everybody will have less spare cash and suddenly a game that doesn't cost you cash every time you play will seem more and more attractive.