TSR sells to Wizards, mom and pop comapnies sprout up overnight and croak that fast, WOD goes insane with those Gothicy kids, etc..... LOTR comes out, Advanced gets a reworking and then another to 3.5 edition.

What is your opinion of the past decade in rpgs?

Short Answer:

The old gamers grew up and out, and the new gamers didn't quite come into gaming the same way the old ones did.

Give me a couple of days for the longer answer.

In short:

Pen and Paper Roleplaying is dying!

And taking a look at the WoD players and newcomers and their attitudes as well as the way most mainstream systems (including SR) goes [More magic, more mystic] I can only say:

Thanks <deity> for that!


Add in that the classical "Hack&Slay" AD&D / DSA scenarios that once got player into "the szene" have relocated to the computer and have gotten quite good, add a dose off online gaming with good quality and you get another reason why there are fewer new gamers. And those that still come are mostly from the segment of society that also feeds the gothics and similar <unsavory comparison> groups.


Michael

The fact that Hasbro owns Wizards can only be a good thing to me. They have the resources to market a product widely. The downside to this is a consolidation of games and a lack of variety.

I don't know about pen and paper dying. The original Traveller is doing reprints under Far Future Enterprises. I'm seeing the new Hero system (it's a big book)everywhere. I definitely see a shift to computers, not just for the action games, but for the source material for tabletop games as well.

All in all, I think it's more of an adjustment period as the gamers and game companies are trying to fill a redefined niche as efficiently as possible.

Gaming is the same.

You are ten years older.

Computers & gaming consoles took up a large part of the market. Why game with dice, pen, and paper when a computer game will handle all the accounting and leave you to enjoy the pretty stuff?

A good chunk of those gamers that still remained were lured away by collectible card games. Card games were/are HUGE! They cost next to nothing for a game company to make. They sell in low-price packages, so people don't cringe at the thought of getting into a new game. The tournaments offer LOADS of money in many cases; it's one thing to get a t-shirt, book, or pin for winning an event, but getting over $100,000 for winning is glorious. There's no GM, so everybody plays the game. Thanks to the nature of the game, buying a single booster pack could be worth 20+ times what you paid for it if the right card is in there. Finally, you can win card games, so competitive people are naturally drawn to them.

Then there were the wargames. Wargaming has been around for ages, but anyone can see that WH40K really took it to the next level and created a boom in popularity. If you're dropping thousands of dollars every year to maintain one or more armies and use them at events, then you probably aren't going to spend too much money or time on the old tabletop games.

Also, like almost every other industry over the past ten years, the gaming industry experienced a market correction that resulted in a lot of game companies dying off. Game companies really overextended themselves in the 90s, much like comic book companies, and those that couldn't absorb the rebound died off.

However, the percieved barrier to entry into the game industry is fairly low, so new companies are continually entering the marketplace. In the last few years it's become harder for them to do so - fewer distributors willing to take chances with a small company, so only companies that can sign with a consolidator/fulfillment house or are big enough from the get-go to get distribution can make it into the widespread marketplace.

However, tons of companies enter the marketplace each year, and another ton die off.

I don't think there are any easy answers to that.
1. The internet and computer changed everything.
-Look at this board and Dumshock it's a collection of rules, ideas and stuff related to Shadowrun. Without the internet I wouldn't be here or any of you. I remember the old times when Genie was the primary source for Fasa to release beta rules 2nd edition. Genie is gone and prodigy is still around but picked apart and sold. So in a way computers have opened up the system to us and taken away players. Besides if those smeg heads find computers more interesting let them. They probably won't get much out of the roleplaying "in person games" any ways. I think gaming has become "less corporate with the internet". Now we can publish our own stuff if we wish. John Setzo is a good example of the new player. He writes and is a player. He publishes stuff as well as plays. He's an engineer by trade I understand and not a "professional" full time writer. That trend to the individual and the improvements in desktop publishing I think help open up the game to more individuals. The problem: Not enough companies understand this.
The D20 system is an example of how a game should be. If you can print it you can sell it. They get the overall go ahead but you print it using their rules. That makes you have to buy the base book. Fan pro now has access to the entire shadowurn library. They could reprint stuff and make a bundle using CD's to distribute e-books of out to print works. Hell they could create a CFM file similar to microsoft's guide. A good example where this buisness model works is http://www.books24x7.com/. EDS has a license there where as an employee I can read any book via the web. If shadowrun had something like that I could see getting a license to access the works. If you leverage a co-located server at a ISP it's going to be fairly profitable. I'm just so surprised that no one is releasing the old works in some form or digital format. That's a bad thing. Ultimately I think the license needs to be opened. The more you open the license the more your going to sell the base line. I'm not saying create SR as a D20, I'm saying open the SR license and make it available to anyone who wants to publish. Partially that's why gurps is so powerful. They have all sorts of folks who have written for Gurps. Tons of individuals. It's not an open system but it's generic nature makes it very collectable.
I think Fan pro really has failed to define a core set of books. If they really were adamit about that I would have continually published the Cannon companion and others. Similar to the Monster manual, players handbook and DM's guide. Without a coreset of books you undermine you core player. In big bold letters put "BUY this BOOK 1st" Or Book 1 of four core players books for maximum enjoyment". Something like that. Make the individual say oh I need these as well yada yada. I just don't have alot of confidence in the managers at FanPro. I love what John and Mike and the others have written. They've done an excellent job keeping SR alive. It's managment.

http://www.somethingpositive.net Leveraging: One of the coolest things about AD&D 3rd ed. 3.01 was the cd that came with the book. A character generator really adds to the book I think that's the sort of leveraging you need I think. In the new age of gaming Computers should be integrated into the game. Think about it. ONe of the things that really pisses me off about shadowrun is that lack of frigging maps. I love maps I love maps I can use with my mini's. That makes the game more real for me. There's no software out there that's readily available to make cool snazzy maps. Nothing that I've seen. How many computer programmers are there in gaming. Come on you know uhhh tons. Why the hell aren't there cool snazzy apps I can run from my laptop? The only one for SR is good but if Fan Pro had any comon sense they'd pay him to develop it and offer it as a free download. The web is suppose to be a great place for information. Why isn't Fanpro have developer blogs so people come to their web site? There's so much potential that they blow it all away. A year ago Randy Millholland posted a web cartoon at something positive and with an audience of 20,000+ (maybe 30,000) people that's free advertisement. That generated money for Fan pro. They never so much as sent him anything say hey thinks for promoting our products to 30,000 people for free. No the smeg head (sorry if it's you adam I'm in wuss gamer retard rant mode) never sent him anything. Not a free book or something signed nothing. He didn't get jack. If this doesn't show some of the incompetence of Fan pro management then what does. Come on how many hits did that generate?
So what's the hell is my point? The problem with gaming are the dumbass managers who don't know what the hell is going on in the real world. I could do better with one hand tied behind my back covered in broken glass drinking drano and getting stabbed by pygmies than these mangers could do un abaited. There needs to be more organization. You want to know why GW does so well? It's promotion baby all promotion. You give people free stuff to promote your game. Steve Jackson does it too. You have to be able to promote your game cheaply and expansively. There should be individuals call them I dunno "Runners" who go to game stores promoting the hobby offering 1. Minatures 2. books 3. Other stuff. He can run games show the game off. Have the store owner sign the form and he gets some free stuff. Then you create regional events showcasing your hobby. GW does this and it works. It's not because they have a super cool game it's how they promote it and they get "kiddies" involved. Ask any outrider and he'll tell you that they market their products to kiddies. That' s not good but at least they have a marketing focus. If I got free stuff I'd be damn sure I ran a game at the local hobby shop. I can tell you that I've told at least 30 people who come into the store I run my game at and say wow shadowrun didn't that die? Hell I make my own frigging maps in Visio 2000. I have entire buildings where everything is mapped and we put our maps on the table and it turns into DMZ. It's great. Players like the maps and it makes combat nice. It's awsome I get to run a roleplaying game and wargame at the same time. The nice thing about visio is that it will print a map out into 8"x 11" squares ie a printer. So you can create maps that look cool. With a real artist you could sell these maps ect. There is lots of product potential. I'm so angry how the roleplay industry is run. It's just not run well. In my opinion wargames have far better exposure and strategies for marketing. Stores promote historical wargames and promote products. I don't see anyone promoting a Shadowrun tournement? Ultimately the point is make me the CEO of fan pro and I'll make you money.......Sorry for the rant. I had my shot I feel better now.........To the powers at be Rand M. at SOMETHINGPOSITIVE.net is pissed he never got any free goodies. Don't expect him to mention Shadowrun again. Dude it's free publicity for a book that costs maybe 5 dolloars to print. Send him free stuff he has lots of readers. He loves shadowrun and use to play it. Free stuff and he'll promote it again.......

Come on gaming has changed.......Poor managers are in charge........

ugh. I did mean to send Randy some stuff, and never got around to it.

Ah well; the pile of SR books in my office is taller now than it was then; I can skim one of each off the top easily enough. I'll drop in some GoO stuff while I'm at it.

The rest of your post was... interesting

Dream Pod 9 has the Pod Corps, which is sort of like what kryton was talking about with the Runners -- the problem is that there's not a lot of FLGS's around like there used to be. Hell, I live in a college town with 30,000+ students and a population of around 100,000 permanent residents, and there hasn't been a good gaming store here for years, since I was in college (five years ago now). The stores that are around now tend to focus heavily on D20 stuff, to the point where they don't want to risk money on an "unproven game" despite the fact that half the D20 stuff never leaves the shelf either.

A lot of this is because it is so easy to order form the net now, with really cheap prices; I buy my book from a place 2 hours away over the net because there's no good place in town and they sell for 20-25% of the cover price. I'd gladly buy from a store in town and pay the full price, if only so that I would have a place to hang out and talk shop instead of sitting around at home. There's a lot of people who won't though...the people who go into the local store, flip through all the books, and then go home and buy their books online because it's 2 dollars cheaper.

Gaming has changed in the last ten years, it's not just us -- but it's not the games themselves, it's the business around it. D20 isn't a better system than Shadowrun or Silhouette and it's sure not simpler or easier to learn. It's just better marketed. I really miss the old days, but barring a radical change in how gamers think, it's not going to change anytime soon, I'm afraid.

Hmmm, very timely. I just noted in another thread (before i started reading here) that the shelfspace for Shadowrun had disappeared at the local store. SR now has exactly the same exposure there as "Macho Women With Guns". Well actually there is more "Macho Women With Guns" because there Macho 2 core books in a front-on cover magazine display buried in a full rack of assorted books and generes, like with SR. But there is also one Macho Women With Guns senerio book on display (Another Reason to Kill Things i think is what it is called), which puts it ahead.

I did notice right now that the store does till sell the SR stuff online (i never use their web site because i'm only a few blocks away). Of course their product list is organized by publisher (Fantasy Productions), so you pretty much need to know what you are looking for.

P.S. I picked up the Macho book (hey, it was like $15) and will be running an April 1st mini-campaign using it.

First, a request: Please, for the love of God, break up your posts into paragraphs. It's hard to want to read posts when faced with a huge, rambling chunk of text.

Second: Please keep in mind that Your Local Store[tm] is not representative of all stores. My own LGS has a decent section of SR books -- THE core book (which is the only rules book you really need), some of the other rules books, and just about all of the new releases.

There's likely to be a good mix of stores that encompass the spectrum of "have one book" to "have all books." Since many LGS owners are usually more of a hobbyist than a businessman, it will always depend for the most part on whether he likes the game or not, how much he keeps informed, and lastly, if he's got customers who buy it or not. For some, if the first two criteria are not met, whether or not he's got the last, you'll be lucky to find a few books -- the rest might be among those who'd tell you that Shadowrun is dead despite easily found evidence to the contrary.

As for my opinion... gaming is still gaming, and most of us really have only aged 10 years. There've been different games offered that have improved the quality of gaming, and there's been reams of junk, too. There's been innovations in marketing and business practices(see WotC, primarily), but the actual target market has not changed that much--they're just targeted more efficiently. The whole thing is still very niche, and will likely remain so as long as niche practices are used, practical or not.

I have been in gaming since the mid 80s and seems the industry has changed some in that time. It seems like there are not as many smaller companies. It feels like the big companies are even bigger in terms of market dominance. A lot of the old mid tier companies that provided a lot neat niche games, while solidly entrenched, do not seem to have as strong a presence as they used to. Of course I have not picked up a gaming mag in ages and do not go to the gaming store nearly as often as I used to, so I am likely a bit out of touch.

Some one above commented that everyone is in to LARP. Could be. If they are then I would attribute that to the fact it tends to be a much more social event and there are a lot more women in LARP there are in P&P circles. Both these factors can be pretty critical to the late teen/20 something crowd. Of course it could just be reflective of the interests of those in that are range. It seems likes as the people I LARPed with in the 90s settle, form family units, etc., they seem to move back to paper and pencil games. It sort of reminds me of what I saw in the late 80s/earily 90s before LARP became big. In that time frame, it was SCA events that drew in the 20 something gamers and those looking for more socialization.

CAUTION: LONG POST

sable twilight: Your perception of less smaller companies now than then might be driven by the bigger fish getting bigger. Also what do you consider small? Swords & Sorcery Studios? Kenzero? I don't think of them as large. Maybe quality of colour cover artwork and thick books is your measure? That might create the illusion of less "small" companies as it seems there is the ability of a relatively small company to release product that looks "big".

--------------------

On card games: One HUGE advantage missed there is the logistics of CCs over P&P. A P&P campaign typically involves a longerterm commitment, and associated coordination by a group of people. On the flipside the commitment to CCs basically involve you to the cards. There is much less risk setting down to a game of CCs. You get a social turd today? No worries, the game is going to be over shortly and then you can pull up stakes. As long as they didn't get your [real] phone number you are ok. On the other side of things for P&P there becomes more social contact, and therefore the risks become much higher.

--------------------

On P&P: Here to stay. Even if computers are slowly aiding us with different tools. P&P will die when books die, and that is going to be in the timeframe of the extinction of the humanity, by whatever means. Ink print on wood fibre paper may come to pass, perhaps even in my lifetime. But written words will march on.

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Piston:

I'll go on the assumptions here that your item #2 is talking to me and that item #1 is not.

SR may not be dead, i certainly never asserted it was. But the same claim of non-death can be reasonably asserted about Keith Richards.

I've long suspected that the store in question, The Sentry Box, lies at the intersection of powerful geek ley lines. Not sure if you followed that link, but this is more than just a local store. Just their afterhours room (off to the side of the main open gaming area, with washroom and separate entrance to outside) is as big as many entire gaming specialty stores. Then there is their historical military room, which is 3 times that big. That's before go downstairs into the games, books, and anime stuff. Further it is more a storefront to a distribution hub of all manner of gaming, anime flicks, SF/F books, and poor hygene practices.

My observation has been they generally will bring in most of an entire line of product, or at least the majority of it. How many places have all core books plus a number of senarios of Gary Gygax's Lejendary Adventures? A whole face-on magazine rack of Deadlands books? A number of book cases each of HERO/GURPS these so numerous it looks like a freaking library by themselves? Of course D20 has really put a dent into floorspace. I believe they are up to 8 magazine front-on displays of various lines, plus another 1/2 one of the old 3.0 core books selling at 1/2 price (i believe they had a trade-in program, i think these are used books). Admittedly they do let stuff scale back over time. Deadlands is an example of that that comes to mind.

The ownership definately falls a good deal into the "it's my hobby" catagory. These are people that are submersed in and composed of their target market. But they are also a longterm business. They were the king of the geek hill (except for comics, are far as i know they have never been in that business) well before i moved here nearly 14 years ago.

What raised flags for me wasn't lack of shelfspace, it was having shelfspace taken away that they have held for many years. It struck me as really, really odd so shortly after new product coming out. *shrug* Next time i'm in the store hopefully i'll have time to wait for someone in the know and find out what is up.

Oh, one thing to note they do have 1 each of 4 or 5 of those SR of those 6" Hero-Clicks dolls, er action figures on display piled on top of one of the front-on mag racks. The Sammie, Eagle Shaman, a mage with water elemental, a rat SS i think, and maybe one other i don't recall now. How have those panned out? My initial impression was a big thumbs up with overall cool-looking factor. However Clicks has never really been my bag, nor have the action dolls really. All my dolls are the 1" hex varity. Our gaming group has a number of SR and SRish ones (Cuthulu PC figures i think) we use for semi-contemporary games.

I've been to just about every store in Boston and the Shadowrun Seclecution up here really blows. Here's a list of the stores I've hit: Danger Planet, Pandemonium Games, Hobby Bunker, Complete Strategist, and Your Move Games. None of which had jack for a showing. I think if we really like the game and it's fun ultimately join the Comando's and run fun intro games of shadowrun at your local game store. At least that's a place to start.

In the last decade, the table top version of rpg's has been pretty much sufficating.
It will probably die out for the most part.

However...there is a new version of table tops on the horizon and Dumpshock is silently leading the way.

That's right, "forum top" rpging.
Which in all honesty has it's own interesting new additions.

Forums used to only be talking, and now with Dumpshock upgrading and striving to better it's service, things are slowly taking shape for a network of gaming that includes online file saving and transfer between players and gm's, and maybe in the future, graphical interface such as maps and such...

Also with games like Kings of Chaos out there, it might be an interesting world when "Forum top" rpg's meet "online database stat" games. Basically, this would produce an online stat tracker for your character and rolls.
Personally....I look forward to it, and hope to work in that area myself.

Absolutely. And there's a growing group of people that roleplay online - often on services like LiveJournal or similar that have never played a roleplaying game and see no use for the structure one provides.

Online role playing has been around for a long time. There have been mailing lists and message boards for people playing games like Amber Diceless for years, and before that there were MUDs and MUSHs. I don’t think online gaming will replace table top by a long shot.

I have been playing these games since 1979, (yeah, that makes me a geezer), I have as much fun with pen and paper games as ever. In fact, while I like the mmorpg that I play, it has only reinforced upon me and my friends that pen and paper is far better for actual "Role-Playing", I was quite frankly shocked by the collapse of so many good gaming companies, but I have always felt that it is because they drifted from their core-players, not the other way around. When SR came out it was targeted at a veteran gaming crowd, then in an effort to take advantage of the fad gamers during the mid 90's they started putting out rules more for beginning players. Now I am in no way saying a company shouldn't try to make as much money as possible, but I think when this group of temporary players went on to the next thing to do, many of these companies were left with a lot of stock and larger departments than they could deal with. The CCG's didn't help.
In chaosium's, case, their first round of cards sold out before they could seel them, when they did an expansion, the bottom fell out for their card game and I understand they now use those cards for insulation in their building.
While I also understand that a game company needs to add new game concepts, the explosion of products and companies during the 90's was more than I could keep up with. As someone else made a point, the older players did grow up. When I was 13 until about 25 I could play 5 nights or more a week. Now I struggle to squeeze in 1 with about 6 hours computer time on the side. I am more than happy to pay more for a quality product. Columbia Games is the best example of this. But I cannot invest the time anymore in 20 different products by 20 different game companies. I feel I am not alone in what I call the core (Old-school) gamers. So I am basically saying is the the companies have a good product, then they should develop it, not dilute their sales amongst 5 games that may be entertaining but are not as good as the main ones.

All very good points Parabellum1. I agree.

The simple truth is that online rpging in the medium of Forums and Auto Stat Tracking databases is going to be a future threshold of Table top rpg's.
It, by no means, will end table top. Yet, as you so well addressed, there are younger generations of players. And these players want to play rpg's.
On the other hand, a large part of their time is spent on the computer.
And they often times have friends who they don't even know in person online. Frequently this list of online friends can be around at least 4 to 5 people who they don't know, but share similar interests with. Some even work on websites together, or play online games together as a team.
Now, their has always been muds, e-mails, message boards, and such...on the other hand, there has never been any effort to make Forums, message boards, actually an effective, quick, fluent way for players to pilot through an rpg.

There is much that I have discussed with Paolo in the past about Dumpshock and it's upgrades. Many ideas have been thrown around. Not all the ideas were exactly feasible at the time of renovation. However, I can say that with the ideas having been birthed into concpetion, it opens the door for the future to hold many interesting and exciting features into the medium of Forum rpging.

One more reason that forum rpg's are the second best thing to table top: it's the absolute closest resemblance to table top gaming that there is.

I've not been around long, probably been actively role playing since 1999 or so, so it makes me a youngin' I thought maybe I could contribute my youthful look on the genre.

White Wolf World of Darkness had it's day, it's niche was the whole horror bent, everything humans have feared in myth, you could be. It presented a special kind of dystopian world, where everything was falling down. Of course Gothics would be attracted to these things, and don't think all Goths are flakey bad roleplayers(there are many good ones that I've met). World of darkness is now doing it's End Times. So that game setting is winding down to a fast Halt.

I started my Role Playing Experience with Shadowrun 3rd edition, and while I only played the game twice, I am enthralled by it, and I GM it every chance I get, since finding a good SR game can be tough.

Gaming in Shops is not as common anymore among most RP'ers (at least where I live) because the more obnoxious RP'ers hang out there and try to impress people, and tend to ruin games.

D&D I think is being stymied a little by the divide of 3.X, a lot of older Roleplayers shun the new system, claiming it is D&D for idiots, which drives new roleplayers from interacting with the older roleplayers. This hurts the community.

In most Roleplaying stores I've been to, D&D is the big game that hogs all the shelf spaces. In one store I used to go to the only things that had a lot of shelf were WOD and D&D, Shadowrun taking up the rest. I think there is a lack of quality "face-time" for smaller RPG's to get out there in the market, and the perception that WOD and D&D is the only ponies in town might lure Potential RP'ers out of the genre if they don't want to be gothic or a wizard. I also think there's more face-time put on CCG's since they are often right at the counter and in places that trade/buy back rare and uncommon cards the cards can take up half a store.

I got into Roleplaying through Computers, I originally began playing computerized RPG's and enjoyed them a little, I hated the fact that my choices were curtailed, and when I discovered Shadowrun in Air Force Technical School, I enjoyed the social aspects as well as the ability of choice that will never been fully realized in a Computer Generated game.

I see computers as pathways to bettering anything, including P&P gaming. I use a tool called RPM(roleplaying master) for my D&D needs, it's a fully comprehensive data organizer and game tracking tool for D&D. I intend to write one for Shadowrun that does the same, which can help automate basic tasks and keep a GM organized.

I think another big killer of Roleplaying at least in terms of the younger side is lack of time. Most in more stress and time constraints are being pushed down the ladder of age. When I was a teenager I didn't have much to do other than play and enjoy life. Anymore kids now HAVE to balance home-work, a job, their love-life, family... and same goes for people in their 20's, they have college, kids(if they have them young, with most RP'ers in my area are.), and a job. Some people are lucky enough to not have the burdens making scheduling a game difficult. I play in 1 game and run in another, and even then I often give up the one I play in because I don't have time or something comes up. I miss the times when I could play 3-4 games a week. Now I'm down to 2. and heck, even meeting up with friends is a challenge, heaven forbid I want them all to come down to game. it becomes impossible. my gaming groups are 2 playing 1 running in our orpheus game, and 3 playing 1 running in my Shadowrun game. the groups aren't as big anymore either, this isn't because I don't know people who would love to play. I just can't find anyone who can play one the times that I can.

Let's face it, Real Life is one of the biggest RPG killers in the world, and life isn't getting any easier But still I hold the torch, and I try to convince the younger generation how fun it can be(I got my brother in law(16yo) into Shadowrun), and I hope to teach my child(16 months) how to play when he's old enough. P&P will never die, it'll just evolve as the tools of communication and social gathering change.

Just my 2

I can't hold it back anymore....
I'm working on the preliminaries of a program that will make all RPGers rejoice in loud world wide praise!

Think of it this way...Dumpshock meets Diablo.
Tool bars and automated rollers/trackers/exp. counters/damage trackers etc... with the free form medium of conversing over the Forum.

When you can get it to the level of .hack//SIGN internaction then I would definately be interested.

Stumps: so *that's* your secret project. That's awesome, dude. That friggin wins.

Well, right now I'm waiting on a programmer to get done with another project (which is also mighty sweet!), and I'm trying to gather a few people who have a way around calculating numbers and formulas in RPG's as well as someone who understands database design.


Hopefully I can find the people I need.
I was thinking that Sphynx might be a great person to have, due to the SR calculations on his site.

But this is going to be a living hell on numbers because we have to make the program capable of "molding" to a majority of popular RPG systems.
D20
D6
D10
%
etc...

....hell.

I don't know if this would be considered side railing here...kind of iffy...
hmm...
Know what, I'm going to go with my better judgement here and just say that if your interested in helping out on the project explained above go to this Thread