Quote from: RPGPundit;823140I just thought I'd check, since people have been claiming that the hobby was on the verge of death 10 years ago when I first started my blog, and back in 2006 when this site was in early days, and on a pretty regular basis in the various years hence... but I haven't heard someone claiming it was about to die lately.  Something change?  Or were people just sick of being wrong?

Thats been going on since at least the 80s.

Arcade games! The hobby might die!
Console games! The hobby will die!
PC games! The hobby WILL die!
MMO games! The hobby HAS died!
VR games! The hobby died long ago!
Vulcan Mind Meld games! The hobby was/is/will be dying!

Same for board games.
Same for PC games.

In decline =/= dying.

Something both those saying the hobby is dying and those saying it's not should keep in mind.

The brick and mortar side of the hobby sure seems diminished around here, but man, the rolled up sleeves side, the internet side is flourishing.  I like this side far more.

The tabletop industry isn't dying so much as shifting.

The old meetup and tabletop with its travel considerations and moving around all the various minis, maps, tokens, dice, etc. is more for older folks. I'm 36 so its unlikely I am gonna change and adapt to the new way of doing things at least as long as I have a reliable and stable gaming group (which I have had for about 23 years now). This method of gaming tends to support local hobby shops more because you need all the various gaming accoutrements as well as physical books to play. Every time I get a new PC I want a new shiny mini to represent them, for example. And when you are in there you gotta buy a new set of dice... And is there any new Savage Worlds (or insert game you love here) settings in print available...

The new way of doing things though relies on PDFs from DriveThruRPG displayed on modern devices like tablets which give you the rules at your fingertips or even just a point and click with a mouse on your PC or laptop. Projectors can be used to project maps now onto tabletops. Both of these methods modernize the tabletop over the past methods. Virtual Tabletop PDF maps become more useful with projectors and VTT than physical maps (like my chessex map gathering dust). This method modernizes the tabletop but doesn't replace it 100%, but it does shift the money to digital PDFs over physical books and maps.

The virtual tabletop and facilitators like Roll 20, Fantasy Grounds, and MapTool mean you can set up a game board without leaving home. Then you can contact players through google + hangouts or skype and you have a virtual tabletop game without lugging around your gaming stuff or traveling. This is  convenient for when you want to play without leaving home. But this method of gaming supports a digital economy 100% over local game stores.

This method has a low barrier of entry for producers of RPG material, as PDFs are much cheaper to produce than physical goods. And with DriveThruRPG having POD, even indie producers can afford to make print products as well for customers on a demand basis. So what we are seeing isn't a dying hobby, its a hobby that is transitioning from the tabletop to virtual tabletop or at the very least modernizing the tabletop.

The number of map producers on DTRPG has literally doubled from 90 to 180 in the past year (2 x the competition for DramaScape). So if anything, I see more of a Renaissance in gaming led by PDFs with lower barriers to entry for producers and consumers of RPGs to try more games.

Quote from: Omega;823251Thats been going on since at least the 80s.

Arcade games! The hobby might die!
Console games! The hobby will die!
PC games! The hobby WILL die!
MMO games! The hobby HAS died!
VR games! The hobby died long ago!
Vulcan Mind Meld games! The hobby was/is/will be dying!

Same for board games.
Same for PC games.

And the music industry, and the film industry, to the point that it seems any and all media industries have had doom and gloom predictions that have turned out to be crap.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;823310And the music industry, and the film industry, to the point that it seems any and all media industries have had doom and gloom predictions that have turned out to be crap.

Things do change. Nothing lasts forever. The music and film industries are still around, but dramatically different than they were. The mid-list band, movie, author, etc. is dead. All that's left are a few manufactured mega-hits and massive volumes of low-budget amateur efforts. If I look back at my favourite 20 or so movies, most them would not be be made today. Too talky for the international market relied on today. Or too expensive for a movie that doesn't appeal to today's core audience demographic of 16-24-year-olds.

The newspaper industry is dying. Within five years most cities will no longer have a daily print newspaper, and even online newspapers are losing money and shutting up shop. Journalist will soon be a part-time job for 20-somethings looking for pocket money and some work experience before they get a real job.

Fiction publishing is in a steep downward spiral. Author advances are a fraction of what they were 15 years ago. Most published novels today are barely proofread, let alone edited. Marketing budgets have evaporated. Publishers simply don't have the resources.

A better comparable to RPGs is the tabletop historical wargame hobby. Back in the early 80s Squad Leader sold 220,000 copies. Now the biggest publishers of wargames runs print runs of around 2,000, and only after the production costs have been collected via pre-orders. Lots of games being published, but most of them sit unplayed the shelves of collectors. Most convention attendees are grey-haired. And they scoff at the question "is the wargame hobby dying?" too. But nobody can offer a convincing answer to the question of where the new blood will come from in 10 years.

I think if the hobby isn't dying, it's in a decline for sure.  Of course, if you're measuring it against the high water mark of the 1980's TSR heyday, pretty much anything will look like a decline.  But as has been mentioned above, publishing is in a  decline, which means serious reading is in a decline as well.  I think many younger people that, if this were the 1980's, would have gravitated toward pen and paper RPG's, are now gravitating toward video games (RPG format and otherwise).  You don't need a party of people to play many of these; you and maybe a buddy or two are all that is required.  I am continually frustrated in my efforts to get a once a MONTH thing going with my group, between our work and family responsibilities.  I look with longing at more blue collar types who seem to have no trouble at all getting together once a week for bowling or poker night. This problem is wholly eliminated by videogames.  Even if you do want/need a party, the server is packed with people from all over the world ready to answer your "looking for group" mass messages.  I also think it's easier to get into video games when you're younger these days; RPG's just take more intellectual wherewithal, and you really can't get into them as early.  This fosters a certain attitude/expectation from pen and paper RPG's, should people raised on video games ever decide to try them.  "What do you mean I can only cast that spell ONCE per day?!"  "What do you mean my guy's dead?  Can't we start over from the last encounter?"  I fear that if RPG's don't meet these altered expectations, they'll continue to look elsewhere for their fun.  

All that having been said, my eight year old son has been chomping at the bit to learn how to play AD&D and RIfts.  I don't know how old will be "old enough" in my estimation (I first tried Basic D&D - totally incorrectly - at age 9 or so), but he isn't there yet.  I just hope he's still interested in a few years, so I can start him down this path.  He lost interest pretty quickly in MtG, after I spent a TON of money on cards and hours building kick ass decks with him.  I hope RPG's do a better job of holding his interest.

I don't think so. The brick and mortar parts of it may be dying in some places, just as the publishing industry in general seems to be. Online, though, I see a shitload of cool stuff. A real renaissance and I don't mean the OSR only.

The hobby has been dying ever since before I entered it. Some OSR taliban might even claim that it was already dying before I was even born in 1984.

I think the hobby has been in an arctic sunset for decades now, steadily nearing the point of extinction but never truly reaching it. The heydays are over, competing media are stealing potential new players (and leading old-time players astray), but there is and will be a certain core of gamers who enjoys RPGs over other games, and there will always be new people who are willing to give it a try and stick for the ride.

Of the group of RPGers I run DnD 5e for.
The veteran Roleplayers are myself and one other guy.
There's my 2 kids who've been playing for some years and I've also introduced 2 new people in the group to RPGs and they love it.

I AM making an active effort to get people to play by asking people at my boardgaming club if they want to try it out, but I get a positive response.
So I don't think it's dying, but if you WANT it to keep going, you should make an effort to be open about it and encourage other people (who are receptive and possibly interested in that sort of thing) to give it a try.

Hobby never was dying, it just fractured. Nowadays, if you don't like D&D or WoD, you can choose from a bazillion other games, all readily available even from other half of the world, as long as you can pay for shipping for PoD.

I myself introduced at least 10- 20 players to the hobby, out of which at least half are still regulars.

Quote from: Koltar;823198The NEW edition of Dungeons & Dragons seems to have done the trick of getting people back and getting new folks interested.

D&D had never been something I was particularly interested in trying, but my wife and I recently played the NEW edition and enjoyed it. Forum member Vonn was the GM.

It is my impression that the hobby seems to be doing much better than say 10 years ago. There's also more RPGs on the shelves in game stores nowadays around these parts.

Quote from: The_Shadow;823156I've read a couple of RPG publishers stating that the industry has picked up modestly since a low point around 2011-2012.

Coincidentally or not, that tracks with the failure of 4e and the relative but not overwhelming success of 5e.

I have noticed the change in the tenor of internet discussion, much less heated and more accepting of the enormous diversity of games and approaches to gaming.

The converse is that there may be less passion. In the 90s you had the emergence of the lifestyle WW gamer, in the 2000s there were the Forge Wars. These days there is little of that, more people are realising that RPGs are just another pastime like boardgames. Which is how it should be, really, for adults. But I miss some of the overblown absorption into both games themselves and the tribal conflicts around them.

So no, the hobby is far from dead, and more surprisingly, the industry lives on as well. But for me personally - and maybe I'm reading way too much of my own feelings into the general situation - I feel more distance and less excitement in the whole scene.

dont worry there are still fights over point buy vs rolled stats and those will never go away

Quote from: RunningLaser;823277The brick and mortar side of the hobby sure seems diminished around here, but man, the rolled up sleeves side, the internet side is flourishing.  I like this side far more.

Part of that was due to the concerted efforts of WOTC and GW to actively kill off FLGS. From the wreckage of that the shops have gradually been returning. Locally a new store opened down the street and they have a big open gaming area no less.

Quote from: Haffrung;823313A better comparable to RPGs is the tabletop historical wargame hobby. Back in the early 80s Squad Leader sold 220,000 copies. Now the biggest publishers of wargames runs print runs of around 2,000, and only after the production costs have been collected via pre-orders. Lots of games being published, but most of them sit unplayed the shelves of collectors. Most convention attendees are grey-haired. And they scoff at the question "is the wargame hobby dying?" too. But nobody can offer a convincing answer to the question of where the new blood will come from in 10 years.

Wargames are still plugging away. Some doing fairly well even. There was for a time a downswing as there developed a push for minis intensive wargames. They are just too costly to make and too risky for the cost. Now there is a resurgance in interest in hex and counter driven games as new players discover that theres more to wargaming than minis.

Also the skirmish/squad level wargame is seeing a big upswing in releases. Some doing pretty well. There is also renewed interest in older AH and Metagaming type wargames and micro-games. Ambush! from AH has been getting alot of attention this last year for some reason from fans old and new. Possibly because its is a pretty unique approach to a wargame.