What will it be?  I'm not talking about a license.  I mean ideas, mechanics, methods, settings, style, etc.

What will be the most influential new thing?

In store print on demand.  Everything ever in print all the time.

Quote from: David Johansen on January 30, 2023, 07:38:21 PM
In store print on demand.  Everything ever in print all the time.

That would be awesome.

Quote from: David Johansen on January 30, 2023, 07:38:21 PM
In store print on demand.  Everything ever in print all the time.

Printing isn't the issue, it's the binding that's the issue, unless you are thinking of spiral/3 rings binders.

Quote from: David Johansen on January 30, 2023, 07:38:21 PM
In store print on demand.  Everything ever in print all the time.

I second that would be awesome.

Quote from: David Johansen on January 30, 2023, 07:38:21 PM
In store print on demand.  Everything ever in print all the time.

Spot on. Brick and mortar stores will always be necessary. Customers will always want to peruse through aisles and get their hands on physical product. With in-store POD the store will no longer have to carry an expensive inventory or sell out of a popular item. The printing technology will allow them to print while the customer waits with whatever kind of binding or collector's edition cover they want. Docutech printers already do this, the quality will continue to improve.

This will spread out into many other industries like hardware stores being able to print the parts you need. Yes, metal, glass, virtually any material can be 3d printed. SpaceX prints its rocket engines.

Maybe someday they'll figure out how to print food from ink wells of the basic flavors. Wouldn't that be something?

3d printing is every bit as incredible as the AI tech which is starting to overturn entire industries. We are going to see as much change over the next couple of decades as someone who lived through the 20th century experienced.

I hate to say it, but nothing.

Back in the day, when computer games were text, or shitty graphics, theater of the mind was king. When the family had one phone line, then internet was expensive, even when not everyone had a personal computer, gathering in person around a table made sense.

But now the younger generation does all of its recreation online, friends only meet online (even if they are in the same town), and graphics and software just keep getting better and better. Soon people will be able to act out a dungeon crawl in V.R., and feel the virtual sword bite in to digital monster flesh.

TTRPG's are going the way of model trains. There will always be a hardcore fandom, but very much niche, with limited new blood. We lived the glory days, folks, now we settle down in to slow irrelevance.

Considering how popularity has killed, then raped the corpse, of so many hobbies, is fading away even a bad thing?

Considering Amazon does 2-day free delivery with POD (over $35), I am surprised the out-of-print games don't all re-publish via Amazon.

Who wouldn't want a freshly minted Palladium Fantasy 1e book to arrive alongside their toilet paper and canned lima beans?

Quote from: Grognard GM on January 30, 2023, 09:58:10 PMTTRPG's are going the way of model trains. There will always be a hardcore fandom, but very much niche, with limited new blood. We lived the glory days, folks, now we settle down in to slow irrelevance.

I don't even know what irrelevance means. None of the music I listen to has been played on the radio in almost 40 years (if ever), but those same bands pack concerts to this day. And even the bands who just play small venues, what's the difference between 50k or 5k or 500 bodies behind you when you're in the mosh pit at the rail of the stage? That's how I feel about playing "irrelevant" RPGs - I have no doubt that 30 years from now I can fill 6 seats at an OSR table.

If my RPG table is the only TTRPG being played in 1000 miles, who cares as long as my players come back for more?

Personally, I don't want to attend massive cons ever again. I'm FAR more interested in attending 150-500 person OSR/RPG cons where everybody is there to celebrate the same thing...without any woketards. 

Quote from: Grognard GM on January 30, 2023, 09:58:10 PMConsidering how popularity has killed, then raped the corpse, of so many hobbies, is fading away even a bad thing?

Oh Lordy, let's kill this hobby tonight when you put it THAT way!

I think there's room for a major shift in playability with TTRPGs. About twenty years ago, board games went through a big change in design, lead by Settlers of Catan and other Eurogames. Even games that didn't fall into the Eurogame grouping had to rethink their design.

Within the past 15 years of TTRPG design, I think noticeable developments include:

• 5th edition was hugely successful, with streamlined play including advantage/disadvantage replacing small mods; and bonus dice instead of fixed bonuses
• Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) was a huge trend within indie games, with playbooks and player-only rolls

These are only minor nods, though. Making resolution faster and smoother and reducing bookkeeping has a long way to go within TTRPGs compared to the developments within board games and card games.

I think the best gateway RPG; would have some of the familiar trappings of D&D, but in a simplified fast resolution play style.  Something new players could pick up and roll with, in the very first session.  Not something that keeps you in the dark for multiple sessions, like 1st Edition AD&D did me, back in the mid 1990s.  There are a lot of people who don't have the required patience to stick with a game like that.  They are used to hobbies and games that are quick and easy to pick up on.

Something fun, simple, and fast.  And then, once you're sure you really like the game; here's 60 pages of optional content that can really expand upon the game you're already playing.  Don't nullify what they already enjoy.  Just offer them more optional stuff, that isn't required.  Allow them to choose their own preferred level of depth.

My name is Bob, and I'm a Sorcerer.  I know 5 Spells.

Or:  My name is Amalabalamaha, the Chromatic Sorcerer of the Shining Star.  I know 5 Spells, which I can cast 3 different ways.  I also have 3 innate abilities, which though not incredibly powerful, help personalize my character and make me unique.

  I hope bosoms. It is an act of rebellion nowadays. Yet preferably not on dragonborn. Will accept ASCII art bosoms. C-cups or more? 

I think we need to look at what made RPGs popular (to the extent that they were) in the past.

One big thing is cost. For the cost of a couple books, you can get endless fun out of it. There are board games with a lot of replay value, but eventually they get stale and you want to move on to a new one, or just break it out a few times a year as a tradition.

The other is the imaginative freedom juxtaposed with structure and rules. That's something that computer games are still a long way off from.

What would make the most sense is a shift away from what computer games are good at. Realistic combat? A game like Dark Souls has that covered. Frantic combat? Diablo III. There's plenty more of course, but there are certain areas that TTRPGs have a very hard time competing in.

So games that really emphasize the strengths, while keeping what made them attractive to begin with. If I had a concrete idea what that is, I'd probably be trying to make it myself.

Quote from: jhkim on January 30, 2023, 10:53:35 PM
Within the past 15 years of TTRPG design, I think noticeable developments include:

• 5th edition was hugely successful, with streamlined play including advantage/disadvantage replacing small mods; and bonus dice instead of fixed bonuses
• Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) was a huge trend within indie games, with playbooks and player-only rolls

These existed long before either 5e or PbtA. Those systems only popularized the concepts. That said, there's no shortage of players who still want crunchy, convoluted mechanics (for some reason I can never understand). Streamlining and simplifying gameplay won't be the "next great leap" in the hobby as long as there's a significant subset of player who wants crunch.

I don't think the next evolution would be in mechanics at all, but rather in how we consume and gain access to the hobby. For some people, that might be a virtual playground indistinguishable from a video game. But expansions in POD books and POD miniatures it what I think will pull the hobby away from the clutches of walled-garden VTTs and back to tabletops. Within the next 10 years, most homes will have their own 3d printers, making it possible for players to inexpensively print whatever miniature they want. Download a bestiary pdf and get a bundle of .stl files for each entry.

Quote from: Effete on January 31, 2023, 07:47:08 AM

Quote from: jhkim on January 30, 2023, 10:53:35 PM
Within the past 15 years of TTRPG design, I think noticeable developments include:

• 5th edition was hugely successful, with streamlined play including advantage/disadvantage replacing small mods; and bonus dice instead of fixed bonuses
• Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) was a huge trend within indie games, with playbooks and player-only rolls

These existed long before either 5e or PbtA. Those systems only popularized the concepts. That said, there's no shortage of players who still want crunchy, convoluted mechanics (for some reason I can never understand). Streamlining and simplifying gameplay won't be the "next great leap" in the hobby as long as there's a significant subset of player who wants crunch.

I don't think the next evolution would be in mechanics at all, but rather in how we consume and gain access to the hobby. For some people, that might be a virtual playground indistinguishable from a video game. But expansions in POD books and POD miniatures it what I think will pull the hobby away from the clutches of walled-garden VTTs and back to tabletops. Within the next 10 years, most homes will have their own 3d printers, making it possible for players to inexpensively print whatever miniature they want. Download a bestiary pdf and get a bundle of .stl files for each entry.

I would expect this to happen first with tabletop wargames. Games Workshop will lose their shit if that happens.

I'll make a few.

I think computer tech is going to become less and less attainable over the next 5 years because of the semiconductor export bans on China, and the general demographic collapse of Southeast Asia, which will make these devices harder to manufacture. Combine that with our culture of replacing tech devices every few years (no one bothers to maintain their equipment) and you have a serious pinch for electronics. It's nice to think that WotC's marketshare is going to collapse because of how badly they behaved when they attempted to redact the OGL, but I think it's far more likely that they will move the majority of their business online only for online business to become very difficult. On the upside, this could also mean that video game players migrate to ttRPGs, if the situation becomes dire enough.

LGSs really need a more reliable and higher profit product offering than just games. (Food. I'm thinking of food.) It doesn't need to be complex; a freezer filled with frozen pizzas marked up a few dollars, a pantry with popcorn, and a convection oven and microwave is probably enough, but my point is that tabletop games alone does not consistently produce the revenue to run a LGS or enough profit to actually make it worth it. You have to sell a higher profit product.

I think that we are basically tapping out how far games can take single core mechanics, so we will probably start seeing games with two complementing core mechanics used for different things. (This shouldn't really surprise people, seeing how this is almost verbatim how D&D uses saving throws.)

Modular RPGs with mini-transaction expansions rather than monolithic core rulebooks. Core rulebooks are where 95% of indie RPG system revenues come from, and  they barely produce revenue. Besides, I think that with the exception of D&D, RPGs are largely (shudder) undermonetized. No, really. Almost no one in this industry makes more than pocket change. I think it makes more sense to release a free bare-bones core rules and the offer paid expansions, somewhat akin to how GURPS used to work, but on a smaller scale. This would mean developers could more easily maintain revenue and could spend more time on each section, and players could pick and choose which components of the game they want to buy or to implement in each game.