WoTC's data on the demographics of who plays dnd5e is very interesting, but what's even more interesting is the way they are trying to frame that data.
#dnd #dnd5e #wotc #ttrpg #OSR

Good video. Gradually understood what you were saying overall as the analysis went on, I'd like to think.

Was actually surprised to learn how many of and to what degree those of older generations than my own were keeping the most recent edition afloat. They should have a stronger voice, which Wizards doesn't seem to want to allow, to the detriment of its own product.

Also, I'd fit within the under 25 group in that round of statistics, and I can tell you I didn't start playing 5e, either in general or with my current group in particular, until after I more or less passed college/drinking age. So agreed that using people like me in those numbers to inflate the "kids" bracket is a little sketchy.

Actually probably will check out some more OSR, maybe try and get some friends interested in looking into it, cuz even if they don't wind up wanting to play it I think there's something to be said for exposure and perspective.

Quote from: KindaMeh on July 04, 2022, 11:05:20 PM
Good video. Gradually understood what you were saying overall as the analysis went on, I'd like to think.

Was actually surprised to learn how many of and to what degree those of older generations than my own were keeping the most recent edition afloat. They should have a stronger voice, which Wizards doesn't seem to want to allow, to the detriment of its own product.

Also, I'd fit within the under 25 group in that round of statistics, and I can tell you I didn't start playing 5e, either in general or with my current group in particular, until after I more or less passed college/drinking age. So agreed that using people like me in those numbers to inflate the "kids" bracket is a little sketchy.

Actually probably will check out some more OSR, maybe try and get some friends interested in looking into it, cuz even if they don't wind up wanting to play it I think there's something to be said for exposure and perspective.

I think you'll find that the OSR is pretty mindblowing in terms of amazing ways of pushing the limits of what you can do with the D&D ruleset.

Your last major point around books purchased and online games played may deserve its own topic.

While all hobbies are unique, this one is odd in that I could see half (or even more) of people who post online, including Reddit and Twitter, not actually playing games or really participating in the hobby.

Take pen turning. If you head out to message boards or Reddit, almost everyone participating in conversations are actively IN the hobby. They are making stuff, looking to upgrade their equipment, finding rare materials to make pens out of.

But when it comes to TTRPGs, I am not at ALL surprised to hear millions of books sold, yet only 10s of thousands of online games were being played on Roll20 at any give time during the pandemic.

A good buddy of mine was talking about D&D for years. Memes, quotes, things here and there about playing. We finally get together after things settled down (he was super concerned about in person) and he admits that he hasn't played since we were in HS.

And you see this on Reddit all the time. People posting things they have obviously read, but not actually experienced.

At any rate, good video, interesting topic—particularly at the end.

My anecdotal experience is that I've either met or heard about more women playing D&D in the past few years than back when I was a kid (which was almost 100% male), but that might just be my geographic area or people I interact with. Another thing to take into account is that the number of people identifying as one gender but being born the other can also go both ways, and that born females identifying as men have actually surpassed the number of born males identifying as women these past few years, so it could be a wash if taking that metric into account.

Quote from: FingerRod on July 05, 2022, 09:14:55 AM
Your last major point around books purchased and online games played may deserve its own topic.

While all hobbies are unique, this one is odd in that I could see half (or even more) of people who post online, including Reddit and Twitter, not actually playing games or really participating in the hobby.

Take pen turning. If you head out to message boards or Reddit, almost everyone participating in conversations are actively IN the hobby. They are making stuff, looking to upgrade their equipment, finding rare materials to make pens out of.

But when it comes to TTRPGs, I am not at ALL surprised to hear millions of books sold, yet only 10s of thousands of online games were being played on Roll20 at any give time during the pandemic.

A good buddy of mine was talking about D&D for years. Memes, quotes, things here and there about playing. We finally get together after things settled down (he was super concerned about in person) and he admits that he hasn't played since we were in HS.

And you see this on Reddit all the time. People posting things they have obviously read, but not actually experienced.

At any rate, good video, interesting topic—particularly at the end.

Thanks. Spread the word, share the video!

So here's the deal. When I was in my prime D&D playing years as a teen, that's pretty much all we had was tabletop play in person with people you knew.  Sure, you could play the gold box games on your C64 or Atari, but you were limited to sitting there taking turns with your friends since online play was non existent.  You also didn't have a hand held device - your media consumption was limited to whatever you could read on print or whatever you could see on the TV.  Most USians had 3 channels plus PBS and 2 or 3 UHF channels showing wrestling, televangelists, or 3 stooges reruns. If you were lucky, you had 30 channels of cable and could maybe see an occasional front boob with nip while playing with the tuning knob on the wired cable box on the scrambled adult channel...

Now, there are so many forms of zombie media that don't require you to actually think. Hundreds of worthless tv channels where they are constantly getting rid of The Literacy Channel to make room for a Kardashians channel that show low budget fantasy fare. Video games requiring nothing more than a twitchy trigger finger where you can spew racial slurs at 100s of your closest friends living 1000s of miles away who you've never met.  Soul-destroying and IQ-reducing social media where RPG industry "personalities" put out shit product while simultaneously trying to cancel others.  Dozens of wanna-be tv actors "playing" RPGs on YouTube.  These do not constitute a healthy RPG experience.

Quote from: 3catcircus on July 05, 2022, 09:55:56 AM
.....  Dozens of wanna-be tv actors "playing" RPGs on YouTube.  These do not constitute a healthy RPG experience.

^^^^^^This. I agree with.

This is another good video. Cause like Pundit said the "data" has been out there for awhile. And 'official' D&D can die for all I care because the OSR really does push what can be done.

Quote from: Thorn Drumheller on July 05, 2022, 01:02:14 PM

Quote from: 3catcircus on July 05, 2022, 09:55:56 AM
.....  Dozens of wanna-be tv actors "playing" RPGs on YouTube.  These do not constitute a healthy RPG experience.

^^^^^^This. I agree with.

Absolutely. I spent hours I'll never get back watching terrible Call of Cthulhu channels full of incompetents (I watched some scenarios I wanted to run to get some ideas and all I got was how not to run them). Also, they were as boring as hell. I mean... how you can make CoC boring??

"The Calyx" is the only one worth it, IMHO. It is an all girls CoC YT series and the only one where the players seem to, you know, have fun (the Keeper is just cruel). But it is a drop in the ocean. And I'll never play online anyway.

Quote from: Reckall on July 05, 2022, 01:16:45 PM

Quote from: Thorn Drumheller on July 05, 2022, 01:02:14 PM

Quote from: 3catcircus on July 05, 2022, 09:55:56 AM
.....  Dozens of wanna-be tv actors "playing" RPGs on YouTube.  These do not constitute a healthy RPG experience.

^^^^^^This. I agree with.

Absolutely. I spent hours I'll never get back watching terrible Call of Cthulhu channels full of incompetents (I watched some scenarios I wanted to run to get some ideas and all I got was how not to run them). Also, they were as boring as hell. I mean... how you can make CoC boring??

"The Calyx" is the only one worth it, IMHO. It is an all girls CoC YT series and the only one where the players seem to, you know, have fun (the Keeper is just cruel). But it is a drop in the ocean. And I'll never play online anyway.

To be clear, I was referring to *all* of the media consumption not being a healthy RPG experience, not just the YT stuff.  That having been said, carry on...

The thing about the number of hours of D&D streamed on Twitch is an utterly worthless statistic. There is a Dungeons and Dragons category on Twitch and streamers are the ones who pick what category their stream fits in. You'll find all kinds of things under the D&D category that aren't streamed games. Troll Lord Games stream regularly and put all their streams under the D&D category, including streams that are just Stephen and Davis BSing or streams where they're running Castles and Crusades.

https://www.twitch.tv/trolllordgames

If you do a search for Old School Essentials, the current OSR retroclone darling, you'll find that most of the results are streamed under the D&D category. So really those streamed minutes metrics they're crowing about are just utterly worthless and don't in any way indicate streamed D&D 5E games.

Quote from: VisionStorm on July 05, 2022, 09:41:09 AM
My anecdotal experience is that I've either met or heard about more women playing D&D in the past few years than back when I was a kid (which was almost 100% male), but that might just be my geographic area or people I interact with.

My high school group was 100% male but that's not surprising since I went to an all-boy high school. By the time I went to college in the mid-80s, there were plenty of girls playing D&D; at least 10% if not more. But most of them were FeRPers and I was mainly a wargamer. Even though we all played D&D, we didn't like to associate with the FeRPers because they were weird. But I do know that a woman ran the D&D club for 3 of the 4 years I was in University.

I need to see some seriously well researched statistics before I believed that a higher percentage of women play 5e than played V:TM.

And these girls were actual real girls, just to be clear.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on July 05, 2022, 04:20:06 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on July 05, 2022, 09:41:09 AM
My anecdotal experience is that I've either met or heard about more women playing D&D in the past few years than back when I was a kid (which was almost 100% male), but that might just be my geographic area or people I interact with.

My high school group was 100% male but that's not surprising since I went to an all-boy high school. By the time I went to college in the mid-80s, there were plenty of girls playing D&D; at least 10% if not more. But most of them were FeRPers and I was mainly a wargamer. Even though we all played D&D, we didn't like to associate with the FeRPers because they were weird. But I do know that a woman ran the D&D club for 3 of the 4 years I was in University.

I need to see some seriously well researched statistics before I believed that a higher percentage of women play 5e than played V:TM.

And these girls were actual real girls, just to be clear.

"Trans gurls are girls, you fascist!" 😬😂

How many old RPG gamers do you think stick to the systems they know rather than play the current versions?

If given a choice, I'll play Palladium Rifts, RoboTech, Heroes Unlimited, and Fantasy.  Hell, I like 1st edition Fantasy over 2nd. 

Theses days I only get free games, of rules lite stuff so I don't have to learn a complex system. 

Also, I don't play any D&D.  Games like Dungeons or and Delvers Dice Pool Edition and Star Adventurer are as close as I want to get. 

Quote from: weirdguy564 on July 05, 2022, 07:36:50 PM
How many old RPG gamers do you think stick to the systems they know rather than play the current versions?

If given a choice, I'll play Palladium Rifts, RoboTech, Heroes Unlimited, and Fantasy.  Hell, I like 1st edition Fantasy over 2nd. 

Theses days I only get free games, of rules lite stuff so I don't have to learn a complex system. 

Also, I don't play any D&D.  Games like Dungeons or and Delvers Dice Pool Edition and Star Adventurer are as close as I want to get.

This is a problem - the D&D (or Vampire or Pathfinder or whatever) Snob who only plays one RPG and refused to even try anything else.

My own pedigree:

B/X and BECMI D&D/AD&D/3.x/5e
Twilight:2000 1e/2.2/3e
Star Frontiers
Top Secret
James Bond
Top Secret/S.I.
Delta Force
Call of Cthulhu
D6 Star Wars
D20 Star Wars
Vampire
Pathfinder 1e
Spycraft 1e
FASERIP MSH
DC Heroes 1e
Gamma World
Torg 1e
T20 Traveler
Burning Wheel

Can't say I enjoyed them all, but I at least tried them - which leads to cross-pollenization of game mechanics and different plot ideas.

EDIT: how could I have forgotten to include Mythus/Dangerous Journeys?