Why is tabletop rpg a niche market?

Why is tabletop rpg a niche market?

Decades of social stigma, and a frequently creepy consumer base.

What said, with the fact that many just don't want to play in the first place for their own reasons. Just isn't a hobby everyone can get into the mindset for

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Fuck creepiness and fuck mindset, TTRPGs are niche as fuck because getting five adult humans together for three hours is fucking HARD. The number of people who are able to do so with any frequency is pretty low, which guts your player base before "do I even want to play this?" even comes up.

There's other reasons, of course, but number one besides inertia is that it's just not an easy hobby to have.

Because physical goods are incredibly hard to manufacture, and when it comes to game books attempting to replicate the physical goods market over the internet is absurd.

The barrier to entry in the market is nothing making all systems seem devalued.

In order for companies to get money people need to find people to play with before they even think of playing making gamebooks not a complete experience by nature and inherently pointless to buy from a consumer standpoint.

Top it of with the fact that companies are stuck in ancient mindsets when it comes to monetization, and very few people are willing to innovate because these are *traditional* games.

There are a lot of different factors. The social stigma is one thing, but even without that it would never be a niche.

TTRPG's require a lot of investment, both personally and financially. You can get around the financial cost more easily these days, but the amount of time and energy it takes to get into an RPG is far, far greater than most entertainment mediums.

Having to learn a system, make a character, schedule a time, plus all the work of a GM creates a significant barrier to entry and time cost. Compare it to almost any other form of entertainment, and it's far, far harder to start enjoying an RPG.

In my opinion, the greater investment adds to the enjoyment of it. I've had more fun in RPG's than in any other entertainment medium, but that's largely a matter of personal preference and being the sort of person whose willing to invest that much into something.

In Tabletop RPGs, you choose to willingly do math outside of your career and education for the sake of a game of imagination where you play the role of some different version of you that's better than you in some way, shape or form, and likely will waste money on the resources or courtesies to maintain doing so as a hobby.
Don't get me wrong, I love it, but it's not really thaaaat hard to see why your regular jackoff doesn't want to give it a whirl.

Most people put away their toys when they grow up. Most of the ones who don't have game consoles.

What the fuck are you playing where you have to do anything more than basic arithmetic that you need in your everyday life.

Too much math is not a problem. Too many rules can be.

>Top it of with the fact that companies are stuck in ancient mindsets when it comes to monetization

What do you mean?

FATAL

It's a high-involvement time-costly hobby that circulates in small social groups: albeit cheap, social, and tends to focus around people you actually like to be around.

It means a lot of companies shear the sheep once and kill it and then wonder why it doesn't produce wool.
WotC and Hasbro through them has strongly tried to turn D&D into a seller on par with MtG.
The first time they did the d20 Open License, except they failed to take into account that PHB's, DMG's, and MM's are not booster packs and everyone will still buy only one while meanwhile third party groups make money and eventually crash the market.
4e tried more openly cramming more elements of what the successful elements of their CCG and what they thought was the "competing" market with MMORPG's. While successful at both of these things, they failed to realize that they aren't actually competing with MMORPG's for sales at all so changing their style and spamming out lots of books just cost them money instead of made them money due to the rising cost of print media.
5e finally has them giving up on even trying and putting out product at a VERY slow and affordable pace so as to not "compete" with MtG (Hasbro is kinda moronic at times) and usually using third party devs and writers to write their own core material to keep costs down.

Keep in mind that D&D is by far the best selling North American P&PRPG, so smaller publishers will have similar problems but even less options to deal with it because they'll make less money.

Because it draws out:
>autists
>readers of genre fiction
>the socially inept
>fetishists
>people with no sense of hygiene
>hyperliberals and megaconservatives
>people too smart for vidya but too dumb for proper literature (the IQ 110-125 crowd)
>rule obsessed OCD and a gold personality types
>people who root their entire identity on which game they like
>piss bottling weebs
>people in cargo shorts and new balance sneakers
>beta orbiters
>MRAs
>people without a job or degree (hence all the free time)
>people who make poor financial decisions (the cost of 40k, roleplaying libraries, M:TG cards, etc.)
And other similar undesirables.

4e also had some good ideas on the digital front, but they all fell through, from a mixture of ill fortune and financial fuckups.

The offline character builder remains an essential tool for anyone who wants to play 4e, but between the murder-suicide of the primary programmer meaning the digital support suite will ever be incomplete, and WotC's moronic decision to lock all that support behind a ludicrously high paywall stifled any potential growth the game could have had due to a lower barrier to entry.

Do you even leave the house on a Friday evening? Every bar in the world is packed. It is the aforementioned stigma and unpleasant customers.

>people in cargo shorts and new balance sneakers
Wait what?

Not to mention
>people who make greentext lists on Veeky Forums
Truly the worst kind of cancer.

So many people, all alone.

Ok so a good number of them probably have a friend or two with them, but just because they are in the same building does not mean you are going to get 5+ of them to sit down do something together for hours, even if that something didn't require any deeper investment.

It is a problem with the type that play TTRPGs, we tend not to place huge importance on social interaction and so resist doing so in favor of doing something alone.

People play five-aside football every weekend, they go drinking in groups of 3-6, they go out for meals in couples of 3-4. I maintain it is not an adult problem but a problem with adults that play ttrpg.

People rarely go out on a Friday/Saturday on their own, they go in groups.

Not him and it doesn't contribute anything to the conversation, but
>couples of 3-4.
isn't right. A couple is only 2.

Double dates and such, a nice meal out. Not to Chillies or Dennys but a dressed up and several course meal. Dinner parties, that sort of thing is what I meant to express.

RPGs are cerebral, require a great deal of commitment, and can be socially daunting. It's much easier to watch TV or play video games.

>a dressed up and several course meal. Dinner parties, that sort of thing
Wait, do you seriously actually think the "average" person gets dressed up for routine several course meals at fine restaurants?

When you were born, how deeply was that silver spoon lodged in your rectum?

Intelligence requirements are too high for mainstream.

Doing that as a one off thing sure, but no one does that on a regular basis

Not him, but I regularly go out for outings in Dorsia.
Hell, I've even got 8:30 PM reservation there this Friday.
Harvard Club or Fluties are also acceptable.

>five adult humans together for three hours is fucking HARD.
Bullshit. Any given sport that does training at least once a week can manage that. Any pub with regulars.

So was that silver spoon lodged all the way in or was a little bit poking out when you were squeezed from your mom's nethers?

Hey, come on, I believe in taking care of myself.

Yes we do, we go out once a month with two other couples, married couples. Sometimes it is at a restaurant, sometimes at one of our houses.

Last time it was a small Italian place, next we have our eye on a tapas place.

The snob has a point still.
When local pizza joint does their Sunday "order six, pay four" or course we will raid the place in groups of 4+ people.

When I say dress up I mean put on a smart shirt and pants and a jacket. Go to a nice restaurant, have a starter, main course and a desert.

It's quite a pleasant way to spend an evening, conversation, stories.

Basically you have proven my point about the social aspect. I express doing something that is quite fun, enjoyable and a regular occurance and you flail about like it's a stupid thing.

The exact same reason ttrpg is a niche market.

Well congratulations, you could all be spending that time playing a game instead.

Getting those humans together at the same time is hard if they don't care all that much. I've got a group that actually likes to play, it's just that inevitably some well feel like going clubbing or to the movies with their SO more than playing and don't feel any obligation to stick to a schedule.

That's why I've stopped playing with anyone that isn't either in early college/high school or is old enough to have children that age. The 20-30 something crowd simply won't set aside time to play an uninterrupted game together unless it's spur of the moment, and if they do actually show up, they'll be far too distracted or uninterested to give things more than a token effort. Older players tend to show up and give it their all for the time they're there, and younger ones have tons of enthusiasm if not an occasional lack of attention.

Sorry that pointing out that the activity you describe is mostly confined to the upper middle or upper classes, and not the common person in this economy, triggered you.

>nerd
>friends to play with
pick one

I play once a week with other friends. How did I become the enemy here. I was the one saying it is easy to coordinate a group of adults.

What am I even doing here ?

>Wait, do you seriously actually think the "average" person gets dressed up for routine several course meals at fine restaurants?
Wait what ? Would you go to a restaurant naked ?

Unbidden pls go, no one likes you.

>the activity you describe is mostly confined to the upper middle or upper classes, and not the common person in this economy
>going out eating at some restaurant with mates is now an upper-class activity
I've been a richfag all along.

Also, I don't think the social stigma still holds true nowadays, even the older people are more or less curious about it, but it's a hobby not everyone enjoys, probably more for psychological reasons.

t. uncultured peasant

Rather, I'm saying that where I live, five star eateries are literally inaccessible, and nobody's digging out their best three piece to go to a meal at Ma's Diner that they can barely afford in the first place.

>t. sociopathic 1%er who thinks anyone not born into a wealthy family is an uneducated subhuman unfit for life

The other guys was talking about trousers and a decent shirt, so likely something you'd wear at work. And in this day and age -and especially on Veeky Forums-, who can't afford a 30 to 50€ meal once in a while ?

It really is not, the restaurants we go to are about $20-$30 a head, not including a wine. You come out having spent about $45 each, which is no worse than a movie ticket and a meal.

Eating like that is all the rage now, cheap, local and good food in a relaxed enviroment. We do not go downtown and find the most exclusive restaurant and order cavier, lobsters and champgane.

We go to a family place that does good, rustic food and have a small meal and a few glasses of wine in the company of dear friends.

The dressing up and looking smart is just something we enjoy doing, to look good for each other. A shower, a nice suit without a tie, the women put on a dress and go the whole nine yards. It really is just an excuse to do that, an escape from the world around us just like ttprgs. A chance to pretend we've made it and the $13 bottle of wine we are drinking is really a $1000 a glass German vintage.

>going to a restaurant in clothes that aren't a t and jeans
>eating something that comes in courses, not a la carte with sides and a drink
>unique to the 1%
Anyone who thinks the above is somehow limited to the actually rich really is an uneducated subhuman unfit for life.
kys, mega-prole.

>edgy
I think I found some art from your last campaign.

If you look at this in a global context, it is limited to the rich. Even middle class people in developed countries are amongst the most privileged people on the planet. Which doesn't mean the whole 'Check your privilege' meme has any relevance, but it's something to remain aware of. The vast majority of the people on the planet do not, and will never have that opportunity.

Not my fault the retard can't figure out how to make enough money to live a normal life. Not my fault people can't figure out that if the economy sucks you should move. Not my fault poorfags don't have parents that care enough about them to ensure their financial stability.

t. poor liberal arts college student who's spending his free time by being a "communist" and "championing the people's rights"

Fair point, but we're not talking about the thronging masses of developing and 3rd world countries, we're talking about westerners and 1st worlders which are the premier users of Veeky Forums, and more specifically, Americans (and euros to a lesser degree)

>If you limit this to a a global context
If you do that you are the 1% eating food that isn't something you hunted yourself, or water that is not stained with the piss and shit you put in to it this morning

The vast majority of the people of the planet believe the Sun orbits the earth. I do not care about them or their situation, very few of us do. Because of their inability to not kill each other with spears I should feel bad? No, fuck that, move your village closer to the well and bring your school inside the village.

Beyond that, stop wasting all the aid we send you on BMW's and AKs, instead some crops or electricity generation, roads? Instead of forcing your people to dig for conflict diamonds why not put them in the barren fields that spoil?

>I'm not rich for going to a restaurant that requires you to be better dressed than t shirts and jeans!
My dad makes over 100k a year, my mother brings in good money as a part time pharmacist and they still only went to restaurants for special occasions. Face it user, you're not even upper middle class, you're upper class.

>You come out having spent about $45 each
Man, that's pretty much my food budget for 2 weeks.

>100k
How do you people even live on that kind of pittance?

>and they still only went to restaurants for special occasions.
Maybe they prefer to cook and eat at home? It's really not that hard to make enough money to enjoy a nice restaurant once or twice a month.

>better dressed than tshirt or jeans!
Not him, but it's literally just a dress shirt and some slacks; hardly being a penguin now is it?
Fucking poorfags.

Maybe if you stopped spending your money on garbage like lotto tickets and cheap beer you could afford to eat like a real person or engage in the social activities the rest of normal society does.

>Man, that's pretty much my food budget for 2 weeks.
Then you have some serious problems that need working out, rather than shitposting on Veeky Forums.
You presumably live in a 1st world country, there's no excuse for being that poor.

>Maybe they prefer to cook and eat at home?
Yeah, because they have better things to spend their money on than going out to a restaurant every week, like their retirement fund and keeping their property in shape. That tends to happen when your annual income is less than 6 digits, you entitled jackass.

>Fucking poorfags.
I'm a poorfag who escaped parental neglect and forged on trying to make my own way. Now I'm a grad student in a professional degree; so I ask, when's the last time you offered your time and money to help poorfags not be poorfags...or are you just here to complain about them while doing nothing to contribute to their betterment.

It's funny, the people I see whining hardest about poorfags are the ones who seem to want them to stay poorfags the most, probably so they can keep having a reason to idly bitch.

>there's no excuse for being that poor
Not everyone was dealt a good hand at the start of life. Some people have weak family structures or nearly no family structures at all. So yes, there is an excuse if you're young and the whims of fate had you born into a family with no economic or social capital.

I know it's hard to believe, but not everyone has a trust fund they can blow through without worry.

Damn lad I wonder what the fuck they are spending the 10k they make every month on.

So basically, it draw all sort of people and you don't like playing with people. Good. There are plenty of videogames with a single player mode for antisocial doucheheads like you.

Then I suggest you gain better employment. Also I do not believe you.

I believe strongly in helping those who help themselves, I do not believe in letting those who do not make the first move gain a free meal ticket.

There are all manner of charities, social services and groups dedicated to gettnig Fatty McFat off his ass and in to work, if I see a man making an effort, an old suit worn by his father or a car that barely has gas in it but he still gets to the interview I look favorably on that.

>having a father who has a suit
>owning a car
>affording gas
m8

>I believe strongly in helping those who help themselves
Sure you fucking do. That's why you piss away your money guzzling wine and stuffing your your face with caviar every week, right?

>makes over 100k a year
>annual income is less than 6 digits
u fucking what, mate?
>property
If that's a big concern, they likely have a fuck huge property, don't they?
literally 100 dollars a month for going out to eat is not a concern, not a second thought, for people making even above 60k a year; you have a very, very skewed idea of budgeting if you think that.

Good for you user, I wish you the best in life.
It's still not going to make me want to give handouts to lazy poorfags; if they want to better themselves, they can.

And there are literally dozens of programs expressly designed to help people get out of those situations, and yet they are squandered regardless.

>everyone who disagrees with me is a trust fund baby
Yeah, go fuck yourself m8.

2nd world actually, but food prices are comparable to 1st world (I mean, my nearest reference point is Germany. That still counts as 1st world, right?)

There's a lot you can do with 40 Euro. Lot of potatoes, rice, some other veggies, very little meat. It's better to eat real meat once in a blue moon than the cheap sausages regularly.

You got a point about working out, but that's a thing for most people doing 9 to 5 in the office.

So I forgot a digit. Call up your stable of lawyers to sue me for it and inflate your bank account further.

>Sure you fucking do. That's why you piss away your money guzzling wine and stuffing your your face with caviar every week, right?
Not him, but if he and his buds wasn't spending money on that, the waiters, the cooks, the tailors and the winemakers would lose their jobs.

>I believe strongly in helping those who help themselves
So what's your metric or do you not give charitable contributions at all?

Yes, people who help themselves are great, but sometimes folks need a hand even getting their foot in the door to success. More to the point, poorfag children have little sense of how much effort escaping poverty takes, so I'll ask again when the last time you volunteered at a reading room or museum to help impart the skills needed for upward mobility.

>he actually believes normal, well off people eat caviar
Damn lad, those campus commie conferences got to you hard, didn't they?

Eastern Europe? I really don't know much about the economic situation over there, but I'm glad that things are working out for you as they are. What kind of job do you have, and does it have any kind of advancement?

ebin meme lad.

>And there are literally dozens of programs expressly designed to help people get out of those situations
Show me one, I'd love to get out of poverty which is why I'm in a professional graduate degree.

If someone would have just dropped the key to wealth in my lap, all of this would be way easier...so if there are so many programs dedicated to alleviating poverty, please direct me to a few.

>normal
>well off
Um...I think 'well off' implies above average, so I'm not sure why you coupled it with 'normal'.

>I'm not rich, I'm just a little bit well off!
If you're not a liar, then you won't stay well off for long if you don't stop pissing your money away like an idiot.

Lad I make one third of what your dad makes, I'm in europe so prices are kinda higher, and I still have about half of my salary left at the end of the month.

>There are all manner of charities, social services and groups dedicated to gettnig Fatty McFat off his ass and in to work, if I see a man making an effort, an old suit worn by his father or a car that barely has gas in it but he still gets to the interview I look favorably on that.
>Just go in there, look him dead in the eye, and have a FIRM handshake!

Cost of living is lower in Europe, m8.

I doubt it desu, food and housing costs are really high.

Its why I I loaned a young lad $200 to pay his car note when work would not give him more hours for being part time. Paid me back, he got full time employment and his now my right hand.

Don't be mad at me because you oldman left or failed to prepare you for life.

The only worthwhile metric in these kinds of situations is gut feelings and first impressions. People that I work with, that I see. The man pan handling on the street that is clean-shaven and has uncreased jeans and a Yankee baseball cap? No. I don't offer my services to soup kitchens or to offer job advice.

But why should I? I help those that help themselves, if they can make the effort to get to a job interview or need a ride to get to work I'll be there for them.

Failing that, there is always the armed forces. Get them in there, they'll quickly learn how to keep gainful employment, skills that will last a life time and gain a huge dose of self respect and dicipline.

You do have to want the job. You can tell when somebody is just there to tick a box on their unemployment form. It is painfully obvious. Like I said above, I'll help those who I think to be honest. But it is based entirely off gut feelings, first impressions.

The US has cheaper cost of living than France, England, Germany, Spain, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and all those wealthy European countires. If you want to find cheaper cost of living you are welcome to dig turnips out of the frozen ground in South-South-Eastern Europe.

>Source: From North-West Europe living in Texas.

>Show me one
Do you not live in a country with welfare?

>I'm in a professional graduate degree.
What kind of degree, user.

"well off" implies that you can actually afford to live like a normal person.
>pissing away your money?
Pissing it away on what? A hundred dollars a month to go out for a nice dinner with a friend or spouse is literally nothing if you aren't scraping trash out of the gutters for food.

>dae le boomers xd

>Failing that, there is always the armed forces. Get them in there, they'll quickly learn how to keep gainful employment, skills that will last a life time and gain a huge dose of self respect and dicipline.
Careful user, now these guys are all going to start screaming about "Dying for Israel like a good goy"

>Eastern Europe?
Yup. Basically, since we joined EU the prices started catching up with the West quickly, the wages slowly. We got cheap booze and smokes to keep people pacified. But I don't really partake in either.

My job is of regular paper pusher variety, with above average wage because I can communicate in English (still not a common ability around here) and my advancement possibilities are finishing college that I'm doing on the side and moving somewhere decent. That's about the only actual benefit this country has, doing college is virtually free.

>The US has cheaper cost of living than France, England, Germany, Spain, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and all those wealthy European countires. If you want to find cheaper cost of living you are welcome to dig turnips out of the frozen ground in South-South-Eastern Europe.
Yeah, just enjoy dying in screaming agony if you ever need medical attention.

Holy shit, pull your fucking head out of your fucking ass. You are delusional, lying, or both.

>country with welfare
Sure do...which mostly deny me for being in college or having various grad assistantships despite being as poor as others who apply.

>what degree
Public administration in one of the best schools for my focus in the region. Y'see, I actually wanna contribute to my community in whatever capacity I can, given how little was available for me when I needed it.

He's a poorfag living in his destitute mom's basement roleplaying to be rich, user. Let him have his dreams. :^)

Its actually getting more popular, its weird.

Hopefully that doesn't mean it ends up like video games.

Because it's like a sacrificial cult deciding to go public and open a tumblr account.

The core members don't want new blood, they hate the new ways, they're so deep in tradition that they don't want to accept anything new or teach people, and on top of all that. Shit's kind of expensive. Also compared to something easier like TV or video games, it's way more inconvenient to get everyone together in one spot at a regular time and focus on one task for 4 to 5 hours.

That said, it's not nearly as niche as it used to be.

These three posts are the correct answer.

>Huge social stigma which is only just barely starting to ebb, which has caused a huge inflow of people with 5e
>Huge constraints on adults to maintain a consistent and fun playstyle, especially with how old people get completely set in their ways and highly opinionated
>Barrier of entry requires to know someone in the know, or to read through at bare minimum ~200 pages of a book, whereas the GM might have to read upwards of ~1000 pages over three books and put in the effort to make something

The third one is especially bad because there are so many better, easily explained alternatives out there that require so much less effort to enjoy, such as board games, card games, video games, hell, most people even ignore those because music, movies, and books don't also have that negative side effect of making you feel like you're an idiot when your character dies, or you lose a game, or you get wrecked by a better player online.

It's not a small coincidence that board games recently saw a semi-decent boost in the market ever since gamergate. With people being scared off from one alternative, plus the new edition and the "rise of geek chic", there's a good reason why the 5e handbook hit Amazon's #1 book.

You can join the reserves, you can join the Navy, the Air Force, the peace corp.

Never been refused treatment, the whole of Europes free medical care is built off the backs of America. It is they who research the majority of the drugs used, they that pay for the pioneering surgies used.

Are you saying that I can get good, safe and free medical care in Slovenia, Estonia, Macedonia, Armenia? No. You would not. It is very easy to compare one country to a nation made of 50 of equal size but it is also equally retarded.

>It is they who research the majority of the drugs used, they that pay for the pioneering surgies used.
Yeah, just forget that even France is ahead of the USA in medical research.

>It's so easy to get a job lel!
I have put out resumes. So many fucking resumes. I have tried and tried and tried again to get a job in my field, and I have failed and failed again and now I doubt that it is even possible for me to succeed at all. The only rational conclusion that I have come to is that employers no longer judge potential employees by how well they can do their fucking jobs, but instead the following:
A) How many useless social functions they've attended.
B) How much time they've spent working for someone else for free like a chump.
C) How much other useless shit they've done in the name of "networking".
D) How good a leader they are, despite the fact that there's plenty of room in the world for people who have no desire to be leaders.

Best of luck to you user, it's good that you do have some advancement paths. If I were you, picking up a third language like Spanish or Japanese would drastically increase how valuable you are.

Seeing as how you're going for a graduate degree, despite being in poverty (and thus meaning you don't have a proper job), you probably have a great job lined up the second you get out of university, right?
You didn't just spend 6-8 years in university because you liked the subject, without having a plan of employment, did you?

>Seeing as how you're going for a graduate degree, despite being in poverty (and thus meaning you don't have a proper job), you probably have a great job lined up the second you get out of university, right?
>You didn't just spend 6-8 years in university because you liked the subject, without having a plan of employment, did you?
>I am completely unaware of the current economic depression, the post

a and c) networking is extremely important in business, you fucking idiot.
b) internships are literally free experience in the field that companies hand out, without even having to care about legitimately hiring you, and some internships are even paid!
d) if you want to advance and have upward mobility, you need to be a leader

TL;DR: you're a literal autist who is mad the world doesn't pander to him.

Well, I have found a job in 2 months in a country where there is supposedly 10% unemployement. Tell me more.

>>I am completely unaware of the current economic depression, the post
Then why the fuck have you been in university for the past 2-3 years, rather than cutting your losses as an undergrad? The current economic situation didn't exactly happen overnight.

>You didn't just spend 6-8 years in university because you liked the subject
Actually yes, for my undergrad.

>and thus meaning you don't have a proper job
More like, if you noticed, my parents were neglectful shitsacks so I started life at sixteen with a backpack full of clothes upon escape, which is REALLY hard to recover from, if you've not been through it. I got through undergrad on merit scholarships and ramen.

>you probably have a great job lined up the second you get out of university, right
Ready to go? Nope. But my department has like a 96% placement rate upon completion of an MPA.

So, yet again, I'll ask for the programs that will help assuage my poverty, because even now it would really fucking help and if they're as common and effective as you posit I'd love to take advantage of them.

It doesn't help that trailer trash think they are middle class while sitting $20K under the median income.