How important is it to increase the player base of roleplaying games?

I think the issue would be more that as with any medium when you go for mass appeal you wind up trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator, people stop trying to make challenging things because that'll alienate part of the potential audience and that's counter-productive if you want to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. Maybe it's not an inherently bad thing to casualize a game or whatever for a wider audience but I don't think you can blame the original fans for being a bit resentful, when a product's only trying to appeal to a very small set of people it can do a very good job of appealing to that audience because you don't have to worry about alienating other potential audiences. Think of how a more maths-intensive game can give a lot of advantages to how a games designed (allowing much more and much more accurate detail for instance) but that you'd never see it in a mainstream game that's trying for maximum appeal because so many people just hate maths. There's always a trade off.

There are still some of you trying to push this shit? Christ, give it up some people like different things than you.

Bringing more people into the hobby =/= nerfing it for mass appeal.

More noob-friendliness is just one possible avenue of bringing more people in. Lets also not forget that even doubling the playerbase would not make it any less of a marginal community.

Chill out mate it was a funny video.

Ideally you can avoid that situation but it's difficult, complexity tends to intimidate people and the easiest and most obvious way of increasing mass appeal then is to tone down that complexity. Just look at how many video game series have simplified massively over time compared to earlier installments (sometimes for the better admittedly).

I just think US and possibly UK have it much more easy going as far as being open about their hobbies. God help you if you don't speak English and want to get into roleplaying.

Everyone in Holland speaks English... and many people speak German and French too... Its not necessarily the language that is a barrier... its just that if there is a lively D&D community they sure are keeping it all deep inside the closet.

>pandering to people who don't even care about the game while alienating its original players.
This. A lot of companies try to tumblrize their audience and market their game to people who don't really care about games. FFG is notorious for this but I'm sure there are other, less extreme examples.

>God help you if you don't speak English and want to get into roleplaying.

We actually had a thread a while back where people talked about gaming in their home countries. Turns out, there's plenty of non-english games out there, alongside plenty of translations (official and otherwise).

Yeah sure, I always welcome more players but really it's just a nature of the hobby that it requires investment and effort. When your sessions last 3+ hours, when you need to read the material beforehand and when you can't really turn off your brain, so to speak, like you can with a movie or TV show, it really cuts into how many people are willing to do all that to even give it a go. Let alone become a regular.

Normies ruin EVERYTHING.

They improved comic books.
Alan Moore was a normie and wrote for normies.

>Turns out, there's plenty of non-english games out there, alongside plenty of translations (official and otherwise).
Some of the untranslated ones have even gotten some interest from english-speaking fat/tg/uys, IIRC - for instance, the Swedish Mutant Chronicles and Drakar och Demoner Trudvang.

And the German The Dark Eye, of course. And I also remember seeing some rad-looking untranslated Finnish RPG, but can't remember much about it - something about penguins, I think? And then there's the shittons of Japanese Tabletalk RPGs, some of which get threads here semi-regularly. You probably know the names of some of them already!

Back when D&D got really big in the eighties, people flocked all over to make their own local knockoffs - and some of those are still alive today. Also, some of them are pretty damn cool.

>the Swedish Mutant Chronicles
MC 1E and 2E were actually translated back in the '90s.

Huh, what do you know. I kind of assumed that it languished in the same internationally unmarketable limbo that the rest of their lines seemed to be in.

In retrospect I guess it's got a bit more to it than just being a Gamma World lookalike, which probably helped sell it internationally? I dunno how well it did.

> The hobby is life
> It is ours to foster and defend
> tumblrrrrr
I would gladly play with a thousand gibbering normies before agreeing to play with another one of you.

Its vile either way.

Currently I have 7 people in my group and that was after gettimg rid of 3 others who wanted in to. Sadly they're all filthy casual ex WoW players with one guy who has played dnd before but just power gamed. So getting the likes of good characters, roleplay or even learning that a d20 is what you use to make attacks is blood from a stone with them.

In the other hand Ive chatted to a couple of local grognards , one was genuinly autistic and ended up stalking and emotionally abusing one of the players in my main group and the other one told me in detail about how his character hilariously raped the NPC family members of another player.

Basically all RPG players are toxic . I wish I could play with myself as the best games include no players.

>I wish I could play with myself as the best games include no players.
Maybe write a book or, if you're more into the player side of things, try to get into CYOA books or some more sandboxy videogames or something?

Well im currently enjoying stretching my GM muscles in creating a large interlinked sandbox city campaign for my group. I'm aware they're likely going to ignore all the million linked and thought out plot hooks and relationships between npcs and factions and just look at me gormlessly every session but I don't really care as Im enjoying the design process and might turn it into an actual module

Beyond that I'm already writing a novel and when this game inevitably falls apart under player apathy ill go back to that properly while dreaming of a good roleplaying group existing.

As for vidya Ive played plenty in the past but Im just bored of them now. Perhaps im getting old and suffering from the syndrome of everything being shit. ...i need a vodka.

>Basically all RPG players are toxic

That's starting to sound like those guys who start to hate all women just because of a few bad dates.

>Basically all RPG players are toxic
Depends on the system.

The happy medium is to welcome new players with acceptance and support but not have new games pander to them. It's okay for games to be complex and esoteric, that's why you have other people to help you learn.

>that's why you have other people to help you learn
Except when you don't.
For example in a country that has barely any FLGSs and any FLGSs it does have drop the F hard if you so much as mention RPGs.

Oh, don't even start that shit, you wanker.

>Cause as player, I have not other thing to do other than learning complex and esoteric games

Alan Moore and Normie are not words that belong on the same freaking continent.

The man makes Grant Morrison look normal FFS.

Alan Moore is like the Rob Zombie of comics.
He's so mainstream friendly by being "so weird lol" that it's embarrassing to see people treat him like some avant garde revolutionary.

Or who have a community that is way to competitive. My "FLGS" is anything but. The staff are helpful and friendly but I feel sorry for them having to put up with the autists and grognards that are rife there.

Like that other guy in the thread im just dreaming of getting a group of good people. Sadly the game store is the only one in several hours drive from me.

"Competitive" is a good word here.
Though it's more of a meta competition in Germany.

Players of various game types are competing for very limited and very expensive space in the LGSs. As such, only profitable L/CCG players and wargamers ever get any.
These stores do have a token stock of board games and RPGs, but if you actually want to play them there, you're SOL.

All the conventions are in the US, so it's pretty big there.
Mind you, there's a 2 gaming stores on 1 little street in Newcastle(North East of England), so it's pretty popular over here.

Buddy if you're in Amsterdam you definetly should be able to find a group. I live in Rotterdam and I think I know like 20 people (personally) that play dnd and other ttrpgs.

Just ask around for it in a dedicated shop.
Or ask people with overlapping hobbies like mtg or hell even people playing more widely known board games like catan.

Dnd is pretty fucking big in the Netherlands.

>It's okay for games to be complex and esoteric
It absolutely is. It's also okay for games to be intuitive and easy to learn. The existence of one doesn't invalidate the existence of the other. The Avengers can exist in the same medium as Taxi Driver, Seven Samurai, The 400 Blows and The Holy Mountain.
They can use the same platform for different purposes and appeal to different people.

This stupid thread will get 200 replies.

What makes it stupid?
In fact, it's been pretty civil as far as Veeky Forums threads go.

Preparing to sagebomb on your command, sir!

I got into traditional gaming because it was a comparative quiet hobby. It's hard for me to tolerate large social gatherings. So I don't like the idea of traditional games being "dumbed down" to appeal to the general masses. I wouldn't necessarily mind if game developers want to branch out to more niche audiences, though. For instance, I've played in LGBT groups before. They're every bit as small and mannered as other groups I've played in, so I can deal with there being some overlap between one small niche or another. I would just hate to walk into my local game store and there be dozens of people of all ages, entire families with loud screaming children, etc. from corner to corner of the store. That kills the atmosphere instantly.

How about just not playing D&D? It's only really played in the US because it already has such a big market share, the playerbase is so big it cant die out even if it sucks.

At least here in Germany, I no literally no one who plays D&D, but not because no one plays rpgs but because others are played instead. A LOT of people black Dark Eye, a LOT of people play all that Vampire stuff from Masquerade to WoD and nWoD and the like. I know quite a few people who play Savage Worlds and some that do GURPS, including me.

How hard can it be to just find a "Funtainment" or similar LGS and start out there. Most have a back room for Magic, Yugioh and P&P rpgs for exactly that reason.

Also how hard can it be to just get yourself some non-plebs or edgelords as friends to play with. When I just randomly asked people during the first week of University if they want to try out Savage Worlds with me, literally the first three people I asked were like "fuck yeah" and our campaing has been going on for two years. Whenever I started a new game, like FFG Star Wars and GURPS, I had to reject people because groups would have gotten too big.

All I saying is you LITERALLY CAN buy yourself into the hobby.

meaningness.com/metablog/geeks-mops-sociopaths

should be required reading for any faggot on Veeky Forums who thinks more automatically = better

The fuck are you talking about, that probably the most anglo-centric bullshit I have read in a while. America, the land of the nerd black-face show known as "The Big Bang Theory" is more open about the hobby, right.

I have three groups going right now with completely diffrent people, two from university that were just started by me randomly asking into the room who would be down for it and just picking the people I most liked, the other is my younger stepbrother and their group of friends that meet every weekend to barbecue, drink and watch soccer.

Pretty much every European country that was not slave to communism in the 80ies has at least one own system from that time, pretty much all of which are better than D&D by the way, and translated stuff is pretty damn popular.

Germany is all about The Dark Eye and pretty much every dark supernatural system out there. As long as it has Vampires or Monsters and is grimdark, it has a big playerbase. Vampire the Masquerade, CoC, WoD, you name it.

>How about just not playing D&D?

Because then there's a chance they'll run into faggots like you.
Seriously, quit it with your fake help trolling and get over yourself and your stupid misconceptions already.

Don't bother replying. This is the last reply you'll get from me, and you only get this one because you still seem to think your dumb trolling isn't painfully obvious.

>xddddd socially normative individuals stay away from my personnnnn ahahahahah

Go back to /r9k/, you shitposting waste of oxygen.

Thaat's retarded. This isn't some kind of online video game where a sudden influx of clueless newbies can poison the pool, this is a hobby you typically play face-to-face in small groups.

First of all, nine out of ten times people will be brought into the hobby either by or along with friends. Having more friends to play with is a good thing. Second, if you're bringing new players into the hobby, you get to educate and mold them. They're not just thrown into the deep end and left to fend for themselves, you get to teach them your grognard ways and play the neckbeardiest games with them.

What's more, roleplaying games aren't a uniform blob. There's something for everyone, from cooperative storytelling games, to crunch-heavy simulations, to light-hearted dungeon stomps, and beyond. Unlike what many retards believe, if games get made that appeal to a specific group of players which doesn't include you, there's absolutely no reason for you to play them. It doesn't hurt you at all. Even if some ridiculously bad game gets popular and lures in a veritable horde of casual newbies, this does not stop you from playing AD&D with your group like you've been doing every sunday for the last 40 years in any way. If anything it's a clear win, because even if only a fraction of those newbies decide to delve deeper into the hobby it increases the number of potential people you can play with.

The whole "new players suck" mentality is nothing more than a knee-jerk us-vs-them mentality that isn't just pointlessly pathetic, but harmful to the hobby as a whole.

/sperg rage

>The whole "new players suck" mentality is nothing more than a knee-jerk us-vs-them mentality that isn't just pointlessly pathetic, but harmful to the hobby as a whole.

don't forget your homework assignment to read

I read that piece of insecure, self-absorbed elitist trash long ago, and it didn't change my opinion on anything. If you can't enjoy something because other people are enjoying it in a way you think is inferior, then the problem lies entirely with yourself.

It sounds like you didn't read it though. I think you're conflating the idea of cyclical subcultures with the insular neckbeard elitist grognard caricature, but that's not the point. That smaller communities are more informed and capable is a fact, any time you must appeal to a larger group, you start to make compromises. Those compromises *often but not always* dilute the original Thing eventually to the point of destruction, for example D&D was once an obscure hobby full of actual STEM nerds and now it's faggot casual shit Big Bang Theory style. It's currently a shit game by a shit company for shit people. If you cannot agree on this fundamental truth about D&D, then there is no reason to even discuss this further because you *are* the mop.

Too much. When you troll this far, no one can take you seriously, and no one will debate you.

What you fail to understand is that there's no reason to even consider yourself part of the greater subculture. That's only if you're desperate enough to chase after whatever's the hottest, latest thing.

It's just you and your gaming group, not you and everyone who will ever open a sourcebook. If you want to play whatever grognardy game is your favorite, there's nothing stopping you even if every single new player is playing Twilight: the ERGP, or whatever the fuck awful bullshit you might imagine.

Even if D&D was "faggot casual shit Big Bang Theory style", that still doesn't affect you. It doesn't retroactively rewrite all your sourcebooks, it doesn't suddenly turn a good gaming group into a bunch of casual newbies, and neither does it invalidate all your wonderfully beardy game nights. Why are you this obsessed with what other people are playing, instead of just playing that thing you enjoy?

Obviously, you underestimate my autism.

>If you're a normal person who happens to like something instead of a fanatic who obsesses over it constantly, you are RUINING THE HOBBY
Christ, this guy's head is up his ass.

>Even if D&D was "faggot casual shit Big Bang Theory style", that still doesn't affect you. It doesn't retroactively rewrite all your sourcebooks,

I'm talking about modern D&D, 3.x and above not 2e etc. A D&D book written *today* is written based on this shitty new paradigm.

again missing the point. I guess I should avoid certain trigger words because it automatically presses certain kneejerk buttons for people who can't think outside of memes, like how everyone who disagrees with the alt right is a tumblrist or vice versa

I never said you have to be a fanatic, quote me directly if I did. For the nth time, my point was . . . just reread my damn posts/the link I already said it a bunch.

>A D&D book written *today* is written based on this shitty new paradigm.
Yes, and? Please explain to me how this depreciates your experience as a roleplayer, or invalidates the games you prefer to play.

Your posts are literally "REEE NORMIES STOP LIKING WHAT I DON'T LIKE!" It's beyond pathetic.

For fuck's sake, he's a troll. Stop falling for his bait like you think he's going to debate you in earnest.

>actual STEM nerds are the best players
Engineers are up there with lawyers and economics students as some of the worst, most unbearable people I have ever played with. Your "casual Big Band Theory normies" may give few shits, but at least they don't actively try to sabotage the game and whatever you do for their own shits and giggles.

If this paradigm shift means a reduction in socially-maladjusted autists, I gladly welcome it. Give me your plebs, your coddled masses.

Another German here.
D&D is the only thing anyone I know plays. Well, except for our own very special group that's on hold for reasons and the occasional Shadowrun group, but those are rare.
I know someone who used to play DSA, but only a heavily houseruled version that would not be recognizable as DSA.

DSA was actually the first roleplaying game I ever played, though it was called "Het Oog des Meesters" over here, since I'm a Dutchfag.

But yeah nowadays nobody plays it anymore.

>A D&D book written *today* is written based on this shitty new paradigm.
OSR is a thing. Books are being written by guys that like the old style for players with similar taste. They aren't big or well known but, like you said, D&D wasn't really big or well known in the first place.

Heady old-school play started as basement business and it stays basement business. The big licences go to the companies that can reach large audiences. There is no money to be made on something exclusive and esoteric unless it's also outrageously expensive.
New-school D&D may have all the licences and shit but that doesn't make it part of the same culture or even the same game as O/AD&D.
But there is nothing stopping someone from supporting their own preferred way of play. New D&D may be made for a different crowd but that doesn't erase the old one.

I think the only thing that would truly ruin the hobby is players spending more time complaining about the games they hate than working on the games they like.

"The Master's Eye"?
I can see the name change in English, because a "black eye" has dumb connotations. What's the excuse for the Dutch version?

If anything BBT should help encourage more people to play the game

more normies would of lessened the sjw retardation

>I think the only thing that would truly ruin the hobby is players spending more time complaining about the games they hate than working on the games they like.
>WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST BE LGBTIAPOMGWTFBBQBYOB FRIENDS?
Criticism of inferior product and definition of what is and is not acceptable is what keeps the hobby going, not blind acceptance. If that means turning people away, then so be it. It's no different from a book club expecting you to read the books they offer, or a sports team expecting you to know how to play the game.

>It's no different from a book club expecting you to read the books they offer, or a sports team expecting you to know how to play the game.
Sure but that's specific to the clubs or teams themselves, although it is of course important to make those clubs work at all.
However it is also up to these clubs to choose which books they read or which sports they will play. Publishing companies will turn out mass appeal shlock whether fans proper literature want it or not. Families will play ouch football on action.
The fact is that in any popular medium plebs will exist. TTRPGs have become a medium and house many different communities with different styles of play.

There is no reason that you have to like these different communities but they exist and they will continue to exist. Trying to turn them away from table top gaming is like trying to turn people away from movies or books, it's an impotent and petty gesture. It's totally valid to call outsiders shit, it's totally valid to keep them from your table but your table is ultimately one in many.

But book club that is more focused on keeping people from reading Twilight than they are on discussing Kafka (or a better example of patrician Veeky Forums) is doomed to fail as a book club. I don't want the traditional camp of TTRPGs to become that.

>Criticism of inferior product and definition of what is and is not acceptable is what keeps the hobby going, not blind acceptance.
Yet Pathfinder is still a thing. And a big one at that.

Rotterdam here, and I know that feel. Though to be honest, if you ever confronted me with TTRPG IRL I'd probably deny even knowing about it vehemently. Kind of like how I shitpost anime pictures all the time but will vehemently deny even normie mainstream anime in public.

That kind of makes me wish that TTRPG, and my hobbies in general, were less stigmatized so I wouldn't have to be in the closet all the time.

Bring in some new blood then guys.

Oh wait, do you not have friends or something

We need to remove most of the people currently in the hobby. Like the people who look really ugly or smell bad. I don't want to play with those people, or even be remotely associated with them.

Okay, thanks.

>do you not have friends or something

Let's focus on the smell. Don't want all of our undesirables in one basket.

I wash three times a week, do I count?

Try looking up roll20, or even the lfg threads here on Veeky Forums. I prefer roleplaying online (though with voice) because you tend to find more dedicated people that way. With friends they either just want to hang out rather than roleplay, or they were so insufferable I cut ties. I know there are a lot of other people roleplaying out there in my city and that many of them are good, fun roleplayers, but there are enough creepmasters I don't want to know personally to make me wary.

Perhaps it is you who is in the wrong.
Seriously though, quit trying to use PF as the butt of every one of your unfunny jokes.

Well, I'm doing the criticizing and you're doing the blind accepting.
So it would seem you're not doing anything to keep the hobby going.

No joking, but it's pretty bad.

There is literally not ONE straight romance portrayed in a positive light at all throughout the entirety of Curse of Strahd, while there are a TON of gay romances between NPCs.

WHY IS EVERYONE SO GAY

Increasing player base of RPGs and Veeky Forumss in general increases the amount of money, producers, investors and output, which increases the chance there's something you will find interesting and people to play it with.

Increasing player base of a specific Veeky Forums is different and largely depends on the marketing, target audience, studio support, demo teams, what type of game-play its designed for, community building, and geographical dumb luck.

>not liking gays
>being this much of a fag

> Curse of Strahd
> Positive light
Fuck, you're thick.

Alan Moore is normal in the sense that Fatal is normal. He is however not a basement dweller or a typical nerd.

It doesn't matter. The playerbase doesn't affect anything in the long run. That's the beautiful thing about tabletop gaming. Don't like "SJW shit"? Play RaHoWa an original setting that has none of that. Rules dumbed down for normies? Houserule or play one of the literally thousands of crunchier games that are available out there.

With video games, you have no say on how the game plays, and the developer controls 99% of the process. Same applies to most other mediums and fandoms. With tabletop games, it's more like 10%, the rest is what you and your table are up to.

Every gay relationship is PURE AND WHOLESOME LOVE

Every straight relationship is CRAWLING FILTH or rape.

I actually don't mind gays. I just noticed that this adventure is pretty gay.

At least there's no lesbians. I'm pretty sick of lesbians in roleplaying, due to being the go-to option for that guy.

Stay in your containment board.

It depends on the size and desires of your current circle of players.
On the one hand, I'm not in favour of actively shunning people from the hobby, but on the other the relatively minimalist nature of the elements required to engage in the hobby means that even at a small size, we don't need to engage in recruitment drives as often, if ever if the local group in question is just fine as it is.

If the group wants to be a local focus point, or it's a large gathering where people regularly split off into smaller games, then active recruiting will be important.
By gathering enough people, especially in a hobby of this size, you might get enough exposure that people mildly curious or interested in the hobby will come to you anyway. The worth of a new person is as varied as people themselves, although inevitably there'll be a period where the newbie and the group get to know each other which can be... interesting, depending on the people involved.

On the flip side, a group which has a good thing going and is content with its size doesn't have a duty to try and recruit new players. If the going's good for them, it's good - why rock the boat unless you want to push it out to sea?
Ultimately the addition of a new player is unlikely to effect more than one or two areas, so there isn't a global gain by recruiting new players (unless you count online play, which they may or may not do).

Ultimately what separates us from card games and miniatures is that it's much easier to produce ideas in a document than it is to produce and balance cards, or to produce miniatures. In that regard, we do not have to rely as heavily on external production.

A better question would be; How do we get more people excited/willing to GM? But that's probably it's own thread.

>/sperg rage
Your post is certainly rage, but it's anything but sperg.

>The inverse might actually be true, because casual players may lead dedicated players to leave the hobby because playing the game might become so dramatically different.
I doubt this would ever happen, partially due to the reasons you mentioned in your post, and partially because:
>dedicated players
>Leaving the hobby because change
Pick one

When change you don't like happens, you just ally with like-minded grognards and play the way you always have.
(unless you live in Amsterdam apparently, damn)When d&d 3.0 came out, I checked it out, thought it was neat that they got rid of THAC0, but decided I wasn't going to buy a new set of books to keep playing the same game.
Me and my best friend still play old school mtg sometimes.
You're either dedicated or you're not.

>When d&d 3.0 came out, I checked it out, thought it was neat that they got rid of THAC0, but decided I wasn't going to buy a new set of books to keep playing the same game.
kek

Never has a more wrong assumption turned out better for you in the end.