What's the future of tabletop rpgs? Where do you see the hobby in the next 5 years? 10 years...

What's the future of tabletop rpgs? Where do you see the hobby in the next 5 years? 10 years? Do you think technology will change the way we interact at the table?

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In the short term, not too different. Consistent growth of the hobby meaning there are more games and more types of games, alongside more online integration and software support to benefit games played both in person or online.

The next big tech thing I think will have an impact on tabletop is practical augmented reality, but that's still a long way away at this point.

>What's the future of tabletop rpgs?
Don't know. Normalization is happening now, so for an indication of where it is going, look at a similar case of normaization of what was once a niche hobby. Comics might be a good, if not perfect, comparison.

>Where do you see the hobby in the next 5 years? 10 years?
Too little data to tell.

>Do you think technology will change the way we interact at the table?
It already has. Look at how many people use laptops or tablets while gaming now. Tech has been a real boon to the RPG world and I have reason to believe it'll stop here. What happens depends entirely on what tech comes up next. I have money on VR being the next big thing in games and RPGs will probably piggyback on that to some extent.

Right now we’re seeing a great deal of “simplification” going on with most popular rules systems. Gone are the days of high realism simulation, where GURPS and Shadowrun and other rules-heavy games dominate the market. Part of the “normalization” process as user above described it as is that many aspects of modern tabletops are going to be greatly simplified and more geared towards a casual experience, as what happened to video games.

TTGs are still very niche, however, so this won’t be as disastrous an event as when it happened to video games.

i'm hoping the simplification will be closer to trimming the fat of a system.

I honestly think the 'disaster' in videogames was a myth. The industry got larger and there was a broader variety of experiences available, but hardcore experiences didn't stop existing. They shifted from being the big AAA titles to being more indie affairs, but given the games industry that seems like a good thing.

There will be a renaissance as games like Hillfolk pop up much more readily

Solid popular fantasy blades hack making it new PbtA, default thematic game engine for a few years to come.

>The next big tech thing I think will have an impact on tabletop is practical augmented reality, but that's still a long way away at this point.

See now that sounds fun as shit, especially for sci fi and cyberpunk games where you could incorporate the very fact of AR itself for immersion

I just think it'd be an immensely practical measure. Having all the reference materials at your fingertips, useful automations or resolution calculations done for you, or things like an AR overlay on a tactical combat grid, displaying ranges, status effects, HP values and all that jazz.

I think the latter could also revolutionise tactical wargaming too. Imagine never needing to check line of sight or look up a rule, because everything is right there in a visual display as you're playing the game.

>>Look at how many people use laptops or tablets while gaming now.
>*tap* *tap* *tappity-tap* Oh is it my turn again? What happened up to now? What do I got to roll again?
This millenium was a mistake.

That idiots misuse the technology doesn't mean it isn't an asset.

>playing with people who don't really care
Why would you do this to yourself.
You deserve better

Think about a situation with VR like in SAO though as a technology advance in the next 5-10 years the way we play might fundamentally change if tech advances that fast. I mean to be entirely honest tech has been exponentially advancing as of late so it's not impossible.

Yeah tabletop war gaming would become pretty impressive. Even aside from details and information, I could see WHFB with actual magic effects and shit being popular.
Same for tabletop rpg.

That said, I expect I'd probably want to keep most everything pen and paper and imagination.

I’m hoping to see an increase in focus in the roleplaying aspect over mechanics. With more experienced players I play with, we strive to tell a story with a realitvely simple system that allows for success and failure. You don’t struggle for what’s best for a character, you fight for what your character would do and what your actions do for the greater story

I feel like this is kind of an outdated view. Powered by the Apocalypse and other rules light, narrative focused games have down that well designed mechanics and rulesets with a focus on genre emulation can directly support and help enable roleplaying. Treating mechanics and roleplaying as if they're opposed or disconnected has never really made sense, and we're seeing more systems embracing that idea.

Completely overtaken by SJWs and normies. Casualized into a nat20 party game. Entirely centered around twitch streaming, basically an improv theater spectator sport. Mechanics continue to devolve to favor instant gratification. Anything "unfun" (meaning "not feeding into my immediate enjoyment") is destroyed. More PoC and tranny pandering, more social media involvement, a string of lawsuits will turn FLGSs into a safe space protected by legal precedent. Feminists will demand more and more control until the hobby is a shell of its former self. And Veeky Forums will support it to the end, due to not wanting to exclude anyone (see: the geek social fallacies) and hatred of neckbeards.

Are you posting this from the early 00's fellow timetraveller?

What is so special about fantasy blades?

Or in the case of 5e, cutting out so much that the errors became even more glaring and the entire game is a contrived mess.

Yea, and then you get fucking popups telling you that your homemade piece of terrain is in violation of the game's EULA so your game is being shut down.

Also, popups in the center, scrolling banners at the top and bottom, and third party commentary on your automatically always streaming as a webcast game along both sides of your vision.

Oh, and don't forget all the micro-transaction popup reminders. "Reroll this failed die roll now for $0.99!! Move an extra three inches for $2.99 per unit, this minute only!"

Sounds like hell, user.

sad if true

I think we see neckbeards railroading sex robots in VR campaigns too

>not pirating cracks

What sort of gamer are you?

If they make it that shit, nobody will fucking use it. Also

Every game will have X-cards built into the system and included in the package

Every rulebook will unironically use xir, xer, zey and so on

Every fantasy setting will be african medieval knights and focus on 'epic luls', death are non-permanent because a respawn system is implemented (death isn't fun), less mathematics because that isn't fun either

HOLO
GRAPHIC
TABLES

I don't know man. All I know is that is was VASTLY easier to find good games in the mid 90's to mid 00's. All big games now are literally for retards, and you've got some digging ahead of you if you want to find a diamond in the rough amongst the indie-games or lesser releases (and they will look subpar while before they were the most visually impressive titles).

That more sounds like your preferred playstyle getting less prominent.

Although even then, in the days of online distribution and searchable databases, in my experience it's still easier to find games in whatever niche you're looking for.

I have a diverse set of games I like. I enjoy FPS, RTS and RPG mainly. The last FPS I had fun with in SP was Crysis or Battlefield Bad Company 2 (whichever was the latest). RTS's are just stone cold dead, and RPGs aren't much better off. Long gone are the days of regular RTS contenders for the throne, like the old Red Alerts, Total Annihilation etc. Long gone are the days when new FPSs cropped up constantly and felt relatively fresh, like Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Operation Flashpoint (stretching FPS, but still), etc. FPS is the genre that is most alive and kicking, but all major releases are just lifeless COD-likes. RPGs, well, I can't even name a new one that is anything to be excited about, except one recent shining beacon, and even that is a hybrid: Deus ex: Human revolution.

The future of games, not the future of Veeky Forums thanks to /pol/

I have no basis for any of what I am about to say, just a hunch from watching what happened from the 70s through now.

>What's the future of tabletop rpgs?
Some resugence but ultimately will give way to technology, and ttrpgs will cease, as they will no longer be tabletop but rather an online virtual rpg.

>Where do you see the hobby in the next 5 years? 10 years?
5 years from now the ttrpg resurgence will be at its height.
10 years from now will be the start of ttrpgs becoming ovrpgs.

>Do you think technology will change the way we interact at the table?
Yes absolutely. Less people play f2f games now then play online using virtual tabletops, and the disparity will only increase as time goes on.

...You realise we are still getting new RTS releases pretty often, right? None of those genres are dead. They might be less prominent, but they still exist and are doing well.

Despite what people say they haven't really changed in 30 years,(At least in regards to gaming, games have come a long way since 1st ed dnd) I don't expect they will in another 30.

If 3d printing gets cheap enough, expect more neat table top terrain.

At that point isn't it just a videogame that you play in person and that costs more because you have to buy the models?

More middle-weight games with digital tabletops in mind. More companion apps. More 'self-contained' games which rely less on rule content supplements.

Seen some pretty nifty set ups with projectors already. "Flowing" water and shit.

At the most you can argue at calling it a hybrid, but even then I think it'd be more accurate to call it a digitally assisted tabletop game.

Fantasy is the most popular kind of setting, so if blades were to get a successful shillable generic fantasy hack it would give it a big bust like DW was for pbta.

6e comes out, unhappy 5e traditionalists pack up and create their own tittle with blackjack and hookers, the Wayseeker.

I'll give you RTS being in a bad place but RPGs and FPS are in great spots right now. With RPGs I can understand the whole 'wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle' open world issue but there are plenty that rely on a more focused style, whether you want more solo narrative driven (Deus Ex) or more traditional party mechanics (Neverwinter Nights). You have to hack through all the Skyrims and Mass Effects to find something with some weight but they are certainly out there despite what marketing will tell you.

First person shooters are more of a gamble, given that they can be made with minimal effort to gain maximum profit (aka shitty business practices). Another problem they have is trying to always find a market that is already playing something else, like how it is with Hero shooters and Battle Royales right now but it's not exclusive to this genre. If you are looking for a good SP FPS, I suggest giving the Metro series a go especially if Deus Ex: HR tickled your fancy and DOOM (2016) is pure arcadey fun.

>man who doesn't know how to shop complains he has no options

The next three years of videogames will be nothing but gamble-to-win until, and if, randomized monetization schemes become illegal.

The industry may be making more money than ever, but the medium is dead save for Nintendo, CDPR and indie developers.

>Paying attention to AAA games

You're just asking to suffer. Let them make themselves irrelevant and just focus on playing good games.

This, except it's already happened. White Wolf was writing rules into their games almost twenty years ago that gave players bonusrs for being "fun" even if it was the worse decision.

I'm going to tell you something different

No, it will not feature more technology, it will feature none at all
Large, complex games might be trimmed down, but for different reasons than just 'normies'
Prices will be polarized, mostly very cheap and sold paperback everywhere

The fact is that since the 2000s this hobby has been recovering and growing massively. With 5e out now it's basically at it's zenith with the 'normie' adult population (hate this word but you know what I mean) and probably will lose its freshness and flavor within 5 years.

The thing that 5e uncovered though, was that an enormous amount of KIDS love d&d. I mean the 10-17 age group was a core focus of 80s marketing, but that aspect fell away as the generation matured and demanded more sophisticated RPGs. Now kids are actually getting into the hobby en masse again and this is going to be a natural refocus for companies once the adult 'geek' crowd moves to greener pastures

But this time, satanism and violence won't be a concern. 2020 america is significantly less conservative than 1980s America, and violence has largely been accepted as a part of movies and tv now. Instead, the great fear of today is the screen. They're ubiquitous, scientifically proven to be addictive, and a vessel for a wider and wider internet that modern parents don't want. Constant horror stories of internet radicalization, game addiction, cyberbullying, and electronics-enabled neglect are going to mean increasingly that parents shut their kids away from tech.

The obvious entertainment alternative, past the "play with sticks" phase of early childhood, will be board games and RPGs. Parents might be all too willing to indulge a hobby if it means son doesn't beg for a computer.

God I hope this happens. 3D printing is cool and all but I don't want all that shit around
ideally you'd have some sort of software to design static elements and people selling their little animations to each other
imagine holographic fireballs arcing over the field and everything in the blast radius ragdolling around

I think the next big things to hit the hobby is going to be some kind of software for laying out RPG PDFs easily and painlessly. There'll be a bigger glut of content being released due to that.

>The fact is that since the 2000s this hobby has been recovering and growing massively

The guy who literally wrote the book on running hobby/local gaming stores Dave Wallace disagrees with you, the narrative that the hobby is growing is purely marketing bs pushed to keep the same people in the hobby, we're STILL suffering from a 10% year-over-year decline in a TINY 35M industry.

>Local game store

That brick and mortar is doing badly doesn't mean the industry is

You think it's confined to brick and mortar stores? we're talking about a industry where selling 5000 units is a massive success and the printing runs are so small some of the most popular companies make a loss on each rulebook sold.

It's shit players, not shit technology.

We use laptops as well, but only to look up spells and rules - many times faster than leafing through a pile of thick tomes. The two laptops rest on chairs, off to the side. Once questions are answered, all attention is once again focused on the table.

>Casualized into a nat20 party game.

>"OK, Pete. Your turn."
>rolls
>"Did you roll a 20?"
>"No."
>"Oh, shucks. Alright, Mike. You're up."
>rolls
>"20?"
>"Nah."
>"Laura, your turn."
>rolls
>"TWENNIIIEEE YEEEAAAAAAH"
>everybody cheers and laughs

The future of gaming.

Pretty much the only company making money is WotC and only because of MtG because D&D doesn't sell at the numbers necessary to allow the really cost-effective print runs.
Hell I wouldn't be surprised if the D&D board games and minis make them more money than the rulebooks.

I'd question that, since smaller publishers like Evil Hat still exist. They dabble in board games too, but they must be doing enough to sustain themselves.

>but they must be doing enough to sustain themselves.
they aren't sustaining themselves with rpgs though, Fate has like 30k lifetime sales. They have to publish a shitton of low cost fiction and nonfiction trivia books to stay afloat.

Is that including the 10k people who backed a $400k Kickstarter?

They definitely make more money out of the license than from selling the actual books.

Basically.

>TWENNIIIEEE
fuckin kek

>print runs
PDF sales and print-on-demand are much better from a business perspective, especially if you're going through DTRPG or something. Give them your purchase file and the print file to send to Lightning Source, check it prints well, and sit back.

None of that changes the fact that D&D 5e had outsold every iteration of the game that wasn't the first edition at this point. Right now, in this moment, between the influx of "normie" players and the dawn of online PDF sales, the maket and playerbase for RPGs is bigger than it's been in decades.

>Do you think technology will change the way we interact at the table?
People will have a plethora of tools at their disposal but not one that organizes the separate ones together, especially newer people. A DM might have some software that simulates/helps build their world and won't know how to do player actions without the aid of a computer which might lead to them blocking certain player actions from happening.

projected images downwards at the gaming table. use Map-tool or a similar process.
everyone present moves characters via commands through a smartphone. granted, the tech isn't the best right now, but that's some AR right there. or perhaps those table tops that act as interactive displays?

I read an account of an user who had a laptop that could natively sync bluetooth devices so he used those to deliver "commlink messages" in shadowrun, and "this is what you currently see" image-messages to stealth characters. you can A the R a little even with current gen tech, it just takes some finagling.

those people are scum
the ones that use it to keep a set of the relevant rules to the current situation are a goddamned godsend if they don't make a point or resisting The Word Of The GM.

>playing a videogame and calling it Veeky Forums
not unless I get a set of AAA mapping tools, environment assets, and enemy models to make my own shit.

>not simply "playing offline"
son...

damn right.

non-linear increases in tech-power dude. shit HAS changed.

sure "I kick down the door and hit it with my axe" hasn't changed much.
but now its just as likely that you'll be saying that to someone thousands of miles away from any other player. watching the effects play out in a window on a screen that comes pre-equipped with all the basic rules, including GM Fiat. checking your character stats live on an integrated character sheet. all from the comfort of your tablet/laptop/desktop.

I for one cannot wait for interactive projector tables to become commonplace enough for me to find one in my local tech-support outlet dumpster.

>3d printing
the usual next step people think on.

>companion apps
YES, CAN I HAVE THESE FOR SHADOWRUN?

>More 'self-contained' games which rely less on rule content supplements
I kind of like having a lot of supplements it gives me power to block content more categorically

Do you want to know what community leaders of the hobby are thinking about it? Well let's see...
youtube.com/watch?v=yqjLO6YNKV0&t=1h45m

Matt Mercer
>Cultural motive of white people gaming is fading, we are seeing the end of that era

Adam Koebel
>That for me is the goal, that this panel in 5 years is no longer 4 white male dudes

Mike Mearls
>We are very consciously in 5th edition want to make this game as culturally (LGTBQ+) accessible as possible.
>Evade toxic masculinity

Matt Colville
>5th edition and critical roll has a lot do with changing the attitude of keeping non-nerds out
>In 3 years landscape of people playing the game will be unreconcilable

Interesting future indeed, i wonder who might be beh- ..nevermind

I've actually seen a projector thing which is effectively an LED bulb you put in a lamp but is also a wireless projector.
They're a hundred and something pounds or else I'd have already picked one up, because yeah, even if it was just being able to project a shitty map I drew in paint and some vague area-art I think it'd be neat as hell.
Especially since I'm currently running eclipse phase, so it gets into the whole mindset a tiny bit.

Sadly my old laptop is broken so I can't do the bluetooth handouts anymore, but with Roll20 I do something similar. My players all have tablets for their character sheets and rulebooks anyway these days

>technology in tabletop RPGs

there isn't really a space for VR or other bullshit in tabletop games that are meant to be social, practical,versatile and priced at 60$/group.
technology cannot completely replace DM in RPGs because it's too hard to give the players the freedom to simulate everything and also input the game state into the pc/tablet.

the best question is: what kind of contribution can a phone, pad or laptop bring to the table?
looking up rules and partially automating sheets, tracking hp and macros for rolls are the biggest option and we are already doing it.
But we can do an additional step and create a game that MUST be played with a tablet.In exchange for the inconvenience of needing the app we could make the RPG very complex and able to simulate many things, with edge rules that allow us to do everything, and a smart search engine could generate the rulings for anything the players want to do, while the playing proceed normally on the table.
or we could eliminate dices and input our modifiers and actions on the tablet, which will then tell us the outcome of our action. this allows for more outcomes than "success/failure" and if we keep character sheets digital we can go full autism with our stats and equations without becoming math-sick.

>Instead, the great fear of today is the screen. They're ubiquitous, scientifically proven to be addictive, and a vessel for a wider and wider internet that modern parents don't want. Constant horror stories of internet radicalization, game addiction, cyberbullying, and electronics-enabled neglect are going to mean increasingly that parents shut their kids away from tech.
>The obvious entertainment alternative, past the "play with sticks" phase of early childhood, will be board games and RPGs. Parents might be all too willing to indulge a hobby if it means son doesn't beg for a computer.
That's a good observation. I'm certainly doing that with my kids (less screen time, more board games and RPGs).

Ugh, these assholes.