Are RPGs becoming less and less popular than they used to be? Seems like the golden age of RPGs is over and done with...

>That said I might agree that a certain "Style" is going away in lieu of ... something more streamline.
I say good riddance. Call me a filthy casual all you want, as I get older I simply don't have the time or patience to memorize something longer than some of my college textbooks just to play a game, when I can't even be sure whether I'll like it or not until I actually play it.

they're dying if you're bored with Pathfinder and dnd, otherwise it's tldr the rest of the thread.

In a way yes and no. As has been mentioned itt. 5e and Pathfinder (D&D basically) dominate the market and most people play one of those two games and that's it. Those are the games that get streams with 1000s of viewers.
It's wierd to me when someone says their into ttrpgs but actually they just play 5e.

Trial and error. (Survival of the Fittest applied in RPG)

90's RPG tried everything and more to be innovative or have an exclusive gimmicky mechanic. What happened is that the bad mechanics died or only survived because of niche players like GURPS and PF, and the best mechanics thrived, like D&D 4E and 5E, each with its own focus (powered fantasy vs high fantasy).

>4th edition
>Best at anything other than being popular for popular sake

I tried hanging up a note in the local community center. Made a nice looking paper, added my number and wrote that I want to meet the people in person at the time of the week where I also wanted to run the game.
Worked.
Got game
Got new social contacts in the town
Meet with then outside of the game
10/10

>5e
>Best mechanics
No. 5e is mediocre at everything it does. That is all it has going for it.

RPGs aren't becoming less popular, but they are dying. This is because we have hordes of normofucks infiltrating the hobby, who have no grounding in what D&D is, yet have plenty of expectations for it, mostly because of shit like Critical Roll. Also, being normalfucks, they are used to spectator entertainment, and a lifetime of sucking at its teat have left them drained of creativity. As a result they make shit characters based on memes, or one particular quirk that they ride on endlessly. If they progress, it is to making ridiculous archetypes that have no real depth or personality. Honestly, normalfucks are ruining RPGs. And, like it or not, Veeky Forums *is* partly responsible for this. Remember all those dumbass greentexts about "epic" nat20 moments, and meme characters like Sir Bearington? Those are what newcomers are being exposed to. Combine that with pandering bullshit from faggots like pic related, fluffing up these normalfucks' ego to think that they are the rightful ones, and you end up with a hobby that will be intolerably cancerous within 5 years. Thriving, according to players count and sales figures (which is all the Jews of the Coast care about), but intolerable cancerous.

>sales for written rules are lower now when people can easily print them out for free online
>hurr is roleplaying dying
No.

It's ok to say normies user.

>An unironic "FUCKING NORMIES REEEEEEE" post
You say all that like you can't help them become better players and become more engaged.

No it isn't, the non-newfag term is "normalfags."

You should change the filename to "braaah (no homo).gif"

He doesn't even use that, though. It's "normalfucks" or "normofucks."

You sound like a charming person, full of fun.
Perhaps you should consider fixing your life.

Yes. That's also not OK. But he's a bitter faggot from /r9k/ or somewhere, so he's an irrelevant retard. I hold you to a higher standard.

The fuck are you on about, normalfags was in vogue around 2014-2015. Never heard it since

To be fair, RPGs have a particular situation to get people into the hobby.
Either you need one person who really has his shit together and more than basic social skills and a few who are (at least) midly interested to start a group.
Or you need a group of people who are all interested enough for "learning by doing" and all willing to explore the system on their own without guiding hand.

Everything else is more or less doomed.

You basically have to get "sponsored" into the hobby, as silly as it sounds.

"Normalfag" has been around for a good several years longer than that. "Normies" is a later mutation of it that originated on /r9k/ or somewhere.

...

But that's the case, thats also the case with team sports as a hobby but there you usually have colossal communities.

How many people get exposed to other ttrpg's because outside, but related interests? For example, I was big into Lovecraft before I got into tabletops, so my first (and favorite) is still Call of Cthulhu.

Huge sci-fi fan and i got lucky and stumbeled over Traveller. still love it to death and back.
But lately Heroquest:Glorantha joined my group of favourite RPGs

>defends gatekeeping
I'll never understand why people get so mad about RPGs being popular. It's such a personal thing that you can control inside your own group that it really doesn't matter what the masses do.

>In the 90's, D&D had effectively died
Not going to lie, though I don't miss the typical rules of the 90s I do miss the explosion of games of the era.

What do you do about people who flat out say "I don't want to roleplay, because that's creepy and weird" when they're playing ttrpgs?

Say they're missing half the fun and that it's almost no different from performing in theater or movies.

RPGs went comatose when the kids got game consoles. Oldfags, hipsters and collectors keep it plugged to life support.

Some people just can't filter out things they don't like. They see a little note about how women naturally can do the same things as men in this RPG, and they can't filter it out as "well it's talking to insecure women just entering the hobby, which doesn't have to do with me, and to satisfy SJWs, which doesn't matter either because I didn't intend to play this with -4 STR so who cares," instead they see the full fury of the SJW tumblr movement and the game is suddenly solely representative of every retarded SJW complain they have ever willingly gone looking for online.

user, not saying you're misrepresenting. But no one in this thread has talked about the fact that Mike mearls said having lore and competent rules was gatekeeping to women.

I took it as he was talking about people using those as methods of gatekeeping

>Some people just can't filter out things they don't like.
It's a textbook symptom of radicalization/cult indoctrination.
He literally didn't, though? The fact that people who whine about "casualization" also tend to hate women is well established.

aka "When virtue signaling goes wrong - the tweet"

Well, I did perhaps assume a bit much by assuming the salty-ass robot here was an inch away from going on a rant about SJWs ruining the hobby, given how the two opinions tend to go hand in hand nowadays.

Ask them to elaborate. If they're playing a character, what makes it weird for them to give answers in the character's voice? To consider their goals from the character's perspective.

If they think roleplaying is weird, what motivated them to play a Role-Playing Game?

I suspect (though I could easily be wrong), that they don't honestly believe roleplaying is creepy or weird, but are rather afraid that they will come off as creepy or weird if they try. Public speaking is a huge fear for a lot of people, and fearing looking stupid or weird is often the core reason. If it's something like that, you can help ease them into role-playing more with little 'safe' RP moments.

Ask them to make sure the cat doesnt get out while they leave

Say that it's not that kind of rollplaying you're doing and that you don't think they'd enjoy playing with you, and that's why you aren't gonna invite them?

I try to help them. Most of them are too obnoxious to be worth the effort, though. Which is sad because I like 5e, but it is overrun by retards.

Perhaps you should consider fixing yours. By ending it.

I was gonna say "isn't everything," but then I remembered the bay12games forums (Toady's Dwarf Fortress site).

The masses guide what content is produced, fuckwit. You want the new RPGs to all be "lol nat20" partygame bullshit?

If you are concerned about normies coming in to your hobby then it's time to leave the lobby yourself.

Not an argument.

Not him, but as a spectator, woo, that sure was a zinger the first two millions times I read it.

Make me, faggot.
"Lure and cure" is a very effective strategy.
It's already had a positive effect on the gaming community in my area.
Imagine what we could accomplish if we made it world wide.

>Imagine what we could accomplish if we made it world wide
Like making mankind's collective groaning audible all the way up in the exosphere?

It wasn't meant to be a zinger. I'm serious. These "lol you said something I don't like about not wanting to hang out with me so you need to fix yourself" Reddit cunts should strongly consider ending their own lives. They stand by with their "everyone deserves to have fun and we should spread our assholes to accomodate it" fucking idiocy and squawk on Twitter about "gatekeeping" when they are just too stupid and lazy to put the barest modicum of effort into learning the fucking game. Now developers pander to them with easy mode shit like retool points and autosuccess nat20 rules. Fuck that.

Have you people seriously never seen that copy pasta before? Have you never seen ANY copy pasta? Why would you even reply?

People spent a lot of time and money looking for a system that didn't suck. I mean, 5e isn't the greatest. But shit like WoD, Palladium, Shadowrun, etc. were (mechanically speaking) horrific dumpster fires in comparison, propped up by enjoyable settings.

"Fuckwit" is a bold call from somebody that is either so casual themselves, or so invested solely in their real hobby of shoehorning whingeing about irrelevant pinkos and trendies into every fucking board on Veeky Forums, that they are or choose to be unaware of the vast array of niche content available as print on demand.

"oh no, someone wrote an adventure/system/hack I don't like, I guess I'll be forced to use it and run it with every person I know"
write your own shit retard

>He thinks Shadowrun is bad

I think you belong with 5te user

>I'm serious
I too look back to my early teenage years on the internet and all the embarassing things I said.

I've seen like a million stupid posts of the sort, so how am I gonna be able to remember which ones specifically are pasta?

>paying for print on demand.
What, you think savage worlds or runequest are "niche"? Just fuck off.

>Now developers pander to them with easy mode shit like retool points and autosuccess nat20 rules. Fuck that.
Across the room, a tiny little guy in a funny hat raises his hands to his mouth and whispers, "homebrew it out."

Do you play exclusively homebrew systems?

Nothing I typed is pasta, faggot. I wrote it. Oh wait Veeky Forums posters can't comprehend forming an original thought (since they themselves are incapable of it) therefore every post longer than 2 sentences must be copypasta!

Okay by thst logic you should be playing 3.5 and FATAL. Just homebrew it bro!

This

Shouldn't you be saying that to though?
3.5 is known to be hard to homebrew out of its many fundamental design flaws, and FATAL... Well, if you had a decade and a deep-seated masochistic self-hatred, maybe you could decide what 0.1% of it can be salvaged into a good system. But mostly I'd advice you to play something else.

Fuck off (you) farmer. It's patently obvious you are just finding shit you can work an angle on to troll even if you would privately agree with the sentiment.

More content is available now than ever before, and even the most niche of that is available to the ordinary consumer as a properly bound book should they desire it.

>PF
>niche

This is a very angry thread

It only got angry when the one guy went "YOU KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM IS? NORMIES"

This but unironically

Well he ain't really wrong. He ain't completely right, but he ain't wholly wrong.

But he's mostly wrong and salty as fuck to boot. Like, TTRPGs aren't even vulnerable to this shit. We don't have graphics or physics that improve with time, like vidya, we can stick to old stuff without missing out on cool new features like that. We don't have to learn to code and mod in computer languages to homebrew. We can just ignore or erase shit we don't like in our rulebooks. Our hobby and our groups aren't subject to anyone the way movies or vidya are, we hold all the power.

I don't agree with the sentiment. Most niche RPGs are absolute shit, and hard to find groups for. So you either sell your existing group on it, or you don't get to play. Oh look they don't like the game. Well there goes that idea.

>But he's mostly wrong
Explain how anything I said was wrong.
>like
Oh look you're one of those millenials in talking about. Also unless you plan to hideout in your basement with the same 5 people until you die playing the same exact system and never buy or pirate an RPG product again, I suggest you start caring about the state of the hobby you are part of. Oh wait that would require standing up for what you believe and you don't have a spine. Forgive me.

Yes, I am a millennial, as I am born between ~1980 and ~1995, making me somewhere between 20-35 years old. Very well deduced.

So let me get this straight, you are upset normies are casualising your normie casual products?

>"[...]and you end up with a hobby that will be intolerably cancerous within 5 years"
>"I suggest you start caring about the state of the hobby you are part of"
>"standing up for what you believe"

>multiplayer make-believe is too hardcore for normies and they're ruining everything

They ruin everything because they have no fucking imagination and make shitty characters which are either meme/joke based or are trying way too hard to be different. Hence the flood of morons who want to play snowflake races because they are too shit at RP to make a human fighter interesting. Yet when asked what these snowflake races allow them to do that a human can't, they go "uh...uh...." because they have no fucking answer.

...wouldn't the best way to stand up for something tabletop gaming be to write and self-publish the games you want to play? After all, that's how the whole got started in the first place.

And yes, I am hoping the use of a picture featuring new Star Wars characters will piss you off even more.

Looking back to my character concepts from when I first started is a bit embarrassing. I'm sure the same is true for many more of you roleplaying olympians than would care to admit.

...

>giving a fuck about star wars
You are the exact type of normonigger trash I am talking about.

The first character I played was a dwarf druid, the DM wrote my backstory and I roleplayed it faithfully throughout the campaign. Since then I've played elves halflings and gnomes but mostly humans. I also don't play edgy orphans, joke characters, nor do I make movie references in game. Why? Because RPGs are an immersive hobby and that immersion is the thin line between enjoyment, and sitting at a table full of chatter and laughter, degrading a creative and engaging form of entertainment down to the level of Cards Against Humanity, complete with shit/piss jokes, and autistic laughter from squinting bearded fucks who pound the table so hard they spill their beer and wake up their wife's baby in the next room.

Stop posting ugly Tumblr comic girls making snide comments. This isn't Reddit you aren't going to get loads of upvotes from your fellow sycophants who will go "OMG THIS SO MUCH, YOU SHOW THAT MEAN ENTITLED NECKBEARD! FUCK DRUMPF AND FUCK WHITE PEOPLE! UGH!"

Just stop posting. You are the cancer destroying RPGs.

I heard that back in 2010.

>They ruin everything because they have no fucking imagination
>want to play snowflake races
Gosh golly, what do (You) MEAN people who are starting out tend to want to play something exotic and not-quite-human? Not a lot of people's first-game-ever instinct is gonna be "Let's play a person who has nothing fantastical about them in a fantasy game!"
>shit at RP
So fucking what? Most people here can't play a believable character to save their goddamn lives, doesn't suddenly mean the hobby is being destroyed by their normieness/general newness

>normonigger
And that's why most people here have discarded (You)r opinion already

>immersion is the thin line between enjoyment, and sitting at a table full of chatter and laughter
These things are not mutually exclusive, and have never been. Did (You) know that social elements don't suddenly melt away just because it's a TTRPG?

I think you're confused, that particular character was the only good part of the last Star Wars movie.

You need to practice your shitposting and post things the movie fucked up, like literally everyone and everything else. You'll get way more replies.

So you didn't embarrass yourself in your first game because your DM felt the need to hold your hand and write your backstory for you. I wonder what would give them the reason to do that?

Realt talk the asian girl was my favorite character SO COOL AND HEROIC

FPBP
Sales are dropping because everyone interested in the first place is probably either playing 5e around a table or in a Roll20 group.

That was really low effort and you should be ashamed, but what the hell.

It was really cool and I also enjoyed seeing her on a stretcher getting dragged through coarse and scarring sand. But only because she doomed everyone else to death for no reason and subverting expectations is the only thing a movie needs to be good.

Roleplaying games were much better when they were a niche hobby. You know, back when D&D was a household name found in children's toy stores and selling hundreds of thousands of copies.

Not like the normie shit it is today.