PDA

View Full Version : Why are Tabletop RPGs popular?



Drakeburn
2015-02-24, 03:05 PM
I remember when I first discovered tabletop (or pen and paper) RPGs two and a half years ago. Now that I think about it, I'm surprised that these kind of Roleplaying Games have survived for so long, especially now when technology has become a major aspect of everyday life.

How is it that Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games are still popular after thirty years ago?

golentan
2015-02-24, 03:08 PM
Because they're infinitely more flexible than any technological based game yet developed, and they're more social than for example MMOs because everyone goes through them together.

johnbragg
2015-02-24, 03:09 PM
I remember when I first discovered tabletop (or pen and paper) RPGs two and a half years ago. Now that I think about it, I'm surprised that these kind of Roleplaying Games have survived for so long, especially now when technology has become a major aspect of everyday life.

How is it that Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games are still popular after thirty years ago?

I would say that the reason we still play TTRPGs is because it's a collaborative storytelling game. That is what TTRPGs have that nothing else has.

If you just want to pretend to kill stuff, video games are more convenient and do it just as well or better. IF you just want to play a tactical strategy game, computer games or non-roleplaying board games or card games etc.

But if you want to create a hero who is part of a memorable story......

kaoskonfety
2015-02-24, 03:16 PM
Because you cannot feast with 5 others over roast fowl, fresh bread, beer and a barley soup, huddled around a camp-fire for warmth in the dim fall light, telling great tales of your past exploits... during the dinner break, before we get back to the role playing game, where we get to telling new tales of great exploits.

I also like doing the funny voices.

1337 b4k4
2015-02-24, 03:18 PM
Flexibility: TTRPGs can handle anything your mind can throw at them and dont come with a preset story.

Couch Multi-player: the fact is, getting together with your friends is fun. That so many newer technologies ignore couch multi-player is a travesty.

Mastikator
2015-02-24, 03:21 PM
Is it popular? The majority of people I meet haven't ever had any experience with TTRPGs.

Lentrax
2015-02-24, 03:25 PM
Most people may not have heard the term TTRPG, but I can almost guarantee they have heard the name 'Dungeons and Dragons' and know that the only people who play that game are pale friendless virgins.:smallwink:

But among geeks and nerds the genre is a staple because it lets us play a game that only have ever experienced, unlike thousands of people who have done the same story dozens of times in an MMO.

Mr.Moron
2015-02-24, 03:27 PM
Is it popular? The majority of people I meet haven't ever had any experience with TTRPGs.

I agree. They're super-niche. The vast majority of people I know are only sort of vaguely aware Dungeons & Dragons is even still a thing. They certainly don't really get what it means that it's an RPG, or that there are a lot of those.

It's a tiny little quirky hobby for particular population of people.

kaoskonfety
2015-02-24, 03:43 PM
Is it popular? The majority of people I meet haven't ever had any experience with TTRPGs.


Popular is relative - I would suspect the number of players has fairly steadily risen over the years, awareness (aside from the negative stuff) certainly has, there have been movies, books, comics.

The question "why do we still bother" is relevant, between MMO's covering the social and single player expierances covering the tactical/challange (I'm not saying MMO's lack challanges... miles from it, but thats never been what I play them FOR) and good story driven content everywhere (I'm loving what I've seen of the Star Wars MMO for this) - why do we bother?

For me its 10% habit, 40% dinner party excuse, 50% stories - I write even when I'm not preping games, random nonsense, limericks short stories whatever. Having a regular audience is bonus.

YossarianLives
2015-02-24, 04:01 PM
I agree with everyone else. I am often annoyed when playing video games. Why can't I climb that wall with this rope I have? Why can't I attack these people? Why can't I act during cutscenes? I hate all the boring dialogue options.

I think another advantage is that it is much, much, easier to build a adventure for a TTRPG than spend days programming a dungeon.


EDIT: I think another attraction is that there is nothing you can do in a video game that you can't do in a TTRPG.

LibraryOgre
2015-02-24, 04:22 PM
I agree with everyone else. I am often annoyed when playing video games. Why can't I climb that wall with this rope I have? Why can't I attack these people? Why can't I act during cutscenes? I hate all the boring dialogue options.

This is actually something I use to explain TTRPGs to those familiar with computer games, but not TT.

"You ever been playing a game, and know exactly how you could solve the problem, but that isn't one of the options the game gives you? In a tabletop, you just have to convince the GM that it will work."

Duke of URRL
2015-02-24, 04:52 PM
Well, I guess we can say that RPG's are about as popular as they ever where. It's a very select market, after all.

The idea of creating your own adventure is very popular, to a lot of people. Some Gamemasters love creating whole worlds, some players just like creating one character. And RPG's let you do both.

And you get the storytelling aspect: anything can happen in an RPG.

And they are a great outlet for escape.

Drakeburn
2015-02-24, 05:15 PM
I guess "popular" wasn't the right word I was looking for. What I mean to ask is how have Pen and Paper RPGs lasted for so long. While video cassettes and VCRs have become a thing of the past, Pen and Paper RPGs are still around.

VincentTakeda
2015-02-24, 05:26 PM
All of the above plus the fact that hour per hour, ttrpgs are the most entertainment for my entertainment dollar. I have maybe dropped $2000 on all my game books ever and with them I have gamed for 3 decades. A gift that keeps on giving for only 18 cents per day. Compared to my internet bill (between 1 and 2 dollars per day) or a cable bill (I actually dont have cable) or bowling or amusement parks or movies (14 bucks for 2 hours maybe)...

Granted a rubics cube or a deck of poker cards can do kinda the same thing for cheaper, but these tools of 'statistically large possible outcomes' doesnt always produce any 'distinct memorable events' the way ttrpgs can.

Asmayus
2015-02-24, 05:27 PM
Because they offer the one thing digital media cannot: dynamic stories.

Benthesquid
2015-02-24, 05:34 PM
I guess "popular" wasn't the right word I was looking for. What I mean to ask is how have Pen and Paper RPGs lasted for so long. While video cassettes and VCRs have become a thing of the past, Pen and Paper RPGs are still around.

The analogy doesn't really work- video cassttes and VCRs have become a thing of the past, largely, but that's because of the rise of other ways to do the same thing- watch videos in your home. To a certain extent, this has happened with Pen and Paper RPGs- this very forum has a sizable play by post section.

Video games aren't another way of doing the same thing as tabletop gaming. They're a way to do a similar but distinct thing, that's also not really that similar. It's not like saying "Why didn't DVDs replace VCRs," but like saying "Why didn't IMAX replace improv?" or "Why didn't FIFA replace foosball?" The answer is, in some cases it did, but they're ultimately different experiences, and some people prefer the latter, or simply enjoy both.

Mr.Moron
2015-02-24, 05:35 PM
Because they offer the one thing digital media cannot: dynamic stories.

I don't buy this. If the main motivator for RPGs was story involvement beyond what a computer game could, half the topics & posters I see on this forum wouldn't be here. The "murderhobo" stereotype certainly wouldn't exist, as such creatures can't feature centrally in anything resembling a "coherent story featuring people".

Certainly dynamic stories are one thing RPGs can offer, but it's hardly the only compelling thing they offer.

LibraryOgre
2015-02-24, 06:36 PM
Well, I guess we can say that RPG's are about as popular as they ever where. It's a very select market, after all.

I put them on something of a downswing, compared to the early days (before the Satanic Panic), or the certainly-larger-in-numbers surge when the OGL came out.


I guess "popular" wasn't the right word I was looking for. What I mean to ask is how have Pen and Paper RPGs lasted for so long. While video cassettes and VCRs have become a thing of the past, Pen and Paper RPGs are still around.

Because the basic technology remains available. VHS is out, but its successor technology, DVDs, is still available and simply better in many ways (less degradation over time, more convenient moving through scenes, better image quality, etc.). BluRay is slowly gaining on DVD, but DVD remains back compatible, so it's still around.

TTRPGs? Books are still around, and TT has adapted to other formats, as well (PDFs for books, on-line tools like roll20 for actual playing), to say nothing of incorporating other tools into a real game (we're playing a post-apocalyptic game intermittently, using Google Maps to show the real local we're at). Add in that the necessary devices are durable, and that there's a sizable group of the older generation teaching it to their kids, and you have a degree of enduring popularity.

Knaight
2015-02-24, 06:46 PM
Putting aside how they aren't popular, there has yet to be an actual replacement. Video games simply can't do a lot of what RPGs can, and this is beyond the social interaction aspect - which is what keeps board games afloat, which are themselves a pretty substantial industry.

As for technology being a major aspect of everyday life, it's worth noting that the way it has become a major aspect of everyday life includes some degree of isolation for a lot of people. A lot more jobs involve sitting in front of a computer all day not talking to people face to face than ever existed when the equivalent was some sort of writing, changes in the structures of populations have led to more people living alone than used to, so on and so forth. Beyond that, there's the shift towards computers becoming part of every day life when they were formally coded as geeky, there's emergence of the internet as a common part of society which is also friendly to generally nerdy stuff, there's video games becoming extremely common in a lot of places when they were formally all sorts of nerdy. This drastically lowers the barrier to entry for nerd-stuff in general.

The social aspects of board games and RPGs are thus more valuable than they used to be, and it's easier to get into nerd stuff. This is probably at least some of what's behind the recent change in board game production involving a lot more good games coming out, and is almost certainly a good part of what keeps RPGs alive. RPGs are actually even having an issue where they are growing surprisingly slowly compared to the rest of the nerd-industry stuff, largely because D&D has a history of being designed in such a way that getting in with an entire group that has never played before is needlessly difficult.

Darth Ultron
2015-02-24, 06:58 PM
I put them on something of a downswing, compared to the early days (before the Satanic Panic), or the certainly-larger-in-numbers surge when the OGL came out.


I'm always surprised how popular RPG's have stayed over the years. There always seems to be plenty of new players.

I meet a lot of ex-video game players, for example. I grew up with lots of RP type video games.....and they were fun.....to a point. After all a video game limits your actions and things you can do: you can only do what someone programed the game to do. And play the game through once...and it's not so much fun to play the game again. And that is a big point for pen and paper games...it's all ways different.

Knaight
2015-02-24, 07:02 PM
IAnd that is a big point for pen and paper games...it's all ways different.

It also covers a wide range of material. If I decide that I want a steampunk-cyberpunk hybrid wherein industrial espionage and sabotage performed by the press ganged crew of a zeppelin is a thing, I can make that happen, for free, with a system I already have, without putting any real work in it. If I'm in the mood for exactly that and looking for a video game, it's not happening. I could theoretically make a game of some sort, but it goes from whipping up a setting and helping people make characters in half an hour to years of learning and work.

johnbragg
2015-02-24, 07:14 PM
Putting aside how they aren't popular, there has yet to be an actual replacement.

Yes and no. If digital music is a replacement for records, then PDFs and the SRD are absolutely a replacement for our shelves full of books.

Thirty years ago, the introductory product for pre-adolescents? The Red Box BECMI Basic Set. Today? The Red Box BECMI Basic Set PDFs, available for $10 from DriveThruRPG's D&D site.

Knaight
2015-02-24, 07:18 PM
Yes and no. If digital music is a replacement for records, then PDFs and the SRD are absolutely a replacement for our shelves full of books.

That's not a replacement for RPGs. The RPGs aren't the records or the .mp3 file in this analogy, they're the music encoded. PDFs, SRDs, wikis, and the various other formats RPGs can be released in are still tabletop RPGs.

Anonymouswizard
2015-02-24, 07:31 PM
Is it popular? The majority of people I meet haven't ever had any experience with TTRPGs.

No, if it was popular my Uni gaming society would offer more support for it than 'we'll let you look for a group' (not that they actually support any tabletop games, the entire society is a bunch of computer gamer elitists in denial). It's why I'm so bitter when people insist that the geeks have won, yes they have if you mean a handful of things, but whenever I mention roleplaying I have to follow it up with 'not that kind!'


Couch Multi-player: the fact is, getting together with your friends is fun. That so many newer technologies ignore couch multi-player is a travesty.

this is basically it. I might want to craft a great story with my fellow gamers, but that isn't why I play. I play because I enjoy it when five of us sit down in a kitchen after a hard week of university stuff, break out the dice and character sheets, and then spend 50 minutes joking around before actually getting to the game. I like that conversations spawn from the game, such that we might occasionally get only half an hour of actual play in every hour, but nobody is ever bored. I enjoy getting into conversations with the GM over game design, I love the fact that our group has developed it's own quirks and in-jokes (one joke is my inability to act with any sort of intelligence while planning).

I've seen the latest computer game consoles brag about the fact they can hook you up to play with someone from China, but so many miss the fact that if I want to play with someone, I want to be able to laugh at their jokes, know that they've put the controller down if I get a bite to eat, and then go and grab a cuppa when the game is over. I've never played the multiplayer on any of the latest shooters, because I still remember the fun me and my brothers had sitting around a TV playing split screen deathmatch in Fire Warrior.

I've seen games with as many as twelve players in a single campaign because the group likes socialising together. TTRPGs are half games, and half an excuse for friends to hang out.

johnbragg
2015-02-24, 07:38 PM
That's not a replacement for RPGs. The RPGs aren't the records or the .mp3 file in this analogy, they're the music encoded. PDFs, SRDs, wikis, and the various other formats RPGs can be released in are still tabletop RPGs.

Just pointing out that there has been change and replacement in the hobby. Agreed that the White Album is still the White Album, whether on vinyl or CD or a dozen itunes downloads, just as the REd Box set is still the same whether it's in the box or a printed PDF, or a PDF on a tablet.

But the existence of SRDs and wikis changes the in-game experience, and the existence of char-op forums between sessions also changes things.

Not to mention improvements in games over time--no matter how nostalgic the Old School Renaissance grognards (and hipsters) are, most of the OSR retroclones seem to have fixed things from AD&D. The d20 mechanic practically sweeping all others aside in the early 2000s may not have been the best thing, but it encouraged everyone to update their game.

Anonymouswizard
2015-02-24, 07:50 PM
Just pointing out that there has been change and replacement in the hobby. Agreed that the White Album is still the White Album, whether on vinyl or CD or a dozen itunes downloads, just as the REd Box set is still the same whether it's in the box or a printed PDF, or a PDF on a tablet.

I have a different experience, I've never seen a gaming group without a copy of the game rules (generally owned by the GM) in that ever-useful dead-tree format for easy reference during play. This is less a case of 'mp3s are better than CDs so I no longer use CDs', this is a case of 'CDs are easier to use but take up a lot of storage space, so I use mp3s for easier transport'. Have you ever tried running a game without a physical book? I have, and I can tell you that without the ability to get to roughly the right page in seconds (which is much quicker than searching a pdf) adjudicating rules takes much longer. I've seen it done okay in Mutants and Masterminds, but that might have only worked because of how railroad the campaign was.

russdm
2015-02-24, 08:07 PM
RPGs are actually even having an issue where they are growing surprisingly slowly compared to the rest of the nerd-industry stuff, largely because D&D has a history of being designed in such a way that getting in with an entire group that has never played before is needlessly difficult.

It doesn't actually have to be though. It could be made slightly simpler but some might not like that. The game also tends to have long combats in real life compared to in-game, something like a few hours of real life for what is something like a minute tops in game. That certainly doesn't help, especially at higher levels with so much to be able to do.



Not to mention improvements in games over time--no matter how nostalgic the Old School Renaissance grognards (and hipsters) are, most of the OSR retroclones seem to have fixed things from AD&D. The d20 mechanic practically sweeping all others aside in the early 2000s may not have been the best thing, but it encouraged everyone to update their game.

It also resulted in there simply being more available systems that didn't have to rely on the d20 either. There are more ways to play heroic fantasy available now than just using D&D or Pathfinder. Some of which can be more fun, I have heard.

johnbragg
2015-02-24, 08:53 PM
I have a different experience, I've never seen a gaming group without a copy of the game rules (generally owned by the GM) in that ever-useful dead-tree format for easy reference during play. This is less a case of 'mp3s are better than CDs so I no longer use CDs', this is a case of 'CDs are easier to use but take up a lot of storage space, so I use mp3s for easier transport'. Have you ever tried running a game without a physical book? I have, and I can tell you that without the ability to get to roughly the right page in seconds (which is much quicker than searching a pdf) adjudicating rules takes much longer. I've seen it done okay in Mutants and Masterminds, but that might have only worked because of how railroad the campaign was.

I guess I'm talking more about the SRDs, I can look something up on the SRD a lot quicker than I ever could in a Player's Handbook or DM. Books are faster than PDFs, but SRDs and wikis are faster than books, in my experience. When my summoned Celestial Dog was trying to determine whether the chanting we heard was from an invisible caster, or simply a distant caster using Ghost Sound, getting his Spot, Listen and Search check modifiers to the DM was way faster with the SRD on my phone than it ever was with a Monster MAnual. (I have updated my printed Powerpoint slides for my favorite Summoned Monsters to include their relevant skill checks.)

Knaight
2015-02-25, 02:27 AM
Just pointing out that there has been change and replacement in the hobby. Agreed that the White Album is still the White Album, whether on vinyl or CD or a dozen itunes downloads, just as the REd Box set is still the same whether it's in the box or a printed PDF, or a PDF on a tablet.
Well yeah, there's been change in the hobby. That's besides the point, what I said was that tabletop RPGs - as in, the genre - don't have any real replacement. That individual RPGs within the genre get partially displaced by other individual RPGs is irrelevant, as are changes in how those RPGs are communicated.

BrokenChord
2015-02-25, 04:47 AM
Hello? Because they're friggin awesome is why.

Even if your group isn't a fan of collaborative storytelling (I don't understand it, but groups like that do exist) there's still something to be said for the freedom to act and create as you please without being limited by what the video game is programmed to handle.

There's the social aspect, of course. Also, for those interested in it, there are a lot of mechanical options to toy with. This is a stylistic coincidence more than an actual RPG>video game example, but RPGs tend to do much better at having a wide variety of character options, unlike many video games which tend to give you a few preset mechanical options that only give options vertically instead of providing the hundreds of horizontal advancement options characters have in many RPGs.

Plus, it's a way to let out your creativity that doesn't have quite so many restrictions or standards as writing a book or drawing an action scene (or designing a video game).

And of course, there's people like me, for whom that whole "collaborative, open-ended storytelling" thing is just cake and ice cream to the fun receptors.

Mr. Mask
2015-02-25, 06:33 AM
One thing I wonder about more is why TTRPGs haven't been more successfully ported to computers. I mean, you can roleplay with with text or voice/video chat, the power of the medium still exists, and online socialization has gotten popular. Computer-powered play offers some easier math and other aspects while allowing for roleplaying. Of course, this does require an excellent interface, which many games fail to achieve.

Mastikator
2015-02-25, 06:38 AM
No, if it was popular my Uni gaming society would offer more support for it than 'we'll let you look for a group' (not that they actually support any tabletop games, the entire society is a bunch of computer gamer elitists in denial). It's why I'm so bitter when people insist that the geeks have won, yes they have if you mean a handful of things, but whenever I mention roleplaying I have to follow it up with 'not that kind!'

If you ever wondered how us LARPers feel around you TTRPGers, that's basically it.

VincentTakeda
2015-02-25, 07:22 AM
If you ever wondered how us LARPers feel around you TTRPGers, that's basically it.

Meh. Even LARPing takes all kinds... Is it AMTguard? SCA? Steve Jackson's Killer? Man you want to talk about the perfect game for a university... I ran a 'circle of death' campaign in high school with over 60 people...

I think thats the tricky part about gaming is that it takes all kinds...
First we had the larpers with civil war reenactment.
Then the guys who liked recreating battles but were too lazy to dress up or go outside... They played army men. They were the wargamers
The army men platoons got stats.
Then they became just single men with stats.
Then they got to fight dragons and we had chainmail and 1e.
Then we got the guys who liked that but couldnt afford to be modeler/hobbyist/fig collectors so 2e got rid of the battlemat and figs.
So we thus got our theater of the minds guys.
Then amtguard for the theater of the mind guys whose moms wanted them to get out of the house and get some exercise. Larpers return.
Then sca for amtguard guys who hate mages...
3.x brings back the battle mat and wargamers return.

And we take bits and pieces of stuff from other 'gamers'. Dice and cards. Poker turns to Farkle and MTG... LOTFR.... just different 'levels' of investment in both money and immersion.

Its good because theres a game for everyone. Its only bad if the kinda game you personally like is not the kind of game that's popular in your area...

I have to say I was pretty moved when at my family's last christmas party my dad (who started out with poker and has gotten into farkle) asked me if I think he'd have made a good gm. At 65 he's starting to realize he's just as much of a gamer as I am... Its all about coming together with friends and having a good time.

In that way we're just like the beer drinkers and football watchers and motorcycle clubs and cigar bar regulars... You find something you enjoy and find a bunch of other people who enjoy it too and you get together and enjoy it together. My dad's 300 pounds and 65 years old. He'll probably never be a larper... But he's every bit the gamer that I am.

Anonymouswizard
2015-02-25, 10:37 AM
If you ever wondered how us LARPers feel around you TTRPGers, that's basically it.

Ironically, the other problem I'm having with them is that I want to start LARPing, with the only response being 'lecturers X, Y and Z in this department you never interact with apparently do it'. But yeah, that is the basic feeling, along with them associating all tabletop with D&D, and that their society would not face problems if, in their words, "all the D&D players went to a tabletop society', without realising we'd have a legitimate complaint at them playing card games in their socials. The attitude of people who play "better" games astounds me.

Blackhawk748
2015-02-25, 11:00 AM
If you ever wondered how us LARPers feel around you TTRPGers, that's basically it.

Hey im both, then again i play NERO, so i think we're playing drastically different things.

Also i think its survived because i have yet to find a video game where i can play a goblin who runs on walls and assassinates people with a greataxe in a dystopian megalith of a city in one play through, then play a northern witch raised by hags and running around in the frozen north on my second playthrough. I mean i love Skyrim, but i can do pretty much whatever i want in a TTRPG because the GM is the AI.

Knaight
2015-02-25, 12:18 PM
Meh. Even LARPing takes all kinds... Is it AMTguard? SCA? Steve Jackson's Killer? Man you want to talk about the perfect game for a university... I ran a 'circle of death' campaign in high school with over 60 people...

A lot of the SCA isn't LARP at all. There's an LA component, not so much with the RP.

GungHo
2015-02-25, 12:27 PM
Storytelling and playing make-believe are primal activities that don't go out of style.

Knaight
2015-02-25, 12:35 PM
Storytelling and playing make-believe are primal activities that don't go out of style.

Particular mediums can, however. Radio dramas used to be a big thing, now they're all but dead. They were also all but dead well before drama podcasts (which are pretty much a direct successor) showed up on the scene.

Jermz
2015-02-25, 01:38 PM
Hey now, let's not forget rolling some dice! And collecting dice. And having favorite dice for specific situations. And telling stories about the time the dice screwed you/saved you/screwed the group/insert your own specific story. When higher levels show up, not many things beat the thrill of scooping up a two whole fistfuls of d6's and unleashing them....

VincentTakeda
2015-02-25, 07:55 PM
A lot of the SCA isn't LARP at all. There's an LA component, not so much with the RP.

I laugh in the face of any distinction. They have 'characters' they're playing... Just because they are their characters doesnt mean their characters are them. The terminology they use to refer to technological devices shows a thespian element that refuses to acknowledge technologies outside of what they consider the 'appropriate period' of their gatherings.

Thats RP plain and simple. If you have a different name for mc donalds because a 17th century knight doesnt want to say the word mc donalds... Thats RP.

Calling yourself a stick jock and pretending you're not playing a role because your 'fighting is more realistic' does not suddenly disqualify the role you play from being role playing.... If you have a king of a kingdom that does not exist... and a duke of a dukedom that does not exist... Sorry dudes. Hate to turn their 'sport' back into a game on 'em... but they're role playing.

The fact that their roles may be more historically accurate or that their organization makes extra effort to be historically accurate doesnt contradict rp. The fact that they hone legitimate real world proficiency at 14th-16th century crafting and fighting techniques isn't a relevant measure... At the end of the day they use this knowledge and expertise to play a role in a world where their name changes and they spar under the pretense of 'doing battle' for the 'glory of their kingdoms' and hold titles in kindoms which dont really exist...

It reflects poorly on their hobby that they believe the physicality of their game and the fact that their fantasy midieval world doesnt have spells is what makes their fantasy 'no longer qualify as RP'... They're just gamist larpers. Heavy on the crunch optimization and light on the fluff and backstory. To their credit at least optimizing their crunch takes a lot more actual effort than it does for other gamers. Its about as lucidrous an argument as 'wrestling isnt fake because it can actually hurt sometimes'... You'll notice none of the letters in the acronym 'larp' stand for 'fantasy' or 'game' or 'unrealistic' or 'magical'.

At best its taking larping to another level... But its still larping... Paintball is not larping because you're not 'Rommel' or 'Patton'... You're fred, the dude with a painball gun. In the kingdom of dudes who humiliate each other by covering them in paint. They are not in Denang and they are not pretending to be. No role. No play. No fantasy names, no fantasy titles, no fantasy realm. Just paintball guns being used to paint each other at range.

I'll stop calling it a larp the day I see an sca character card that says 'Hi my name is fred the IT guy who likes playing dress up on the weekends in order to facilitate beating my friends with sticks and ooh. I know a lot about leatherworking too... But you can call be fred the IT guy. I don't actually do that part of a kingdom stuff because i'm not a larper.'

If you like making bodices in the traditional style... You might be a seamstress.
If you like wearing bodices in the traditional style... You might be a cosplayer.
If you like wearing bodices out into the meadow on a weekend, you might be an attendee or a vendor at a rennaissance festival.
If your birth certificate says Susan but when you wear your bodice in the meadow you're known as Lady Sue of the Order of the Terpsichord.... You might be a Larper. (Or have multiple personality disorder... But probably just a larper.. But check with your therapist just to be sure...)
Even if you're like a totally awesome bodicemaker using time honored period accurate 14th century bodicemaking techniques.

So they're larpers. Its ok. It's cool to be a larper now. Unless they think sca is not larping. Then they're totally right. They like beating their friends with sticks and they're not a larper and they're not cool. Because larping is cool. But thats not them.

Some call it 'a martial art'... And they're right about that. They're like a 500 year old version of the cobra-kai... Make his knuckles bleed. I like that johnny! I'm gonna USE that! Pain is for the weak. Pain does not exist in this dojo... Does it? Please pass me the haggis Lady Duggerly... What fine embellishment on your codpiece Todd! Er... I mean.. Lord Theodric!

Sorry for the rant.. It just... It hurts my brain. I should probably put more skillpoints into my 'tolerating cognitive dissonance' skill. My bias stems mostly from this group's insistance on somehow 'distancing' themselves from other hobbyists who share a lot of similar interests. This distancing is characterised as 'qualitative' and paints every other form of 'period hobbyist' as dismissively inferior. That's the opposite of what social period hobbyism should be about. For the folks who are in the sca simply to learn about the england of centuries ago and make things from a century ago... but mostly to beat each other with sticks... I'm sure the distinction is a welcome one. The part of the hobby they are most interested in is 'realism' and 'beat others with sticks'. Unless beating others with sticks will get them a title of nobility over a fantasy region for a time... And unless it means going by the name that yo mamma gave you. Oooh Kyle... Look out for Kyle!

I should probaby shut up now.

Knaight
2015-02-26, 08:41 AM
I laugh in the face of any distinction. They have 'characters' they're playing... Just because they are their characters doesnt mean their characters are them. The terminology they use to refer to technological devices shows a thespian element that refuses to acknowledge technologies outside of what they consider the 'appropriate period' of their gatherings.

Thats RP plain and simple. If you have a different name for mc donalds because a 17th century knight doesnt want to say the word mc donalds... Thats RP.

Calling yourself a stick jock and pretending you're not playing a role because your 'fighting is more realistic' does not suddenly disqualify the role you play from being role playing.... If you have a king of a kingdom that does not exist... and a duke of a dukedom that does not exist... Sorry dudes. Hate to turn their 'sport' back into a game on 'em... but they're role playing.

In huge sections of the SCA, if someone is going to mention a McDonalds in some context they're just going to use the term "McDonalds", particularly among stick jocks. A lot of people aren't playing a role at all, and put up with the kingdom-dukedom terminology for the fighting, while likely favoring something like "region" or "league". There's a lot of people there who aren't role playing at all and don't want to be.


I'll stop calling it a larp the day I see an sca character card that says 'Hi my name is fred the IT guy who likes playing dress up on the weekends in order to facilitate beating my friends with sticks and ooh. I know a lot about leatherworking too... But you can call be fred the IT guy. I don't actually do that part of a kingdom stuff because i'm not a larper.'
I call this just about everyone I've met in the SCA. They'll introduce themselves with their actual name, there's less in the way of "playing dress up" and more in the way of "putting on specialized protective gear", and the only time kingdoms even come up is either in a discussion on how the regions are divided up and named, or in something along the lines of "I was fighting with this guy who normally fights with this group...".

VincentTakeda
2015-02-26, 11:07 AM
While in my area on the other hand people choose to be referred to as their sca name at their place of business.

While my area's idea of whats appropriate is carefully handcrafted gear made of period accurate material using period accurate techniques, I know an sca group in nebraska that greenlighted a shield made from the hood of a honda and the lid of a 55 gallon drum.

YMMV of course but i'm still holding out until I see a persona card that says I'm Steve the Automotive Mechanic.

Frozen_Feet
2015-02-26, 11:16 AM
Is it popular?

Heh, the same question occurred to me. That said, while tabletop games remain relatively obscure, the offshoots have gone to become wildly popular. D&D had a massive role to play (har har) in creation and popularization of videogames and CRPGs to this day continue to rely on tropes and traditions of it. D&D also did a lot to popularize fantasy and pulp fiction.

The same phenomenom can be seen with superhero comics. For a long time, they were for nerds only, and to a degree, they still are, even though movies and TV series based on them have garnered millions of viewers.


I remember when I first discovered tabletop (or pen and paper) RPGs two and a half years ago. Now that I think about it, I'm surprised that these kind of Roleplaying Games have survived for so long, especially now when technology has become a major aspect of everyday life.

There's little reason to be surprised. Chess can be completely computerized and a computer these days can play at any skill level, yet people still play Chess with real board and pieces, face-to-face. Even when they have computers at hand. Some things just are enough fun that people end up doing them regardless of whether it's necessary or even optimal.

Knaight
2015-02-26, 11:27 AM
While in my area on the other hand people choose to be referred to as their sca name at their place of business.

While my area's idea of whats appropriate is carefully handcrafted gear made of period accurate material using period accurate techniques, I know an sca group in nebraska that greenlighted a shield made from the hood of a honda and the lid of a 55 gallon drum.

YMMV of course but i'm still holding out until I see a persona card that says I'm Steve the Automotive Mechanic.

You might have to wait a while then - I suspect that persona cards aren't even a thing among the people who would write something like Steve on them. I can't say I've seen them in the fighting I've done with the SCA (as a non-member, and very intermittently, but still). The SCA of your area actually sounds like it could be described as a LARP group, for the SCA where I'm at that's a laughable position.

VincentTakeda
2015-02-26, 12:41 PM
Agreed. To seguée back on topic though I'd say that one of the reasons tabletop rpgs are so popular is because some folks want to be able to explore characters and stories and settings in fantastical or grimdark or horrifying ways without being beaten by their friends with sticks in the name of either fun or 'research'... So that's a thing.

Knaight
2015-02-26, 12:48 PM
Agreed. To get back on topic I'd say that one of the reasons tabletop rpgs are so popular is because some folks want to be able to explore characters and stories and settings in fantastical or grimdark or horrifying ways without being beaten by their friends with sticks in the name of either fun or 'research'... So that's a thing.

In the context for why people don't just LARP, this is absolutely part of it. Some people aren't into being repeatedly stabbed, smacked, and shot at, regardless of how padded the equipment is. Some people don't want to hit other people, regardless of how padded the equipment is. I personally know people in both camps, as regards not participating in a particular thing which does have some degree of padding, and in which welts are extremely rare, broken bones are spectacularly rare (as in there's been one, and it was my finger), and bruises tend to be both kind of rare and small (though there are exceptions, sliding down a frozen hill at high speed with your side bouncing off spear shaft hurts).

Similarly, there's often a physicality to TTRPGs that aren't there for video games. There's something enjoyable about just rolling dice in a tactile fashion that isn't there for moving a mouse around, gestures in varying degrees of animated-ness are common, there's even a tactile component to the vocal stuff that is generally not there in video games. That entire side of the hobby is another thing that just isn't replaced.

Frozen_Feet
2015-02-26, 02:11 PM
The fact that dice resemble various gems and come in multitude of interesting colors probably has something to do with. They appeal to the magpie in all of us.

Segev
2015-02-26, 05:00 PM
Using a pile of dice as the dragon's treasure hoard on your minis map does have a certain visceral satisfaction to it.

ewoods
2015-02-26, 08:16 PM
Because it's communal storytelling! This is pulled from Wikipedia:


Oral storytelling is an ancient and intimate tradition between the storyteller and their audience. The storyteller and the listeners are physically close, often seated together in a circular fashion. Through the telling of the story people become psychically close, developing a connection to one another through the communal experience. The storyteller reveals, and thus shares, him/her self through his/her telling and the listeners reveal and share themselves through their reception of the story. The intimacy and connection is deepened by the flexibility of oral storytelling which allows the tale to be moulded according to the needs of the audience and/or the location or environment of the telling. Listeners also experience the immediacy of a creative process taking place in their presence and they experience the empowerment of being a part of that creative process.

I believe nearly all of that applies to your typical TTRPG session, even if it doesn't feel so grandiose when you're eating pizza and laughing at the name of some random NPC. We're still gathering as friends, creating a story together, revealing parts of ourselves that we don't necessarily have a good outlet for otherwise. Show me another medium where the story being told and experienced is completely custom-tailored to the fantasies of the specific audience at that specific moment.

xroads
2015-02-27, 11:09 AM
There is always going to be at least a niche market for tabletop RPGs. Just like any hobby, there will always be fans of it. For example there are still ham radio operators and model train builders out there.

On a related note, I read somewhere that tabletops are making a come back. Due in part to the 5th ed D&D. Not sure if that is true or not though.

Maglubiyet
2015-03-01, 12:03 AM
I guess "popular" wasn't the right word I was looking for. What I mean to ask is how have Pen and Paper RPGs lasted for so long. While video cassettes and VCRs have become a thing of the past, Pen and Paper RPGs are still around.

Probably for the same reason people still have dinner parties. Why go hang out at a friend's house eating food when you could just buy some groceries or take-out and sit at home watching tv?

Ravens_cry
2015-03-01, 12:31 AM
I think TTRPG will be a great form of entertainment for long space voyages. I imagine everyone onboard would have some kind of PADD knock off to, among other things, store personal books and documents, which can include RPG books and character sheets. A dice roller app is easy enough, though 3D printed dice are also a possibility even now. They would allow people a form of entertainment with minimal equipment that can engage over months or even years.