A testimonial from GenCon

[M. Alan Thomas II]

Today on Facebook I ran across an encouraging anecdote / testimonial from GenCon. The author is Rusty Zimmerman, who's freelanced for Catalyst Game Labs (which features in the story), among other RPG-related activities. Here's the pull quote, insofar as the piece relates to us:

It's just a little swag. It's just a small thing. It's just a few more boxes of GenCon loot going home with four happy geeks, but it -- no joke -- it almost chokes me up. Thinking about how far the hobby has come that we've got teachers doing afterschool programs, thinking about how far from Satanic Panic we've gotten that a rural community will all pitch in to send two of their kids off to a gaming convention, and thinking about how small and tightknit the gaming community still is, even amidst the corporate displays and ad banners and professionalism of GenCon, that we could hook these guys up with some swag (what little swag they were certain would fit in their overpacked car). 

I love this hobby. I love how time has changed it, smoothed over the rough edges, normalized it. I love how many female gamers I saw, how many rainbow ribbons I saw on badges, how many "gaymer" tshirts I saw. I love that a major US city gets turned into a geek mecca for the better part of a week, and that Indianapolis welcomes us back home every year.

(A PDF is attached for archival purposes.)

—Alan

[jethrotull]

I'm glad GenCon ws a hit, and that the role-playing game hobby has grown.  In my neck of the woods, it's hard to make that deduction, but Indy is much bigger than the towns in upstate SC where I live.   We few haven't lost interest completely in the hobby, but we have gone off on our own tangent--sort of like moving one's letter to join another church.  Starting with the elephant in the room, Our group was (finally) satisfied with Wizards of the Coast's/Hasbro's 3.5 version of D&D.  Then, with reckless abandon, they dumped support for the miniatures line and supporting skirmish game, jumped into rules for 4.0, and left the 3.5 people dangling in the wind.   The problems with 4.0 have been hashed to death, so I won't go into that.  But now, with a FIFTH edition, it's clear they are just trying to milk more money from the cash cow, much like Pink Floyd continues to release the same material in bigger boxed sets.  Pathfinder is an adequate substitute for some, but we decided to just stop buying new produce and stick with what we have.  I know there are others still playing 1st edition, AD&D, 2nd ed AD&D, "PLayers Option AD&D", or whatever their favorite flavor is.  I think this is a good thing--democracy should win out, but I have no use for the company that stops supporting all but the newest, shiniest model under the tree.   As for othet rpg's, We still play Star TRek (FASA), Boot Hill (TSR),Delta Green  and Call of Cthulhu d20.  All of course are out of print.  I haven't been moved to buy a new role playing game or accessory in many moons.  Steampunk does nothing for me and most of what's out there seems to gravitate in that direction or worse, toward the hottest comic book (or should I say "graphic novel"?).    But it is uplifting to know that women are no longer as rare as Halley's Comet sightings at rpg conventions.  We've always had at least 2 girls in most every campaign, so it's nothing new here, but at cons, I never saw many with the XX chromosome.pair.  As for gaymer, I Have thankfully been spared that new corruption of the English language.  There are gay people in the group here, and the group I play with when I go to WBC  (well, when it used to be held closer to Baltimore).  But none of them chose to proclaim their orientation to the world in the form of a T-shirt slogan or bumper sticker philosophy.  I like rainbows as much as anyone, but I prefer them in the sky, after a spring shower.    I also haven't seen much variation in race when it comes to rpg-ers.  Again, my observational pool is small, but everyone I've played with in the past 6 years--here in SC and at conventions, have been 100% caucasian.  In fact, I could say that they are even more homogenous--all were white, middle class, Anglo-Saxon, (and for the most part, Protestant) suburbanites.  I'm pleased to hear that Gencon, with a much bigger demographic, had a wider cross-section of the populations gaming together.   The board game side of the hobby may be dying, but from Mr. Thomas' post, it seems that the role-playing niche of the hobby may actually be growing.  And you know that can't be bad :)

[Mike "Talien" Tresca]

I'm curious as to what how 5th Edition is an attempt to "milk more money from the cash cow." I mean, WOTC is a business so yeah, they need to keep making money to stay in business.  The old cash-cow model was to pump out as many books as possible -- WOTC's actually done the opposite of that.

From what I can tell, 5E was D&D's last gasp before it was sold.  The fact that Mearls was kept on through the issues with 4E and given the opportunity to produce 5E is amazing in itself, but I'm pretty sure it was a last ditch effort to "save" the game for the company.  Thanks to the OGL, we'll always have D&D, but for WOTC if 5E wasn't successful that woud be the end of D&D for them.

What's nuts is that it took the beating that was 4E to get to 5E.  Pathfinder got there through public playtesting.  The owners of the D&D brand had to be seriously humbled before they learned the same lesson.  I'm glad they did.

Mike

[Hawke Robinson]

Just and FYI regarding the older versions of D&D support, WotC has
republished 1st & 2nd Edition AD&D books relatively recently to have
some less beat up copies, so that is nice they supported the old school
gaming.
Though they fixed some typos and errors in the originals, they
introduced new ones in the reprints, ah well.
My youngest son (now 16 and running a few groups of his own), has
played every version of D&D, and though originally "cutting his teeth"
on 3.5, has decided AD&D 1st edition, with Unearthed Arcana,
Dungeoneers & Wilderness Survival Guides, has become his favorite
version, and his groups have agreed and bee migrating to 1st ed in
recent months.
Also, regarding demographics, I'll post an email on the current
information from my research from 2013 and 2015, that might be somewhat
relevant (separate email thread maybe).
Happy Gaming!
-Hawke

--
-Hawke Robinson

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[jethrotull]

I wasn't bad-mouthing WotC or Hasbro for making money.  I heard they brought Monte Cook in to help them fix the disaster that was 4.0.  But regardless, I'm happy when ANY game company is doing well enough to put out new product.  If they make money, all the better--maybe they'll inspire some board game and war game enthusiasts to start producing.  My only gripe with whoever owns D&D now is the way they treated they're 3.5 and miniatures' game customers.  We got pretty short shrift.  And while I don't expect them to support long out of print games, it wouldn't have killed them to save the archives (or as they called them, "web enhancements") on they're website.  I bought many adventures, splat books, and magazines in the 3.5 era, only to read that I could get "the rest" of the product as a web enhancement online.  Epic Handbook was a memorable snafu.  Of course I called to tell them that not all of us are computer savvy, and a few of us don't use computers at all, or despise using them, and they shouldn't sell incomplete products.  When they were in Washington (and no, I don't know if they still have offices there or not), they were very accommodating.  They mailed me the web enhancements.  Customer Service was something they did a fine job on.  But all this is off point, and I do not like to hijack threads.  Just wanted to clear up the misconception that I have anything against capitalism.   I am thrilled that GenCon was successful and that there appears to be a more diverse group than ever hat are into role-playing games.  

On Wednesday, August 10, 2016 at 3:00:46 AM UTC-4, M. Alan Thomas II wrote:

[Mike "Talien" Tresca]

I'm with you on the archives thing.  WOTC's approach to digital has been heavy-handed at best, and blowing up their entire digital community along with all the awesome free stuff they released was a real blow to the online community.  Worse, it basically took WOTC out of the social conversation.  I realize there are other sites to do that (ENWorld, RPG.net, among others) but it would have been great if they set up some official homes THERE before retreating from the world.  It gives me flashbacks to the "we're not creating PDFs anymore because we caught pirates" phase WOTC went through.

Mike