Not to come across as a Tobold-hater what with our recent post about him, but what’s with him being out-of-touch with traditional roleplaying games (RPGs)? The guy claims to be in a regular group that gets together twice each month, and yet he doesn’t understand the market? Okay, maybe it’s because he’s only been playing the Warhammer Fantasy RPG, and has thusly ignored everything else out there, but even we’re not totally in the dark about the state of the tabletop RPG market.
Not only have most major RPGs seen many updates over the last several years, but many lines have been refreshed almost completely (e.g. White Wolf’s World of Darkness games). Then too is the often vapid support for independent RPGs, resulting in conventions like the indy version of GenCon. Taking things a bit further, we’re also seeing a re-merger of RPGs and miniatures. With the popularity of miniature wargaming steadily rising, many RPG developers are incorporating miniatures to aid in resolving combat scenarios.
In the end, tabletop gaming is far from dead, even if it’s not getting the mass media coverage that MMOGs are getting these days. And why should it – tabletop RPGs cater to an audience with a higher base intelligence (compared to video games that usually cater to children), and doesn’t support the massive income numbers that monthly MMOG payments foster. Claiming that traditional RPG developers are struggling just because they’re not bringing in the income that MMOG publishers do is like asking why the author of a novel makes significantly less than the movie based on his work.
To paraphrase one of the commentators at Tobold’s site, “Tabletop roleplaying games won’t ever die, as long as people still place merit in storytelling and face-to-face socialization.” To date, video game RPGs remain too limited compared to what can be done in tabletop RPGs, and they’re intrinsically less social thanks to their poor interfaces.
That’s not to say that non-video game RPGs don’t have their flaws and their own sets of limitations, but in a world where we’re constantly forced to utilize technology, it’s a nice change of atmosphere to slip away and get back to gaming’s roots.
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