Shrapnel Games Blog

As mentioned over at Ogrecave Black Industries is an early lead in the 2008 WTF award. For those of you who haven’t seen the news, basically they manage to sell out of the new Warhammer 40K pen and paper RPG, Dark Heresy, on pre-order. Now, you would think that kind of news would bring them champagne wishes and caviar dreams, but instead of celebrating Black Industries is getting out of the PnP business and solely concentrating on Warhammer novels.

I can’t think of another situation quite like this. I mean, I know of companies that shifted direction when a product underperformed, but never when something ended up a raging success. Without being a fly on the wall in their corporate offices who knows what drove them to the decision, but one obvious thing is that’s one less PnP RPG line on the market.

From speaking with retailers that I know there’s been a very marked downturn in RPGs since around 2000. Even third edition D&D, with its flood of splatbooks, only ended up doing just okay. The fact that Black Industries is bailing out of the RPG market even before really getting into it (and this, with a hot and well known IP like Warhammer), seems to indicate that there is definitely trouble in the world of RPGs.

The common boogeyman of course is World of Warcraft, and before that Everquest. Look how scared WOTC and the Hasborg are of WoW; they’re going so far as to mimic the MMORPG experience right down to a monthly fee subscription for DDI (funny how they rarely bring that part of 4E up in interviews).

I don’t buy it. MMORPGs are completely different beasts than tabletop RPGs. While yes, there is crossover, I don’t believe for a second that everyone who plays World of Warcraft would be slinging polys if given the chance. The majority probably have never had an experience with a tabletop RPG, nor would want to. To them it’s just a social game that just happens to have some elements of RPGs.

So what’s killing RPGs today? The lack of imagination.

My first exposure to RPGs came in the late ‘70s. At the time I was a voracious reader and had just discovered the world of high fantasy literature, a world that could unfold in my head. When I was introduced to AD&D I took to it like the rust monster to the knight in shining armor. Here was a game that lived entirely in the imagination, much like those novels I liked, but with one important difference: it was an active story, not passive.

Sitting around a table with a bunch of friends you could go anyplace, be anyone, and live out epic tales without boundaries. Besides reading there was nothing remotely similar. Fantasy movies were rare, and those that existed were cheap and cheesy (although I still have fond memories of The Sword and the Sorcerer, although I’m thinking if I saw it today my reaction would be rather different). There were no fantasy television shows, and computer gaming consisted of green and black blocks, or dragons that looked like ducks. RPGs provided myself and gamers everywhere a form of entertainment that couldn’t be matched by the rest of the world.

Fast forward to today. Fantasy movies are billion dollar pieces of entertainment, with special effects that match. Finding fantasy elements, or general geek stuff, on the television is easy. Digital gaming is ripe with choices. Not only that, it’s in everyone’s home, unlike the early days when owning a computer was the exception, not the norm. What it all adds up to is that there’s no reason today for a group of gamers to get together and imagine themselves in Faerun, or Oerth, or Tékumel when they can have their imagination handed to them.

See, we’re basically living in an passively active world. Take a CRPG for example. While most will say that it’s active entertainment, how active is it really? You’re surrounded by walls from the very beginning of what type of character you will play. In reality there is only the illusion of being an active participant when really it’s a passive piece of entertainment. How much freedom is there? How much true choice? Ultimately, it’s a “Choose Your Own Adventure” novel updated to the computer age.

And for many gamers, this is all they know. They don’t know or understand that the games they play are just an pale illusion of what the power of the human mind can unleash.

Or maybe part of it is that it’s just far easier today to be force fed entertainment. Running a pen and paper game, participating in one, well, it involves a commitment. It involves thought, creativity, and time. In today’s instant gratification world why bother with all that? Just log on and take whatever someone else dishes out, bland as it may be.

Like wargaming it’s doubtful RPGs are ever in danger of becoming completely extinct, but rather the odds increase of becoming more and more of a niche pastime as time goes on. And like wargaming, those that continue to keep the genre alive will be an older crowd. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that there is a hunger for old school systems like Castles and Crusades and Hackmaster. The folks playing them are the folks who grew up on similar systems.
Turn off the computer. Order some pizza. Roll up a character. And most importantly…

Keep your imagination alive.