Quote from: Omega;986626The TTRPGs never declined. PC games though attract players who lack viable gaming groups. We've known that for a long time now.

What do you mean by 'never declined'? From my personal experience I remember D&D being known by every kid in the early 80s and played by a decent number, enough that there were D&D clubs and the like.

By the late 80s only the hardcore nerds were still playing or remotely even aware of the continuing existence of the game.

By early 90s again outside of that tiny circle there was no trace of TTRPGs. I looked for an RPG club in vain for the first two years of university. I was aware and owned Vampire but there was no active scene in my town that I was aware of, no doubt if I had sought it out I would have found an even smaller group playing it, even smaller than those playing D&D.

Of course that is all the dreaded 'anecdotal' evidence I realize won't past muster in the labs of RPGSite so I'd refer to the massive drop off in sales in the early 80s at TSR as the fad faded.

Seems TSR and later WoTC were able to keep D&D proftiable by playing to the collection-mania of the hardcores and pumping out more material than anyone could actually ever use at the table. But the numbers of people playing seems to have clearly shrunk and was continuing to shrink. People use to be able to have semi-profitable careers in RPG design, those days seem to have disappeared after the arrival of CCGs and the bursting of that bubble.

Things are certainly better these days, 5e seems to have arrived at the right time in the wider culture to get more recognition and buy-in from kids and youth. It also has brought back the older players who abandoned it when they hit university. Smaller RPG companies and designers have sprung up everywhere as the net has for once enabled instead of destroyed a market, even if it is profitable only in the most relative sense.

Arrows of Indra; for selfish personal reasons of course, but also because it would probably make for awesome visuals.  Indian myth is, as far as I know, an artistic genre that has thus far been underused in video-gaming, and that's unfortunate given how obviously well-fitting it would be.

Quote from: RPGPundit;988172Arrows of Indra; for selfish personal reasons of course, but also because it would probably make for awesome visuals.  Indian myth is, as far as I know, an artistic genre that has thus far been underused in video-gaming, and that's unfortunate given how obviously well-fitting it would be.

I've had some interest in Indian myth since I read some descriptions of Angie t Indian gods at war that sure as hell sou see like diesxiptions of nuclear weapons being used.

Given the size of the market, and the existence of Bollywood, part of me kind of assumed that they had a burgeoning video-game industry (probably brimming with not-particularly-accurate Indian myth), same as for Japan and the west, and I simply hadn't heard much about it.

GURPS, actually.

Would play the hell out of a fully mechanized GURPS rules combat-sim.

Eclipse Phase. At least a videogame would make it playable.

Quote from: Simlasa;986171It seems to me that computer games overtook TTRPGs for similar reasons that theaters, radio, television, and now streaming services have supplanted each other... all while reading books for entertainment became rarer.
Not that any of those mediums provide precisely the same sort of entertainment... but people seem to favor the most immediate forms of excitement that require the least input... while TTRPGs and books are slower and require more from their audience.

There's also the social aspect, which must keep away nearly as many (more?) people as it attracts.
.

Yeah, this.

I'd love to both see a video game and a saturday morning cartoon show of Rifts.

Quote from: Johnnii;988363I'd love to both see a video game and a saturday morning cartoon show of Rifts.

A saturday morning RIFTS cartoon would have been pretty great, in the 1990s. Today, it would be hard to take seriously, I think.  And I say this as someone who loves RIFTS.

Quote from: RPGPundit;988769A saturday morning RIFTS cartoon would have been pretty great, in the 1990s. Today, it would be hard to take seriously, I think.  And I say this as someone who loves RIFTS.

That's kind of how I think of RIFTS in general-it's awesome in the eXtreme!, and I love it, but don't take it seriously.

My own games, natch. But beyond that Eclipse Phase, something Traveller, Jadepunk and Remnants.

Quote from: RPGPundit;988769A saturday morning RIFTS cartoon would have been pretty great, in the 1990s. Today, it would be hard to take seriously, I think.  And I say this as someone who loves RIFTS.

It was called Thundarr the Barbarian.

Quote from: Tetsubo;988974It was called Thundarr the Barbarian.

I don't remember any Mecha in Thundarr.

Quote from: RPGPundit;989430I don't remember any Mecha in Thundarr.

They had a walking train engine, close enough.

Quote from: Tetsubo;989935They had a walking train engine, close enough.

It's not quite the same. There's nothing quite the same as RIFTS.