Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;513861Therefore I say that the same strategy that the UFC used to rock its way to glory (and profitability, and acceptance) is what should be used to rebuild TRPGs as a category: focus on young men, starting a few years younger than the UFC's acquisition category (because you don't have the same PPV-centric delivery model), and work across class and race lines.  

Targetting working class Latinos might have worked for UFC, but I'm not sure that's a brilliant model for TTRPGs.  In fact IME you get a*lot* more interest in TTRPGs from north-east-Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) females than you get from black and non-white-hispanic males.  But the core demographic is still white male teenagers of somewhat* above average intelligence (but not necessarily high wealth/social status), you target them both because they're easy to catch and because they'll grow up to be adults with more money to spend.  

*IME RPGs have been really pushing the limits here though in recent years. The games have become much too complex for would-be players of average intelligence, at least here in the UK where our 'education' system doesn't really teach literacy or numeracy. Maybe there's an assumption that all the nerdy white boys of mediocre intelligence and education are permanently lost to computer games, I don't think that's true. What I do see is players really struggling with the complexity of 3e and 4e D&D.

I've seen bookshops sell rpg's - mainly D&D, some wfrp3e, even 40k rpg stuff. These are bigger publishers so they are probably seen more favourably by store buyers. But even then the stock is haphazard: vaguely stored in some twilight zone venn diagram created by the collision of fantasy/sf/computing/graphic novels. They will have entirely random stuff: Winds of Magic (but no core set) for wfrp3e next to one D&D book next to a gears of war art book... It's all lacklustre, random and hopeless. The store buyers don't know their job so it's not really fair to blame the industry, but even then a lot fo games published by publishers far too small compared to who shops normally deal with are going to get ignored.

That's an excellent point: the quantity of books in a game's line and their often opaque titles don't ease the complexity for store orders. What is a regional or store manager to bother with when the company doesn't clarify at a glance what's the core books? Boxed starter sets really are a key tool here.

Wfrp3e sat in the sf/fantasy section for £80 for months. Whether it eventually sold I don't know. I must assume so. They never reduced it in price, but they are a chain and head office wouldn't let them anyway. Some boxes may be too big.
Without someone that knows what they are selling these games will always end up relegated to the section where video game guides meet graphic novels. No explicit labelling or dedicated shelf space (so they thus don't really fit in).
All very random. Even my FLGS has similar problems: he has warmachine books on his self, but sells no minis. Supplements without core books that aren't ever going to sell and a wholly random approach to most things not new releases. Not a bad shop at all, but disorganised.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;513861Gaming is a Young Guy's Thing.  That's the demographic to pursue.  Everyone else is gravy, and not worth the effort to actively pursue.  ... women aren't into what the TRPG category offers, as a rule, so stop chasing an audience that ain't going to buy into it.

As our manager used to say when I worked for GW, "Charlie don't surf, and girls don't play Warhammer".

They've closed down the shop near me, of course.  Hmm.

The 'new' demographic that 'saves the industry' is of course a questing-beast, and it would be folly to spend overmuch (or at all) on courting it.  But then again, pursuing marketing with an eye toward new opportunities certainly doesn't sound bad.  What does that one guy on Shark Tank always say?  "If it isn't a product that everyone will want to buy, then I don't want to invest in it" or some such.  There's a bit of wisdom there, perhaps.

Quote from: VectorSigma;513889As our manager used to say when I worked for GW, "Charlie don't surf, and girls don't play Warhammer".

Mind you, my 4e Forgotten Realms campaign is now at 3/5 female players. :cool: I have another more 'macho' 4e swords & sorcery Wilderlands campaign that is 5/5 male though. And of course my Dragonsfoot grognardy 1e game is all male, I'm not sure what I'd do if a girl wanted to play!

Quote from: VectorSigma;513889The 'new' demographic that 'saves the industry' is of course a questing-beast,

Which, so far as I was aware, wasn't the subject under discussion. In fact, it was quite the opposite:

"Hey, industry asshat, instead of whining about how people don't read no more, how about making a great introductory game for those many adolescents who do read genre books? You know, the people who used to be your bread-and-butter, before you over-priced and over-designed your games and drove them away?"

It's not a "new demographic" who shall descendeth from on high and bringeth salvation for the industry. (Amen, Amen.)

It's how the industry used to work, but hasn't for (according to some) 20+ years.

It's an opportunity for people to work their asses off, gaining new fans. People are there. People who could love RPG's, if given the chance.

Back to basics. Recruit new players. Find an audience.

That may not "save the industry", but it seems to be an overlooked opportunity that could reinvigorate it. IMNSHO.

Wasn't disagreeing with ya, DW.

The target demographic for RPGs isn't any race, gender, nor even age group. It's geeks, plain and simple. Tabletops will never appeal to anyone else. It's never going to be a mainstream hobby, but there are LOTs of geeks in the world today and right now "geek chiq" is hip.

Trying to aim a game at any demographic, new or otherwise, is pointless. Just make the game awesome.

If it's awesome, the geeks will come.

Quote from: TristramEvans;513946The target demographic for RPGs isn't any race, gender, nor even age group. It's geeks, plain and simple.

I sort of agree, with the proviso that it's possible to do stupid things that reduce the game's attraction to 12 year old white male geeks, and that is a very stupid thing to do.

I'm thinking in particular of the 3e D&D iconics.  The artists fought tooth & nail against the WoTC Suits' very reasonable instruction that one of the iconics be a white male human warrior, that being the character that white male human 12 year old geeks* would most readily identify with.  So, Regdar.  They made him Hispanic, not a problem, the geeks may be white but they don't care that Regdar's slightly swarthy.  

*Actually it's the character my 4 year old son and my 30-something brother in law both identify with and want to play.

Then they made Regdar a loser.  Big problem. Depicting the 3e Fighter as dead, dying, petrified, etc may have been a passive-aggressive way for the artists to work out their frustration with being told what to do by non-artists.  They don't seem to have thought, or cared, that I have to conceal Regdar's loser-iness from my poor innocent son who still thinks he's cool! :rolleyes:

Edit: I once made this point on rpgnet. You can imagine the reaction.  I might as well have gone in there singing the Horst Wessel and advocating that bi-curious transgendered lesbians be sent to the gas chambers.

Quote from: VectorSigma;513945Wasn't disagreeing with ya, DW.

Then that was my mistake. I apologize for that.

Quote from: S'mon;513871Targetting working class Latinos might have worked for UFC, but I'm not sure that's a brilliant model for TTRPGs.  In fact IME you get a*lot* more interest in TTRPGs from north-east-Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) females than you get from black and non-white-hispanic males.  But the core demographic is still white male teenagers of somewhat* above average intelligence (but not necessarily high wealth/social status), you target them both because they're easy to catch and because they'll grow up to be adults with more money to spend.

"When you play D&D, you play a guy that goes out there, finds loot and weapons, takes it from your rivals and uses it to make himself and his crew bigger and badder than anyone else."

Yeah, that doesn't have massive cross-cultural and cross-class appeal.  No, really. (/sarcasm)

Stick to the most fundamental gameplay paradigm in TRPGs, and you won't have a problem selling them to anyone.

Quote*IME RPGs have been really pushing the limits here though in recent years. The games have become much too complex for would-be players of average intelligence, at least here in the UK where our 'education' system doesn't really teach literacy or numeracy. Maybe there's an assumption that all the nerdy white boys of mediocre intelligence and education are permanently lost to computer games, I don't think that's true. What I do see is players really struggling with the complexity of 3e and 4e D&D.

Time for we old-timers to step up, play the Mentor, and do for them what their parents ought to be doing- but for reasons fair and foul alike, aren't.  That this will also have the results of keeping them out of legal trouble, out of social trouble and improving their school performance (and thus future prospects) is an easily-sold bonus to the target audience's elders.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;514054"When you play D&D, you play a guy that goes out there, finds loot and weapons, takes it from your rivals and uses it to make himself and his crew bigger and badder than anyone else."

Yeah, that doesn't have massive cross-cultural and cross-class appeal.  No, really. (/sarcasm)

Stick to the most fundamental gameplay paradigm in TRPGs, and you won't have a problem selling them to anyone.

Yeah, but - you can do that in WOW, and most viscerally in FPS computer games.  First Person Shooters are far easier to sell to a broad* young-male demographic than are TTRPGs.

*I've seen suggestions that the popularity of these games and Grand Theft Auto type stuff may be a cause of the continuing fall in street crime!

It's the fear of tanks appearing to chase you after you rank up too many stars.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;514054Time for we old-timers to step up, play the Mentor, and do for them what their parents ought to be doing- but for reasons fair and foul alike, aren't.  That this will also have the results of keeping them out of legal trouble, out of social trouble and improving their school performance (and thus future prospects) is an easily-sold bonus to the target audience's elders.

Yeah, I guess if I were a better man I'd be running 1e AD&D for teens at my local youth clubs, rather than 4e D&D for 20-30-somethings at swanky central London pubs.