Quote from: TristramEvans;513946The 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.

I do think that as a general rule girls have less interest in your typical goal-oriented D&D game and more interest in your character/plot-oriented Twilight game.

The problem is that the latter type of game doesn't actually exist. It needs to.

Quote from: noisms;514094I do think that as a general rule girls have less interest in your typical goal-oriented D&D game and more interest in your character/plot-oriented Twilight game.

The problem is that the latter type of game doesn't actually exist. It needs to.

Vampire, the Sparkling?

Quote from: noisms;514094I do think that as a general rule girls have less interest in your typical goal-oriented D&D game and more interest in your character/plot-oriented Twilight game.

The problem is that the latter type of game doesn't actually exist. It needs to.

What did you have in mind? I mean, sure there's no official Twilight RPG, but there's nothing preventing almost any RPG to be played this way; I've run many games where combat/quest plots take a back seat to character relationships, court intrigue, romance, village social politics, etc. There's games like Wuthering Heights, Witchgirl Adventures, Maid, etc that focus almost entirely on character interaction with minimalized or no combat or quests involved.

There's also millions of PBEM games that are pretty much all character-interaction driven. Most of these don't use a "rule system", and I'm not sure how one could go about even appealing to that market with a rules system, but it seems like there might be market potential there.

I don't think girls are ever going to be as big an audience for RPGs as adolescent guys, mainly because typically groups of girl friends very rarely engage in the same sort of social activities as guys, but a relationship-focused RPG marketed as a parlour game in the vein of Murder Mysteries might do okay.

OTOH, almost half of the roleplayers I know are girls, White Wolf brought in a ton of female fans in the late 90s, and I think "girl geeks" tend to be as up for the quest/combat games as their male counterparts.

Part of the problem may be that the social stigma for girl geeks is much higher than guys. Girls,are vicious, especially the adolescent packs, and many girls at that age are focused on trying to appeal to guys...meaning generally attractive, healthy guys as opposed to the stereotypical socially inept and hygiene-challenged role player.

I don't think there's really a need to specifically target girls, though. I've seen very few all-girl groups, most gaming groups I know are a mix.

I also am skeptical that it's really a product that brings in new role players so much as that most role players are introduced to the hobby by other role players. I don't think one could simply put out a product and tap into a huge new market. Role playing is a social activity, and to compare it to sports, I cannot imagine there's many people who started playing street hockey because they picked up a book with the official rules and went from there. I started role playing because in 3rd grade I made friends with a guy who role played, who was taught by his big sister. I've in turn introduced it to many friends from junior high on. I think maybe focusing on the social aspect of the hobby is the way to go, as this also is a big difference between the experience of playing a TTRPG vs a CRPG.

Quote from: TristramEvans;514126I think "girl geeks" tend to be as up for the quest/combat games as their male counterparts.

I agree, although I think they like to see other stuff going on too, at least 'bubbling under' - relationship themes, not necessarily romantic - could be revenge, hate, protection etc. I know my majority-female group feels different from my all-male group, even when they're doing similar stuff.

Quote from: TristramEvans;514126There's games like Wuthering Heights, Witchgirl Adventures, Maid, etc that focus almost entirely on character interaction with minimalized or no combat or quests involved.

Can you not see the problems inherent to this list.

As a matter of interest, Wildfire (linked in the OP) has just posted another news update: http://www.cthulhutech.com/2012/02/12/a-new-phase-for-wildfire/

Not much to add to the discussion here though.

Quote from: B.T.;514185Can you not see the problems inherent to this list.

Maid Specifically I don't care for mainly because of the subject matter, but no, I see no problem with the list. It was meant byw ay of example, rather than specifically "good games".

Quote from: Skywalker;514190As a matter of interest, Wildfire (linked in the OP) has just posted another news update: http://www.cthulhutech.com/2012/02/12/a-new-phase-for-wildfire/

Not much to add to the discussion here though.

So who's publishing the Void then? noone?

Maid is a fucking sin. But the odd thing is, I'd seen more men play it then women - and it does overlap with anime/manga subculture, which is girls mostly ('tleast here in Poland).

If you really want to grow RPGs you need to target them at the 6-10 age range.

If you can get RPG style games into games and toys played at that level then you might be able to beat the stigma of the geeky teenager and penetrate the mainstream 11-14 market and if you can penetrate that market then you might get into the 15+ market.

There is no doubt that fiction has done this. From Anne Rice's Vampires to Harry Potter the geek label for reading fantasy has largely been eroded. If you add the mainstream sucess the LotR movies had along with it subsequently being voted the best book of the 20th Century then we can pretty much say that amongst people that read books fantasy is pretty much accepted now.

The problem is that playing RPGs is still geeky and that is a huge barrier.

Making RPG products for younger kids might go some way to making games like that acceptable. Young kids by their very nature play RPGs because at their very core RPGs are just 'let's pretend' games with extra rules. So if you can get very simple board games out to that younger age range where you take on a character and try to solve a quest and as you do it you are encouraged to play the role and the results of the game are more open to interpretation and more about everyone having fun rather than anyone winning (a huge issue with current Charop Min/maxing focus by the way) then there might be a chance.....

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;514211So who's publishing the Void then? noone?

Wildfire are publishing The Void. Its noted as upcoming.

Another big reason, there are not enough games that get teenagers laid.  Vampire had that sheen back in the day, but nothing seems to have replaced it as far as I can tell.  

D&D kids could "grow out" of D&D to do the kinky with the leather wearing white whales back in the 90s!  The aughts had none of this, as for the aught ones?  Too soon to tell.

Quote from: Teazia;514376Another big reason, there are not enough games that get teenagers laid.  Vampire had that sheen back in the day, but nothing seems to have replaced it as far as I can tell.  

D&D kids could "grow out" of D&D to do the kinky with the leather wearing white whales back in the 90s!  

True, but icky.

Quote from: Teazia;514376Another big reason, there are not enough games that get teenagers laid.  Vampire had that sheen back in the day, but nothing seems to have replaced it as far as I can tell.  

D&D kids could "grow out" of D&D to do the kinky with the leather wearing white whales back in the 90s!  The aughts had none of this, as for the aught ones?  Too soon to tell.

Panty Explosion?

Quote from: TristramEvans;514126What did you have in mind? I mean, sure there's no official Twilight RPG, but there's nothing preventing almost any RPG to be played this way; I've run many games where combat/quest plots take a back seat to character relationships, court intrigue, romance, village social politics, etc. There's games like Wuthering Heights, Witchgirl Adventures, Maid, etc that focus almost entirely on character interaction with minimalized or no combat or quests involved.

Sure, but that sort of comes afterwards, doesn't it? I don't think many 10 year old girls would pick up, say, V:tM and think "I can do Twilight with this!" They need something more entry-level and specifically geared to appeal to 10 year old girls. I don't know what this is, because I'm not a 10 year old girl. But somebody must know. (Witchgirl Adventures seemed kind of lame to me, like something that a 10 year old girl's dad would make up, and Maid is hopelessly obscure.)

Sad as it may seem to say it, but I do think that a license like Twilight or Harry Potter could really work wonders; and without such a thing, it's difficult to think of something that would have the reach to make it something that 10 year old girls would even know about.

QuoteOTOH, almost half of the roleplayers I know are girls, White Wolf brought in a ton of female fans in the late 90s, and I think "girl geeks" tend to be as up for the quest/combat games as their male counterparts.

I think that might be a biased sample. But anyway, in my experience even "girl geeks" tend to prefer (to me, mind-numbingly face-chewoffingly dull) character-based games over questing ones.