Role Playing Around The World

[Supplement Four]

Roleplaying seems to be extremely popular in the UK. I know that the hobby is not near as strong as it used to be in the 70's & 80's here in the US.

Has role playing died so much in the US that UK is now the center of the role playing world?

Or, does the market in the US still lead sales?

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

I used to live in Germany and the UK in the 80s and 90s. I'm pretty sure that a) RPGs in the US have always been selling more than in the rest of the world combined; b) the RPG downward spiral has been international.

(With one proviso: Since the hobby has always been (even) more marginal outside the US than within, the contraction may have been somewhat less dramatic abroad. Simply because it's always been a fairly small scene that never even got close to the threshold of the mainstream, as D&D did in the US in the early 80s.)

Re. the UK scene: Is it really that vibrant? Mongoose is essentially and strategically catering to the US market. They just happen to be located in England. Who in the UK would be willing to purchase Lejendary Adventures, their latest license acquisition? Meanwhile, GW dumped the Warhammer RPG.

There is no mid-sized (Mongoose-sized) company in the UK that's producing, or has produced, a consistent and consistently successful output of original (not licensed) RPGs. Whereas in the US there are, or were, half a dozen of those.

 

[aramis]

Roleplaying is more popular in the Achorage High Schools than it was in the 1980's. There are more groups playing at lunch, and they are playing in more visible areas with less stigma.

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

I don't hesitate to ascribe that to your baneful influence on the hapless children.

Seriously though, to trod out Ken Hite's observation once again:

In the twenty-first century there has only been one majorly successful* RPG that wasn't either a license or an edition: Exalted.

It used not to be that way in the 80s and 90s.

*where "successful" = sold 10,000+ copies.

 

[Hemdian]

I remember at Gencon UK a number of years ago when it was run by Peter Atkinson, someone asked him a similar question. From his observations the UK scene was smaller but we played harder and longer. He thought we were all a little crazy.

And look at BITS. Most people outside of the UK only know of its publishing activities, but they are secondary to organising games at conventions. Is there a comparable Traveller organisation elsewhere? Perhaps a NATS or CaTS or something?

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

No offense to the British, btw. The wargamers in particular (I mean the historical minis guys) are marvelously nuts, I mean dedicated to their perfectly reasonable hobby.

I think what works in favor of the British scene is the much smaller size of the country. Even if a game is as marginal as Traveller, you're still within driving distance of a Con. Here in the US it feels like plowing the Great Rift in a Beowulf. My home city doesn't even have a gas giant/store.

 

[aramis]

For me to go to a major con means either double digit hours on planes, or several days driving through another country...

 

[far-trader]

For me to go to a major con means either double digit hours on planes, or several days driving through another country...

But it's a friendly country with lots of scenery and nice folk I'd put you up for the night if I could hitch the rest of the way to a con with you I'd even split gas and lodging there. Well, if you catch me on a good week

 

[sandmanninja]

And they got them round sausages there, too...

 

[fridge]

Well a friend of mine went to the city's one game store (owned by the wholesaler for the whole country) to buy Spinward Marches and Merc for MGT to be told by the store manager that only 2 copies of each had been ordered for the whole country and that SM happened to be in that store, but he was too late for Merc and they were not getting any more in. Of course the price was about double that of Amazon, where I got mine. Roleplaying is dying in Oz, very few youngsters are taking it up.

 

[Gruffty]

But it's a friendly country with lots of scenery and nice folk

..and Mooses.

Don't forget the Mooses.

 

[deniable]

Well a friend of mine went to the city's one game store (owned by the wholesaler for the whole country) to buy Spinward Marches and Merc for MGT to be told by the store manager that only 2 copies of each had been ordered for the whole country and that SM happened to be in that store, but he was too late for Merc and they were not getting any more in. Of course the price was about double that of Amazon, where I got mine. Roleplaying is dying in Oz, very few youngsters are taking it up.

Thanks, that explains a lot. In Perth, we had the main book and they've still got copies. The extra thin Book 0 showed up recently and that's it. If I was more motivated about MGT I'd mail order from OS.

 

[aramis]

..and Mooses.

Don't forget the Mooses.

Plenty of them damned unseelie elk in my home town.... one damned near killd my dad in 87, another tried to rape a friend's car while she was driving to seward, seriously injuring 4, and altering my then-GF's personality drastically.

Bull moose in rut will try to charge and/or mount vehicles. Even ones doing 65mph... otnay ootay ightbray.

 

[Darkhstarr]

My friend Debbie when she was in high school in Minneapolis had a moose leap off an overpass onto her car. Fortunately she breaked in time & the moose pancaked on the highway. Had to CB her game warden friend who wasted time telling her it was just a big deer. First thing the warden said getting out the car was 'It's a f---ing moose." Deb's response was: 'No Jeff, it's a big deer-move it!' Made her even more over curfew then she was. She was grounded until the next morning when her dad found the moose's legs tied to Deb's car.

 

[Rhialto the Marvelous]

Well, New Haven has this going for it, that it doesn't have any mooses (meese?).

Mind you, we do have squirrels. But it's the cars that tend to charge them rather than the other way around, even when in rut.

 

[far-trader]

Well, New Haven has this going for it, that it doesn't have any mooses (meese?).

Mind you, we do have squirrels. But it's the cars that tend to charge them rather than the other way around, even when in rut.

I vas vanderink how long it would take to segway zee converzation from Moose to Squirrel :smirk:

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

My friend Debbie when she was in high school in Minneapolis had a moose leap off an overpass onto her car. Fortunately she breaked in time & the moose pancaked on the highway. Had to CB her game warden friend who wasted time telling her it was just a big deer. First thing the warden said getting out the car was 'It's a f---ing moose." Deb's response was: 'No Jeff, it's a big deer-move it!' Made her even more over curfew then she was. She was grounded until the next morning when her dad found the moose's legs tied to Deb's car.

Yep. They wander into town from time to time. Moose are normally smart enough to know the difference between a forest and a busy intersection; but occasionally one of them will succumb to a wasting disease or brain worm and get too confused to realize where they're going. Then it's either wait for them to jump off an overpass, crash through a mall window, stumble around in circles through a school playground ... or just have the cops/DNR guys shoot 'em before they do.

But deer are waaaay more likely to be encountered. They are legion around here -- bark-stripping rats of the forest. One of 'em totaled my dad's care once, and I "tapped" a small doe myself when she jumped out of a peat bog at me back when I was in high school. Over one in twenty car crashes in Minnesota are caused by deer, so I can see why the DNR guy was so insistent that it was just a big ol' buck until he could see otherwise for himself.

 

[far-trader]

No moose here (amend that, I've not seen one, but might recall hearing about some). Lots of deer and fowl (big lake, lots of crops, major flyway - for the birds that is the deer only fly when they jump in front of cars), the odd bear and cougar but they mostly go unseen.

 

[Icosahedron]

Well, New Haven has this going for it, that it doesn't have any mooses (meese?).

Mind you, we do have squirrels. But it's the cars that tend to charge them rather than the other way around, even when in rut.

Here in the UK, your grey squirrels have all but killed off our native reds.

Unfortunately, cars in ruts can't hit 'em very easily.

<--- That's the one on the Acid tab.

 

[kafka47]

Toronto is a real mixed bag. We have a meetup group of 215 members...most of them do play RPGs...albeit D&D. For a city our size, I would say that is on the small side but the local Cons bear witness to a steady decline. However, once you leave Toronto for the suburbs - the 905 or GTA...then the numbers rise dramatically. I was once told that a person taking the intercity train, if they crack open a RPG book immediately you strike up a conversation with 5-6 strangers almost on a daily basis.

So, I would say, my part of Canada is not unfriendly to RPGs but certainly things have declined since I started gaming in the mid 1980s when you could routinely fill halls of 200-400 gamers on a weekly basis.

My most interesting experience was to visit a gaming shop in Helsinki which had absolutely everything a gamer could hope for. I then took material to the gaming wilderness of Russia but was unsuccessful in planting the gaming seed there unlike the Czech Republic which was much more receptive. However, now, I would probably conclude it is in reverse for some of the most active gaming communities that I know are in Russia.