Re: Changing demographic?

From: keenuward@hotmail.com (Rob Alexander)

Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2002 11:10:40 +0000

madcentral@aol.com (MadCentral) wrote in message news:<20021112103748.22519.00000034@mb-cp.aol.com>...
> >> Are potential players driven off by rigid rules
> and coded orders? <<
>
> Some are, of course.  They tend to go and play games without rigid rules and
> coded orders.  Then you get the ones who have been driven away from the games
> without, and come looking for the games with, as it were.

My first point is that the really 'big' games (in terms of player
numbers) are now exclusively comp-mod, whereas at one time they were
hand-mod. I'm thinking of Beyond the Stellar Empire, Saturnalia and
Tribes of Crane, etc as opposed to DungeonWorld, SuperNova III etc.
Obviously this was before my time, but I've heard the opinion
expressed that these games made it easier to roleplay and attracted
many players who were quite roleplaying-oriented.

Today, the various versions of BSE are mostly comp-mod, and neither
ToC nor Saturnalia is 'big'. So most players in open-ended games are
playing comp-mods. Therefore I would advance the idea that many
players who favour roleplaying have left the hobby. Perhaps this is,
in part, because there are so many other ways to roleplay, and that
these players were only interested in PBM because of this.

On a related note, it seems that big hand-mods are no longer viable.
Were they ever so? I mean, wasn't Saturnalia run by students on
minimal pay? What about BSE, ToC etc, were their turn fees
astronomical?

rob

References

Changing demographic?
keenuward@hotmail.com (Rob Alexander)
Tue, 12 Nov 2002 13:56:52 +0000
Re: Changing demographic?
madcentral@aol.com (MadCentral)
Tue, 12 Nov 2002 15:37:48 +0000

Referenced By

Changing demographic?
keenuward@hotmail.com (Rob Alexander)
Tue, 12 Nov 2002 13:56:52 +0000
Re: Changing demographic?
madcentral@aol.com (MadCentral)
Tue, 12 Nov 2002 15:37:48 +0000