Decline Why were the 2000s so bad for table-top RPGs?

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I can only assume this chart was created as an example of why axis titles (except for the obvious, such as years) are necessary, as is a chart title if the content isn't obvious from the axis titles.

 

[Ash]

Also, assuming this chart is about video game quality, what in 2000 and 2001 were so good that the implied quality jumps up by like 30% over 1997-1999? Good years for sure, but not better than the late 90s. Furthermore 2002-2005 are also implied to be superior to all the 90s. Again some decent shit there, but not better than the late 90s. Chart creator and poster is a fag.

Anyway, the 2000s started off pretty good. There was some pretty bad decline for a lot of game genres, TV shows, movies, music etc but overall it wasn't all bad. By 2006 however, video games were at an all-time low, reality TV was really hitting its stride, social media was starting to get big, music was getting really degenerate and shit, and the number of movies I like can probably counted on one hand.

If the chart is focusing on RPGs only, no. The same applies. 2000-2001 had great shit absolutely, but 30% greater than late 90s? Get out of here.

 

[Hobknobling]

The graph shows the Dotcom bubble. From late 90's to the early 00's, the whole IT industry had dumb money flowing everywhere. It is not the only factor, but a really big one.

 

[Ash]

Thanks for posting, then waiting almost an entire day to tell us what the graph was even about lol.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

I'd go as far to say its corporate consolidation and money chasing that lead us to this point.
You also had the collapse of Arcades, PC Games not getting a whole lot of growth either.

The economics of the industry from the 90s proved it was unsustainable, that the market shares were slowly being eaten up by console and the emergence of mobile as a platform. The PC Markets biggest mistake was the wholesale adoption of console ports, by doing that it was a concession to that market meaning from now on Console would lead. Of course this was inevitable as during the early 90s PC was playing catchup and trying to copy the successes of platformers like Sonic and Mario, so it was inevitably going to lose because of that mentality. Porting doom was also a bad move since it was the biggest draw to PC that you could've asked for.

So really it was a lack of competition in platform and the overwhelming bombardment of home consoles, it killed the arcades first, it never managed to kill PC as a platform but it definitely stifled its growth from 2000-2010.
Once the major corporates had established themselves as effectively monopolies creativity in this industry collapsed. We're now in a race to the bottom as the platform owners try to kill each other which will only be bad for everyone.

Windows gaming was also a factor, Windows was the worst enemy you could've asked for in a platform because it meant that from now on most developers would be DirectX developers, it wasn't prevalent in the 90s because you'd usually see dual releases of games on Dos and Win9x. Definitely DirectX was a factor especially because it cemented Xbox as a development platform going forward. Not great when your platform owner effectively stabs you in the back for a bigger market.

Its shocking that now the PC market is so much bigger than before, I Think that's the only good thing happening now because it means Indies have a solid shot at being successful compared to 2 decades ago, problem is that most indies are producing shit metroidvanias and nothing else. The early eras were experimental which is why we remember them so fondly, everyone was trying different things... then Doom happened and then everyone chased after Doom, and then when they got bored doing that they chased after Halo and Gears of War.

Its easy to rose tint the 80s-90s era and ignore the fact that there were massive problems bubbling in that period which ultimately lead to where we are today. I lament the fact that people were too stupid and short term thinking to realize the mistakes they were making.

Tldr; Consoles along with Microsoft fucked us over which is why we're in this mess now. The marketshare stats don't lie.

 

[FritzedProcess]

That's all good and fine, but the topic was about a perceived lack of quality and creativity in pen and paper RPGs during the 2000s.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

That's all good and fine, but the topic was about a perceived lack of quality and creativity in pen and paper RPGs during the 2000s.

eh I'll talk about that too. There is some correlation with the games industry, FASA being acquired for example. Worst thing ever, Battletech, Shadowrun, Star Trek RPG and Crimson Skies all used to be a big deal and then suddenly gone because of a bunch of corporate wankery. Games Workshop turning into cancer over time as well. I mean same story, they see the dollar signs, they look to the mainstream, they try to pander to the mainstream and end up hurting their loyal base as a result. Same with Wizards of the Coast. They all seem to fall for it. DnD was peak when they all thought people that played it were a bunch of satanists because it was a niche and it understood its market well, so well that it commands that loyalty today despite all the bullshit WoC has done.

Steve Jackson Games seems to be the only one that I think managed to avoid the cancer of that, but then it can easily be argued that GURPS never really entered the mainstream the same way DnD and Games Workshop did.
That said certain bias, I will fanboy over GURPS constantly because it is such a fantastic way of building modular RPGs even if that complexity results in a lot of it playing essentially the same, but to me that's a good thing, because being able to go on wacky adventures in different settings all using the same systems is a better approach, it gives the GM/DM more to work with so there's more opportunities for creativity. Too much growth and expansion is companies undoing, SJG managed to still remain small but profitable the ambitions never got the better of it unlike the others in the industry.

I think Cyberpunk 2020 turned into a freaking joke over the years. Shame because its started off well, but got worse with each iteration, again because it was trying to appeal to mainstream and adopted the same Post-Cyberpunk gimmicks that turned William Gibson into a hack writer. Even though honestly it never caved to the "Culture war" crap until the deal with CDPR and then Cyberpunk Red happened.

My PnP Tabletop knowledge is limited, but I know enough about the successful parties to know that they're suffering from a similar cancer that the video games industry is also suffering from.

I don't know enough about Wargaming to comment there except Aces High was a cool one that I enjoyed but I'm a sucker for WW1. Crimson Skies scratches a similar itch.
OH and I LOVE Starfleet Command its a classic. But the video game was the reason I found out about it.

 

[bigtex]

I'd go as far to say its corporate consolidation and money chasing that lead us to this point.
You also had the collapse of Arcades, PC Games not getting a whole lot of growth either.

The economics of the industry from the 90s proved it was unsustainable, that the market shares were slowly being eaten up by console and the emergence of mobile as a platform. The PC Markets biggest mistake was the wholesale adoption of console ports, by doing that it was a concession to that market meaning from now on Console would lead. Of course this was inevitable as during the early 90s PC was playing catchup and trying to copy the successes of platformers like Sonic and Mario, so it was inevitably going to lose because of that mentality. Porting doom was also a bad move since it was the biggest draw to PC that you could've asked for.

So really it was a lack of competition in platform and the overwhelming bombardment of home consoles, it killed the arcades first, it never managed to kill PC as a platform but it definitely stifled its growth from 2000-2010.
Once the major corporates had established themselves as effectively monopolies creativity in this industry collapsed. We're now in a race to the bottom as the platform owners try to kill each other which will only be bad for everyone.

Windows gaming was also a factor, Windows was the worst enemy you could've asked for in a platform because it meant that from now on most developers would be DirectX developers, it wasn't prevalent in the 90s because you'd usually see dual releases of games on Dos and Win9x. Definitely DirectX was a factor especially because it cemented Xbox as a development platform going forward. Not great when your platform owner effectively stabs you in the back for a bigger market.

Its shocking that now the PC market is so much bigger than before, I Think that's the only good thing happening now because it means Indies have a solid shot at being successful compared to 2 decades ago, problem is that most indies are producing shit metroidvanias and nothing else. The early eras were experimental which is why we remember them so fondly, everyone was trying different things... then Doom happened and then everyone chased after Doom, and then when they got bored doing that they chased after Halo and Gears of War.

Its easy to rose tint the 80s-90s era and ignore the fact that there were massive problems bubbling in that period which ultimately lead to where we are today. I lament the fact that people were too stupid and short term thinking to realize the mistakes they were making.

Tldr; Consoles along with Microsoft fucked us over which is why we're in this mess now. The marketshare stats don't lie.

The other problem was PC's during the 80's and 90's were a lot more expensive compared to consoles. PC's also required literacy to operate compared to the mouth breather plug n play option which imho were geared more towards a younger crowd and kids. Consoles to this day really haven't gotten smarter either. What really pisses me off though is these console exclusives and how PC has been treated sub par. Exclusives if at all released or way later for the most part. The tide here does seem to be a turning a bit though recently.

All through the 90's we had awesome games CIV, QfG, XWING to name a few. Other great exclusives from the likes of MicroProse, SSI, SIERRA, Accolade, id, Origin the list goes on. Mid 90's SONY was pushing heavy into the market. The first playstation was a huge success and had a lot of these ports. Quickly it wasn't just about platformers/ jump and run anymore like with SNES, SEGA etc. Although SEGA did have some arcade ports exclusively, Altered BEAST FTW! There were also numerous issues regarding rights, IP and all these battles with vendors and publishers ongoing in the 90s. Nasty stuff which caused a lot to jump ship or die on the vine. Don't forget about SONY though, literal trash company that helped accelerate this mess.

To the arcades though, I have noticed a bit of it coming back. Generally now in those huge activity game centers mixed with go carts etc where you can load up a swipe card and drain your wallet quickly. However, the games aren't as good as they were. I about shit a brick when I saw Dragons Lair at one not so long ago though. Nothing will ever beat the 80's / early 90's arcades. The crowds, multiplayer, the battles such epicness. I feel blessed by the bitgod.

It's funny you call out the current Indies'. I still don't understand seeing all those new pixel games. Reading reviews on steam where they're all circle jerking themselves how it great it is with a $1k graphics card in their system. It's insane. Mobile games also accelerated the decline. Seriously this micro transaction disease ridden cesspool brought over all the worst aspects of gaming.

We really need to get some stunning exclusives on PC to run ahead again. I just don't see studios doing it, almost as if they're afraid to really to anything cool with depth. Plus I'm failing to see much creativity from many of the larger studios its all remake or copy paste some old idea. Modding and communities are what is keeping a lot of the PC games on life support. Look at BG3 for example imho it's a pig with lipstick, in reality it's just an OK game milking a title.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Oh I almost forgot the obligatory lets shit on VtM/White Wolf. Same with what I said about FASA and Cyberpunk as well. Saw dollar signs and jumped at the chance to turn their product into absolute shit.
They all fell for it because I'd argue that a lot of the original creators just got too old or bored and jumped ship leaving a fanbase sold off to the highest bidder, it always sucks when that happens, and PnP is so niche that you really have to respect your audience its harder to retain customers especially when starting out. And for that matter you still get the occasional PnP/TableTop/Minature scam on Kickstarter so its an industry that isn't immune to that either.

For that matter Gamesworkshop needs a good kick in the nads. The community could run rings around them and their bullshit, I hope 3D printing becomes cheaper and higher quality so that eventually people won't need to buy expensive minatures, they can just print their own and customize them like they would a video game.

 

[Silva]

Same reason it was shit for videogames: money. The hobby became driven primarily by profit, not artistic impulse. D20 was to tabletop what CoD was to videogames.

 

[Kev Inkline]

I don't see a problem here. You don't need a new edition of any TTRPG, there's no new hardware you can utilize to run a better campaign. Just play with the rules you used to play with back in the day. So what if the current versions suck? Use the old ones. Or develop homebrew rules, it's part of the fun.

If you can't, after having run/played a couple ready-made campaigns, write a campaign of your own, and still need someone to commercially supply you material, then it's over before it even begun.

t. a cp2020/RuneQuest/CoC player (with the same group since 1990)

 

[Silva]

Good luck finding communities for those, or anyone willing to play.

Don't know where do you live but I find people discussing and playing OSR & PbtA games everywhere, both physically (here in Brazil) and online. I would even say it's easier to find people to play those over old classics like Shadowrun, GURPS or Warhammer FRP nowadays.

 

[FritzedProcess]

Good luck finding communities for those, or anyone willing to play.

Don't know where do you live but I find people discussing and playing OSR & PbtA games everywhere, both physically (here in Brazil) and online. I would even say it's easier to find people to play those them some old classics like Shadowrun, GURPS or Warhammer FRP nowadays.

And he can always go to a heavy metal bar. Back in the day 70% of my drinking pals were into D&D. Goes well with Manowar.

 

[Silva]

I don't see a problem here. You don't need a new edition of any TTRPG, there's no new hardware you can utilize to run a better campaign. Just play with the rules you used to play with back in the day. So what if the current versions suck? Use the old ones. Or develop homebrew rules, it's part of the fun.

If you can't, after having run/played a couple ready-made campaigns, write a campaign of your own, and still need someone to commercially supply you material, then it's over before it even begun.

t. a cp2020/RuneQuest/CoC player (with the same group since 1990)

You have a point, but the OP is talking about artistic output.

Also: I posit very old RPGs's "technology" get old and hard to engage as much as old videogames. Rolemaster's rules are as clunky and taxing to use as Ultima 4's interface these days. Sure, vets who played the game back then won't see a problem out of familiarity, but try to sell it to newer gamers and see the results. There are exceptions of course, like OD&D which used good "technology" that continues accessible and playable until today, as it's modern "OSR" ressurgence shows.

 

[Kev Inkline]

RuleMaster was notoriously for its excessively meticulous rules already back then, though. Nothing gets outdated in Chaosium's 100%-dice approach or various dicepool mechanics, however.

 

[Silva]

Yeah, Runequest was sleek tech from the beginning.

How they managed to make the newest edition such a mess is beyond me.

 

[scytheavatar]

The reason why is very simple

This shit poisoned everyone and ruined all of gaming, both video and TT.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

At the beginning of the '00s the nerd subculture bacame mainstream, thanks also to the movies like LoTR.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

The ttrpg market started crunching in the 90s due to competition from video games. The publishers tried to stay relevant by reinventing their games to appeal to larger audiences than the grognards, but this didn't halt the decline because it didn't address the actual problem. No surprise that a number of publishers either got bought by video game companies or have gone to great lengths to make video game adaptations. Over in Europe, the ttrpg market outright collapsed and most publishers went out of business. Mainstays of the European ttrpg scene died overnight and the spaces were colonized by adaptations of USA ttrpgs.

The edition wars are just full of shit on all sides. The grognards are full of shit: there's absolutely nothing wrong with publishers trying to do something new and creative. The publishers are full of shit: insulting grognards for not trying the new thing is pointless stupid tribalism. I absolutely hate how ttrpgs have been steadily less creative over time and more concerned with catering to the nostalgia of a continually shrinking base of grognards. Every genre is dominated by one game with a highly idiosyncratic setting and fandom that shun you as a heretic if you don't adhere to the religion. I actually liked New World of Darkness, and other 2000s editions of some games, for what they tried to do (and they weren't all failures like the haters like to claim: nWoD was financially successful given the circumstances, as shown by all the books made for it). But if I ever voice that then I get attacked and dismissed as a grognard... by grognards. I fucking hate it. Why can't different campaign settings and fandoms coexist? This religious fanaticism is stupid and just destroys creativity. I've been pretty much driven out of ttrpg circles entirely because I hate that attitude.

It's no surprise that ttrpgs are a stagnant dying mess. They refuse to update themselves for the times because it pisses off grognards, when grognards aren't a stable loyal market to begin with. Whenever they do try to update themselves, they do a piss poor job that fails to attract new audiences and pisses off their existing audience of grognards. Every IP has an expiry date and most of these IPs have long since passed that point, so they only ever appeal to grognards anyway. You can't grow that.

Publishers and fandoms need to actually open themselves up to new things and being genuinely creative. This doesn't mean they have to wholesale dump what came before, either. But there's a happy medium that nobody is pursuing because they'd rather treat games as religions with sacred texts and canon. These are fucking games!

I would like to know more about the European games that died but you're utterly full of shit on the grognard hate and sound like a whiny bitch for it.

Grognards liked what they had and saw it watered down and altered. Then their communities got invaded by people who weren't like them and they were forced out of the spaces they created. Of course they're going to have animosity towards those people. I like what I like and if I don't like the NEW THING or even if I do like NEW THING, I still want OLD thing. It's like Resident evil 4, it's not that I dislike it as a game, it's that it stopped the tank control PS1 style REs from every existing again. The NEW THING, killed the OLD THING and I am still wanting more OLD THING.

The more I delve back into that era, the more I'm convinced that the roots of decline started with the release of Chrono Trigger and then Final Fantasy 7. To me these shifted RPGs into the console stream to a degree which dragged both RPGs and games in general down to shitsville over time.

Before those were released gameplay was far more of a core focus in all genres, but those two games pushed presentation so much to the forefront and gameplay so far to the back that it opened up the door for all the normie cunts who pollute the hobby today. And I love console gaming and console RPGs too. But my bag was stuff like Phantasy Star, stuff which clearly took pride in it's PC/Blobber roots. Stuff which still required the player to be more than a moron.

And then in the early 00's, emulation of dross like Chrono Trigger continued to pull all these Emo, future LGBT cuntfaces into the hobby and poison everything along the way.

Chrono trigger wasn't even a drop in the bucket. It's exactly like Earthbound where it all but failed and got legendary status through Youtube videos rather than people playing it as a kid. Final fantasy and JRPGs hit the mainstream with FF7 and it completely changed the game. Until that point Final fantasy the biggest JRPG of the era wasn't even considered worth localizing in many English countries. Even translated ones released in the US didn't get European releases. The genre "began" with FF7 in terms of mass appeal.

Which is why it also killed playing pretend Elf with your friends at the table. It hurt all sorts of fantasy and tabletop games because they no longer served the escapism purpose. I can load up an infinite jumper of JRPGs and have a similar adventure or RTS battle to simulate a tabletop experience reasonably close. It lacks the human element but I'm not driving 20 minutes to do it and I'm not paying 600 fucking goblins. Internet and video games changed the tabletop land scape in many many ways. It's why everything on the table is now super competitive and looked at through mathhammer rather than "dude, my goblins will FUCK YOU UP!"