The View From Here: 3 Years Hence

[Jonathan Walton]

Time to wish and prophesai :)

1. Where do you see low-tech* roleplaying in 3 years?
2. Where do you see indie roleplaying in 3 years?

*[I know that technological developments are a big deal whenever you dream of the future, but just ignore that and focus on the human and creative elements, please.  Tech-speculation is, more often than not, way off.]

Here I go:

1. I see the diversity of the indie revolution infecting the mainstream.  I see more games for non-traditional audiences and based on non-traditional genres (not fantasy, scifi, horror).  I also see unimaginable genre-crossing combinations, settings that would be impossible or overly time-consuming to produce in an electronic environment, since those will remain the sole property of pen-and-paper, at least for a while.  I see many more older roleplaying settings/systems being licensed for computer and video games.  I see mainstream games of the one-shot or limited series variety, more like Mountain Witch or PTA, less open-ended, endless campaigns.  Additionally, I see games becoming more focused on doing a few things really well, instead of trying to do everything at once.  In the wider market, I see reactions against the dualism of giant expensive tomes and tiny, disposable humor games (the current situation), leading to short, beautiful, mid-range games.  I see a shift away from the endless supplements.  I see more non-SWMG (straight white male geek) players and designers, and market/marketing shifts to reflect this change.  I see Vertigo-style imprints for indie-style kick-ass (and possibly creator-owned) work within the bureaucracy of the bigger companies.  I see the slow death of the power of the "d20" label and its increasing irrelevance in the face of the OGL and totally independent systems.

2. I see the indie community remaining, thanks mostly to the internet.  When any person with a dream can, with a moderate effort, put together a nice-looking PDF of quality material and offer it online or through POD, there's no reason for us to go anywhere.  I do see indie creators beginning to come together and realize the benefits of working collectively: in marketing, production, sharing print costs, the benefits of collaborating.  I see indie roleplaying remaining the cutting edge, pushing the bigger companies and the hobby as a whole by attacting non-traditional roleplayers to the community, opening up new markets and dropping bombs of brilliant gaming techniques and ways of doing business.  I see more proven "mainstream" creators doing their own indie "side projects," while getting most of their income from freelancing for the Big Guys.  And, once they get established income from the indie life (ala Phil Reed), making a break for it, either on their own or in an Image Comics-style collective of successful, known names.

[Andy Kitkowski]

The only thing that I can say for certain, based upon current trends:

In three years' time, I won't give a rat's ass about mainstream games. Unless they are truly unique, I'll probably end up not even caring enough to waste 5 seconds thinking about them.  I'll probably stick with small-press stuff.

[Eero Tuovinen]

1. Where do you see low-tech* roleplaying in 3 years?

I see a slow stagnation period (which started already at the end of the nineties) lasting till 2007 or 2010, at which point one of the currently big mainstream companies collapses or fades away due to extreme disconnection with reality. At the same time a great hit game is born from humble heritage, presenting gamers with easy to play, simple, bounded and modular design coupled with expert marketing and a lucky ride on the latest youth culture fad. That game will define the next ten to fifteen years of mainstream roleplaying when it's redone to countless settings.

As for actual gaming, as opposed to the industry, I see nothing changing. Three years from now D&D will still rule three fourths of the scene, while the rest go to various GM-controlled heavy-setting "storytelling" games. Roleplaying will remain marginal, while computer gaming becomes extreme mainstream, with home mothers doing it. On the other hand, roleplaying won't lose a significant amount of hobbyists; the current gamers have come to the hobby through natural gravitation, and that will continue to happen.

However, already in three years we can see the signs of dynamic redefinition: there will be family rpgs (identified as "games of storytelling", not as rpgs) comparable to Monopoly in Finland sold in local supermarkets, as well as regular larping communities supported by the state, township and church. In 2015 we get our first larping Academician of Arts, though he won't gain the honorific solely from rpg arts.

2. Where do you see indie roleplaying in 3 years?

Above the mainstream outlined up there will develop a strongly distinctive and elitist sphere of gamers doing it for the art. This will happen despite half-hearted (me, Jonathan, Chris Lehrich) and frenzied (pretty much the rest) attempts to resist the progression by virtually all members of such movement. The size of this movement remains to be seen, but ultimately it will align itself with high arts, gaining in media credentials and pure talent what it loses in mass appeal. The eventual mainstream game development will come from this high arts elite, while the rpg "mainstream" will continue to align with genre literature and geek culture, thus sidelining itself as far as real mainstream appeal is concerned.

The indie scene will be largely defined by this move towards elitism and stratification. Three years from now the development will be just starting, but the signs will already be clear. The web culture will prepace the development, when communication between the cultural levels lessens (high art deems low simply uninteresting and worthless, while low won't understand the high). RPGnet will ultimately become actively hostile on core-user level towards rpg theory, while the best and the brightest gravitate towards the post-Forge environment and away from the world of D&D/Whitewolf.

The end result will be the eventual disappearance of indie as indie, when the egoistic strength of the authors develops and the indie-industry reorients towards the author as the center of activity. Thus indie-rpg development will essentially mirror mainstream literature scene. It will be infinitely more important to write good games than to necessarily publish them yourself. The small-press contracts will anyway start to favour authors, who keep all rights to their work. Thus "small-press" and "indie" will become one. The limits between rpg designing and other game design (board and computer) will erode, by the by. Designers will start moving between the forms, especially in the small-press market.

Where do you buy your chrystal balls, Jonathan? Garage sales?

[Ben Lehman]

The corporate RPG interests will remain in the process of slowly destroying themselves, fighting for deck chairs on the titanic.  This will continue until there is only D&D left, which will then be dropped from Hasbro's production lines as a big money-sink.  (Either that or they will develop D&D 5 as a constant production game with no add ons like Monopoly or Chess.)

Centered around Forge 2.0, with wings in a thousand blogs, there will be a massive group of "indie-style" small-press productions.  The prog scene will have expanded ten-fold, but in number of games produced, not in per-game sales.  We will continue to sell at a slightly profitable, self-sufficient level.  It will be impossible to play every well-designed RPG.  There will simply be too many of them.  Many people will still be messianically hoping for the breakthrough, breakout game that will bring others into RPG play as a hobby, but it will not have come yet, if it will ever come at all.

yrs--
--Ben

[Doug Ruff]

Great thread Jonathan.

[Nostradamus]

1. The main industry split will be by book length and price rather than campaign length.

There will still be a 'mainstream' industry churning out $40 - $50 chunky books with follow-up 'splats' but there will be increasing competition from streamlined indie products with shorter, more elegant systems - small softback books in the $15 - $20 range (current examples include Dogs, Capes, Uni). And these will be rubbing shoulders against free (or nearly-free) PDF titles.

'Pick up and play' will be a major selling point.

There will be at least one major published attempt (almost certainly indie-led) to crack the CCG market with a functional CCG/RPG hybrid. This time it will work - but it won't make nearly as much money as a big CCG. It will get a lot of play at conventions.

If there is a major push into mainstram markets, it will come from games which 'spin-off' from popular network TV series. These will be mainly mainstream due to the cost of licensing rights. At last one of these games will be inspired more by PTA than by d20, and it will be good.

2. Indie is definitely here to stay. More and more indie games will be produced. There will be an 'open source' gaming movement devoted to making sure no-one has to pay any more than they need or want to for their gaming fix (that's true now, but we'll be more consicous about it.)

[technology]some of these open-source projects will be based upon online play (somewhere between IRC and MMORPG)[/technology] This will make Vaxalon very happy. (This is possible with existing tech, so I'm including it, dammit!)

This will lead to friction with some mainstream publishers, and a few arguments about copyrighted material.

There will be at least one long-term 'umbrella' indie label set up under which several designers will publish material.

Most of us will still need to keep our day jobs. (Sorry.)

Someone will try to rebuild the Forge after it closes down. A lot of other people will set up their own focal sites (yes, I know this is happening already!) and many of these sites will have a much more narrow focus on specific Creative Agendas. At least one group will start their own 'new wave' and visibly distance themselves from other styles of gaming (the new name will probably involve the word 'storytelling' somewhere prominent.)

[/Nostradamus]

I'm not expecting anyone to take any of this seriously, by the way.

[Scripty]

1. Where do you see low-tech* roleplaying in 3 years?

I see most of the "big-league" RPG games moving over to MMORPG formats online, much like City of Heroes or World of Warcraft are now. "Low-tech" roleplaying will be a smaller community and an older community. That said, I see "low-tech" roleplaying crossing into the internet divide.

As chat, voice-to-text and webconferencing technologies improve, I believe online play will become more viable. One of the biggest difficulties with online play is the length of time it takes as compared to table-top. I don't see that being an issue in the future. In the future I think gamers will trade their tabletops for their desktops.

The end result of this, I think, will be to facilitate play in the games in which we want to play, rather than just whatever anyone happens to be running or whatever local groups we can find. Rather than signing up for an Eberron game that the store-owner says "doesn't suck" we will instead be intoxicated by a wide choice of online rpging. I will be able to play in a Sorcerer game on Thursday. Marvel Classic Superheroes on Monday. I may run my HeroQuest game on Wednesday. All done in a speed comparable to real-time tabletop play.

The total number of gamers will be smaller, I think, but the connections between them will be broader. In a sense, I perceive the gaming community as a whole will take on many of the same dynamics as we find here on the Forge.

That said, I think what we will be playing will be governed by nostalgia and niche. I see us as a group being older and smaller, having lost a number of members to MMORPGs and life in general. From that, I see nostalgic games like AD&D2e and newer games that draw on roleplaying's past, like Castles & Crusades, forming a significant portion of what is played at the table.

I also see niche playing a big part, especially in online play. This bodes well, IMO, for indie publishers. Because it will be easier and more sensible to find groups online, more people will be playing games like Sorcerer, Dogs in the Vineyard and My Life With Master, while the number of gamers playing D&D and other more popular games will stagnate or decline. D&D's own MMORPG will assist in that trend.

I too think the games we play will be shorter and more focused. There will be defined beginnings and endings. We'll see less of the never-ending campaign with that model perhaps being replaced by the episodic campaign. I think this will be due to life factors demanding more of our time on the whole and also to MMORPGs, which will fill the need for an endless world of exploration.

Looking farther into the future, maybe 10 or 15 years, I see a resurgence in the playing of RPGs at the table. Again, the audience will be smaller than it is today. But I expect, as gamers age, many of those who used to play will return and play again with those of their age who recall the experience of their youth.

I'm unsure as to how this will affect indie-rpgs. My guess would be that we would see a resurgence of D&D, RIFTs, ShadowRun or other games from the "Golden Age" of RPGs. I suspect gaming groups at this point will be more social, less political, and more enjoyable regardless of the system being used. Play will be for nostalgia, comradery and for the sheer joy of playing. System Matters, but for these groups I envision it will matter less and less.

2. Where do you see indie roleplaying in 3 years?

I think indie-rpgs will become the model for rpg publishing within the next three years. I suspect many rpg companies will fold up their tents as the US dollar continues its decline and shipping/transportation costs become more prohibitive. In the next 10 years or so, I suspect the FLGS will become a distant memory. Most all RPGs will be bought online and a greater proportion in PDF or some other electronic format.

The mid-sized gaming companies will be hit pretty hard. The small, indie companies will hardly be affected at all. The big two (WotC and WW) will be hit but I doubt they will falter. D&D will likely see its fourth edition, melding itself even further with its line of collectible miniatures. In 10 years, I think D&D will have more in common with HeroClix than AD&D, assuming it's not completely absorbed into an MMORPG.

Dead-tree editions will become more expensive. Within three years, I expect RPG corebooks to cost between $60 and $80 and we'll have less to choose from. Many of the games emerging now from mid-sized publishers will become hard-to-find and out-of-print, much like Castle Falkenstein or Delta Green are now.

Indie publishers will continue in much the same vein as today, with a slightly higher profit margin. Indie RPG publishing will become the boiling cauldron of creativity for the industry, even moreso than it is now. A game like Midnight, Mutants & Masterminds or Nobilis won't see a large dead-tree printing five years from now. It would either be published online in electronic format or ordered direct from the publisher who uses  smaller (but more expensive) print-runs.

In my view, there will be the big companies (WotC, WW, SJGames, maybe Palladium and a few others) and then there will be the indie publishers. The survival of mid-sized companies is questionable over the next few years. My copies of Nobilis and Freedom City may be worth $1 a page.

In essence, Ron's model of RPG publishing will become the industry prescription for all except the most successful publishers. I think the indie-press model is more manageable, more adaptable and more resilient than the vanilla RPG company model. The next three years, I think will show that to be true.

Ironically, Ron may not be remembered best by RPGers for his innovations in game design but by his retooling of the RPG publishing model.

Also, as indie-publishers get older, move to greener pastures or (Hastur forbid) pass on, it will become harder to access their works. Some games will be forgotten. Some games won't. It's hard to say which ones will be around in 10 or 15 years.

I think within three years we'll continue to see these effects on the independent publications. Pantheon, De Profundis, Puppetland... I think a lot of indie-publications will fall down the memory hole with these really, really cool games. At the worst, we can say they never got a fair chance. At the best, we can say they'll be in good company.

---

In summary, I think the RPG community ages. I don't think we can count on a massive influx of youngsters to fill out our ranks. I don't see it happening. Technology is our best hope (webconferencing) and our worst enemy (MMORPGs). Economic stressors (oil and the US dollar's decline) will result in a culling of RPG publishers but will leave the indies and the biggest publishers unaffected. Books prices will slide upward slowly for the rest of 2005 and then spike probably in the middle of next year, remaining high. This will make MMORPGs even more attractive as dead-tree RPGs begin to compete in price. In the end, we'll lose a few, a few will come back, but there won't seem to be as many then as there are now and not near as many as there were yesterday.

But, then again, I've never been known for my sunny disposition...

Scott

P.S. Please take the above with a grain of salt. No harm, insult or impure thoughts are intended. Thanks.

Edit: Grammar and added on to the Postscript.

[Jonathan Walton]

Where do you buy your crystal balls, Jonathan? Garage sales?

Us Waltons all shop at Wal-Mart. Ba-dum-bum ching!

I forgot to mention that I'm* going to personally write the Great American Roleplaying Game, become the Neil Gaiman/Scott McCloud of roleplaying, saving roleplaying from lapsing into nothingness and changing the way the medium is viewed forever.

* Feel free to replace "I'm" with "[your name] is" for improved reading pleasure.

[Eero Tuovinen]

I forgot to mention that I'm* going to personally write the Great American Roleplaying Game, become the Neil Gaiman/Scott McCloud of roleplaying, saving roleplaying from lapsing into nothingness and changing the way the medium is viewed forever.

Man. Need a rival? I'm willing.

Except that my Game will finally wrest the rpg form from the hands of the Americans for all time, crafting of it a part of European Culture as we'll come to view it during this century. While the American geek gaming scene will disappear as per Scott's prediction, the next intellectual ladder will fold Art and communication together, wherein roleplaying will shatter forevermore the boundaries between the Artist and the Audience, leaving only pure, postmodern communication through the metaphor known as art.

For better measure, I will also name myself Magus and start an initiatory religion based on meditating over the Monster Manual, one page at a time. The numina of the monsters will illuminate the adepts with D&D 5ed, which we'll sell to less developed minds.

It seems that multiple futures are converging here. Perhaps we'll just have to wait and see whether
- rpg mainstream will live or metamorphose
- common man ever catches a rpg fever
Everyone seems to agree on the indie scene being here to stay, though, so that seems a pretty safe bet. Therefore I at least am off to the races!

[timfire]

Like others have said, I think the LGS is fading away as more and more companies switch to direct sales and online distribution centers (led by IPR ;-) ).  They'll never completely disappear, but their focus will likely shift, maybe to a comics books-game hybrid, or something like that. I doubt they'll be completely gone in three years, but they'll definitely be heading out the door.

I think we'll see more and more self-terminating games (end-games ala tMW or MLwM).

[edit] Oh, and I think that the already established authors - Ron, Vincent, Ralph, Paul C, etc. - will grow in popularity as the indie scene grows. If I may be so bold, they may even start outgrowing "mid-tier" publishers. [/edit]

[Shreyas Sampat]

Personally, I don't think any such golden age of indie is happening any time soon. To my perceptions, the pool of active designers making good games at any one time is approximately constant. There's been a drastic increase in people making kinda-sorta good games, sure, but the really, really good ones? Nah.

People are stubborn, and things like Living Greyhawk are vital and I'd be terribly surprised if they just vanished from existence.

While out in the real world nothing changes, the design world will have gotten bored with elegance and the lean, mean games of yore. Instead we will be making games built on elaborate structural metaphors and design puzzles. Surprising and useful interactions between seemingly unrelated rules will be the grail of design, for a brief while. A small cadre of designers will write games that are completely unplayable, but beautiful in their subtle complexity.

Eventually, led by people like Andy K, geographically disparate games will make contact and the cross-pollination of ideas will lead to a fresh crop of amazing hybrids.

[xenopulse]

I think there will be an unmentioned effect of the increasing popularity of chat roleplaying, which has many people playing freeform who would usually not be drawn into the RPG scene. I see many of those, especially teens of both genders, eventually discovering RPGs that allow them to remain mostly freeform while expanding their play experience. I think a game such as Primetime Adventures could have a huge impact, if it was widely distributed and advertised. If not that, someone else will come up with a rules-light, broad, TV-generation based game that will capitalize on this new group of potential players.

[Bankuei]

I see mainstream slogging along as always.  Biggest hits will be based on licenses, and whoever manages to figure out the next genre fad to ride.  Design will stay mired, with occassional nods to experimental ideas("once per day, you can narrate the results of doing something", guh).

Depending on when the Forge finally closes shop, and what the post-Forge scene looks like, we'll either A) have a few folks who consistantly design good games, or B) get a few circles of people who design good games.  Depending who is in contact with who in those given circles, we either get more experimental games, or more reinventing the wheel("but my elves have 3.5 inch ears!")

Within the next 15 years, someone with half a brain for marketing and money sets up a rather standard setting online, some playable rules, throws up forums and chat rooms, and sets up a subscription for play by post and chat.  Although nothing will probably be that new, it will be well presented, come with a slew of merchandise, and gradually blow up from there.  If this isn't by some mainstream company, a mainstream company follows suit within 5 years of that, except its even more marketed, and better presented and gets a bigger following, probably along the lines of D&D.  Hordes of kids beg their parents to pay the $5 fee or whatever to be part of the EberPokeDigiYugiWhatever community fad.   Online tournaments grab gamists as well.

[komradebob]

Well, okay this isn't actually a prediction, it is more of a fantasy:
Some bigger toy or game manufacturer ( maybe Hasbro/WoTcC maybe Whizkids, maybe an entirely new player on the scene ) will take the various ideas floating around in the toy/gaming and hobby industries and blend them into a soup that turns out to be a highly successful business model.

Manufacturer X will produce a line of pre-painted plastic figures. These will be collectable like the WhizKids games figures, or Homies, or Smurfs. They will not be inherently attached to a game system.

Instead, they will get a name and a blurb that relates to the appearance of the figures in question. It may appear in the style of the file cards that appeared on the back of GI Joe action figures in the '80s. To increase the collectabilty of the figures, the will be semi-blind: One mystery figure per pack will be unseen (behind a cardboard blind). Common types of figures will come in variant poses. Figures will have different "rings" or other symbols on their bases, similar to the levels of competence indicators on WhizKid figures, that will help to differentiate figures that are functionally the same. Manufacturer X will not explain this difference initially, for the simple reason that the marks will have no function. They may have a function when and if game rules can utilize them ( see below)

Figures will be something other than strictly wargame types (or any figure whose near exclusive purpose is to engage in physical conflict). Instead, there will be a broad variety of figures, implying both the possibility of conflict and action/adventure, as well as more "civil" relationships.

Manufacturer X will create game rules for their toy line, but...

1) They will not sell the rules. They will offer them free at their website. The will probably not call them "Roleplaying" or "wargaming" rules. Rather they they will put them in a non-gamer friendly area, labeled something like "Play activities"

2) They will recognize that non-gamers consider even the rules of Monopoly or Risk to be overly long. Keeping with that idea, ManX will make multiple games and game situations, each with focused rules. Their answer to " G,N, or S supportive rules?" will be "Yes", in the form of multiple different games. They may re-use mechanics, but no particular attempts will be made to unify the mechanics fr5om one mini-game to the next. This will play into the bricoleur urge that made D&D so popular.

Manufacturer X will take a page from the OGL/D20 system and move a great deal of the burden of development of new ideas, mini-games, metaplot, and downloadable terrain to the fans/consumers/gamers/end users. Man X will recognize that:
1) The consumers themselves represent an important intellectual resource, being capable of  coming up with vast amounts of new ideas beyond the imaginings of even a talented core development team, and,

2) A development team will begin to see trends in consumer suggestions that they can then play to as they get feedback, and,

3) Most interested fans desire recognition and minor bennies rather than have a desire to truly create an entire rule set for themselves in a presentable format. In keeping with that, Man X's website will feature cleaned up versions of fan submitted materials in their activities and downloads section. They will send nice letters to the submitters, and some pre-painted figures, perhaps exclusives, or early releases of new additions to the line. A few inexpensive to produce toys and a personal note are a small price for Man X to pay for the output of a talented individual.

Manufacturer X will recognize when and when not to make a legal issue out of "threats" to their profits and intellectual property.
1) The general policy will be first to Co-Opt- entice fans to contribute to their site's downloads by preference.

2) The second best option will be to Ignore. This is especially the case where Co- Opting has failed, or the contents of the fan material conflict with the "Family Friendly" approach that Manufacturer X is taking with its toy line. Man X will recognize that there may well be fans creating material that while inconsistent with Man X's overall approach, it still represents interest and potential sales.

3) Option 3 will be Analyze Cost Effectiveness. Even if the threat actually represents a possible loss of revenue, Man X will not engage in courtroom antics unless there is an actual severe economic threat. Man X will recognize that they are there First with the Most, and that any other new manufacturers with a similar business plan may actually increase the sale of Man X's goods.

4) Man X will only go Nuclear as a last resort.

Manufacturer X will know their target markets:

1)Man X will recognize that their primary audience is non-gamers. They will create a fun product that can be used as a toy first and foremost.

2)Man X will recognize that their Secondary Market is younger gamers and possibly Gamer parents. The Man X website will be a primary point of contact for these folks. They will encorage creative imput from these fans at every viable turn.

Man X will recognize that young gamers get older. They will explore the possibility of games with more adult themes and/or more complex rules for the time when these younger gamers start to desire such products. They will happily direct these younger gamers to other companies where appropriate, building a tradition of trust between themselves, their "competition", and their fans.

3)Man X will recognize the Model Hobbyist market, and add How-To type suggestions to the downloads on their website. Not everyone loves the pre-painted minis produced by WotC/Hasbro or WhizKids. By adding hobby tips, Man X recognizes another aspect of their products' appeal and plays into it.

Well, lengthy, but there it is. Anybody got a couple of  Million bucks they want to invest in a business venture?