Statistics for Profiling, Fall 2003

[John Kim]

Hi,

Once again I have collected together the statistics of the profiling thread, and I have posted it to my http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/theforge/">local Forge page.  

I'm sort of curious about change over time for individuals.  There were only 89 responses compared to 105 responses this past spring.  If anyone has good suggestions about how to display that, I'd consider it.  

- John

[jdagna]

Just a couple things I noticed:
Riddle of Steel gets mentioned in two places in the Recently played listing.  Also in that listing, there's Donjon and DonJon, which sounds like it was just a different spelling.

Thanks for compiling these - that looks like a lot of work, but it makes the results much easier to scan over.

[Paul Czege]

Hey John,

There were only 89 responses compared to 105 responses this past spring.

Well...maybe the current thread hasn't completely run its course? It's only 15 days old, and we're only two days past the most recent post to it. The spring thread lasted 24 days (if you don't count the final post 9 days after the one immediately previous) with at least two separate 4-day gaps between posts.

Paul

[Emily Care]

I didn't know you compiled the stats--that makes me more interested in posting. Thanks for putting the time in, John.

--Em

[AnyaTheBlue]

There's also a Burning Wheel entry that's distinct from a The Burning Wheel entry.

The list is fantastic.  I looked at the previous thread and noticed I did switch my list of 'favorite three' despite not having played any full actual games of anything.  Nostalgia -- it makes it difficult to be accurate on stuff like that.  :/

I wonder if it might not be better to ask about three games you think are the best, as opposed to (or in addition to) the three games you had the most fun with?

[Ben Lehman]

Many apologies, but it seems that my posts (and gaming habits) have gummed up the works a bit.

Vidi Aquam should be under Freeform (if there is such a category, can't recall) or Homebrew, not its own category.

The combined Riddle of Steel D&D game should be listed under Riddle of Steel, rather than D&D, as that's where I had the most fun with it.

The editorial comments (about being a Hutt, and such) could probably be deleted, but don't need to be.

There also seem to be many more "My Life With Master" categories than necessary.

[jrients]

John -

Thanks for all the work you put into those summaries!

[John Harper]

Excellent stuff, John.

Minor fix in Most Enjoyed: PTA Imperium and Primetime Adventures are the same game.

[John Kim]

OK, I have taken people's corrections into account and updated the profiling page (again, it's listed on my http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/theforge/">local Forge page).  

I have no trouble regenerating it per se -- the work is in editting the entries to use the same prefixes and formatting.  I collect the statistics with a Perl script.  I have also included a link for a zip file with the code and text data files I collected, if anyone wants to do other statistics with the data.

(Editted to add: I can collect further responses in a week or so.)

[Emily Care]

Fascinating and surprising: D&D and homebrew are two favorite "favorites" so far. Wouldn't have predicted it.

--Em

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Em,

Not surprising to me. My claim is that "playing D&D" is a highly local and highly customized animal, through most of role-playing's history. And furthermore, although this is more speculative, many people in the survey may be referencing long-ago play, such that the joy of role-playing per se may have been discovered by them while playing D&D of one stripe or another.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Consider also the prevalence in volume of D&D play. Some of the posters who most enjoyed D&D may have had one spectacular session in memory, out of hundreds that were miserable failures. That doesn't mean that D&D is statistically good. It could simply mean that "the sun even shines on a dog's ass somedays."

To get a better statistical feel for enjoyment, we'd have to poll on how much each game had been played, and how often play was enjoyable. Also, to be fair, however, you'd have to consider the audiences biases. For example, you can't consider the proportion of "last played" Universalis to be indicative of it's play across all groups (I only wish), just here.

Mike

[John Kim]

Fascinating and surprising: D&D and homebrew are two favorite "favorites" so far. Wouldn't have predicted it.

Oh, I should mention a change from previous statistic gathering.  This time, I lumped all D&D varieties into a single category of "D&D" -- including AD&D1, AD&D2, Basic D&D, and D&D3.  The previous two I had separate categories for AD&D, D&D3, and Basic D&D -- but because people have different terminology and sometimes don't distinguish, this time I just searched on "D&D" and lumped them all together.  So Spring 2003 and Fall 2002 has split entries for D&D.  I should probably re-run the earlier statistics using my new script.  

As for it being surprising -- well, D&D is an enormously popular game in general.  I think this just shows that Forge-ites aren't totally separated from the general gaming community.  Notable things to me are that GURPS which did fairly well in being recently played, had very few in the "Most Enjoyed" category -- whereas other popular games like D&D, Call of Cthulhu, and Vampire: The Masquerade at least showed up in the top ten.  I wonder that the White Wolf games are perhaps under-represented compared to gamers at large.

It doesn't surprise me at all that homebrewing is popular in a forum of game designers.

[Jeph]

Noticed something: Rokugan d20 is listed seperately from D&D, when it actually is a sourcebook (well, 2, really) for D&D3e.

[Jonathan Walton]

It's also interesting that Nobilis is consistently in the top 5 of games people want to play, often for the same people.  Is nobody running this game, or is nobody willing to fork over the $40 for the book?