So following what I did for prior years, I collected stats for the recent Fall 2004 profiling thread. You can see the results here:
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/theforge/prof_fall2004.html

And you can compare to the other years from my general Forge pages at
http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/theory/theforge/

I guess the news is that Dogs in the Vineyard seems to be taking the Forge by storm. It's moved into second place in "Last Played" and tops "Want to Try".

hi john,

very cool, as always.

not to nitpick, but is there anyway to combine the "Burning Wheel" and "The Burning Wheel" categories in Last Played?

-L

abzu wrote: not to nitpick, but is there anyway to combine the "Burning Wheel" and "The Burning Wheel" categories in Last Played?

Hi John,

maybe two more little things coming your way... In the "want to play next" section :

- "Realm Ouroboros" sould be "the Dream Ouroboros" (might really be my fault, mistyping when posting in the profiling thread).

- I wonder if "Deleria" and "Deliria" aren't the same one from Laughing Pan Production.


Thanks again,

Fabrice

.. and now there are also two categories for HeroQuest in last played and most enjoyed.

... and the same for Vampire: the masqurade in most enjoyed.

who? me? nitpick?

Hi, John.

As always, thanks for the analysis. I was happy to see how high "homebrew" rated on Last Played and Most Enjoyed. Folks are playing their own stuff and liking it. That's always good.

OK, I've fixed up a few of those. In general, I've combined different editions of the same game into one entry -- so all D&D is just "D&D", combined Champions and Fantasy Hero, combined Sorcerer with Sorcerer & Sword, etc. I wasn't quite sure what to do about White Wolf games. Currently I combined all Vampire: The Blah (Masquerade, Dark Ages, Requiem) into one entry. That downplays the White Wolf games in the listings, though, compared to having a "World of Darkness" entry. But then, I think they should be considered different games, whereas D&D in different settings is not.

As a tangent, I'd be interested in an expanded survey of Forgites -- maybe including this but also things like demographics, and a few other things. But that should probably move to Site Discussion.

If you really want to, you can combine Robot Warriors with the Champions/HERO stuff.

Hello,

Thanks John!

One thing that strikes me about this breakdown is how extensive the "1's" are, especially in the first and third categories. I think that's an excellent thing. People are playing, and want to play, a vast diversity of games, from all sorts of publishers and focusing on all sorts of topics.

People are playing, and want to play, their own games in development, new and new-ish published games, and games which have been around for a long time. The list includes well-known titles and obscure ones.

That diversity of experience can only make the Actual Play, GNS Discussion, and RPG Theory forums more insightful, and the net effect can only make Indie Design and Publishing more powerful as well.

As I've said many times, Actual Play is the motor of the Forge. We're doin' it, and we're doin' it well.

Best,
Ron

It might be useful the next time we do a profiling thread to refer to John's work, maybe so that contributors will provide more concise and easy-to-categorize answers.

This info is great, and it'd be nice if we could in any way make it easier for John to do.

Thanks John!