Has XBOX killed P&P RPG's?

[WingOver]

I am a very young 38 y/o professional who still has at least part of his head in the clouds. I recently finished Mass Effect and loved every minute of it. Bioware did an outstanding job!
This got me thinking about the future of P&P games. I loved them as a kid in high school and I would play them to this day if I could find a like minded person or person's in Tok, Alaska. (Pop 1300 hermits, miners, drunks, and folks to busy cutting fire wood to play games)
With the advent of amazing single player RPG's and MMO's, will the youth of today, or tomorrow, ever experience the wonderful world of P&P RPG's? Or will they languish in some cyberworld not knowing how to look someone in the eye and say "Hah!! Critical Hit! Your bleeding now sucka!" The interpersonal relations developed while playing with my friends helped to bring me out of a shell of insecurity and opened my mind to the world of my imagination inspiring me to live my dreams of adventure.
What do you all think? Will P&P die with our generation? Is there anything we can do to keep it alive?

 

[aramis]

Given that, in Anchorage, Alaska, high schools, RPG groups are more prevalent and visible now than they were in the 1980's (3 in 1987 at Chugiak HS, 5 last year... and larger groups, too: 6-7 instead of 4-6. One of the 1987 groups was mine...)

I do recall a party in Tok in spring of 1987, where I wound up talking with a local about Traveller... I was in a CHS letter jacket... was that you?

And you forgot to mention potheads in re Tok...

 

[zonk]

I'm afraid you are correct. The newest gewgaw with symphonic sound, sub woofer blasting out, incredible eye candy beats P&P.

Lotsa people 'connect' over the net using audio channels so there is social interaction... it's just not as personal.

Also there isn't any paperwork needed to play, no designing scenarios, agonizing over NPC motivations and dialog. Much simpler, no gamesmaster needed if you have no group. No need to look for a group because you can find one on the net.

 

[WingOver]

Not me, I was in California getting ready for boot camp. This is only my 3rd winter in Tok. I am still a chechako.
Right after I posted I noticed my omission of the drug culture participants. We are also the meth capital of Alaska apparently.

 

[far-trader]

[FONT=arial,helvetica]Has XBOX killed P&P RPG's?[/FONT]

I hope not while I fear it myself. I'm a huge fan of XBOX specifically and console/computer gaming in general, but it lacks something "real" that FTF RPG, or even FTF CCG have. Personal interactive immediacy. I miss it. I'd love to be able to play FTF but it's gotten hard for me too in middle of nowhere small town Saskatchewan (pop 1100 plant workers, farmers and such with no interest in such "childish" games). XBOX etc. allow a shadow of the enjoyment of FTF but at least it is something and it's available when I have time, for as long or short as it is.

I think your take/prediction is too near the truth for my comfort and I've thought very much the same for a while. The bigger problem (or perhaps our salvation) is that the generation designing the console games probably grew up on reading fiction and p&p rpg. The generation playing the console games won't be able to do nearly as well at the creation. So when the creative well runs dry then what? Maybe they'll turn to the old ways and we'll see a rebirth in reading and FTF RPG via computer, VTF if you will (Virtual to Face), with advancements in such making it just like live FTF gaming. That'd be nice

Keeping "IT" alive long enough is the tricky bit.

 

[WingOver]

I'm afraid you are correct. The newest gewgaw with symphonic sound, sub woofer blasting out, incredible eye candy beats P&P.

Lotsa people 'connect' over the net using audio channels so there is social interaction... it's just not as personal.

Also there isn't any paperwork needed to play, no designing scenarios, agonizing over NPC motivations and dialog. Much simpler, no gamesmaster needed if you have no group. No need to look for a group because you can find one on the net.

That is my point. I enjoyed the "paperwork" hence my preference for Games like Aftermath! Whick apparently gives Aramis the shakes
The creative process involved in character generation beyond the stats. Character history, personality quirks, physical traits, et cetera... gave my character life and I cared what happened to him, (I was never a cross dresser like you find in MMO's) I cared what happened to my char, no such thing as a respawn, unless you had a high level cleric/autodoc in your group. Even then your resurrection was turned into a side story which if you had a good DM you could play a henchman until your miraculous rebirth as a lizardman. Ahh those were the days.

 

[Spinward Scout]

I'm not sure about XBOX, but with D&D Online and the new one I heard they are planning for the D&D 4.0 release, getting together at a table-top seems less and less likely. When I can game with the folks next door, somebody in Arkansas, Hawaii, and Japan all at the same time, would I need a P&P game? Not that I'm knocking gaming in person, but I think it would be a lot easier if I could just fire up my computer and log on someplace.

 

[aramis]

I look at it this way:
Books didn't end telling stories around the camp fire.
RPG's didn't end wargames nor miniatures games.
Computers haven't eliminated pencils and paper in math classes.

So it's unlikely that RPG's, which are pretty close to the fireside tales, will ever go away so long as people want to play them.

LARPS are pretty popular, too, and let's face it, LARP rules can often be adapted to table-top play...

So, so long as there are LARPers, there will be those who want to play but not to dress up, and so the LARP-lite will gather round the table...

Oh, and board games are doing just fine these days, too... but quality of components really matters now; far more than it did in the 1980's.

 

[WingOver]

I also have played various MMO's but they lack the spice you get when you are sitting around a table in a garage/basement/wherever with friends. It makes me sad that the "next" generation is going to miss out.

 

[WingOver]

Oh, and board games are doing just fine these days, too... but quality of components really matters now; far more than it did in the 1980's.

True, true. I am playing alot of board games here, Risk 2210 is a blast and our Doc is a wargamer, we have yet to schedual a game but I am looking forward to it.

 

[Icosahedron]

Being a good ten years nearer my pension than Wingover, with little spare time and a computer skill that imposes a negative DM, I've never played Xbox or its ilk, so I can't really comment on its effectiveness.

However, good company has always been a human need and I would like to think that, as Far Trader suggested, future developments in computers, communications, video conferencing, etc. will create a virtual tabletop/campfire environment that will enable us all to get together MORE than we do today.

I'm not sure how Spinward Scout proposes to get his cosmopolitan group together, though - my attempts to get a real-time PBEM going across transatlantic time-zones have been doomed to failure, and I don't see technology solving that problem anytime soon.

 

[Ishmael]

I hope not....

Its hard to change or add your own content to computer games ( at least, not as easy as with pen and paper ).
And there is a definate visceral thrill in pushing my own cardboard plattons or lead miniatures across a map that can't be matching with a click of a mouse ( hell mouse clicking is physically just like 'work' )
And the rush from rolling dice instead of letting the computer do everything and merely inform you of the damage is absent except in face-to-face games.
While internet can allow for playing with a group from around the world, seeing the look on other players' faces can't be replaced with stupid emoticons ( d**n smileyfaces should die )

I fear that the laziness/lack of time that drove original grognardgeeks to make programs to help ref pnp games have now gone and made entire computer games themselves. And those with no time nor desire to create on their own snap them up.

 

[BigBadRon]

While I no longer have access to a tabletop group, I haven't given up on traditional RPGs. Instead, I play them online.

I play several games at a Play-by-Post site, which, while slower than tabletop, still has human GMs (as opposed to cybernetic ones). I also run my own games (including a couple of Traveller ones), which include players from the USA, Australia, the UK, etc...

Computers certainly haven't killed gaming for me... rather, with a small adjustment to the way I play, they've given me an opportunity to game 7 days/week, with players from around the world.

 

[Ian Absentia]

Will P&P die with our generation?

Absolutely. I've been selling all of my RPGs and blood plasma to raise money for an Xbox 360. I've stopped reading, too. I only watch TV and listen to popular novels on CD while I drive.

!i!

 

[Gaming Glen]

Will XBOX or any other video media kill table top gaming? Not hardly. You have to look where you are living and see you're in an environment not conducive to gaming.

My game store in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, has its gaming table space filled every night. On weekends we have games starting at midnight. Most of the games are RPGs, D&D mostly (unfortunately, no SciFi ), and we lost players when we shrunk the store and lost gaming space. We are moving to a larger location and most of that new space will be used for game tables. Several people have requested a return of the private game room, which we will have since the new landlord is willing to rebuild walls and refurbish the place for us at no cost.

Look at the numerous game conventions that occur every year. Hasn't that number grown over the years?

Has the new phenomenon of on-line poker ended FtF poker games? I doubt it, considering we've sold a lot of poker supplies over the last year as well.

No, this is just another 'chicken little' crying 'the sky is falling'.


Glen
Dragon's Lair Games
(soon to be renamed Adventure Game Store)
Ft. Lauderdale, FL

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

As long as people find face-to-face socialization preferable to socialization over the Internet, tabletop RPGs will survive. XBOX hasn't killed the hobby yet.

 

[Jeff M. Hopper]

Absolutely. I've been selling all of my RPGs and blood plasma to raise money for an Xbox 360. I've stopped reading, too. I only watch TV and listen to popular novels on CD while I drive.

!i!

That's funny, everyone knows that sasquatches don't have compatibale blood plasma to sell on the human market.

 

[pendragonman]

P&P games, while dimishing, will continue to survive as long as us grognards keep recruiting the youth and showing them the joys of tabletop properly. I have had some small success recruiting one or two 18-19 year olds every year to keep my current group running.

The trick is all in getting them to visualize the scene. Some of the recruits can, and get "it", some can't and go back to their consoles. The idea is to keep trying.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

The same set of conversations were turning up when Atari 2600 and the PC in general showed up on the scene. There is something to the whole RPG setup that has a universal appeal. Why else would game companies spend so much on content heavy video games, even to the point of producing movies based on the games themselves.

Console and Online gaming rocks, but in the end you are left with the same basic facts of moving data around. They will never be able to totally top the experience of tabletopping. It is a social activity for good freinds. I can honestly say that my best memories tend to hinge around the good times my freinds and I had when we had little to worry about but gaming. I once worked in a restaurant where the entire kitchen staff did nothing but cook and play dnd when they weren't cooking. Then we all got into Call of Cthulhu, being all from The Lovecraft State.

I recently went thru the parenting experience of my kid finding my old Monster Manual and being totally into it. You could see his imagination literally sparking. It was like he only thought gaming was doing what the Cards tell you, but he soon realized that you could actually do your own thing and have it be just as cool. As long as there are a staunch few that know what gaming is all about, there will always be rebels that go for dice before they pick up the controller.

Plus, Hasbro wouldn't have blown the money on buying Wizards if they didnt see a market to exploit. It must drive the demographics people insane. I know because I pitched a sci fi rpg to Hasbro before they owned Wizards. This was in 93, and they had little to no idea what the market was like for RPGs. A few years on and everyone is much wiser and much richer as a result.

 

[JAFARR]

Like someone else said it's location that matters, and jobs, and family, and etc. While gaming systems don't help improve the pnp gaming, a good laptop may help a lot depending on your skills in using the software avaliable. What is the effect of a few keystrokes (or mouse clicks) pulling up a picture of a Tigress class dreadnought and saying, "This is what just jumped in to the system.