* * * Wizards Community Thread * * * -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Thread : Decline of the club scene Started at 05-23-07 07:14 AM by True_Atlantean Visit at http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=851869 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 1] Author : True_Atlantean Date : 05-23-07 07:14 AM Thread Title : Decline of the club scene Hi all, One topic that I was discussing with the local comic shop owner today was the issue of the decine of gaming in a club-like environment. He is relatively new to retailing gaming material and was picking my brain - it turned out to be beneficial to both of us. Have any of you found that in recent years the gamer culture has changed from the environment of gaming at your local shop, or in a club (my first club was called The Adventurers Guild and was run out of the local gaming store. In return for an annual fee you recieved discount on stock, invitations to play at reduced fees and more fun than you could poke your +2 vorpal sword at). I've foudn over the last ten years that table-top gaming has become increasingly smaller and insular, with little prodding the gamers out of their established groups and houses. Have any of you encountered the same in your towns? Also, I've found the recruitment of younger players to be almost non-existent as other diversions are far more glitzy (even miniatures rules like 40K and Warmachine have larger followings). Any thoughts to share? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 2] Author : Gleepwurp Date : 05-23-07 08:54 AM Thread Title : Re: Decline of the club scene I don't have anything resembling data to back me up, but will offer anecdotal observations. At my local library there is a very active D&D group. One of the librarians (whom I have met) and her husband regularly run a free event at the library where they provide kids with a safe place to play, some adult supervision (so parents love it) plus they do things like teach the kids to paint minis, encourage them to use the library to research topics and check out books, including fantasy novels, etc. The room is packed every time. The kids make new friends and play in their own games between events at the library. It sounds like a roaring success in terms of number of attendees, games played, dice rolled, etc. So perhaps the events exist, just not where they used to. I don't attend myself (I am about 20 years out of their demographic) but if I was a youngster I would be there. When I go into a game shop, I notice that there is less and less industry support for table top RPG gaming --- the minis games and the card games seem to have regularly weekly scheduled events at the local game stores, most of these with some sort of industry support... which takes money. They have all kinds of Wizards minis events where folks bring in their armies and fight it out --- and I suspect the attendees spend a lot more on product than typical RPGers. It's been MONTHS since I bought any new RPG product. I haven't had the money and I haven't NEEDED anything. I've been writing my own adventures, I have a big supply of old school lead minis I use for the tabletop action and mostly use the core books and self generated material anyway --- what more do I need? I think the short answer to your question is, "Follow the money." I'm guessing the promotional events of other games return more than renting tables to RPGers... and if the demand is there, the shops need to follow the revenue generators. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 3] Author : RobertFisher Date : 05-23-07 10:09 AM Thread Title : Re: Decline of the club scene I got into RPGs around 1981. I have almost never played them in a club environment. The closest I've come is to forming independant groups at either the university club or at a store. So, I haven't really seen a decline. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 4] Author : spyone Date : 05-24-07 09:34 AM Thread Title : Re: Decline of the club scene When I got into D&D, the only way to play was to find a DM who would host games at his home, or occasionally in a public space such as a room at the Student Union at the local University. When a DM opened a game store in a strip mall accross from the University, of course he started hosting his games there rather than his apartment, and he made other DMs welcome there too. Sadly, that store did not last long. When I was 18, I discovered that the game store that was about a half-hour drive away (the good game store in the area, of which the one on campus had been a satelite0, held games every Friday and Saturday night, and tourneyments on holiday weekends. You could just stop by on Saturday night, If your DM didn't show up or something, another group would take you in for the evening, which is how I got back into playing Twilight:2000 on a regular basis. Or, a small group of folks might buy a boardgame an play that if there wasn't an RPG that captured their interest that night, which is how I wound up with a handful of my most treasured boardgames (like Junta, Myth Adventures, James Clavel's Whirlwind, and FGU's Star Explorer (which is both a good game and a good parody of Star Trek). Then I moved, in the fall of 1992. After a long period of searching, I found a game store in the region that sold RPGs and comics, and where people came to play in scheduled games, both tabletop wargaming and RPGs. They even had a couple of computers with popular computer games installed that could be rented by the hour. I think the biggest sign that this was the kind of store I was seeking was that there were 3 or so cats who had free roam of the place: one might be asleep on the cash-register's keyboard when you want to check out. :) (The gaming tables were all placed far enough off the ground that the cats couldn't jump up onto them.) But, ..... I'm picky about who I play with. I observed some of those games for a while, and none of them struck me as having the kind of people I enjoyed playing with. Last I checked, that store was still there, but it is far enough from where I am that I don't get out that way often. So, I have no idea what the local gaming club scene might be like. The store where I buy my books doesn't have any space to play in, and occasionally a competitor will open in the same mall that does only to close quickly because they cannot sustain to business volume to pay the rent on a lot of space they aren't making money off of. I game in people's homes, usually my own. I suppose it is a little sad I'm not meeting other gamers in the community, but I've found that a lot of the gamers in the world are people I don't want to play with anyway, so I don't feel it's any great loss. But I do miss having a place where I could just show up and join a pick-up game. I might find myself with a Friday night free some week, and it would be nice to just go sit in on some game where I don't understand any of the rules and barely understand the setting and everybody knows and accepts that I probably won't be back next week. But we could probably have fun. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 5] Author : tankschmidt Date : 05-24-07 09:53 AM Thread Title : Re: Decline of the club scene I only began playing in 1991, so I may have come around after clubs had come and gone, but I've never been a part of them. I've always played games in the homes of friends or coworkers. Nowadays we play in an empty conference room after business hours. We all have keys, and it's a central location for us. As for younger kids, whenever I go to a hobby shop, I see them playing Warhammer or with Magic cards. But there are so many teenagers on these forums, so there has to be a lot of young people playing. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- [Post 6] Author : RobertFisher Date : 05-24-07 11:40 AM Thread Title : Re: Decline of the club scene We're pretty lucky in central Texas. We have one comic/game store that has been around forever & seems to have figured out how to survive long term. They even have multiple locations these days. They don't really have space to play so much as they make space to play. (I assume they still have RPG nights & not just miniatures/card games, but it's been a while since I last checked.) There's a younger store too that seems very dedicated to providing space to play & seems to welcome RPGs as much as the other games. There's even a store that is dedicated more to hobby games other than RPGs, minis, & CCGs. They've got some nice space for playing. I don't know how they'd feel about hosting RPGs since they don't sell them though. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Downloaded from Wizards Community (http://forums.gleemax.com) at 05-10-08 08:21 AM.