D&D: Suffering a slow death?

Having spent eight years in the newspaper industry working for a small, family-owned broadsheet (which are as commonplace nowadays as milkmen and encyclopedia salesmen, and about as wise a career choice), I know what it's like to see a business suffering from a slow death. Not a death that can be measured in months or even years, perhaps, but in decades, their life blood drained away by a series of innumerable nicks and cuts. The same fate I fear is in store for D&D.

Not that I expect newspapers or my favorite pastime to ever completely die, but rather, I fear they may cease to exist as profitable business lines. They will likely live on as pale shapes--wraiths, to draw a comparsion with the Lord of the Rings, another favorite subject of mine--neither alive nor dead, but living some undead existence, a dim shadow of their past greatness.

Newspaper circulations are indeed decreasing year-by-year as people turn towards the internet and other media outlets for news and information. But what about D&D? Aren't there claims from Wizards of the Coast that the hobby is as robust as ever? Some figures I've seen thrown around are $30 million a year in RPGs sold and roughly six million D&D players playing worldwide last year.

Frankly, I find the evidence that D&D and other RPGs are going strong less than compelling. And although my experiences are of course anecdotal, all indications--at least from my perspective--show an unhealthy trend for its long-term future.

When I was a pre-teen and teenager, the two local malls (Woburn and Burlington) each had a thriving hobby store that made their business selling RPGs and miniatures, along with the usual model trains, cars, etc. Both are now gone. My hometown had a bookstore that also sold RPGs and miniatures. It too is gone. I was shocked to find out that my current neighboring town of Amesbury actually supported two game/comic shops when I moved here four years ago. But in the past year one has gone out of business.

RPGs were everywhere in their heyday (late 1970's to mid-1980s). You could find ads on television, in the back of comic books, and in magazines. D&D had even had its own Saturday morning cartoon. When I was in seventh grade (circa 1985) my middle school had a Friday afternoon, seventh-period Dungeons and Dragons elective (yes, it rocked). And the game itself--I started with the classic Tom Moldvay-edited box set, with its 64-page ruleset and copy of B2 Keep on the Borderlands--was available in all the major outlet stores.

Now, you have to squint to find evidence that D&D is still played. The big bookstore chains (Barnes and Noble, Borders), at least in my area, might have a single, poorly stocked shelf of D&D in the hobbies section or science fiction section. Other games like Call of Cthulhu or Rifts are nowhere to be found. TSR and WOTC have tried to put basic versions of the game in the larger outlet stores, but largely without success. And when was the last time you saw an ad for D&D in any major news outlet?

D&D let slip what could have been a great opportunity for good exposure in 2000 with the release of the film Dungeons and Dragons. Unfortunately, what we got was one of the worst movies I've seen in 10 years. What should have been a nice marketing vehicle turned into two painful hours of my life flushed down the drain that I still want back.

But aside from a bomb of a movie, why are RPGs declining? Like a lot of others familiar with D&D, I blame computer games. World of Warcraft, Everquest, and their ilk--i.e., graphics-heavy, story-based, immersive, computer RPGs--offer experiences that satisfy the cravings of many potential (and former) pen-and-paper gamers. Why bother with the hassle of having to get together a group of 4-6 people with busy schedules, and doing all that pre-game prep work and post-game paperwork, when you can turn on your computer from the comfort of your own home and play whenever you feel like it? The siren song of computer games existed when I was younger with titles like Wizards Crown and Ultima, but the new breed are light-years more advanced, and much more effective at drawing potential players away.

For more great recent discussion on this topic, check out Whither D&D? at Trollsmyth and D&D in the News at Grognardia (great name for an RPG blog, by the way).

Wizards of the Coast is trying to fight back with an online version of D&D, which will reportedly allow players like me--30-something, with demanding jobs and busy family lives--to break down traditional barriers to play by providing a virtual tabletop. This Associated Press article sums up the issue a lot better than I can. It's a model that could work, but it's also fraught with danger. D&D simply cannot do some things as well as a computer, and trying to fit a round peg into a square hole could result in WOTC squandering millions, perhaps leading parent company Hasbro to drop the line.

A unique strength of D&D and tabletop RPGs in general has always been the face-to-face social component. In addition to fun and adventure in imaginary worlds, RPGs allow creative, like-minded folks to gather around a table and enjoy each other's company. While I know WOTC is touting that this face-to-face experience will remain a viable part of fourth edition, part of me has doubts. Remember that WOTC also maintained that 3E can be played without miniatures, but then rewrote the rules to all but cripple a game that doesn't have a tabletop grid and some type of figures.

So should D&D ignore the online space and continue to churn out hardbacks until the line eventually goes the way of the newspaper? That would be the safe route, but also the path of a long, slow, dance with death. I credit WOTC for trying a new approach, but I also fear that traditional RPGs, like newspapers, are by their nature destined to become relics of a forgotten age, played and debated about only by a small, dwindling fan base like me.