Bear with me a bit, but I've noticed that there are alot of people at the University of Texas - more than you'd expect - who played roleplaying games.
That's "played," as in the past tense.
My editor, Ben, for example, used to love d6 Star Wars. He stopped playing about 5 years ago. Other people around the newsroom, classmates, etc. often played "D&D" at one time. In short, the public perception of RPGs as a "geek-only" game may not be true - or at least it wasn't true up until a couple of years ago. But I've never heard of anyone dropping out of the RPG community and dropping back in a few years later. Once someone's dropped out - they're usually gone.
I think that this isn't something that can be examined within the context of the industry itself. People talk about competition from MMORPGs, from board games, the economic downturn... but the plain truth is this. Playing in a roleplaying game is a social activity - like bridge clubs, volunteer book sales, and bowling leagues.
Robert Putnam wrote a book - a sociological study which pointed out that while participation in bowling was up, people who participated in bowling leagues was declining. The book, "Bowling Alone" - was about how since the 1960s, the baby boom generation and it's offspring really hasn't been joiners - how they've eliminated social capital in favor of independent entertainment and privacy. In other words, television in the suburbs.
Putnam's book shows how we - Americans - have become disconnected from each other socially - we don't join social groups. Those of us who do join social groups are typically not conforming to the norms of society (that's why, I think, you'll find alot of political extremists... and having *any* opinion in this age of apathy is extreme...) among roleplayers. It's why you find people who don't fit into society in general comprising more and more of the RPG population. The "normal kids" move away and "tune out" like the rest of the populace - but us freaks stay.
The main point: The reason RPGs will never become as popular as it did in the 1970s is because the people of the 1970s were more likely to form groups and stay with them. It's why less people were complaining about the cost of RPGs then as today - in the 1970s, you could get more use out of books because there was a social structure in place to support it - the books were seen as a means to facilitate social gathering. Nowadays, people find that they're buying RPG books just to read -- or in the HOPE of finding a group willing to play it. Value is declining.
The best way to support the hobby, in that case, is not to get friends to play. It's not to buy from FLGS or online or from your cousin Earl. It has nothing to do with boycotting bad product and sure as hell has less to do with d20 than even I thought. The best way to do this is to *make* friends and do stuff with them in groups. Schedule time to engage in civic actions - whether it's the PTA or a local muscian's organization. Don't bowl alone.
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Originally Posted by Solomon
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