The word for today is plenty.
I'd say I'm somewhat quick to let it be known of my vast gaming experience--especially in forums wherein I should be speaking to my fellow gamers. I'm not sure that it's a badge to be flaunted--all it means is that I'm old. Nevertheless, in over thirty years of gaming, I doubt that there has ever been a time when role-playing games and the people who play them have been as plentiful as they are now.
Back in my day...we had an FLGS somewhat close at hand, relatively speaking, and it's where my brother and I would buy all our comics and game supplies. It's worth a mention that they also sold hobby related toys--comics related, wrestling toys, horror etc.--that you didn't find so much at the regular shops. I had a love/hate relationship with the FLGS because of this. On the one hand, I could understand the shop having to charge so much for their toys because they were buying retail and then reselling through the shop. On the other hand, if the jerks didn't rush out to every Wal-Mart scooping up the toys from the shelves, regular kids like me could just pick them up in the wild for far cheaper. I digress, and thankfully, I don't think that practice carries over so much today because so much is available online. The same is true of RPGs as almost always you can pick up a digital copy of a game system for relatively cheap...cheaper than cheap if you're crooked.
Living in the digital age has saved us from a lot of hassle. I wanted the Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit that was available at Gen-Con this year, there was no way for me to go there no matter how much I might have wanted to. All copies sold out at the event with the promise that there will be more on the way--but what good does that do me? If we still lived in my day, the FLGS may have had a copy trickle in by Christmas time if I was lucky. If the product was deemed to be a niche item, I might have to battle the other guy in town that also wants it. I can only imagine the difficulty of getting anything like that shipped overseas back in the old days. Today, I went on Drive-Thru and had the same Kit as the convention goers the same week they did. The digital version will never "sell out" as long as the servers stay up. I can't get the physical items like the dice, but as 3-D printers get better and better, I could see a time when print on demand happens in comfort of one's own home.
I've talked about virtual table tops many times through the corse of RPGaDay, so I won't revisit that in this entry, but I will say, for those willing to run a game, there are plenty of potential players just chomping at the bit to join your campaign. I wish more of those potential players were players with potential, but at least there are plenty of them and you never know if you'll find the diamond in the rough...or if you're lucky enough you can latch on as a player. DMs/GMs are still relatively scarce in this time of plenty.
Last but not least, there are now plenty of systems available to play. Thanks to the digital age, archives and less savory sites have every game you can imagine available for download with the click of a button. Kick-Starter has so many interesting RPG products in need of funding that I had to start avoiding the site. For those with the disposable income and time for them there are plenty to choose from and plenty more on the way.
Tomorrow's topic is SCARY...it'll be scary for me because it's my last day before heading out to China.
I'd say I'm somewhat quick to let it be known of my vast gaming experience--especially in forums wherein I should be speaking to my fellow gamers. I'm not sure that it's a badge to be flaunted--all it means is that I'm old. Nevertheless, in over thirty years of gaming, I doubt that there has ever been a time when role-playing games and the people who play them have been as plentiful as they are now.
Back in my day...we had an FLGS somewhat close at hand, relatively speaking, and it's where my brother and I would buy all our comics and game supplies. It's worth a mention that they also sold hobby related toys--comics related, wrestling toys, horror etc.--that you didn't find so much at the regular shops. I had a love/hate relationship with the FLGS because of this. On the one hand, I could understand the shop having to charge so much for their toys because they were buying retail and then reselling through the shop. On the other hand, if the jerks didn't rush out to every Wal-Mart scooping up the toys from the shelves, regular kids like me could just pick them up in the wild for far cheaper. I digress, and thankfully, I don't think that practice carries over so much today because so much is available online. The same is true of RPGs as almost always you can pick up a digital copy of a game system for relatively cheap...cheaper than cheap if you're crooked.
Living in the digital age has saved us from a lot of hassle. I wanted the Cyberpunk Red Jumpstart Kit that was available at Gen-Con this year, there was no way for me to go there no matter how much I might have wanted to. All copies sold out at the event with the promise that there will be more on the way--but what good does that do me? If we still lived in my day, the FLGS may have had a copy trickle in by Christmas time if I was lucky. If the product was deemed to be a niche item, I might have to battle the other guy in town that also wants it. I can only imagine the difficulty of getting anything like that shipped overseas back in the old days. Today, I went on Drive-Thru and had the same Kit as the convention goers the same week they did. The digital version will never "sell out" as long as the servers stay up. I can't get the physical items like the dice, but as 3-D printers get better and better, I could see a time when print on demand happens in comfort of one's own home.
I've talked about virtual table tops many times through the corse of RPGaDay, so I won't revisit that in this entry, but I will say, for those willing to run a game, there are plenty of potential players just chomping at the bit to join your campaign. I wish more of those potential players were players with potential, but at least there are plenty of them and you never know if you'll find the diamond in the rough...or if you're lucky enough you can latch on as a player. DMs/GMs are still relatively scarce in this time of plenty.
Last but not least, there are now plenty of systems available to play. Thanks to the digital age, archives and less savory sites have every game you can imagine available for download with the click of a button. Kick-Starter has so many interesting RPG products in need of funding that I had to start avoiding the site. For those with the disposable income and time for them there are plenty to choose from and plenty more on the way.
Tomorrow's topic is SCARY...it'll be scary for me because it's my last day before heading out to China.
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