Beginning Research on tabletop Role Playing Games

[ffujita]

'm a personality psychologist who regularly plays Adventurers League 5e online, both in FG (which I also occasionally DM) and on Roll20 (which I have yet to DM). I am looking to start a research focus on my hobby (mixing business and pleasure).

I can't imagine, from a research perspective, that there are fundamental differences between people who play GURPS and people who play 5e. As a first pass, should I assume that the relative frequency of posts in the forums indicate the relative popularity of the relative platforms? Are there popular tabletop role playing games (TTRPG) that are very popular in a small group F2F setting that are not represented in the FG forums that I should try to include (I might start out with just 5e, Pathfinder, and Savage Worlds)?

In a general sense, my investigation will probably be to try to determine the important personality differences between people who play TTRPGs and others who a) don't play games much at all, b) play other types of board/tabletop games, c) play computer RPGs, and d) play MMORPGs.

So, as I begin, I'd like to ask you for advice.

Do you know of previously published research along these lines (Yes, I'm doing the standard literature searches, but there could easily be something that is important that isn't going to be caught in a Google Scholar or PsychInfo search)?

What might be the best way to contact/interview/survey people who play these games but not electronically?

What would be important questions that you'd like to know the answer to? Are there things about you that your non-game-playing friends assume incorrectly about you because they know you play these games?

What are the areas of my ignorance (demonstrated by my presentation above) that it will important for me to remedy before continuing?

Thanks for your input, suggestions, answers, and wisdom.

[damned]

On the Fantasy Grounds platforms the games that people play is largely dictated by ruleset availability.
Looking at Fantasy Grounds figures for last year the top 10 rulesets were D&D5e, Pathfinder, SavageWorlds, D&D3.5e, CoreRPG, Call of Cthulhu, D&D4E, MoreCore, StarWars and GURPS. If you exclude CoreRPG and MoreCore you included AD&D and The Dark Eye.

If you look at Roll20 the top two slots are the same D&D5E and then Pathfinder and the order on the rest changes as there are character sheets and dice macros available for different games. However 75% of games are AD&D and Pathfinder.

In the real world, at the table top, that top 2 percentage is likely to be similar but the fragmentation of the rest of the pie is likely to be even greater (however D&D in its other flavours may still take up close to another 10% leaving an even smaller piece for everyone else).

If you need to do face to face interviews with a large number of players you should head to a convention...

Ruleset Total Games
5E 395,748
PFRPG 74,551
SavageWorlds 37,693
3.5E 21,992
CoreRPG 12,704
Call Of Cthulhu 10,928
4E 9,948
MoreCore 8,975
Star Wars EotE 7,642
GURPS 6,176
AD&D 4,028
DSA 3,657

[LordEntrails]

I suspect you are right that their is little fundamentally different between players of the different RPG games, I suspect it is more determined by positive exposure to a system than personality, but would be interesting to know.

I have seen some popular news reports of such studies, but have never read the direct research before. This might be useful; https://www.rpgstudies.net/

Finding representative populations of any group is tough and as I'm sure you know will require reaching out through more than one medium (i.e. those of us who regular forums may be different than those that don't). I suspect you should reach out through multiple ways, but I don't know of good scientific ways to do so. Using posts by system as a guideline... probably pretty suspect, though it might correlate well. For example, DAS (The Dark Eye) that damned mentioned has virtually no posts on the forumsn here, because it is primarily a German system.

I suspect the only way to efficiently contact those who don't play electronically is at conventions or at game stores.

Questions that I'm interested in (though not particularly well formulated);
- There seems to be a sizeable population of RPGers in the military, are their significant differences between their personalities and those of non-military players?
- Are the military RPGers perceived noticeably different by their military piers than non-military players are perceived by their co-workers?
- What areas of psychological therapy benefit from RPG as a therapy tool?
- How best can RPGs be used as a therapy tool for various disorders?
- How does marriage impact RPGer traits or personality?
- Are these traits different between groups of RPGers who spouses are also RPGers?
- Do RPGs have a more or less beneficial impact to marriage than other shared hobbies?
- Their also seems to be a significant portion of RPGers who are also actors and/or artists, do they show markedly different traits than other RPG groups?
- Perception of RPGers... by whom? "The world" is not all the same and many view points exists. Are such views generational? cultural? religious? experiential? geographical?

Ignorance...well I can't say you demonstrate any based on your post, but things to consider;
- How homogeneous are RPGers? i.e.military, actors, engineers, professionals, non-professionals, etc.

[seycyrus]

...
I can't imagine, from a research perspective, that there are fundamental differences between people who play GURPS and people who play 5e. ...

Anecdotally, I find the opposite to be true. Not saying that *I* have the numbers to prove my case, but I am curious if you have any evidence to suggest your claim.

[Topdecker]

You might want to consider looking at genre over rulesets.

I personally have never understood the overwhelming dominance of fantasy-based RPGs over all other genres combined.

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[damned]

Anecdotally, I find the opposite to be true. Not saying that *I* have the numbers to prove my case, but I am curious if you have any evidence to suggest your claim.

that will absolutely vary from person to person... D&D being the most widely played will also have the widest demographic of players...


You might want to consider looking at genre over rulesets.

I personally have never understood the overwhelming dominance of fantasy-based RPGs over all other genres combined.

Part of that is simply due to D&D being so dominant but I also thinks its to do with:
1. escapsim
2. fantasy stories in our childhood
3. its easier to have a variety of challenges and monsters/enemies in a fantasy setting than in a realistic setting

[Topdecker]

Part of that is simply due to D&D being so dominant but I also thinks its to do with:
1. escapsim
2. fantasy stories in our childhood
3. its easier to have a variety of challenges and monsters/enemies in a fantasy setting than in a realistic setting

I have always thought that it was because the past is more approachable because we've all daydreamed about being in some historic settings. And you are right, things closer to now perhaps offer less of an escape - or perhaps no one wants to be confined in this setting :)

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[damned]

I have always thought that it was because the past is more approachable because we've all daydreamed about being in some historic settings. And you are right, things closer to now perhaps offer less of an escape - or perhaps no one wants to be confined in this setting :)

Top

I hope we are not derailing the thread too much. Ive always wanted to run a really pulpy 1930s game but there seems little appeitite for it and I dont know if I could keep the story going past 6 or 8 sessions either...

[ffujita]

I hope we are not derailing the thread too much.
The earlier responses were absolutely excellent, I particularly appreciate the link to a bibliography of earlier research.

I find the later stuff not to be what I was asking for, but still interesting. So, feel free to continue musing on tangents. On the other hand if you have research ideas, or ways to collect good samples (I think representative samples are beyond reach, but prove me wrong!) feel free to interrupt the tangents with more golden info.

[damned]

Without collecting responses electronically you do restrict your data collection ability to your ability to get yourself in front of people.
Doing it electronically here will give you skewed results as there are more active GMs than active Players on these types of forums.
To some extent a question like - why did you choose a fantasy genre (or why did you choose D&D 5e) to play might give quite different results.
"that is my favourite genre" vs "thats what the GM is running".

[LordEntrails]

As damned mentions, the forums here (and most others it seems) are heavily skewed towards GMs, so that would probably need to be a question you ask or account for (i.e. "Do you GM and/or play?" Do you consider yourself primarily a player or a GM?")

[JML]

My two cents:

I don't know if you're going to strictly focus on psychological factors, but I tend to think sociological factors have an heavy say on choices between the diverse electronic mediums (MMORPG, VTT, RPG as electronic games, etc.), computer vs F2F and all the different genres played.

First you've got an historical evolution. Fashions did change over time, from the seventies and eighties which were fond of simulation and monster games (think of the wargames golden era and the creation of Civilization as a boardgame) to new actors searching for fresh horizons in the nineties with "new" genres (cyberpunk, WoD universe) and "new" envisioning of the game systems, then to the narrativist wave and light rules.

Then you've got national bias, which is strictly sociological. Being french, I know there's taste differences between France and the US on the genre played, and there's also another approach of the electronic part. For F2F, there's a lot of players playing home with friends, but also in gaming clubs. I've got the feeling this last option is less used in the US (and I may be totally wrong ;) ). The RPG club I'm playing in, for instance, became quite big over the last years, now with well more than 50 members, 5 gaming tables each week which amounts to nearly 20 different campaigns.

Regarding this last point, if I'm wrong on the number of gaming clubs in the US, you could try to get in touch with them. There should be a way to get a list of the existing ones. Is there an RPG federation or national association in the US?

[Sir_BeerBaron]

Here's another avenue - the elusive closet gamer :)

Let's just say I am a very adventurous, outdoorsy person. Gaming conventions and host league play is likely the last thing I want to do and, god forbid, I have to explain this to someone. Gaming to me is reserved for twice a month over beer, chips, FG and a few of my ...more clever friends (most were coworkers at one time or another). I know a number of people that play, but will never be caught dead inside a convention centre with dice.

Since the 80's, I have been playing D&D when nothing else was available. Palladium and TMNT may have been a thing that everyone tried back then, but never stuck with. I have considered other systems, but I have no need to move to something else.

I can't imagine how you would track stats from folks like myself or my players. And I fully expect there are a lot of people in this same scenario.

...maybe try at a few local gaming stores and see if they are willing to track stats for you. But then you are limited to the commercial sales.