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".