Natural Twenty

The death and rebirth of tabletop gaming

Mark Old
Mark Old
Aug 9, 2017 · 8 min read

As the giant draws ever closer, the elf draws another arrow and nocks it in her bow. With one swift motion, the missile vanishes and reappears, embedded in the giant’s stomach. As the creature falls, she stand victorious. However, it’s all taking place in the heads of the player, who is imagining the entire story. This is the magic of tabletop gaming, a massive category that encompases everything from simple board games, to collectible card games, to long and complex role-playing games. Yet even with all of these options, most people merely scratch the surface of this hobby, sticking to known safe options such as checkers or chess. Everything else is often relegated to hobby shops, where an outsider might view the actions occurring inside as an arcane incantation or a strange ritual. Children are no longer being introduced to tabletop gaming at a young age. Outside of the tabletop gaming community, the hobby is often ostracized or dismissed as childish or socially unfashionable. This stigma makes it difficult to introduce and retain new members to the community.

Finding people to play with can be difficult

For Dungeons and Dragons specifically, the root of the problem lies deep in the annals of history. In the 1970s, Dungeons and Dragons was widely accepted as normal. It was advertised on TV, played in schools, and enjoyed by many as a wholesome and interactive game. However, in the 80s, everything changed. A college student named James Dallas Egbert III shot himself in a fit of drug fueled depression. Despite being a loner and a social outcast, many people including his mother focused on one thing: while he was alive, James had been a Dungeons and Dragons player. Religious groups set their sights on the game, and a smear campaign was run for many years, permanently tarnishing the reputation of the game. Suddenly, D&D become a four-letter word, and it’s mere utterance caused “normal” people to quake in fear. Movies such as Mazes and Monsters, directed by Steven Hilliard Stern, did nothing good to help the situation, further ruining the game’s status by portraying a character based on Egbert as mentally ill. As a response to the outcry, players receded to their basements and to specialized stores that catered to their needs. New players were often social outcasts already, further perpetuating myths and rumors about the players and their habits. By the 1990s, moral panic had subsided, but the damage had been done. The face of the game had been forever changed. The game attracted only self proclaimed nerds, which did not help the game’s self image in the eyes of the populace.

This ominous, half-finished facade hides a refuge for tabletop gamers

As the moral panic ended in the early 1990s, the type of player had changed. No longer were the tabletops filled with average everyday people; the tables were filled with introverts and the hobby was “associated with stereotypes related to mental health”. However, as the decade progressed, it seemed as though the mental structures of the players slowly eased from heavily introverted back to a more average distribution. In 1998, 20 tabletop players were given various psychiatric examinations including the Eysenck Personality Inventory and the Beck Depression Inventory. When compared to a control group of college students, the scores for the tabletop players “appeared to resemble those of the unselected undergraduates in the present study”. In a later study conducted in 2005, a group of psychologists determined that “[they did] not assume that RPG-players are at higher risk of psychopathology”. Unfortunately, as the study performed by Lis et al. points out, often role playing games are associated with mental health issues. This point can be damaging and potentially steer away many future players.

“Role Playing Games [are] a significant cultural phenomenon associated with stereotypes related to mental health.”

Countless games sit unopened, collecting dust on shelves

Often, tabletop games are described as being “nerdy”, for the reason that you have to have above average intelligence to enjoy them. While it’s true that like almost any competitive game, a certain amount of strategy is required, most “advanced” tabletop games are just as easily accessible as any other board game. Just like any other game, the fundamentals are the most important things to grasp, while everything else is generally situational. However, often people are perturbed when they see several inch-thick rulebooks placed down in front of them, which can be a somewhat intimidating sight to see when presented with the premise of a fun game. This can often be a turnoff for many who wish to enter the realm of tabletop gaming. However, just like any complex activity, there is a learning curve. Often, after the first few sessions of play, the basic rules are completely understood and the rulebooks are pulled out rarely, if ever. As the page describing the comprehensive rules for Magic: The Gathering states, “[this document] is NOT meant to be read beginning to end; instead it’s meant to be consulted when specific rules questions come into play”. For many games, these “rules” are often bent, twisted, or broken depending on who is playing and in what setting. How many people have read the full licensing agreement for a piece of software that they’ve installed? The same is true for most tabletop games. Often, the comprehensive rules exist as a sort of legal document to solve any corner cases or doubts that might occur during normal play. However, the only way forward on this front is in the hands of the marketing teams at large tabletop game producers, such as Hasbro and Games Workshop. Changing this aspect of the image of tabletop gaming could potentially encourage new members to join the hobby.


Sometimes, you wish you could just play against yourself

Recently, tabletop gaming has been under siege from a new threat, and it isn’t the stigma of playing Dungeons and Dragons with a bunch of nerds: people just don’t want to play them anymore. The rise of computers has led to a brand new form of entertainment that supplants traditional gaming methods. In a poll, 73% of adults remember playing tabletop games as children, while only 44% of children say they do so now. Children today aren’t experiencing boardgames as much as the children of the late 20th century. Without the influx of new and interested members, the hobby will slowly fade away until only diehard fans and the few new recruits remain. Are computers to blame for this drop in interest? According to the same poll, 82% of children play computer games, while only 38% of adults say they played computer games at a similar age. The correlation certainly exists, but the causation does not necessarily follow completely. I personally remain interested in computer games as well as traditional tabletop games, and I know many others much like myself. However, the trend as observed by general observation confirms that children spend a lot of time glued to their screens.

“Only a third of the children admitted enjoying make-believe play compared with six in 10 of the parents”

Stores empty as people find new ways to entertain themselves

Players have been ridiculed for spending their free time and money on such a seemingly ridiculous and expensive hobby. What people don’t realize is the hypocrisy of their statements. It’s totally normal to drop $40 on a ticket to see a baseball game for several hours. Nobody would ever bat an eye to spending money to see a one-time event. However, if someone spends $40 on a particularly valuable or powerful card, suddenly it’s a waste of money. Collectable card games, like many forms of entertainment (including baseball), are an escape from reality. Nobody watches Netflix all day because they want to watch shows that reflect their own life. However, tabletop games can offer more than just an escape. They allow for the opportunity to not only be someone else, but to be anyone and do anything. Unlike video games, movies, books, or other forms of entertainment, the only limit of a player is themself. Being very good at one or multiple card games may seem like an achievement that is nothing to be proud of, but that isn’t true in the tabletop community. Famous Magic: The Gathering players win thousand of dollars from big tournaments, and some, such as Bob Maher Jr, have even gotten themselves permanently commemorated within the game by having a card made in their likeness. To some, traveling around and being part of a team is a full time job. Tabletop gaming can be a way of life.

“Magic is played by an estimated 20 million people around the world. It is published in 11 languages [and] has a thriving tournament scene.”

Under (re)construction

While it may seem like the tabletop gaming community has all but given up the ghost, there’s still life in the cardboard. Hobby shops open in new locations, helping introduce players who would have never gotten a chance otherwise. Tabletop roleplaying clubs and groups spring up in colleges left and right. Famous voice actors regularly livestream Dungeons and Dragons sessions to thousands of viewers, helping to bring the hobby back into the spotlight. The image may be bad, ever since the mid-2000s, I’ve sense a change in the atmosphere. Hopefully, my favorite hobby can be saved and cherished by anyone and everyone in generations to come.

This piece was meant not to be a post-mortem of tabletop gaming. While there are certainly elements, this is supposed to be more of an introduction to the history and current situation of the hobby. More importantly, it’s supposed to make the reader understand why tabletop gaming is struggling, and how they can avoid perpetuating stereotypes. I love this hobby, and I’ve been with it throughout many ups and downs, both within the community and my own life. I can feel it in my gut that within the next 5 years, this chapter for tabletop gaming will close and a new one will begin.


Bibliography

Bingham, John. “Death of the Card Game.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 24 June 2015. Accessed 19 July 2017.

Carter, Robert, and David Lester. “Personalities of Players of Dungeons and Dragons.” Psychological Reports, vol. 82, no. 1, 1998, pp. 182–182.

“Comprehensive Rules.” Rules | MAGIC: THE GATHERING, Wizards of the Coast, 8 July 2017. Accessed 18 July 2017.

“Dark Confidant.” Gatherer, Wizards of the Coast, 7 Oct. 2005. Accessed 22 July 2017.

Duffy, Owen. “How Magic: the Gathering Became a Pop-Culture Hit.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 10 July 2015. Accessed 18 July 2017.

Haberman, Clyde. “When Dungeons & Dragons Set Off a ‘Moral Panic’.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Apr. 2016. Accessed 19 July 2017.

Lis, Eric, et al. “Psychiatrists’ Perceptions of Role-Playing Games.” Psychiatric Quarterly, vol. 86, no. 3, 2015, pp. 381–384.

Stern, Steven Hilliard, director. Mazes and Monsters. Front Row Entertainment, 1995.

Mark Old

Written by

Mark Old

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