This week, we're (_rolls d20_) talking about fans of miniatures, monsters, magic and mayhem (and much much more); we're talking about fans of Tabletop RPGs! What is it, exactly, about these fictional worlds that draw people in, and why are they becoming so popular?
Next week, we'll have special guest, Amin, of [a Podcast of Ice and Fire](http://podcastoficeandfire.com/) joining us to talk about fans of the Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire series!
## Episode outline
### Fandom Facts
**Origins:**
Tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) have a long and storied history starting with wargaming... which itself has its roots in even older strategy games like Chess (which originated from Chaturanga, an ancient Indian game). Chess gave way to variants of Chess, which gave way to more modern wargames like Kriegsspiel (literally "war game" in German; used for training German and Prussian armies)... which eventually gave way to games like Chainmail, the precursor to Dungeons and Dragons — the archetypical tabletop RPG.
Depending on how you want to measure history, that puts the origin of Tabletop RPGs somewhere between 1974 (the first published edition of Dungeons and Dragons) and the 6th century AD. For our purposes, we'll use Dungeons and Dragons as the origin of Tabletop RPGs.
Most Tabletop RPGs use some set of rules (that vary in complexity) where participants describe their character's actions (different from wargaming where each participant takes the role of military). Sometimes there are dice. Sometimes there are lots of tables. Sometimes pen and paper are necessary. There is a _lot_ of variation.
And is no shortage of gaming systems, like Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulu, GURPS, BESM, Vampire: The Masquerade, or Shadowrun, to name a few.
**Most Active:**
Given that Tabletop RPGs are a class of games that have existed since the 70s, it is a bit harder to get an idea of the popularity and activity of them over time. Using [Google Trends](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F026q9,%2Fm%2F04dzk1_,%2Fm%2F0mbr2,%2Fm%2F081yd) data for Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, Warhammer 40k, and War gaming gives us some approximation though. Dungeons and Dragons was probably most popular around the time of its 'moral panic', but using the data we have, it has been on the decline since 2004 (most popular period)... but is back on the upswing since approximately 2012.
**Around the world:**
The top 10 countries searching for Dungeons and Dragons, but the same Google Trends data, are: Canada, United States, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Sweeden, and the United Kingdom.
**Size of Fandom:**
It is extremely hard to estimate the size of the fandom given how loosely we've defined it. That being said, it can still be estimated:
- In _What happened to Dungeons and Dragons?_ it is estimated that 20 million people have played the game
- [Obsidian Portal](https://www.obsidianportal.com/), a site where you can create your own campaign online, has over 100 000 campaigns
- Roll20, a popular tabletop gaming tool, had a sample size of over 73 000 players for its [Q1 2017 industry report](http://blog.roll20.net/post/159952619415/the-orr-group-industry-report-q1-2017)
- Attendance at Gen Con (the largest Tabletop Game convention in North America) had over 60 000 attendees in 2016
**Fan Demographics:**
We came across several fan surveys, all of which seemed limited. The most recent one, which we stumbled upon via the RPG subreddit, had some demographic information in its 307 responses (you can find the survey [here](http://msmcilvride.com/the-big-rpg-survey/)).
- **Age:** Most gamers were between 18-25 (42.3%); the second largest group was folks ages 26-35 (39.7%)
- **Gender:** The majority of respondents (88.3%) identified as male, with 9.8% identifying as female
- **Tenure:** The largest group of respondents have been playing for 11-20 years (23.5%) but folks with 6-10 years ex...
