How many Role Players are out there?

[Onix]

I tried to find some kind of definitive source that would say how many people are estimated to role play but so far have found none. I was wondering if anyone here knows. I saw some numbers for back in the 80's but not anything more recent.

There are a couple of ways you could try to guess at this, possibly take sales for games that were made in the last five years an then try and guess what percentage of the market that is.

Any thoughts on that? I'm pretty sure someone is either going to immediately answer with a link on wikipedia or some other obvious place or nobody knows.

[misterecho]

not everyone who buys RPGs play them. Certainly I don't play all the RPGs I buy. I think it would be very difficult to estimate.

[Onix]

And then there's the problem of if they are playing it, how big is their group? 2,3,4,-10 (I remember games with 10 players good times)

[misterecho]

[Rob Lang]

[Onix]

A survey would be especially difficult since there's no one way to contact RPers in one place. You'd never know if you were missing some or counting them twice.

Still, there has to be some way of estimating how many there are. One of my thoughts is that Role Playing is a kind of secretive pass time. Unless there's a con. Most people don't understand it and so RPers tend to be a little secretive (not always but usually) unless someone shows a glimmer of interest. I wonder what knowing the percentage of the population that has or currently does RP would do to that?

It's also my impression that although there was a drop off in the late 90's there has been a slow rebound. A lot of people declared table top RPGs dead when MMORPGs came out, then they slowly realized that they didn't do the same things. They also introduced a lot of new people to the idea of RPGs and reduced the amount of training that a new player would have to go through. People understand hit points, stats and experience.

So the thought is, is this hobby stabilizing from the death spiral it was thought to be in?

[misterecho]

I have just completed a survey. according to the responses I've received there are none left. no one in the UK plays RPGs anymore

[Onix]

I give you a Mr. Spock eyebrow raise and say "Good day sir!".

[misterecho]

well to be honest I only asked my brother and he replied "RPGs, like that heroquest boardgame we used to play?"

[Onix]

Ah, so more accurately, there is one less RPG player in the UK that we've been able to establish. Well the scientific findings keep rolling in!