The Culture: Videogames Superseded Tabletop For Conventional Play By 1980

Do you want to know why I keep harping on Conventional Play being surpassed and superceded by videogames?

What do they go on about? "Muh Narrative" (read a fucking book, and not the wizard book) and "Muh One True PC/Party".

That got solved by 1980.

This is where "Rogue-like" came from.

The following year, Conventional Play had its first Muh Narrative videogame.

Which would soon have others joining the party over the 1980s.

SSI's Phantasie would join that list by the end of the decade alongside the officially-licensed Gold Box AD&D games.

Now add in the Japanese games such as the long-running Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series, then arcade games for more fast-paced versions, and it becomes very easy to see why those not already involved in the tabletop hobby by 1990 presumed that "RPG" meant "videogame genre".

Yes, 2nd Edition. Yes, Palladium. I was there; I remember.

And I recall that getting anyone to play any tabletop game at all who was not a Gross Nerd was like pulling teeth, and then it was 2nd Edition, The Anne Rice Game, or Uncle Kevin's Kitchen Sink Non-Game (which still has the best wholly unintentional tie-in movie adaptation).

They were right to refuse, and not just because of who did the pitching.

They didn't have to round up a bunch of people to play. They didn't have to put up with bad behavior. They didn't even have to worry about purchase prices because by 1990 we started to see rentals be a thing.

They had a better Conventional Play experience before Ronald Reagan left the White House.

You had something closer to the real game with folks playing Car Wars, BattleTech, and SpaceMace 39K.

Meanwhile, people now going on about how they were playing the real game all this time were deep into Not Teaching Hobbyists What They (Claim To) Know like the Boomers they are.

And folks wonder why I say Conventional Play in Tabletop is screwed.

The fight got lost nearly 45 years ago. It's been nothing but a long, slow defeat ever since.

Why should I stick with a losing proposition when videogame alternatives are 100% superior and the real game gives me all I ever wanted from this hobby. Tabletop Conventional Play has never delivered, and it cannot deliver, so I welcome its demise in Tabletop.

And you can take your wretched "industry" with you.