We asked questions of people who play TRPGs to get a better and more detailed picture of that category. This section explores some of that data.

The market research study provides some useful information on the games TRPG players play when they’re not role playing:

• 51% play a non-TCG card game monthly
• 43% play a puzzle computer game monthly
• 43% play a classic board game monthly
• 58% play an “action/shooter” computer game monthly
• 41% play a “simulation” computer game monthly

The least played game types were:

• 26% play a TCG monthly
• 24% play a puzzle table game monthly
• 17% play a MWG monthly
• 17% play a social/party game monthly

When asked how likely a person was to be the DM/GM, the responses were:

When asked to describe a variety of past game experiences, the market provided the following data:

* Looked at in reverse, this interesting answer tells us that 14% of the gamers who play an RPG >have never played< a combat oriented RPG.

Of the people who reported playing a TRPG, we further screened for people who played D&D and asked those individuals some more detailed questions. This data comes from people who have played D&D, not necessarily those who play monthly.

One conclusion we drew from the data was that if a player had played longer than one year, the chances they would play another year were greater than if they had not yet been playing for a full year. In fact, the longer a person plays, the higher the chance they will stay in the game; in other words, players are >less< likely to quit playing D&D the longer they play, not >more< likely.

We asked what the frequency of play was:

So we see that the longer a player is in the game, the fewer times per month they play after the 5th year. Once the “acquisition” period (1st year) has passed, frequency of play accelerates tremendously, then drops. One explanation for this fact may be that since acquisition happens most often at age 15 or less, “new players” may have a lot of time available for gaming, but as they age, they have less time per month to play.

We looked at a few other questions based on how long a person had been playing the game:

* Remember that frequency of play is down sharply for these gamers)

This data tells us that the longer a person plays the game, the longer the game sessions get, the more people play in the game, and the longer the game progresses before a character restart. In fact, if you look at the >5 year group, you realize that the big jump in long sessions and in average sessions before a restart means that the 5+ year gamers are playing the same characters, on average, vastly longer than anyone else.

One conclusion might be that it takes 5 years for a player to really master the system and really figure out what kind of character that player likes to play.

The following financial figures are for TRPG players in general (D&D information, where available, is provided as well)

This data seems to validate the theory that young gamers, while very active, don’t spend a lot of money. (The following data is reported by for RPG expenditures) The big dollars come from adults...

Total spending by age:

And, the longer they stay in the category, the greater their total
outlays...

And if they can be induced to become a DM/GM, expenditures skyrocket.

Some breakouts for the D&D population in particular…

Total D&D spending by age:

Monthly D&D spending by age:

Total D&D spending by time in game:

Monthly D&D spending by time in game:

(Interesting note: Monthly spending in the first five years after adoption of the game is higher than the spending beyond that point – though the older, longer gamer plays the game more, they spend less. This may relate to the frequency of a character/game restart.)

D&D DM willingness effect on expenditures:

(Interesting note here: Even people who don’t DM buy a heck of a lot more than just a PHB...)

Effect of miniatures addition to RPG mix:

We found that players who were ‘lapsed’ – reported that they had played TRPGs but were not currently doing so; had spent more money than the current players, and had played more different games monthly – but interestingly, they had spent less money, on average, on D&D than players who were current.

* Current/Lapsed

One conclusion that could be drawn from this data is that gamers who don’t like D&D will spend a lot of money and try a lot of systems to find something they do like before they quit. Gamers who like D&D will spend less money and try fewer systems, but will spend more on D&D than those who don’t.

When asked why a gamer lapsed, the answers (multiple choices allowed) were:

Getting back to the people still playing the games, when asked what games TRPG players play monthly, the answers (multiple choices allowed) were:

When asked to describe aspects of their games, on a scale from 1 to 5, answers were:

When we asked RPG purchasers how many had purchased D&D at a particular retail type, the answers were:

*In other words, 36% of the respondents indicated they had purchased a D&D product at a Hobby/Game shop.