I've been saying Werewolf is dead for nearly a decade. It has never been a truer statement than it now seems.
We need a savior. A hero.
Why exactly are player numbers so low? 9, 10 years ago when the game was young, every game would get 30+ and it would be easy to break 40. Nowadays it is almost impossible without a huge drive from a well-known GM. The forum has many more members now than it did then, perhaps by an order of magnitude. Numbers alone suggest we should be able to get the player numbers we want.
But we (or rather, you) don't. And also the fact that new players who join and become regular happens quite infrequently, and most of the playerbase, while I still consider them to be noobs, are quite old players by this point. So it is not only a
small playerbase but a
stagnant one as well.
Let's try and break down any possible reasons:
1.) Less exposure/advertising.
2.) The game has become less fun.
3.) Fatigue.
4.) It has outlived it's shelf life.
Anything else? Probably, but thinking in broad strokes I can't think of much else at the moment.
I don't think it's 4. Every decently run game has interesting, unique things happen in it. You can't say everything's already been done. If it feels like that's the case it's down to mismanagement, but it doesn't have to be that way. Besides, there are plenty of other games where possibilities
have been sort of exhausted, but are still madly popular.
1 is a reason in my view. Despite the growing size of this sub-forum, I can't help but think that all those who said years ago that moving away from the OT would be a bad thing have been vindicated. It's quite possible that the games would simply have a much easier time filling up if it was still in there.
Does it need to be? No. If there was decent advertising/awareness being done, people would find their way here. But no one has ever really tried. I guess it just seems like a daunting task. Not in terms of time, it would take a fraction of the time wasted on this forum weekly, but it is challenging and putting yourself out there and I guess that's why no one including me has ever done it.
2 is also possibly a factor. Despite the meta of the game being more developed and the median level of player probably objectively better than, say 2007, the games are not concurrently more fun. Maybe it's
because people take them too seriously. A lot of it though I think is due to poor game management. But when good games come along they are still very fun.
I think fatigue is a big factor however.
I've said for some years that the focus on always having a game up is misplaced. It may seem like it generates momentum but in reality it generates fatigue moreso. If things are a bit stale, if signups are low, inactivity is high, or if no one really wants to GM, take a break for a week or two. People who must play all the time can still play Lite.
I think this should at least be tried. Constantly having one game after another with pitiful numbers in them is not working right now it seems.
In terms of player days per year, having constantly one big running is probably optimal. However I'm not sure that's what people want. At the least it's not what
I would want. I would rather have 15 forty player games a year, lasting an average of 15 days for a total of 225 days played a year, and 140 days without a game (including signups but still), than like 50 games of twenty players lasting 7 days, even if there was always a game running. Would you? Would you not? I honestly want replies to this.
As it stands you have the latter. Approximately.
I think those 3 things are all areas in which tangible improvements can be profitably made.
You people spend too much time playing mediocre games to put this little reflection into how to make it better. It's not a question of time or effort; plenty of you sink many hours in here every week to little purpose. I think the issue is that the community is far too reactive. You go through the motions, putting up each game faithfully, complaining when someone makes a bad setup, noting the lack of players, but you don't take the initiative. I'm not even generalising; I honestly don't think there's a single person who has tried to take the initiative to explore how to make the game better and that includes me when I played. The closest perhaps was Ironhead.
The frustrating thing is that these problems are fixable, at least that's my take. And it is in your reach to do so.
To play amateur psychologist for a second, perhaps the reason is that taking time to reflect on the meta of the game seems too serious. It's fine to sink 10 hours a week into analysing a text-based forum game as long as it's something you kinda just do in your free time or in work or whatever. But actually taking steps to think about how you can work to secure the long-term health and future prosperity of a text-based forum game
does seem a little too involved, emotionally speaking. But in terms of the fun you get out, it would be worth it.
It's not really my problem. It's just that in my current state I've been thinking it would be fun to make another epic game at some point. I think with a little effort I could create soaring narratives and a truly memorable experience (maybe I've been watching too much Westworld lately) and just generally feed my ego a bit more. But to do so I need a healthy-sized playerbase. Johho may get a decent number and no doubt it will be a good game regardless, but things will probably just fall back straight after.
I also might play again with a sockpuppet sometime and it would be nice having greater scope tofuckaround with.
Overall though it won't really affect me as I remain retired. But, I have nothing to do right now and when I'm hungover I tend to be able to follow a train of thought better so I just kind of wrote this on the spur of the moment. In the time between finishing it and posting it I have since lost interest again but I may as well submit it anyway.
To summarise: yes you can make werewolf alive again (MWAA), if you want to. It won't take a huge time expenditure, but it will require a little more introspection and proactivity than is usually seen around here. Best of luck if anyone chooses to go down that road.
Oh and Happy New Year, motherfuckers.
