Sure.
” . I guess I’m naive in my ongoing, decade-long bafflement at how it is something as simple and focused as a premise hasn’t been grabbed by The Roleplaying Community as essential technology. Bafflement at all those gamemasters out there who actively seek this out. I can’t believe they just don’t know there are other ways to do this . ”

This assumption is flawed. It presents traditional game masters and players as ignorant of premise designed games. That is, imho an absurd viewpoint, considering I interact with lots of gamers on a regular basis, and I don’t know any people with gaming as a hobby who aren’t aware—fully aware—of indy and premise focused games.

So why do you have your flawed assumption?

1 & 2) Anecdotes don’t matter. How many people play games matter. There are no non-traditional games being played at any of the 3 local game shops. They have them for sale. Looking in places where people play games and those games are tracked give you numbers. This is the data to which we draw assumptions from.

Going, “Whelp! We’ll never know.” When you’re presented with a count is very strange to me. We know that the count isn’t true, and it is vastly underreported, but with indy games only capturing 2% of the sale market, and the data given, the viewpoint that they are somehow more players that are more engaged in indy games, seems off to me.

You don’t have to say “we don’t have data.” e.g. ” _ then yeah, that’s a bigger piece of the Actual Play pie._ ” is you know, engagement means people excited about playing right? Playing games? If I’m looking where people are engaged with gaming, it’s Dungeons and Dragons 5e, Pathfinder.

I don’t understand the reasoning that says that the majority of people playing the majority of games aren’t engaged. Aren’t they? Isn’t that clear, from, well, all the information we have? Why when this is mentioned do you respond by trying to minimize it? (” I mean it’s widely understood that folks spend money, maybe lots of money, on games they don’t actually play. “)

That strikes me as someone who has a worldview and is trying to dismiss evidence that causes cognitive dissonance, which follows right on the heels of calling the majority of players ignorant.

3) I don’t know anyone who makes enough money that they can waste it on something they don’t use.

There’s two parts to this. One is nobody has money to waste in this economy. So I’m spending money on the hobbies I spend doing. The idea that you would spend money just to have a book sit on a shelf, well, that is maybe a life without children? I wouldn’t buy a 59.99 RPG book that I won’t play, because I’d rather buy my daughter something she needs. So the idea that people out there are buying games they aren’t playing strikes me as, I don’t know, posturing themselves as idle rich?

Secondly, if you aren’t playing the games, then why? I mean, there are lots of excuses to not play, but somehow, there’s like 3,000 people sitting down every day to play traditional games. If you’re rich enough to buy things you aren’t going to use the crap out of, why do you turn around and say that people who are using the crap out of them don’t know what they are doing, because they don’t know there’s a “better” option.

If the same isn’t true of focused/premise games, then perhaps there’s a reason for that beyond ‘they must be ignorant’ (as in they lack knowledge).

The real question here that I see this being about is:

A) Why do you assume people playing traditional games are ignorant.
B) Why aren’t you playing more often? (I don’t want an excuse, I mean, I personally don’t care. But as someone who plays all the time and has large groups of excited engaged players, I’m confused about why you might not.)
C)If premise were a better option, why wouldn’t it be more successful? (I can explain why the gamers I game with don’t like them and don’t use them.)

Paul Beakley I run 3e shadowrun over hangouts alternate tuesdays and friday nights (CST) (30 players, 3-5 usually) and Perdition, a 3rd wave clone Saturday morning over hangouts 10am CST (100 players, 8-9 attending usually). You are welcome to come and play both games, they are open tables. If you’re in the XNA area, you can come to my sunday IRL game of Perdition or 5e, depending on who’s running (3-6 players). All groups are mixed-gender/mixed-race. All are welcome.

You, or anyone else who is curious is welcome to join.