Game Size Keeps RPGs Niche?

I just have this feeling that the size of pen-and-paper games keeps RPGs out of the mainstream.

Here we are in a tablet and cell-phone world, with our desktop dinosaur operating systems soldiering on as niche gaming and content creation platforms, when the majority of the world is moving on to lightweight, mobile, and simple "lightweight" experiences. This is an Android and iOS world now, the majority of computing devices from now on will not be desktop towers, and they will not run a "full" desktop OS.

Mind you, I need my tower for gaming, and I will need updates for it. It is absolutely needed for me, but computing and the role of computers in peoples' lives is changing. I am feeling tower-based computing and gaming is becoming a niche hobby compared to the size of the mobile and tablet user-base that keeps growing and growing. Tower usage feels stagnant or in a slow decline, while mobile usage is growing incredibly fast.

Now, compare this with the primary offerings for roleplaying today, D&D 5 and Pathfinder. Both are very heavy games in just book size alone, with D&D 5 being 992 pages for the PHB-DMG-MM combo, and Pathfinder clocking in at 896 pages for the Core Rulebook and Bestiary 1 combo.

Granted, you don't have to read the nearly 1,000 pages for each game to get started, and a lot of that is value-added options and extra content type of stuff. But it is still nearly 1,000 pages of rules, spells, monsters, options, character builds, combat rules, referee advice, magic items, and other options to at least have a basic working knowledge of before you can get going with the system without being in the start-and-stop phase.

Compare this with the TSR boxed games which included a 64-page rule-book for a complete game. Granted, those games did not have as many options as today's games, but they were simple, lightweight, and could be read and digested within the first hour of opening the box and setting up. There is always a place for complete, 1,000 page games in my life, just like there is a gaming tower, but the pen-and-paper gaming hobby feels like it is missing lightweight, casual games intended for a large audience.

There feels like two problems here. One, intro sets and beginners boxes do not count as lightweight, casual gaming - they are intros to the full set of books and do not count as complete standalone games. Intro sets are not complete experiences.

The second problem is the center-stage 1,000 page RPGs compete with any smaller and lightweight games. There isn't any room for them in the hobby other than very small and even more niche audiences. The big rule-book sets push everything else out because that is what a majority of players play. It is the dark side of the network effect, because the "most popular" game is large and complex, it keeps new players out of the hobby because there is no room for casual "market entry" games supported by the big players in gaming.

Then again, we need a casual pen-and-paper gaming market that can exist on its own, support the release of new games, and maintain interest from casual game to casual game to keep that side of the market happy and playing. It is not a "we lose D&D players" sort of thing, because some of these players would never play D&D anyways because of its size and (fairly or not) perceived complexity. The person who buys iPad games but doesn't get into PC gaming is the type of gamer I'm thinking about here, someone who would play casual game after game for the experience, but doesn't have the time, resources, or mental commitment for a full desktop gaming rig.

As an aside, it is a huge design challenge to make an RPG small and keep it to a 64-page target. It is a lot harder than you think because RPGs are supposed to provide options and enough content to maintain interest. Some dicing systems (D&D d20, 3d6 GURPS) as designed tend to fill pages faster than other systems, so there are some 'hard' dicing and system choices that can hurt you in page count before you even begin the project.

I love my big games like I love my gaming rig. I also feel the need for smaller casual - yet complete - games for the market to satisfy that market segment. I think a lot of the "big game companies" have stuck to the "game as OS" revenue stream model, and not the "game as commodity" model where complete, no-update-needed boxed games are sold on the shelves like Monopoly or Risk. Sure, you can theme, make minor improvements, or change up those games for new flavors and experiences, but the core game is still sold alongside and remains a stable product for generations.

Somewhere along the way it feels the word "roleplaying game" became synonymous with "revenue stream" and we went down this path with pen-and-paper games with open-ended systems. We need to understand some of the reasons why interest in our hobby feels difficult to push higher, and I wonder if game size has something to do with it, and not addressing a casual market with complete, supported, and purpose-built commodity products.