I always wondered why Danes never built a real RPG industry. There has been various attempts over the years to explain it, many of them pretty poor so I guess this is my thinking about it (also poor, since I still have covid). I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.
After all we are culturally very similar, both countries had a high standard of living, high levels of education, a tradition of teenagers having "hobbies" and spending money, general public support for youth clubs, strong cultures for reading and libraries etc.
And roleplaying games DID become huge with Denmark, the convention scene became famous for a reason. But an industry? It never happened. Not really.
Some possibilities:
1:
Danes think the Danish language is lame.
Its not that we aren't proud of being Danes but basically anything in Danish tends to get viewed as being a bit "kikset": Goofy and a bit embarrassing perhaps even. Danish bands often sing in English and I always felt part of this affected games as well. I remember picking up the Fusion detective RPG and our group thinking it was funny that it was in Danish because it seemed so weird.
I've always felt (but could be wrong!) that Swedes put more emphasis on their own language. I remember as a teenager reading about how Swedish computer magazines often had Swedish words for things where we would end up using the English loan words instead.
So perhaps we were more minded to just go for the English option. After all, if it was in English, it must be cool.
2:
A population advantage.
Sweden is a small country but it is JUST a little bigger than Norway or Denmark population wise. I wonder if that difference had an effect?
After all more players means more people to play with, more people to enter the industry or make their own games, more people making stuff for conventions etc.
Perhaps there is a degree of critical mass where once you have JUST a bit over that 5 million people or whatever, it starts picking up steam and if you don't reach that point, you are likely never going to get there?
3:
Maybe we just got pre-empted?
Its of course possible that there just was not a point. Our translation of DoD is the only game that got big enough to be in book stores and was fairly widely played, so why make another one? The gaming stores have books from TSR, Games Workshop and White Wolf (later) so why make another one?
I remember as a little kid being in a gaming store in Viborg and gazing at games like Blood Bowl and Runequest with the store clerk explaining to like ... 9 year old me that Runequest was the game to play. I didn't understand any of it but I knew it was the coolest thing I had ever seen in my entire life.
(actually that store guy was the coolest guy too. He let me hang out in the store in the afternoons and let me ask questions and read books and he really didn't have to, and at a really difficult time in my little life. Thank you store guy. )
4:
Maybe we are all fucking hipsters.
The Danish scene famously revolved around convention games with the main magazine catering to that crowd. And while conventions had plenty of commercial games being played, the emphasis was very much of minimalist/non system semi-LARP scenarios that did not require (and often disdained the idea of) a rulebook.
Of course Denmark also developed a thriving LARP scene too.
So I dont know. What do you think? Why DID Sweden blow up with RPGs?
After all we are culturally very similar, both countries had a high standard of living, high levels of education, a tradition of teenagers having "hobbies" and spending money, general public support for youth clubs, strong cultures for reading and libraries etc.
And roleplaying games DID become huge with Denmark, the convention scene became famous for a reason. But an industry? It never happened. Not really.
Some possibilities:
1:
Danes think the Danish language is lame.
Its not that we aren't proud of being Danes but basically anything in Danish tends to get viewed as being a bit "kikset": Goofy and a bit embarrassing perhaps even. Danish bands often sing in English and I always felt part of this affected games as well. I remember picking up the Fusion detective RPG and our group thinking it was funny that it was in Danish because it seemed so weird.
I've always felt (but could be wrong!) that Swedes put more emphasis on their own language. I remember as a teenager reading about how Swedish computer magazines often had Swedish words for things where we would end up using the English loan words instead.
So perhaps we were more minded to just go for the English option. After all, if it was in English, it must be cool.
2:
A population advantage.
Sweden is a small country but it is JUST a little bigger than Norway or Denmark population wise. I wonder if that difference had an effect?
After all more players means more people to play with, more people to enter the industry or make their own games, more people making stuff for conventions etc.
Perhaps there is a degree of critical mass where once you have JUST a bit over that 5 million people or whatever, it starts picking up steam and if you don't reach that point, you are likely never going to get there?
3:
Maybe we just got pre-empted?
Its of course possible that there just was not a point. Our translation of DoD is the only game that got big enough to be in book stores and was fairly widely played, so why make another one? The gaming stores have books from TSR, Games Workshop and White Wolf (later) so why make another one?
I remember as a little kid being in a gaming store in Viborg and gazing at games like Blood Bowl and Runequest with the store clerk explaining to like ... 9 year old me that Runequest was the game to play. I didn't understand any of it but I knew it was the coolest thing I had ever seen in my entire life.
(actually that store guy was the coolest guy too. He let me hang out in the store in the afternoons and let me ask questions and read books and he really didn't have to, and at a really difficult time in my little life. Thank you store guy. )
4:
Maybe we are all fucking hipsters.
The Danish scene famously revolved around convention games with the main magazine catering to that crowd. And while conventions had plenty of commercial games being played, the emphasis was very much of minimalist/non system semi-LARP scenarios that did not require (and often disdained the idea of) a rulebook.
Of course Denmark also developed a thriving LARP scene too.
So I dont know. What do you think? Why DID Sweden blow up with RPGs?
