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Author Topic: The OneDnD Agenda  (Read 36644 times)

hedgehobbit

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Re: The OneDnD Agenda
« Reply #15 on: August 20, 2022, 12:09:56 PM »
They are specifically playing that thing that Critical Role and Stranger Things said was cool. You can run One DnD on your shitty phone or tablet. Which everyone has. As opposed to a games console or a gaming PC. Which are expensive.

This seems like a bit of a contradiction here. Neither Stranger Things nor Critical Role feature an app. How would someone who watches these shows even know that an app exists?

But it still doesn't address my main point. Any person who insists that D&D is a app game doesn't really have any interest in table-top RPGs. They just want to play an online app game. They never were part of the hobby in the first place.

King Tyranno

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Re: The OneDnD Agenda
« Reply #16 on: August 20, 2022, 12:19:51 PM »
They are specifically playing that thing that Critical Role and Stranger Things said was cool. You can run One DnD on your shitty phone or tablet. Which everyone has. As opposed to a games console or a gaming PC. Which are expensive.

This seems like a bit of a contradiction here. Neither Stranger Things nor Critical Role feature an app. How would someone who watches these shows even know that an app exists?

But it still doesn't address my main point. Any person who insists that D&D is a app game doesn't really have any interest in table-top RPGs. They just want to play an online app game. They never were part of the hobby in the first place.

They just want to play that DnD thing that was on Stranger Things. They don't care how they play it. They are told the only way to play DnD now is through the app. They don't care or know enough to know the kids in Stranger things were playing AD&D. They just want to play the thing everyone else is to feel included.

I did address your main point actually. I'll put it even clearer. There are more people who think they are part of the hobby because they play DnD how WotC tells them to. Then there are people like you and me who know that there are other games and other ways to play the games. People like you and me are going away, due to age, other responsibilities and more. You cannot guarantee that your current group will stay together. You WILL end up in a position where the only people who want to play DnD are the people who want to play the app. The people who "were never a part of the hobby in the first place" You won't have the choice to pick people who just want a pen and paper game. Especially one without that all important WotC branding. And you will be seen as an awkward and autistic hipster for relying on old games that no one wants to play. YOU can say "I don't feel those are real players or in the same hobby as me". But your distinctions are irrelevant and don't matter to the majority. Especially when there won't be a minority within the next 10 years or less. And you are confronted with the very real choice of DnD or nothing.

TrueWOPR

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Re: The OneDnD Agenda
« Reply #17 on: August 20, 2022, 12:29:12 PM »
I got into playing AD&D with the BOOKS--when I was 10 years old. No computers or digital anything necessary.

Imagine that!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
Yeah, unfortunately for us they're really pushing on that "One D&D is a living document that changes to fit the game, no more versions!" stuff will make it so even if you play with books, there will be 2 erratas/updates a month that you won't be able to print, reducing the rulebook from something well crafted, proof-read, intended to be the end all for the game - to just a piece of tat for collectors, the 'true game!' is going to be the subscription service. :/

hedgehobbit

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Re: The OneDnD Agenda
« Reply #18 on: August 20, 2022, 12:32:13 PM »
You WILL end up in a position where the only people who want to play DnD are the people who want to play the app.

I'm not sure how it is in your area, but where I live the vast majority of people I meet have barely even heard of D&D, let alone know that there is a app for it. (is this app even available now?). So I recruit new players from outside the RPG hobby, usually through boardgaming.

If WOTC is brainwashing people into thinking that D&D is an app game then I have two choices: Play a version of D&D that I don't like or find people who are not brainwashed. The latter group is significantly larger than the D&D playerbase.

Finding new players has been a challenge since I started playing in the early 80s. But it is easier now because most people have seen a clip of it being played so they at least know that it is some sort of co-op boardgame. The trick is to get to them before WotC does.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2022, 12:34:49 PM by hedgehobbit »

Mistwell

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Re: The OneDnD Agenda
« Reply #19 on: August 20, 2022, 12:52:18 PM »
When those editions get harder to find it incentivizes Zoomers who already want to go to digital solutions to only pursue this app.

Digital D&D is a dead end. Inevitably, a multi-player computer game will be released that has 90% of what a digital D&D session has and everyone will switch over. Hasbro hopes that such a game is D&D branded but that isn't a certainty.


I think it might actually be a good thing as it will suck up a lot of those the kiddy wokescolds and faux hobbyists.

Exactly. People who only want to play D&D through an app are not in the same hobby that I am. To thrive, old school RPGs need to focus on what can only be done in a face-to-face situation. Stop trying to make the game deterministic and easily app-able.

Are you guys posting from the year 2000? Because we're decades in to the digital revolution and that prediction, which at this point is about as old as Y2k fears, never happened. In fact, D&D has grown massively during this era of virtual tabletops, while multiplayer video games have shrunk a bit.

It's greatly benefitted older players by the way - the ones most likely to have moved away from their original gaming groups and who now come back together from different states or even different countries using a virtual table top.

To thrive, old school RPGs need to work with virtual table tops. Stop trying to make the game in-person only, in a world where in-person gatherings have shrunk enormously, game store numbers have reduced, and populations have dispersed more.

Mistwell

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Re: The OneDnD Agenda
« Reply #20 on: August 20, 2022, 12:56:25 PM »
I'm not sure how it is in your area, but where I live the vast majority of people I meet have barely even heard of D&D

Finding new players has been a challenge since I started playing in the early 80s. But it is easier now because most people have seen a clip of it being played so they at least know that it is some sort of co-op boardgame.

Fight fight fight! I am rooting for hedgehobbit!

Seriously though, if people have seen a clip of it being played, they've heard of it. Most people have in fact heard of D&D now. Brand recognition is way WAY up there right now.

Love or hate Critical Role, love or hate Stranger Things, but between just those two things the overwhelming majority of people know what D&D is now in a way they didn't before.

Rob Necronomicon

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Re: The OneDnD Agenda
« Reply #21 on: August 20, 2022, 12:57:07 PM »

The wokescolds and faux hobbyists have never been interested in the OSR in the first place. Can you guarantee that you'll always be able to find people willing to play the niche and barely known RPGs of the OSR? If you can, cool. You have nothing to worry about. But I had trouble for years just getting a group for something like Call of Cthulhu or VtM. Most people just lean towards whatever is popular at the time unfortunately. And you end up in a position where you either have to play the latest version of DnD. Or just don't play RPGs at all.

I never had a problem finding people willing to play games, especially hugely popular games like CoC or VTM. And now that everything has moved online and over to Zoom there are plenty of options. Have you seen some of the FB groups, there are loads of people willing to give stuff a go.




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Mistwell

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Re: The OneDnD Agenda
« Reply #22 on: August 20, 2022, 01:01:32 PM »
I got into playing AD&D with the BOOKS--when I was 10 years old. No computers or digital anything necessary.

Imagine that!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
Yeah, unfortunately for us they're really pushing on that "One D&D is a living document that changes to fit the game, no more versions!" stuff will make it so even if you play with books, there will be 2 erratas/updates a month that you won't be able to print, reducing the rulebook from something well crafted, proof-read, intended to be the end all for the game - to just a piece of tat for collectors, the 'true game!' is going to be the subscription service. :/

That's not really the direction they're taking this though. By the time this comes out it will have been TEN YEARS since the last edition came out, and they've kept the errata EXTREMELY low, and even these changes are not a new edition but using the old edition with additions and some slight tweaks. You can't push that "oh it's going to be errat'ed every month" line with zero evidence. Even Gary thought updating the rules every decade was a reasonable path for a game.

David Johansen

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Re: The OneDnD Agenda
« Reply #23 on: August 20, 2022, 01:05:55 PM »
I take it Player's Handbook sales have dipped again then?  Look, they're just trying to maximize their customer base and sales.  The long tail of a thirty year old boom won't do that.

Someday, hopefully soon, people will throw off the shackles of all those tired old eighties licenses and look for something new, but that day is not today.
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Krugus

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Re: The OneDnD Agenda
« Reply #24 on: August 20, 2022, 01:15:13 PM »
As a Gen Xer.   I have three kids, 2 are millennials, and one is a zoomer. My oldest doesn't play TTRPG, and my daughter has played with us in the past but only enjoys the social aspect of TTRPGs, not playing the game itself.  Like most of his friends, our youngest, the zoomer, loves challenging video games.  The Dark Souls series are their favorite type of game.   He began playing TTRPGs with my group.  I started him off with Pathfinder 1e, currently playing in my PF2e campaign, and have already played several different one-shots using Savage Worlds and OSE.   He plays in online groups with his friends who are playing 5e.  He talks to them about playing Savage Worlds and OSE, and once their current campaign is over, they will start an OSR campaign.  So not all "zoomers" are hooked on easy mode gaming.   It also helps he's into reading actual books.   We raised him right :)

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hedgehobbit

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Re: The OneDnD Agenda
« Reply #25 on: August 20, 2022, 02:27:32 PM »
Are you guys posting from the year 2000? Because we're decades in to the digital revolution and that prediction, which at this point is about as old as Y2k fears, never happened. In fact, D&D has grown massively during this era of virtual tabletops, while multiplayer video games have shrunk a bit.

Over the last 30 days, more than 62 million people have played Genshin Impact. That's more than WotC's optimistic estimates for the total number of people who have ever played D&D during it's entire existence. The RPG hobby is still pretty small.

Quote
To thrive, old school RPGs need to work with virtual table tops. Stop trying to make the game in-person only, in a world where in-person gatherings have shrunk enormously, game store numbers have reduced, and populations have dispersed more.

I completely disagree. RPGs should focus on optimizing the face to face experience. This is what I saw happening during the boardgame explosion of the early 2000s. Games like Settlers of Cataan and Puerto Rico came out that focused on optimizing the boardgame experience. Emphasizing player to player interaction while reducing the tabletop's limitations by having reasonable setup times and a good (not to long, not to short) game length.

RPG should, as well, focus on what makes face to face gaming different from online gaming. This isn't to say that online RPG sessions aren't allowed, but they should be viewed as sub-optimal. Something to do when you can't actually meet IRL. Designing a game specifically to make it work better online is the wrong way to go.

This goes back to the whole point about video games not taking the place of RPGs. This can only happen if RPGs provide some sort of experience that video games cannot. The more you change RPGs to work in an online environment, the less different RPGs will be from these video games and the two will just get closer and closer until that advantage is lost. Better, IMO, to run the other way.

ForgottenF

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Re: The OneDnD Agenda
« Reply #26 on: August 20, 2022, 02:58:45 PM »
I was one of those "only play in person with hardcopy books" diehards for years. Stupidly, I stuck with that all the way through the pandemic, and ended up not playing any RPGs at all for a whole year when I had almost nothing else to do. Then, I had my first kid, and was basically forced to move to playing online, because my only free time was late at night.

Suddenly, I found that I had access to better players, who reliably showed up for games, and came to play rather than to gossip. And because no one has to travel, pick up food, set up all their paperwork, and settle down to actually play, I can run a tight 3 or 4 hour session and do more playing than I used to do in a ten hour one. That means that instead of playing once a month (if I'm lucky), I can now be in three games per week. And that's with a more than full-time job and a family.

Comparing that to the years I spent trying to wrangle 3 or 4 friends into showing up for a once per month game, and then having half of them not show up, and the other half spending most of the session smoking and talking about unrelated nonsense, I'm not sure I'll ever go back.

Oh, and before someone says this is a zoomer problem, I'm in my thirties, and the people I play with online are reliably 15-20 years older than I played am.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2022, 03:04:24 PM by ForgottenF »

Ghostmaker

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Re: The OneDnD Agenda
« Reply #27 on: August 20, 2022, 03:39:32 PM »
The speculation I'm seeing is that it's less about wokeness per se (that's just a bonus) and more about establishing a  closed system for the 'game as a service' model that's been plaguing the PC/console game culture for a while.

I personally know at least two politically left players who would rather eat broken glass than give WotC money over this. So this may not play out the way that WotC and Hasbro think it will.

There's something to be said for the wiki/SRD system. I've found it useful when running games myself. I'm not going to look down my nose at someone who prefers the texts, though, especially in light of WotC editing out 'problematic' content. But then, I'm the motherfucking GM, and I can always re-add it and then some.

Brooding Paladin

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Re: The OneDnD Agenda
« Reply #28 on: August 20, 2022, 04:21:18 PM »

Zoomers want everything easy and digital. And not all of them have an autistic grognard millennial to teach them a better way. Most groups of zoomers have a zoomer GM who doesn't care or doesn't know about older editions. Listens to WotC guidelines like it's the bible. And do whatever Matt Mercer tells them to.

So, today I was liberated from worrying about what they're doing to "my hobby."  I was listening to a podcast of some scientific/psychology flavor and they were talking about the changes in behavior due to technology.  The money moment was when the hosts mentioned as an example that when asked to pantomime taking a picture, the younger generation(s) would hold up with one hand a "phone" and take their picture.  As opposed to people from my generation who would still mimic holding a small box-like object with two hands and pressing a button on the top.  They talked about how the newer generation really doesn't get the sound that their phone makes when they take a picture because it's the sound of a shutter movement, something none of them had to experience.

That's when I realized that there are totally different products out there with the same name.  I mean, I knew that but I applied it to D&D.  From 4e on D&D really kind of left me and became something else entirely.  And I'm open to arguments that that happened w/ 3rd edition but let's leave it. 

The kids want something different than what I want.  In this case, I am happier with my rotary phone and they are happier with their all digital (it's a metaphor, I have a digital phone, just go with it  ;) ).  They can achieve the same result as long as we broadly define it as "making a phone call."  I'm entertained w/ my D&D and so are they (I guess).  Cool!  I'm no Luddite but I can also say that I'm happy doing what I'm doing and don't feel the need to decry what they're doing.  It's not what I call D&D but I also don't need to be right.  I just need enough like-minded grognards to show up at the table every other week!

DocJones

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Re: The OneDnD Agenda
« Reply #29 on: August 20, 2022, 04:40:31 PM »
It isn't just Zoomers. Nobody wants books. Everyone wants wikis. They want to see all of their classes displayed on a table with links to take them to each individual class page. They want to see all of their spells displayed as a table arranged by level for any class they want, where they can click the spell they want. They do not want to have to remember what books to look in for all of their feats and spells and magic items. They want it all in one resource. This is why the hobby exploded in the d20 era. Most people aren't walking indices of book and page number references.
So... make a wiki for your old school rpg and make an app.
Make an audio book version.
If that is really what it takes to win gen whatevers to OSR then so be it.