D&D General Styles of D&D Play

Lanefan · Jan 15, 2024

EzekielRaiden said:
I have not personally seen any evidence that they aren't leaving the hobby. Which entails a rather dark question:

Is 5e succeeding by driving people away from TTRPGs for good, just at a slower rate than it is bringing people to itself? Because if that is true, that's a huge problem. There are only finitely many people to bring in.

Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Which means, contra to what some here want to think, there's great potential in marketing to lapsed players be it via nostalgia, tweaks and updates, or whatever...and "lapsed players" includes those who bailed well before 5e ever hit the streets, as well as those who both started and ended with 5e.

Crimson Longinus · Jan 15, 2024

EzekielRaiden said:
Though this may or may not be a good thing. The term for this in the MMO sphere is "churn." A game with high population maintained by churn, rather than retention, is like a fire burning through its fuel at an unsustainable rate. Sooner later, the pool of interested people dries up, and churn necessarily drops. When you're looking at millions of people, that's...less than good, shall we say.

I have not personally seen any evidence that they aren't leaving the hobby. Which entails a rather dark question:

Is 5e succeeding by driving people away from TTRPGs for good, just at a slower rate than it is bringing people to itself? Because if that is true, that's a huge problem. There are only finitely many people to bring in.

I thought the answer was obvious. They aren't going anywhere, if "where" refers to other systems. They're leaving the hobby entirely, not playing any system. "Oh, I guess D&D just isn't for me." Never taking a second glance, even at the other flavors of D&D, let alone the smorgasbord of TTRPGs out there.

Dear Athe! This is some conspiracy theory stuff. There is absolutely no evidence that 5e is driving off people. I mean of course some people constantly leave any hobby, but this bizarre doommongering you have concocted to justify your hatred of 5e has absolutely no basis.

Minigiant · Jan 15, 2024

EzekielRaiden said:
I fear 5e has coupled that with terrible support for the critical DM role specifically, and lackadaisical support for the intended play experience unless you have an already-good DM at the helm. That it has thus set itself up for a wave of new players who get in, get a couple of campaigns in, see some problem or other, and then based on that decide "nah, not really for me."

I think this is a case where 5e creates a lot of engaged players who stay in the community but buy nothing because they can't find a DM willing to run a game the way they want since base 5e doesn't support those playstyles well.

Oofta · Jan 15, 2024

Wait ... so we've gone from the rules that support the game out of combat that I use all the time not really existing ... to imaginary churn caused by 5E driving away players? There has always been churn with D&D, as with many leisure time games. People get a job, a family, get busy and have other priorities. Is there any evidence, any evidence at all, that 5E is losing players more rapidly than any other edition? Because from what I've seen it's become an excuse to get together and socialize. Heck, I'm playing with my older sister and my nephews, the nephews are in their 30s.

I guess the next thing is to put together one of those clickbait videos, so I put together a quick preview image for you. You're welcome.

Retros_x · Jan 15, 2024

Minigiant said:
Exactly, it is a preference.

But a lot of people in the community state that Freeform Roleplay is objectively better. To the point that Mechanical Rollplay is omitted or ignored as an option. Like Freeform doesn't have flaws Most people who aren't actors tend to have their Roleplay devolve into their own personalities instead of their characters as they aren't train to keep up the "act".

Mechanical Rollplay not even in the Original Post.

Roleplay is not acting, its making decisions from the perspective of the character. Acting is just a tool to present those decisions. But if you not trained, its perfectly fine to just do not act.

If you introduce mechanics like that you shift free decision making to rolling and game systems. It can be fun, but IMO is not roleplaying.

Bedrockgames · Jan 15, 2024

I don't know. 5E seemed not only great at retaining players (I run lots of other games and I run into way more 'only 5E' all the time). There has always been players who were dissatisfied with D&D because they wanted something else. But D&D is very much a middle ground RPG trying to reach the most possible audience without people away. If people are leaving 5E these days, I am guessing it has a lot more to do with the OGL fiasco and other things than with 5E being an issue. This is more of an outsider's position but as someone who doesn't play 5E, anecdotally, I have never seen the current edition of D&D more popular among the gamers I know, and I have never seen this level of content with an edition either among them. So they must have done something right.

Umbran · Jan 15, 2024

Crimson Longinus said:
but this bizarre doommongering you have concocted to justify your hatred of 5e has absolutely no basis.

Mod Note:
Please. Don't. Make. It. Personal.

Umbran · Jan 15, 2024

EzekielRaiden said:
I have not personally seen any evidence that they aren't leaving the hobby.

Do we need to do the exercise of peeling this back to show it to be very faulty reasoning?

If The Hobby had made a strange promise - to gather data and make a report to you, in particular, if folks weren't leaving, but not if they were - then the lack of evidence might indicate something. But otherwise... we wouldn't generally expect you, personally, to have seen this evidence. You're just some person on the internet, just like me and everyone else here. We get no particular access to evidence.

So, you not having it isn't indicative of anything, much less "dark questions."

And that's not even getting into the "prove a negative" aspects of the statement.

Snarf Zagyg · Jan 15, 2024

Oofta said:
Wait ... so we've gone from the rules that support the game out of combat that I use all the time not really existing ... to imaginary churn caused by 5E driving away players? There has always been churn with D&D, as with many leisure time games.

As I walk through the valley and cast spells so arcane
I like to thank my DM for running this campaign
But that's just perfect for a 5e player like me
You know, I shun playing Champions for their simplicity
On my table is a DM's Guide that I'll never read
Don't need no optional rules for my character to succeed, fool

And I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons for so long that
Even Gygax thinks that my mind is gone
I'm the grognard in this band, I'm no simpleton
Got some dice in my hand and a beard on my chin
But if I kill all my monsters, and you finish thine
Then tonight, we're gonna loot corpses like it's 1979

We been spending most our lives
Playin' in this D&D paradise
I churned games once or twice
Playin' in this D&D paradise
It's killin' bards and sacrifice
Playin' in this D&D paradise
We buy healing potions at discount price
Playin' in this D&D paradise

TwoSix · Jan 15, 2024

Micah Sweet said:
Have to disagree with that. Lack of opposition is not support.

You know, I was going to agree with this, but thinking a little further about it, I'm kinda flipping to the other side, at least on this one particular issue. (Other use cases, there is definitely a neutral position between opposition and support.)

Almost by definition, a rules set CAN'T actively support freeform character inhabitation dialogue that drives the narrative/setting forward, because the whole point is to allow the dialogue to be unbounded by rules. So realistically, if a rules set doesn't have a rule set that mediates how PC-NPC interaction unfolds, it must be tacitly supporting freeform dialogue (and GM interpretation of such) as the driver of interaction modifying the narrative.

D&D General Styles of D&D Play

Lanefan

Victoria Rules

Crimson Longinus

Legend

Minigiant

Legend

Oofta

Legend

Retros_x

Explorer

Bedrockgames

Legend

Umbran

Mod Squad

Umbran

Mod Squad

Snarf Zagyg

Notorious Liquefactionist

TwoSix

"Diegetics", by L. Ron Gygax

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