Ben Riggs Interview on the Death of the Golden Age

[Meech17]

You would of course see a broader section of the gaming community than do I, but anecdotally I'm not sure I can think of anyone who came to D&D via videogames. I can, however, think of some who went the other way.

Also only speaking anecdotally, but I sort of came to D&D from video games.

My older brother and I grew up playing EverQuest in the early 2000's, then EverQuest2 in the mid 2000's and got into Roleplaying through that. His wife at the time was very into forum/play by post roleplaying as well. The three of would sit around and essentially play a TTRPG without the rules and dice. We eventually tried to gamify it and made our own system using six sided dice stolen from our Risk set, and naturally we stumbled onto D&D from there.

It was a great transition because we loved EQ, and the world, and the lore, but didn't like how limited our interaction was with it. Sure the story in this questline was great, but we had to follow the rigid structure provided by the game to progress it. There were no choices to be made. D&D was able to give us a much more open experience.

I know a lot of people went the other way though. I had heard of avid D&Ders who fled to WoW for the ease of access it brought.

 

[Meech17]

I'm currently reading Ben Riggs' book. It was on sale for $10 at 2nd & Charles. I'm about halfway through.

I can see where the interviewer is coming from by saying if people were familiar with his work, they wouldn't be so critical of his take. The book is really enjoyable. He has done a great job of interviewing people and getting first hand accounts of the history of TSR.

With that said, the man can be capable of both writing a good book, and also making some bad takes.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I can see where the interviewer is coming from by saying if people were familiar with his work, they wouldn't be so critical of his take.

That can go both ways, though! I read his book and really enjoyed it, and was inclined to listen to him. Then I read this take and was really, really disappointed in him precisely because I had thought better of him.

With that said, the man can be capable of both writing a good book, and also making some bad takes.

Yes, that is clear.

I mean, personally, I'm not condemning him in any way - I'll read his next book! I just don't mind talking about how wrong and silly (where it's wrong and silly - it's not like it doesn't have a few points, here-and-there) this take of his has been.

I think the worst part of it, IMO, is how the entire thing was framed. Had he said, "I'm concerned that we've seen the end of the big D&D boom that has benefited all TTRPGs and I'm worried that we're in for a big slump in the near future" - I'd have said, "Amen, brother!"

But "The wonderful Golden Age is over! 6e is gonna kill us AAAAAALLLLL!! Why oh why have you abandoned D&D, Coville!"

There was a LOT to argue with there.

 

[Morrus]

I would agree with Riggs that D&D is a gateway that brings in new people to the TTRPG hobby. But I don't think that that function requires D&D to have a monopoly on the TRRPG hobby like it does now. The 5E player base fragmenting is something that is going to be invisible outside the TTRPG hobby. No one is going to say "Gee, I really liked BG 3, and was thinking of trying out D&D, but then I heard Koblold Press is coming out with their own game so nevermind."

Nor do I think D&D is inevitably the only starting point for getting into TTRPGs. If you believe Critical Role streaming D&D got people to play D&D, why would you assume Critical Role streaming Daggerheart wouldn't get people to play Daggerheart? If you believe Matt Coleville's D&D videos got people playing D&D then why would you assume Matt Coleville's videos couldn't get people playing the MCDM RPG? Riggs points out MC has 450K YouTube subscribers but only had 30K backers for the MCDM RPG - he argues that this show people don't want to branch out from 5E. But the MCDM RPG had more backers than Coleville's 5E kickstarters (Strongholds; Kingdoms & Warfare; Flee Mortals!). If anything this would suggest people are interested in different game systems if they have a good reason to try them out.

I’m not disagreeing with you but I think there’s an argument that brand synergy was a key factor. Neither CR or D&D made the other but the combination of the two brands was potent. Whether that translates to a new brand is another matter—we’ve all seen plenty of big companies falter when trying to launch new brands.

I’d love to see Daggerheart take off though. (Not that I know anything about it!)

 

[Meech17]

I think the worst part of it, IMO, is how the entire thing was framed. Had he said, "I'm concerned that we've seen the end of the big D&D boom that has benefited all TTRPGs and I'm worried that we're in for a big slump in the near future" - I'd have said, "Amen, brother!"

But "The wonderful Golden Age is over! 6e is gonna kill us AAAAAALLLLL!! Why oh why have you abandoned D&D, Coville!"

There was a LOT to argue with there.

Agreed. 6E was one of the biggest points that just made it feel like he hadn't bothered to look into the upcoming D&D content at all.

 

[Dire Bare]

To continue with the claims of which editions sold better or worse . . .

I'd be interested in seeing data comparing the initial sales periods of each edition of D&D. It wouldn't be a perfect comparison, as original D&D had a more stretched out development from the white box to B/X to BECMI. And even AD&D 1E, the three core books were a bit spaced out from each other.

I'd also like to see lifetime sales of each edition, at least of their active production printings (not including digital and POD sales on DMs Guild). But this would also be a tricky comparison, as each edition did not get equal time on the shelves.

What I'd really like to see is, perhaps, sales for each edition broken down per year. 3E didn't last as long as 2E did, but how did it do year-by-year in comparison to 2E?

Riggs book is on my reading list, I've already got a copy, just haven't gotten around to reading it yet. Perhaps he does provide this sort of data comparison.

Ultimately though . . . D&D 5E is fine. The sky isn't falling, the "golden age" isn't over . . . it's been tarnished a bit by WotC's shenanigans this past year or so, and it wouldn't surprise me if things get murky this year as D&D 2024, Tales of the Valiant, and Cubicle 7's 5E-clone release this year . . . .

 

[TheSword]

I got into TTRPGs after Legend of Zelda, Tomb Raider 1, Final Fantasy 7 and Tabletop Wargaming.

 

[shannonrampe]

Hey Folks - I'm the interviewer in question. First off, want to thank everyone who read through the first half of the interview. I have appreciated and enjoyed reading the comments thus far.

I can see where the interviewer is coming from by saying if people were familiar with his work, they wouldn't be so critical of his take.

In the initial posts Riggs made on Jan 3, there were a small handful of commenters who were attacking Riggs in ways that made it evident that they didn't know anything about him. Most of those were not people here on EN World but were on places like Twitter, etc. My intent was never to imply that Riggs shouldn't be criticized for his position; rather that it was unfortunate that there were some people who replied with uninformed and sometimes personal attacks. The vast majority of criticisms leveled were criticizing the substance of his argument, not him as a person and these criticisms are, of course, perfectly valid and reasonable.

Thanks again to all who read the first half of the interview. Part 2 will go up next week, likely Monday or Tuesday. I'll be sure to share it here when it goes live. GM Cellar is planning to share clips of the interview on YouTube along with our takes on Riggs' doom-and-gloom predictions. Follow GM Cellar on YouTube if you're interested in that.

 

[jolt]

I was born in '71 and we didn't have much in the way of video games at the time. Nowadays though, I think most people are coming from video games because most kids start playing video games before ttrpg's.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Hey, at least he stopped calling the 2024 books "6e". It's like he did a tiny bit of research into what they actually are!

Still talked about it as a separate thing from 5e, but yeah at least he doesn’t call it 6e.

I played Bard's Tale, Wasteland, Dragon Wars, Interplay's lord of the Rings, Final Fa tasy...all over a decade before trying D&D. I would consider goijg from video games to TTRPGs to be the normal course of things for anyone born in the mid-80's forward.

Yeah same. The Baldur’s Gate games and Dragonlance books were my exposure to D&D before The actual TTRPG ever was.