D&D General D&D's Utter Dominance Is Good or Bad Because...

[aco175]

D&D's dominance means:

• There's a gateway to the RPGing hobby that is generally very easy to find and access. The vast majority of gamers I know started with it and that's true over several decades.
• It's easy to find games, players, and other materials.
• Whenever the wingnuts start targeting games for any culture war controversy, it invariably lands on D&D. And D&D can take it.

But it also means:

• It can be harder to find people willing to take a step beyond the gateway since they can be very comfortable playing just D&D.

This is what I was thinking, but better laid out.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Fewer players is included in your "nothing but a good thing?" Seriously, your own personal gratification in an increase in different games is so important that you think nothing at all of those people who enjoy gaming right now who wouldn't be playing at all anymore?

The community is stronger if the games are more diverse just as much as it's stronger if the people are more diverse. By your argument, popularity is an unallocated good because it leads to more players, and that's the priority above everything else.

But sure, it's all about my personal pleasure here.

 

[Minigiant]

Somebody has to be the big dog. Just gotta deal with the big dog.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'll keep this brief, since my feelings toward D&D, especially 5e are generally pretty negative, and that would strongly color my views of it as the market leader.

I will say I'm unconvinced for any system to have the degree of dominance it has is a virtue, and that'd be true even if was a system I liked much better.

 

[Oofta]

I do sometimes wish there was more diversity because competition is good but if D&D was no longer a thing (had died with TSR for example) I think one of two scenarios is likely. Either there would just be some other dominant game and we'd just be complaining about that one or the TTRPG market would be much, much smaller.

For many casual players, which are the vast majority of players, I think there needs to be a critical mass of popularity that D&D provides that other games simply don't. So I think the latter of my two options above is far more likely, the TTRPG market would be even smaller than it is now.

 

[schneeland]

I think it's good that with 5e there's again a TTRPG that managed to attract enough pop cultural awareness to reach people that previously were either not aware of this sort of games or found them too niche/nerdy.
However, I wish that the gap between D&D and other games was not quite as large - after all, for both video and board games it's much more common to play multiple games.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

It's bad because it makes it harder for people like me, who have never played that game and never will, to find games.

 

[payn]

Its good because there is a common point for folks to enter the hobby and discuss it. Its bad because it lays an expectation for many that the D&D way is the only way. Ultimately, I dont think its really good or bad; it just is.

 

[Tonguez]

Good - it's an easy and familiar way for newbies to get into role-playing, especially with thedl destigmatisation of the hobby.

Bad - DnD promotes its own tropes and sets a medicore, monocultural standard for the hobby while also obfuscating potentially better approaches.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I really hope your poll is representative, because that gives me hope.

It's certainly not. But it is representative of those I can reach and that's good enough for me.