Forked Thread: [Ryan Dancey's D&D Death Spiral] - D&D doomed to cult status?

[Krensky]

Los Piratas, Battlelore, DJ Gollum, Pearce and Prior, just a few contemporaries I found after a quick search of Spotify.

/M

How mainstream are they and how many of them are the fantasy/Tolkien equivalent of S.P.O.C.K.? Honest question, no matter how snarky it appears.

 

[Doug McCrae]

D&D went mainstream some time ago. And ye, as Kamikaze Midget says, it had to ditch the 300 page rulebooks to do it.

World of Warcraft *is* D&D. It has owlbears and gnolls, for cock's sake.

 

[Remathilis]

Rocky Horror Picture Show survived for decades on "Cult Status"

Most people STILL can't name one Radiohead song. Yet they sell out every venue they play.

D&D will survive on cult status. Heck, it thrived there. When D&D got mainstream cred, we got Mazes & Monsters.

I bought a D&D logo shirt at a Steve & Barry's (before it went under). I've seen references to D&D in music, on TV, and in movies. At the high-schools I work at, I've seen plenty of D&D-related fiction (mostly Drizzt/FR novels) being read by 14-18 year olds. Sites like Jinx have official D&D merchandise, and some of thier shirts have filtered down into Hott Topics and such.

And I still see D&D books on sale in most chain bookstores. Found PHB2 in the Bestseller section of my local Borders right next to all the hot books of the week.

D&D will never be Harry Potter or Star Wars with huge throngs of fans standing out in lines awaiting midnight releases of DMG2. I'm thoroughly certain to be cursed to never have a good D&D movie. But D&D doesn't really need all that popularity; its survived long enough doing what it does now.

Lastly, it is the natural extension of all fandoms that they must believe their chosen fandom is on the verge of collapse. Star Wars fans are certain the prequels drove off fans; Doctor Who fans assume every season of the most popular BBC show in the UK is the last; Harry Potter fans dread the rise of Twilight as the "kewl teen book du jour", etc. Its in the nature, and its nearly universal in all fandoms I'm aware of. Everyone knows no show/movie/book/game will remain popular forever, decline and fall are built in. D&D has been in "decline" for nearly 20 years and and yet still has done well for itself.

 

[Galloglaich]

I get the impression that changes to the implied setting like dragonborn and tieflings are their attempt to do that, to "contemporary fantasy"-ise the game to "what the kids are into these days", and many sacred cows were slaughtered in an attempt to fob off the D&D traditions and identity in favor of what they considered a better way (cough cough).

Not in my opinion, this is going after hard-core geeks, just younger ones, basing things on Anime / Manga scene is exactly the same problem, only for a different generation. The original game wasn't based on any fantasy niche sub-sub-genre, it was based on History, mythology, and the most broadly popular fantasy literature of the day (Conan, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Lovecraft etc.)

Therefore I don't agree with your thesis that their philosophy is catering to the hardcore, just that the implementation appears to have inadvertently turned out that way as a side effect of other design philosophies (like exception-based design, the powers model, making minis central to gameplay etc).

But that's just speculation based on looking at the result, and some of what we know of their stated goals.

All of these things are designed to appeal to different age segments of the Geek demographic, IMO. I think to break out of this rut they will have to base the game on premises and themes that men and women who never read a comic book, manga, or Star Trek fan fiction can relate to. I.e. on what you might know from a basic high school or colledge education and the mass culture.

G.

 

[kitsune9]

Forked from: Ryan Dancey - D&D in a Death Spiral

A series of questions that arise: Is D&D "doomed" to cult/underground status? Even death? Are tabletop RPGs in general? Consider:

1) The continuing rise of computer games.
2) The imminent breakthrough of virtual technologies.

How (long) can D&D survive?

Personally I don't think D&D is dying but that it may be entering a major "shrinkage" phase, from a major hobby of several million players to a large cult following of a few hundred thousand. I don't ever see it dying, per se, at least until some kind of Singularity occurs (!). But given the seemingly incontrovertible fact that tabletop RPGs are a "graying" hobby, there are always more folks leaving the hobby than entering it. Even by polishing it with a World of Warcraft veneer, it won't draw the supposed goldmine of computer gamers simply because it is not a computer game.

Let me posit four "waves" of tabletop RPGers:

First Wave - Mainly Boomers (late 40s and older); those that started playing before 1980, either with OD&D or 1ed; the Founders.
Second Wave - Mainly Gen-Xers (roughly 28-45); most started in the 80s with BECMI, 1ed or 2ed D&D.
Third Wave - Mainly Gen-Yers (ages 10-27); most started post White Wolf, in the 90s or later, or with 3ed D&D.
Fourth Wave - ? These would be those folks who haven't played tabletop RPGs yet, or are just starting with 4ed.

I have no idea what the actual demographics are, but my guess is that the largest portion of D&D players is from the Second Wave (2W), with a sizable portion in 3W and a smaller portion in 1W. Those that are in 1W will probably continue playing until the day they die ("From my cold, dead hands"); the problem is that mortality rates rise, as we've seen with the many older game designers that have died in the last couple years (Gygax, Arenson, Wujcik, Crossby). Those in 2W are the backbone of D&D; some came back to playing with 3rd edition, perhaps after an early career/family hiatus; some with 4th. Many will gradually dwindle away, but a solid group of them could play for another decade or two. 3W is not quite as large as 2W, or at least more diluted by other games. Many of 3W haven't reached the crisis of "career/family vs. hobby," so it remains to be seen how many will last. 4W...we just don't know yet, but considering the two points above--computer games and virtual technologies--things don't look promising.

Thoughts?

Interesting thoughts. Nothing lasts forever though, and sooner or later, D&D will fade away. Whether it is replaced by another rpg, or computer game, or whatever remains to be seen. Whether that trend is now or in the future, I will only believe when I see it (such as WotC announcing that they closing their doors forever, etc.).

For right now, I want to keep playing and enjoy the hobby while I still have it.

Happy Gaming.

 

[Maggan]

How mainstream are they and how many of them are the fantasy/Tolkien equivalent of S.P.O.C.K.? Honest question, no matter how snarky it appears.

Los Piratas are big in Spain, but I wouldn't call any of these mainstream. DJ Gollum is established, but not mainstream.

I haven't got the faintest clue what S.P.O.C.K is.

That said, if the claim would be "no mainstream music bands are referencing Gollum", then I guess that's true. Although I don't follow mainstream that much. I'm sure there are instances out there.

/M

 

[Mallus]

1) easy to get into (esp. Basic Set)
2) relatively generic in terms of style*
3) not already closely associated with "Geek culture"

As for 1), I'm not sure the game was any easier to get into back in the early days, if only for the fact RPG's represented an entirely new kind of (board? board-less) game, whereas nowadays the basic conceit of "your playing piece is an imaginary person" is thoroughly a part of mainstream culture.

As for 3)... when, precisely, was not D&D not associated w/geek culture? I'm recently 40, and that's the most true now, after decades of mainstreaming of traditional geek-y pursuits.

... with assumptions and logic that are basically part of a certain very deep Geek culture, which pretty much everybody else (including myself) finds very off-putting.

Please, feel free to speak for as many people other than yourself as possible.

*point 2 means you could play the old game a wide variety of ways. You could play relatively realistic or way out surrealistic fantasy, low or high magic, historical or literary genre etc. The current versoins of the game (3.5 and 4E) are much more tied into one style of playing, kind of an adolescent version of high fantasy.

First off, you can play the newer editions of D&D a wide variety of ways. Spend some time reading the Story Hour section of ENWorld and you'll find ample proof of that.

Second the earlier versions of D&D where chock-full of adolescent high fantasy. They were the poster children for it. Jello monsters, trips to Wonderland (complete with enamel-grinding puns), crashed spaceships... yes, you can play 1e in a serious vein, but a great deal of the published support material suggested a vastly different mode of play.

Third, there's always going to be something adolescent in fantasy adventure stories. There's no shame in that. That what appealed to the boy could still appeal to the man... I don't see the need to put away The Lord of the Rings in favor of In Search of Lost Time because I am now of a certain age. I can have both (can't I?).

To make the game accessible to normal people again...

Normal people like you, presumably. Normal people like me and my social circle find it quite accessible.

Maybe it's unfair, but I associate the current rules with a DnD fan base I kind of saw crystalized at our local FLGS...

You think? I've been in quite a few bars that I wouldn't want to base my general opinion of drinking on.

Design the game not for 47 year old adolescents or actual teenagers, but something anybody relatively smart (including actual grown-ups) can play without having to already know the plot lines of 20 years of bad fantasy novels, comic books, and Star Trek episodes.

Can you pack any more condescension into that sentence? It's interesting to plumb the limits of language.

You might lose some of the 47 year old adolescents, but you'll inject new life into the game.

You also might find that fewer people than you suppose enjoy pretending to be an elf or Conan, and there's no shame in that, either.

Ignoring your core audience is never a good idea. You aren't going to make opera more popular by making it more like pop music (Have you ever been an event with opera geeks? You think gamers and F/SF nerds are bad...). Sometimes you have to accept you're a niche product and that's that.

 

[Fenes]

I think the new edition is not opening to the mainstream, but venturing into its own very specialized niche - tiefling and dragonborn serve as good examples of "D&Disms" that are not really familiar to anyone outside D&D.

Maybe it would have been better to broaden the game, offer more options for different playstyles and backgrounds, instead of narrowing both.

 

[Hairfoot]

I think WotC's plan was to move its M:tG audience straight into D&D and create an immediate new generation of roleplayers. That audience fits into a younger demographic base, which is why 4E contains so many "contemporary" features.

 

[Mallus]

I think the new edition is not opening to the mainstream, but venturing into its own very specialized niche - tiefling and dragonborn serve as good examples of "D&Disms" that are not really familiar to anyone outside D&D.

See, I think exact opposite is true. Dragon-men and demon-men are readily understood by mainstream people. Images of such things have been all over pop culture for decades now, from van sides and album covers to anime and manga.

It's only certain dogmatic D&D players that have trouble w/them.