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

[ExploderWizard]

The baggage of the cultural assumptions the current versions of the game are based on are too much for most people to pick up on. That is why other board games frankly do so much better among normal people. Until they change that mindset DnD is going to remain in a dwindling fringe.

G.

Emphasis added by me. Perhaps this was a freudian slip or not? Mentioning D&D then "other board games" seems to imply that you you believe D&D to be a board game. Is this the case or did you mean something different?

 

[billd91]

So, yeah, until the movie came out, I would definitely say that LOTR, was a cult status read.

You would be wrong. LOTR was selling nearly a million copies a year, on average, for the 36 or so years of publication before Peter Jackson's films. And in 1997, it was voted greatest book of the 20th Century in the UK. US users of Amazon.com did the same (though a bit more grandiose as best book of the millenium) in 1999.
PJ's adaptations caused a big spike in sales, true. But it was hardly cult before that.

 

[Wombat]

I think one place to begin with is...

...rpgs have always had cult status.

When I started, there were very few gamers; sure, the numbers increased dramatically over the years and it is now possible to find D&D in B&N and Borders, but it is still a "minority hobby", and it is still seen as something you "grow out of".

RPGs are great -- I love 'em -- but I have never kidded myself that I have a mainstream hobby, one that is supported to the same extent as, say, bridge or scrap-booking. I think in many ways the heyday of rpgs is behind us, but this doesn't mean that I will stop playing, stop teaching games to new folks, or give up my favourite pastime. Instead, I just assume that it will be a bit harder for form gaming groups (especially for us in the over 40 crowd).

 

[Galloglaich]

Emphasis added by me. Perhaps this was a freudian slip or not? Mentioning D&D then "other board games" seems to imply that you you believe D&D to be a board game. Is this the case or did you mean something different?

Only in the broad sense of being a game you play at a table with other people rather than in front of an LCD screen by your self.

G.

 

[Maggan]

I don't see any of todays bands referencing Gollum.

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

/M

 

[Mercurius]

So, yeah, until the movie came out, I would definitely say that LOTR, was a cult status read.

I don't think this is true. Or rather, LotR and The Hobbit are the "gateway" between mainstream culture and the SF/F ghetto. Some years ago I worked in a large independent bookstore; I remember checking sales history on The Hobbit and was amazed at how not only was its sales extremely consistent, month after month, but it spiked considerably during the gift-buying season (Nov and Dec). We're not talking just a few, but close to bestseller...for a book written 70 years ago.

I agree with this post 100%. I think RPGs in general are doing ok, but DnD (which is the 'gateway' drug for RPGs) is flagging badly, and I think that is because it is "time-consuming and number-crunching and loaded with geek-pleasing flavor that might not go down so well with people a bit more ... normal" as you so aptly put it....

SNIP

....The baggage of the cultural assumptions the current versions of the game are based on are too much for most people to pick up on. That is why other board games frankly do so much better among normal people. Until they change that mindset DnD is going to remain in a dwindling fringe.

Great post, sorry I had to snip it for the sake of brevity. I think you really hit the nail on the head here. I've been saying for awhile and still maintain that D&D should go back to a Basic/Advanced format yet in such a way that the rules are complementary, so that people can start playing Basic and gradually move into Advanced, or just use bits and pieces of Advanced...or not. The idea being that the rules would be compatible, easily convertible, and modular. Basic would not require miniatures (another ghetto-ifying factor), would not include countless exceptions and modifiers, and would be contained within a single rule book or box set.

I am still surprised at how much repulsion exists towards D&D; in many circles it is an insult to say something like "Go back to playing D&D" or "I bet he plays D&D." I'm a high school educator and when my kids found out that I play the responses ran the gamut, from excitement (he's nerdy like us!), to confusion (he doesn't seem like a nerd...), to distressed repulsion (are you kidding me? that's for nerds!). What I was surprised about was A) How much antipathy exists towards it, and to a lesser extent, B) How some folks had no clue what it was about and had a difficult time grasping the basic concept. I enjoyed playing the Vin Diesel/Tim Duncan cards to some of the guys, which confused them even more!

But there were some non-nerdish kids that were genuinely curious, if a bit leery of being too curious (sort of like mild homophobes being curious-but-leery of Gay Things because they don't want to contract The Gay). I think if WotC was able to manufacture a Basic set that was relatively generic and without the excessive complex geekery, some would at least be willing to try. I tell people all the time, from my wife to some of my students, that I think they would actually like it if they tried. I mean, how many people actually play D&D that don't like it? I've never played with a newbie (usually a wife or girlfriend of a player) who hasn't at least found it mildly interesting; most are more into it than they thought they would be.

If and when there is a 5th edition I would hope they would adopt a stronger Basic/Advanced format...as long as the two complement each other and aren't different games (like 1ed and BECMI), but the latter being more of a complexification, or advanced options add-on. This format would also work well with the core/splat format: Your first product, a box-set with three booklets: PHB, MM, DMG would be the core basic rules set, which would be enough to play indefinitely; then you'd have hardcover splat books which are all optional and advanced: e.g. "Advanced Players Handbook", etc.

 

[Hussar]

You would be wrong. LOTR was selling nearly a million copies a year, on average, for the 36 or so years of publication before Peter Jackson's films. And in 1997, it was voted greatest book of the 20th Century in the UK. US users of Amazon.com did the same (though a bit more grandiose as best book of the millenium) in 1999.
PJ's adaptations caused a big spike in sales, true. But it was hardly cult before that.

How many of those "million" copies a year were being sold to educational institutions? The fact that LOTR was required reading in a number of places, mostly because of who Tolkien was, drove a lot of sales.

And, considering that not in one single year did LOTR ever make a top seller list, I'm highly, HIGHLY doubting your million copies a year number.

As far as being voted the greates book of the 20th C in the UK, could you please point me to some documentation on that? I wiki'd the work, and came out with a 2003 BBC poll that said it was one of the best loved books, but, that's a bit different.

Look, I know it was popular. I know it is popular. BUT, ask ten non-gamers if they've read it and I'm pretty sure that most haven't. It's an extremely seminal work in what was at the time, a tiny sub-genre.

 

[Galloglaich]

Great post, sorry I had to snip it for the sake of brevity. I think you really hit the nail on the head here. I've been saying for awhile and still maintain that D&D should go back to a Basic/Advanced format yet in such a way that the rules are complementary, so that people can start playing Basic and gradually move into Advanced, or just use bits and pieces of Advanced...or not. The idea being that the rules would be compatible, easily convertible, and modular. Basic would not require miniatures (another ghetto-ifying factor), would not include countless exceptions and modifiers, and would be contained within a single rule book or box set.

Agreed, agreed, agreed!!! M O D U L A R. That was the key to the success of the old games. You could start out simple and casual, and move on into as complex and deeply involved as you wanted to be. This is the way the next big RPG is going to be made, mark my words.

And yeah, miniatures are definitely a ghetoisng factor. They are percieved, not without some reason, as being symbols of geekdom, of being in a certain kind of rut. This is symbolic of the kind of buy-in / investment most people don't want to make when just learning a game. By making DnD so heavily based on minatures in recent versions, they really subdue a lot of the actual subversive appeal of it (i.e. unleashing the imagination), and require people to feel like they have to do something complex, expensive, time consuming and kind of childish and cheesy, especially given the crappy quality of most minatures.

I am still surprised at how much repulsion exists towards D&D; in many circles it is an insult to say something like "Go back to playing D&D" or "I bet he plays D&D." I'm a high school educator and when my kids found out that I play the responses ran the gamut, from excitement (he's nerdy like us!), to confusion (he doesn't seem like a nerd...), to distressed repulsion (are you kidding me? that's for nerds!). What I was surprised about was A) How much antipathy exists towards it, and to a lesser extent,

We have to ask ourselves why there is so much repulsion? Is it just the media and hang-over of "DnD is a Satanic Cult" hit pieces from back in the 80's? Or is there a more valid reason? Have we just gotten used to certain distasteful aspects of Geek culture like the boiling frog syndrome?

B) How some folks had no clue what it was about and had a difficult time grasping the basic concept. I enjoyed playing the Vin Diesel/Tim Duncan cards to some of the guys, which confused them even more!

Don't forget Stephen Colbert and Robin Williams, and that guy from SLC Punk!

I think if WotC was able to manufacture a Basic set that was relatively generic and without the excessive complex geekery, some would at least be willing to try. I tell people all the time, from my wife to some of my students, that I think they would actually like it if they tried. I mean, how many people actually play D&D that don't like it? I've never played with a newbie (usually a wife or girlfriend of a player) who hasn't at least found it mildly interesting; most are more into it than they thought they would be.

Agreed, there is still something deeply subversive and broadly appealing about the Role Playing Game part of DnD. Not the +4 vorpal swords or the miniatures or the elf porn you can download on RPGNow, the unleashing of the imagination has a universal appeal. All the other stuff is clutter, some good, some bad, which people elaborate their gaming experience with. The initial opening should be as free of this kind of Geek baggage as possible; hip, simple, logical, and universally accessible... and from there you can open up enhancements and advanced versions that all of us can geek out on to our hearts desire.


G.

 

[rounser]

I think that hard core gamer crowd will adapt to whatever RPG is out there, but DnD should quit catering to them. 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. You might lose some of the 47 year old adolescents, but you'll inject new life into the game. It's the failure to do this due to classic US Corporate short term thinking that has DnD in a Death Spiral.

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).

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.

 

[billd91]

How many of those "million" copies a year were being sold to educational institutions? The fact that LOTR was required reading in a number of places, mostly because of who Tolkien was, drove a lot of sales.

And, considering that not in one single year did LOTR ever make a top seller list, I'm highly, HIGHLY doubting your million copies a year number.

As far as being voted the greates book of the 20th C in the UK, could you please point me to some documentation on that? I wiki'd the work, and came out with a 2003 BBC poll that said it was one of the best loved books, but, that's a bit different.

Look, I know it was popular. I know it is popular. BUT, ask ten non-gamers if they've read it and I'm pretty sure that most haven't. It's an extremely seminal work in what was at the time, a tiny sub-genre.

Your wiki-fu is weak, grasshopper. From citations directly from the Lord of the Rings entry on Wikipedia:

Consider: Ballantine sold 32 million copies of the Rings books from 1965 to 2001.

USATODAY.com - 'Rings' comes full circle

In January 1997, reporter Susan Jeffreys of the (London) Sunday Times informed a colleague that J.R.R. Tolkien's epic fantasy "The Lord of the Rings" had been voted the greatest book of the 20th century in a readers' poll conducted by Britain's Channel 4 and the Waterstone's bookstore chain. Her colleague responded: "Oh hell! Has it? Oh my God. Dear oh dear. Dear oh dear oh dear."

Attitudes on this side of the Atlantic are arguably more relaxed about this kind of thing. No one from the educated classes expressed much dismay when a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers chose "The Lord of the Rings" as the greatest book not merely of the century but of the millennium.

Salon.com Books | The book of the century

See also TheStar.com | entertainment | Tolkien proves he's still the king, a citation from List of best-selling books - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, a wikipedia article about best selling books that puts it well into the high end of sales. Granted, that Toronto Star article attributes 50 million in copies sold to the time after the PJ movies. But that still puts 100 million before the films.

That's not cult. That's right out in the cultural landscape.