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Forked Thread: [Ryan Dancey's D&D Death Spiral] - D&D doomed to cult status?
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<blockquote data-quote="Reynard" data-source="post: 4754685" data-attributes="member: 467"><p>This assessment is absolutely correct, IMO. Moreover, MMOs are TTRPGs and WoW is D&D, and I imagine it will be that way for some time. There are a lot of good, fun, different MMOs out there, but none even come close to WoW in terms of popularity and (perhaps more importantly) cultural brand recognition.</p><p></p><p>TTRPGs are a thing of the past, at least from a mainstream cultural standpoint. The reason you see so many D&D references in popular culture is that a lot of "us" are of an age to be working in popular culture now, and a lot of "them" who consume popular culture remember us geeks pouring over D&D books in study hall. D&D will live on with us -- I'll probably be playing in the old folks home -- but its days are numbered as a significant industry (if it ever was one).</p><p></p><p>D&D would be better served by a small company than a big corporation, I think, one that can make a comfortable living off us and whatever poor kids (some of them ours) we drag into our olde timey hobby. But even then the fact is that we don't need them, and they know it. The reason there's no Basic Set ala Molvay and Cook is that somewhere down the line someone in a position to make a decision realized that a $10 "introductory game" that allowed us to play for months, or even years if we were imaginitaive and motivated to expand on the rules given, was a losing proposition. Once we've got the rules, we don't need anything else. Gaming is cheap and easy and for a lot of folks totally free, a great way to spend some time with friends while shelling out only enough cash to keep us in mountain dew and cheetos.</p><p></p><p>No one, no game, needs 1000 pages of rules. How many completely playable, functional games came out in the "early days" that were 32 or 64 or 96 pages long? How many more are coming out now, with the advent of PDF and POD publishing? Monstrous tomes with monstrous prices and built in continued expenditures like randomized minis and DDI are obvious, desperate grasping for dollars that don't need to be, shouldn't be spent.</p><p></p><p>I'd like to see the day where RPGs in general were produced by fans, for fans, freely, with money changing hands only as an act of goodwill or for receipt of an actual product. But wait -- we're there already. The retro clones are the most obvious example: free rules, free adventures, free community, free play; but if you'd like to support, or get yourself a hardcopy, here's how to do so.</p><p></p><p>THAT is the future of role-playing games and one can only hope that D&D frees itself from corporate shackles and can live on in that environment, rather than be killed and cut apart for its IP.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Reynard, post: 4754685, member: 467"] This assessment is absolutely correct, IMO. Moreover, MMOs are TTRPGs and WoW is D&D, and I imagine it will be that way for some time. There are a lot of good, fun, different MMOs out there, but none even come close to WoW in terms of popularity and (perhaps more importantly) cultural brand recognition. TTRPGs are a thing of the past, at least from a mainstream cultural standpoint. The reason you see so many D&D references in popular culture is that a lot of "us" are of an age to be working in popular culture now, and a lot of "them" who consume popular culture remember us geeks pouring over D&D books in study hall. D&D will live on with us -- I'll probably be playing in the old folks home -- but its days are numbered as a significant industry (if it ever was one). D&D would be better served by a small company than a big corporation, I think, one that can make a comfortable living off us and whatever poor kids (some of them ours) we drag into our olde timey hobby. But even then the fact is that we don't need them, and they know it. The reason there's no Basic Set ala Molvay and Cook is that somewhere down the line someone in a position to make a decision realized that a $10 "introductory game" that allowed us to play for months, or even years if we were imaginitaive and motivated to expand on the rules given, was a losing proposition. Once we've got the rules, we don't need anything else. Gaming is cheap and easy and for a lot of folks totally free, a great way to spend some time with friends while shelling out only enough cash to keep us in mountain dew and cheetos. No one, no game, needs 1000 pages of rules. How many completely playable, functional games came out in the "early days" that were 32 or 64 or 96 pages long? How many more are coming out now, with the advent of PDF and POD publishing? Monstrous tomes with monstrous prices and built in continued expenditures like randomized minis and DDI are obvious, desperate grasping for dollars that don't need to be, shouldn't be spent. I'd like to see the day where RPGs in general were produced by fans, for fans, freely, with money changing hands only as an act of goodwill or for receipt of an actual product. But wait -- we're there already. The retro clones are the most obvious example: free rules, free adventures, free community, free play; but if you'd like to support, or get yourself a hardcopy, here's how to do so. THAT is the future of role-playing games and one can only hope that D&D frees itself from corporate shackles and can live on in that environment, rather than be killed and cut apart for its IP. [/QUOTE]
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