tail wags dog: streamers want to say 'aaargh' so we are getting a pirate adventure

pogre · Jan 5, 2019

Parmandur said:
Has it, though...? At least some portion of the perceived audience, even if the data was flawed. TSR was definitely pandering all the time, and WotC has been, too. Nothing new under the Sun.

I'll agree to disagree. I don't think your perception matches the decision-making process through out the history of the game.

Was my statement that streamers should have an influence on releases super obvious? Perhaps. I'm not sure it is axiomatic and I thought it was worthy of being acknowledged.

Mouseferatu · Jan 5, 2019

Well, as theories go, this one certainly has words in it.

Parmandur · Jan 5, 2019

pogre said:
I'll agree to disagree. I don't think your perception matches the decision-making process through out the history of the game.

Was my statement that streamers should have an influence on releases super obvious? Perhaps. I'm not sure it is axiomatic and I thought it was worthy of being acknowledged.

So, there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 7,500 distinct streaming games, which if we assume ~5 people per group means streamers account for ~37,500 people, before you consider fans, which is going to multiply that number many times over. The audience for the game is the audience for the streams, so of course the company is making products for the audience of the game.

GameOgre · Jan 5, 2019

BMaC said:
A friend of mine has an interesting theory. Streamers such as Critical Role and the like are a tax that grognards like me pay. The play style of streamers is unrepresentative but for whatever inscrutable reason they attract younger players to the game. The grognard gets the benefits a large market brings: notability the presence of flourishing third party publishers (Kobold Press and Goodman Games ftw); access to a larger player base; continued expansion of the D&D IP and corporate support for the franchise. The theory continues: classic dungeon crawls and their ilk are of no use to streamers: they are heavy on encounters which streaming is not and it is harder to work in the one-liners and 'humorous' one-upmanship which is the streamer's bread and butter. To conclude, we are getting a pirate adventure because streamers want to say 'aaargh.' Grognards like me are free to ignore the pirate adventure just as we ignore the streamers, but this means we are ignoring a huge portion of the official release schedule. This is why the book can be though of as a tax: we 'pay' it so we can continue to enjoy our Greyhawk homebrew, the one crunch book per year, and outstanding 3rd party 5e products.

I'm going to be honest with you here and I mean this in a helpful way not in a knee-jerk you said something wrong and I'm trying to slam you in any way.

I think you are playing the wrong role playing game.

I know people who had those those exact same complaints those were a very good sign of the root cause of the issue with my friends. They were playing 5E because they loved D&D and it was new and had new stuff to get excited about and tons of players...NOT because they really liked the system more than other games/editions. As time went on they got more and more irritated with the style and direction of the products. They made pages of house rules to fix the issues but still grew more unhappy until they were making posts and having talks like yours.

My advice is to go check out other rpg's or editions. Figure out what one works best for you and don't look back. Honestly, it sounds like that might be the right idea for you.

jgsugden · Jan 5, 2019

So your thought is that a recent Critical Role adventure magically caused WotC to plan a pirate themed set of products a couple years ago? Uhhh..... Because development on this stuff is a long process....

And there are a few streamed games that are dungeon delves, including a few going through recent WoTC products.

Satyrn · Jan 5, 2019

The OP is Chuck.

WotC is Lucy. The Football is old school.

Older Beholder · Jan 6, 2019

So what you're basically saying is 'Grognards can't swim'

There's as much chance WotC are pandering to the streaming crowd as there is that they are cashing in on the success of Aquaman.
To be honest I thought old school players would be more upset about Ravnica than a pirate book.

5ekyu · Jan 6, 2019

The theory i heard was that while we have all been lead to believe D&D was played in the 80s, it wasnt - dungeons or dragons.

That was all faked by Capricorn Alliance of the World of Darkness to convince the new gamer population that RPGs of mostly combat and crunch had been played.

They faked conventions in the midwest and even scandals of public concern.

I am pretty sure its true, say it on a community access program.