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

[Micah Sweet]

Thats a different issue. Still the point is being the winner in the end.

The point is to enjoy the experience, not necessarily to "win".

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ok. For you: there are shades between. But I can't lisst all of them here. So I chose the extreme positions. Fill the rest in your mind.

Do you really think D&D is at either end?

I think WotC is very close to the power fantasy end, yes.

And only making note of extremes suggests that you don't believe that there are other options, so forgive me for reminding folks of the excluded middle you ignored.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Sounds like you're blaming people who want to play something other than WotC 5e for not being as good a salesperson as WotC is. Is that remotely fair?

I'm not blaming those people... I'm simply saying that it's not imperative that anyone else go out of their way to make those people's lives easier.

Would we say "Let's remove the top 500 players of the NFL so that players beneath them can now play in the NFL"? Of course not. So why would we think it's logical to remove all the people playing 5E right now just so players of other games can now become part of the "more popular" games?

 

[Reynard]

Would we say "Let's remove the top 500 players of the NFL so that players beneath them can now play in the NFL"? Of course not. So why would we think it's logical to remove all the people playing 5E right now just so players of other games can now become part of the "more popular" games?

This is an odd analogy that seems to suggest a qualitative difference between D&D fans and fans of other games. I don't think you intended to suggest that, but by bringing in the "top 500" element it sort of bends that way.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not blaming those people... I'm simply saying that it's not imperative that anyone else go out of their way to make those people's lives easier.

Would we say "Let's remove the top 500 players of the NFL so that players beneath them can now play in the NFL"? Of course not. So why would we think it's logical to remove all the people playing 5E right now just so players of other games can now become part of the "more popular" games?

False analogy. It's reasonable to assume in a general sense that the top 500 NFL players are among the top football players in the world. We don't really have a ranking system for competence in RPGs, and if we did I wouldn't say nearly all the top "talent" is playing WotC 5e. Some yes, but you can't skim off the top 500 RPG players and have them all be WotC fans.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This is an odd analogy that seems to suggest a qualitative difference between D&D fans and fans of other games. I don't think you intended to suggest that, but by bringing in the "top 500" element it sort of bends that way.

False analogy. It's reasonable to assume in a general sense that the top 500 NFL players are among the top football players in the world. We don't really have a ranking system for competence in RPGs, and if we did I wouldn't say nearly all the top "talent" is playing WotC 5e. Some yes, but you can't skim off the top 500 RPG players and have them all be WotC fans.

If someone wants to create a different analogy, feel free. But the actual point stands-- we wouldn't ask the more popular thing to become less popular just to move other stuff higher up the list. If that other stuff deserves to be higher... then it can earn its popularity, not just wait for the ones above it to fall.

 

[DEFCON 1]

delete

 

[Swanosaurus]

I come from a country where, for most of the time, D&D played second or third fiddle to The Dark Eye and Call of Cthulhu (and probably also, at times, to Shadowrun). As far as I know, Fifth Edition has finally become number one here, but that's a more recent development.

Therefore it's weird and more on the negative side for me that especially these days, people talk about RPGs coming from D&D assumptions. A lot of people (from a more global perspective, rightfully) assume that if you're talking RPGs, you're talking D&D, and are unaware that there are a lot of "D&Disms" that most RPGs unrelated to D&D simply don't share. So there's a huge semantic barrier, and one that often makes you feel marginalized within what is supposedly your community if you "don't speak D&D" too well.

On the other hand, yeah, it's great that RPGs are such a big part of the mainstream these days, and it couldn't have happened without D&D as a reference point for a more general audience out there unfamiliar with the notion that there might be other RPGs. Still, I'm kind of miffed, that in so many episodes Stranger Things didn't even give the slightest nod toward the idea that games like Traveller, RuneQuest (I think even Cyberpunk) were already out there and being played (how cool would it be if one of the gang was trying to get them to play Traveller for a whole season ...).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I think WotC is very close to the power fantasy end, yes.

ok.

And only making note of extremes suggests that you don't believe that there are other options, so forgive me for reminding folks of the excluded middle you ignored.

That is your interpretation and comes from your mind, not mine.
I think other people know there is something in between. At least that is what I always assume.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The point is to enjoy the experience, not necessarily to "win".

Of course. Noone likes beating the game on hard mode. You do it for the way there...