What Does the RPG Hobby Need Now?

[MGibster]

Another option is to play with people -- including kinds of people -- that you have not played with or don't play with. Assuming you generally play with folks in your own cohort, play with some younguns. Play with people of different ethnic, religious or sexual identity backgrounds than you. I don't want to make any assumptions about you, @Zaukrie, specifically, but I am a middle class GenX white dude and play is always fresh when I play with young brown folks, gaymers and others.

This is what makes conventions and game days at your local game store so fun. While I don't hang out with younger people on a regular basis, I've been absolutely delighted to run games for younger people, especially when they're rather new at the game. Everything is new to them and they often do interesting things.

 

[MGibster]

Maybe you quoted the wrong post?

I'm too embarrassed to admit that. So I'm just going to flip over the table and pretend like I'm the aggrieved party.

 

[Dire Bare]

I'm too embarrassed to admit that. So I'm just going to flip over the table and pretend like I'm the aggrieved party.

Proper internet behavior, well done!

 

[Dire Bare]

I just don't have the time or desire to learn a new game...I'm already overwhelmed remembering the DnD rules for this version vs the other ten (exaggeration?) versions I've played.

I agree with @mearls, design a damn adventure assuming we use a VTT.

I think what I'm missing, and it likely because I'm 61, is a sense of adventure, of awe. No idea how to get that from DnD at this point.

One of my best D&D memories is reading the BECMI "Gazetteer" series, one-at-a-time, as they were published. The mystery, build up, and eventual reveal of the "Land of the Red Sun" or the Hollow World kept me excited for at least a year . . .

Hard to replicate that experience nowadays. Nobody's fault, that's just life!

 

[Zaukrie]

One of my best D&D memories is reading the BECMI "Gazetteer" series, one-at-a-time, as they were published. The mystery, build up, and eventual reveal of the "Land of the Red Sun" or the Hollow World kept me excited for at least a year . . .

Hard to replicate that experience nowadays. Nobody's fault, that's just life!

Agreed.

 

[aramis erak]

As an industry: WotC/HasBro to go into bankruptcy. Get a bunch of the IP out of their hands into others' hands.

For the benefit of gamers: changes to reduce copyright duration.

 

[aramis erak]

If they're losing money on adventures I can understand ceasing production. But even if they're not the most profitable product, they provide a relatively inexpensive proving ground for new writers, new ideas, and new intellectual property that might still be in use decades later. Pathfinder started out as a series of adventures, and there's no reason WotC couldn't possibly develop their own thing as well. WotC is still making money off of adventures published by TSR more than 40 years ago. Far be it from me to pretend to know the market better than WotC though. It's entirely possible there's something I'm missing here.

AS a for profit stock corporation in the US, they have an obligation solely to shareholders, and it's to maximize the value of the stock and the dividends.

Staff time on smaller adventures is not the same return on staff time. Mearls and Crawford noted that it wasn't worth the staff time; it wouldn't make back the salary value spent. (Especially not at WotC HQ, which has to deal with Washington State's minimum wage laws, and the Seattle ones, too...)
The DM's Guild program is the cheapest way they can get adventures out the door and still make money on them. It's not a good program for the industry; it lowers the value of adventures and its quality varies widely. But it's a good program for Wizards and the HasBro stockholders.

 

[aramis erak]

One of my best D&D memories is reading the BECMI "Gazetteer" series, one-at-a-time, as they were published. The mystery, build up, and eventual reveal of the "Land of the Red Sun" or the Hollow World kept me excited for at least a year . . .

Hard to replicate that experience nowadays. Nobody's fault, that's just life!

Kickstarter... similar, but add to that the gambling on whether you get what you paid for. Both in terms of quality and in terms of actual delivery of anything.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Kickstarter... similar, but add to that the gambling on whether you get what you paid for. Both in terms of quality and in terms of actual delivery of anything.

I've been lucky I guess. Never contributed to a Kickstarter that didn't deliver what was promised.

 

[aramis erak]

I've been lucky I guess. Never contributed to a Kickstarter that didn't deliver what was promised.

In terms of physical product, I've been in 2 of about 12 that didn't deliver all that was promised.
I've had 2 that the delivered product was physically what was promised but was, design-wise, not to my liking and I couldn't tell until after lock-in.
The fails:
A Land of Narrow Paths - Maps of Japan. I wasn't in for the physical, but there were issues with the physical version. Case of too many stretch goals. What I did get in the PDF was exactly what was promised.
Traveller T5 - one of the promised books still hasn't been written. But I wasn't in for the tiers it was in. Further, is at a complexity level I consider unplayable. I can and have used parts of it in other editions.
The One Ring 2e - I hate each of the rules changes made. I am also aware they're not FL's fault, and that those changes by the designer are part of why C7 quit the project.