aia_2
Custom title
Well, you can have even the other way round: this would be interesting to my eyes instead! I mean: instead of playing D&D you can have fun to play a "tweaked" version of it... That's the main idea of the OSR movement...
RPG mainstream direction
Well, you can have even the other way round: this would be interesting to my eyes instead! I mean: instead of playing D&D you can have fun to play a "tweaked" version of it... That's the main idea of the OSR movement...
MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
I get it. As a player I have enjoyed DCC, Swords and Wizardry, and Pathfinder. I'm writing as a DM. I already have more 5e stuff than I'll ever have time to play through. I'm already familiar with the rules and just don't have the or shelf space to invest in another, similar game.
That said, I am a bit of hypocrite here. I did back the DCC Dying Earth box set and modules. Partly out of nostalgia but also the rules and setting feel like they would give a very different flavor of game play. But I'm looking to run this as a mini-campaign at some point. It is just difficult for me to see something that supplants D&D 5e as my main campaign.
aramis erak
Legend
D&D is the mainstream. Even when it was not the #1 seller, it was still top 5 in sales and online play. And the game holding better than D&D 4E was also, essentially, D&D. Namely, Pathfinder.This morning i wanted to post a thought on this thread which draw my interest:
Best/Favorite Thin RPG Core Book
What is your favorite "thin" RPG core rules? That is, core rules in fewer pages than a big fat hardcover (or three!)? I think RPG core rulebooks are entirely too long. I think you could do even modern D&D in 100 pages, tops, if you wanted to (just as an example). I want to try something new but...
But then I thought i would have gone OT because of a "parallel thought" not centered on the discussion: I am aware that this is a question posted by a single user, but the boards are plenty of threads where the discussion among light-rules vs d&d-esque (i.e. large hardback tomes) is ongoing... Along with this, I also consider the studies of the lower and lower capacity of keeping the concentration of the human being (the most recent say it is nearly a couple of minutes!)...
I have the feeling that the mainstream is already drawn and there is no way to foresee a different direction in the long run: rules KISS-style, few indications on a nearly do-it-yourself setting so that everyone can spend less than 1h of time e get ready to play...
This would lead to some consequences:
1. D&D will for sure need to change (and follow the mainstream) or die
There's no major public outcry for lighter rules than 5E. That's an aspect of the RPG forum culture, not of D&D fandom. The noisy fringe. We are loud, proud, and, sadly, irrelevant to D&D sales.
aia_2
Custom title
I fully agree that D&D was and is the mainstream. My question is that, given the current development of human behavior and capabilities, i have some doubts that D&D will be the mainstream if it keeps the actual approach (large ruleset, many options/classes/mainly useless add-ons...).
It is like Kodak Films at the dawn of digital camera...
It is like Kodak Films at the dawn of digital camera...
RivetGeekWil
Lead developer Tribes in the Dark
It's the same approach it's had for the last 40 years. It's not going to stop being mainstream when it's been growing revenue in the double digits year over year for the past couple years.
D&D is for all intents and purposes its own hobby. That's not going to change.
aia_2
Custom title
I really hope you are right but let me add that the top executives of Kodak used to think the same thought...
RivetGeekWil
Lead developer Tribes in the Dark
I don't hope I'm right. I can't spit without hitting somebody confusing D&D for all RPGs and thinking that they all are played the same way.
aramis erak
Legend
Yup.
Many newer D&D players get rather shocked to find out any of the following...
- Their group's particular playstyle isn't used by the group next door,, despite using the same edition (Youtuber Ginny Di mentions this revelation early in her D&D playing)
- Very few groups actually resemble Critical Role (often to mixed dismay and relief)
- Prior editions were quite different in tone and mechanics.
- Especially different in their utter lack of consideration of political correctness
- That there are (quite literally) thousands of different RPG rulesets
- D&D isn't the simplest RPG in print
- That D&D rules are quite different from many other RPG systems in terms of mechanics
- That many RP gamers (5% to 15% ?) dislike and/or hold disdain for D&D 5e for a variety of reasons.
We, as a clade, need to be careful not to scare the new or mono-system gamers away from the panoply of other RPG experiences. Part of that is not trashing D&D (nor their favorite non-D&D if they have one) to them.
aia_2
Custom title
Ah, sorry! In my landscape i forgot another essential feature: we are moving with a quick pace towards the dematerialization... We will likely have no more books or paper in the next years, especially for "leisure" reasons... This is another aspect the inteligentia of D&D should consider as well...
aramis erak
Legend
Most of us have... but truth be told, D&D, Pathfinder, FFG/Edge Star Wars, Palladium, and a dozen others are having no problem selling dead tree to youth. (I'm sure Kevin Siembieda is regretting to a point that the perfect binding he chose for everything after the Mechanoids trilogy is so damned durable - many of Palladium's books have been sold and resold a half-dozen times or more, cutting into his sales.)
Most of the OSR crowd I'm seeing online aren't greybeards, either... they're 20's and 30's, too young to have been around when the games they're tweaking were actually in first use... and they, too, are seeking dead tree. Often, FTF OSR groups play with a "no electronics at the table" rule.
Also, paper's renewable and requires only light to use; digital requires electricity or being printed... and most electricity isn't from renewable/perpetual sources.
Paper has got at least another edition of relevance in the first world nations, and 2+ in (no offense intended) in the 2nd world nations in South America, Asia, and the Middle East. Probably more than that, double or triple that, really -- today's teens are the first gen raised with ebooks and mandatory laptops in the first world, and not even universally so yet. It's the phones that are the nigh universal tool, and I've seen only one RPG book that was readily readable and useable on that mode: Pugmire Phone Edition.
The race to paperless is a long way from the finish line, and not just from us 50+ gamers wanting dead tree. I know a bunch of 30-somethings who, while they play online, only play games they own on dead tree. Far more conservative than me, to be honest, on that score.
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