For those who don't play D&D (or its clones), what keeps you engaged with EN World?

I'm finding EN World has become more of a habit than actually being related to how I enjoy the hobby.

Mainly I am mostly hanging out on this thread, the meme thread, the occasional business and problem person drama threads, and I'll skim news posts just to have some idea of whats going on with D&D 24. But once I stopped playing D&D, this site really don't offer much for me. Occasionally a thread will start for a non‑D&D game system but this really is a D&D forum moreso that a general TTRPG forum. I will point out that this has more to do with discussions than the news. EN World, the EN World Podcast, and especially the Not D&D podcast do a good job at highlighting news about games other than D&D, but there is little discussion and there a very few forums dedicated to games other than D&D.

Nothing wrong with this at all. I just find it curious that I continue to visit this site several times a week. At least I still like D&D and plan to play it again at sometime in the future, but I did posts from a good number of people who make it clear that they won't play DnD ever. Just curious what keeps people who are not interested in D&D participating in discussions on EN World?

News, and the various random general and media threads, rarely a D&D thread.

The What are you reading? thread, some of the more theoretical ones until they get caught in loops, and the occasional Actual Play threads. I have no plans to play D&D right now, but I have idle thoughts of playing Runequest, Harnmaster, or Rolemaster at some point in the future, and I think they're close enough to most D&D editions for some of the more general threads to be useful.

This sub-forum. This is literally the only place on-site I go.

For example, in the last couple weeks I learned that the CSIO is being released, and the thread on city products was quite useful.

Its also been helpful for posting questions pertaining to my campaigns, as I am pretty certain none of my players have heard of this place. Several haunt Reddit, so that option is out.

While the folks I play with quit D&D when WOTC did the great license cancellation as part of the 3.5 -> 4 transition, I still like to stay informed about D&D/WOTC/Hasbro. When Hasbro stuck their foot once again into the license change/cancel quagmire, this place was one of the sources that kept me current. Nice to know what the 800lb gorilla is doing even if I don't buy its products.
The news on other RPG products. Useful as we mostly do Pathfinder now. With some Traveller tossed in.

The updates on crowdfunding and Bundles. The mention/reviews of gaming related merchandise.

I been visiting the site since the beginning when it was Eric Noahs. The main reason is to keep up the news in the RPG industry. Even through the times when I quit playing for periods over the last 25 years, I still checked the site regularly, if not daily. I didnt create an account until 2017 and didnt start posting on the forums for another year. I dont have any particular topics I prefer when posting, just whatever looks interesting.

I haven’t played any RPGs since I was ghosted by my last group. (Long story.) But I still buy games; I still design PCs; I still write up adventures & campaigns.

And I like helping others do all those things. I still like hearing news about the hobby- good or bad.

Plus I get to nuke spammers.

Dannyalcatraz said:

I haven’t played any RPGs since I was ghosted by my last group. (Long story.)

Click to expand...

Not to get off topic but I can't stand when a player is unhappy with the game but doesnt speak up so you can fix it and then just quit and stop showing up with no explanation.

R_J_K75 said:

Not to get off topic but I can't stand when a player is unhappy with the game but doesnt speak up so you can fix it and then just quit and stop showing up with no explanation.

Click to expand...

Nothing like that.

The TL;DR version:

My group decided to use a new way of communicating that I wasn’t interested in using at all. I said that they could just email or call me. They didn’t.

And to be clear, I didn’t have everyone’s current contact info, so I explicitly asked for it in order that communication wouldn’t be a 1 way street. No one updated me on their info.

Dannyalcatraz said:

Nothing like that.

Click to expand...

I just assumed that the group just bailed on you, my fault. I've had it happen on more than one occasion that players just stop showing up and didn't even have the decency to tell me. Too bad things didn't work out for you.