These are the Good Days [+]

This thread might not be what you are expecting. I’m not going to tell you that everything that WotC does is amazing and we’re living in a WotC utopia of TTRPG gaming. It is about why it’s important to recognize what we have and not focus on what we don’t have.

Happiness matters, it enhances our physical health by boosting immune systems & can even help us live longer. It improves mental health, increasing resilience & reducing stress & anxiety. From a TTRPG community point of view happiness can improve productivity & creativity. Whereas the reverse, is a blight that can have serious negative health and societal effects.

The problem is heightened happiness is fleeting. The truth is WotC could make your favorite product exactly as you want it tomorrow and it would make you happy for a short while. Even if they kept making those kinds of products, eventually your happiness would return to its original state as you became used to them and started to expect them. By the same token if WotC released the opposite of what you want your happiness might plummet but would similarly return to its base state after initial sadness. You’d move on, find alternatives.

This is captured in a study done with lottery winners and folks that had lost their ability to walk that showed that in the beginning there was a big gap between how those people felt in happiness. Over time people returned to their baseline. In the end there really wasn’t much of difference in happiness between one group and the next. Baseline happiness is hard to change long term either way.

There was one thing people could do to meaningfully and measurably raise their baseline happiness. Recognizing that…

These are the good days

Those simple words are something we should be saying to ourselves and each other as often as possible. Our happiness really matters. Whether Darksun gets released this year or not really doesn’t in the grand scheme of things.

this thread isn’t a place to come to post about why you think these are the End Times. Save that for twitter and the morning papers. Tell us why you think for the wider community these are the good days. This isn’t about boasting about how brilliant you are (though you are brilliant) but about acknowledging things we can be grateful for. That have improved our lives in some way. Feel free to bring real life into play but let’s avoid the normal no-go areas.

Papers

Lottery winners and accident victims, Brickman 1978
Counting blessings vs burdens, Emmons and McCullogh 2003

I’m going to start with three…

1. Discord communities and VTT have for the first time meant that I can have a real time gaming group with two players in America, two in England and two in Eastern Europe. Everyone brings different experiences but they are really cool.

2. I’m also really grateful that English is wide spread enough that folks so far apart can communicate really effectively even if it isn’t a first language. It could have been Spanish or French or Chinese but I guess it’s English for a lot of people for now and I think that’s great. If someone can tell me what the next lingua Franca will be I’ll start learning.

2. Humble bundle is bloody excellent. Not just the value but the fact that so many companies engage with it. I’ve recently discovered it and been blown away. Love that you can give to charity while engaging with rpg games and companies I might not otherwise have taken a risk on.

These are the good days.

I have the local convention coming up in a couple weeks. I'm going with my father and brother again, so that is good right there, but we signed up for the new Legends of Greyhawk (LoG) adventure. This is similar to Adventure League where you bring a PC to each event and they can level up and such. Seems interesting and should be fun.

I also like that there are many 3rd party publishers (3PP) that make games in the system I play. This also happened back in 3e days, but today there is also places like DMsGuild and DriveThroughRPG that regular people can make things for. There is also Kickstarter and places like this that you can buy from.

Lastly, the internet for good or bad, is now filled with silly memes that seem to work in nearly any thread.

The wide variety of product available. A few examples.
Miniatures - Most vendors started out as suppliers of minis for Ancients Armies. Early RPG character minis were rare and made of poorly cast lead. Now there are many vendors selling a wide array of minis made from several materials. Today's minis have a level of detail only dreamed about in the early RPG days. Not to mention the ability to purchase pre-painted minis. Or STL files for your 3D printer.
Dice - Early polyhedral dice were soft plastic with repeats of 0-9 for the d20. Often paint your own numbers. Today, even the low cost dice are often better quality then the 'good' early dice.
Maps - Early on, maps were often whatever you could scavenge from the room to use as terrain. Well equipped tables had a large piece of paper with a grid. Now you can get pre printed maps in COLOR that often include a grid. Or reusable Battlemat type vinyl maps. Maybe even a TV laid flat on the table with the map displayed there.
Game Systems - In the beginning, there was D&D, Traveller, Fantasy Trip, and a few others. Now there are hundreds. Plus lots of supporting material. If you can't find at least one that makes you happy to play, you probably have issues not solvable here.
Ease of Discovery - Early on, you learned about new products via print magazines like Dragon, Space Gamer, Nexus. Or from a friend or in the new products section of your FLGS. Now you can learn about new stuff on forums like this one, Kickstarter type sites, general Internet searches and sometimes still in the new product section of your FLGS. Today's problem is often too much information.

Agree on places like DriveThroughRPG. Plus the ability to replace lost stuff. I have things in my library there from companies that long ago closed up shop.

Koloth said:

The wide variety of product available. A few examples.
Miniatures - Most vendors started out as suppliers of minis for Ancients Armies. Early RPG character minis were rare and made of poorly cast lead. Now there are many vendors selling a wide array of minis made from several materials. Today's minis have a level of detail only dreamed about in the early RPG days. Not to mention the ability to purchase pre-painted minis. Or STL files for your 3D printer.
Dice - Early polyhedral dice were soft plastic with repeats of 0-9 for the d20. Often paint your own numbers. Today, even the low cost dice are often better quality then the 'good' early dice.
Maps - Early on, maps were often whatever you could scavenge from the room to use as terrain. Well equipped tables had a large piece of paper with a grid. Now you can get pre printed maps in COLOR that often include a grid. Or reusable Battlemat type vinyl maps. Maybe even a TV laid flat on the table with the map displayed there.
Game Systems - In the beginning, there was D&D, Traveller, Fantasy Trip, and a few others. Now there are hundreds. Plus lots of supporting material. If you can't find at least one that makes you happy to play, you probably have issues not solvable here.
Ease of Discovery - Early on, you learned about new products via print magazines like Dragon, Space Gamer, Nexus. Or from a friend or in the new products section of your FLGS. Now you can learn about new stuff on forums like this one, Kickstarter type sites, general Internet searches and sometimes still in the new product section of your FLGS. Today's problem is often too much information.

Agree on places like DriveThroughRPG. Plus the ability to replace lost stuff. I have things in my library there from companies that long ago closed up shop.

Click to expand...

I think the 3d printing element is a game changer if the technology keeps spreading / gets cheaper.

My ex house mate does a lot of wargaming and has invested. Not the eye watering sum it would have been even 5 years ago. A couple of fantasy patreons gives him huge numbers of templates. Far more than he could ever actually print. Terrain, monsters heroes etc. it’s impressive.

At some point a stationary company or department store is going to have a 3d printing unit in the corner store where you pay a £1 a minute or such like. Standing right where xerox machines used to go.

Thew strongest sign that These Are The Good Days is the openness and inclusivity of the hobby. More voices, more perspectives, and more diversity can only increase creativity. And in a hobby that is built on creativity, that is wonderful.

The Rise of VTTs
Sure, playing in person is great. But the rise of VTTs and now with 2 of the top 3 free to play their ability to sustain and expand the player base is great. With VTTs I've been able to play with people in Asia, Europe, the Med, and across the US that I would never be able to play with in person. There is no travel time, no need to finish a fight before calling it for a night, no need to leave a table occupied with mini's and a map. Automated book keeping that's not possible at the table. The ability to jump into pick up games with an hour's notice (or less). The ability to use millions of different maps, tokens, and other graphics at virtually no cost because their is no need to print them out. And access to tens of millions (or billions?) of other graphics for small costs via paid sites, Patreons, etc.

The Ease of Self-Publishing and Sharing
Portals such as DriveThruRPG and others have made it even easier to share and find individual creator content. Along with this is the ease in which one can now create high quality RPG content. And then share it with the world with ease that has really never been feasible before.

I discovered an ENWorld feature that's perfect for solo/online RPGing.

It's gonna be a glorious day. (Lucky - Radiohead)

@aco175 XP for Boromir. Never gets old.