No reason to mention most other games. Most other games have already settled into being niche products, or they've never risen above being niche products in the first place.
Daggerheart is currently quite popular. I recognize that. I did call it a fad though and stand behind it. Merely my opinion.
Before the angry mob forms, I'll point out that I didn't eviscerate Daggerheart. I've never even played it, just watched a few videos.
I didn't say that I thought it was garbage, but I don't see it having mainstream staying power for the reasons I've already given.
I gave you a like, not because I necessarily agree with you (although I find your thesis interesting) but because I don't think you deserve some of the pushback you are getting.
Look, we are all fans of various things. But we should be able to discuss them without being so invested in them that we mistake the success of failure of these commercial products with ... our our personal worth, right?
The sun will rise, the sun will set, and tomorrow? Tomorrow, I will have lunch. And whether Daggerheart is the #1 TTRPG, or the a "major player," or a fad ... doesn't affect the lunch I will have.
I have my own biases and preconceptions about why I think D&D has long-dominated the TTRPG market which I have discussed at length- some of the reasons are path dependency, "legacy" (loosely defined), network effects, the campaign (along with "zero to hero" or the Diablo effect), the "Cheesecake factory" (Arrow's theorem) effect, and ... the division of authority. All of these factors can play into each other, but the division of authority is a big one. In other words, D&D is a game that allows mixed groups of players, many with little or no knowledge and many with little or no enthusiasm to play together, so long as you have a single person that knows the rules and keeps things on track. That also has drawbacks, but (IMO- this is not gospel) it's one of the reasons that D&D tends to have a dominant position, while other VERY VERY VERY good games that cater to other audiences don't have the same market.
Anyway, it will be interesting to see how Daggerheart, which is backed by a major player in the industry and is benefitting from good publicity, does! It arguably has a lot of the design features that allow D&D to be so commercially successful that I outlined above- but not all of them. The success (or lack thereof) of Daggerheart in the next few years might tell us a lot about what the mass market (ahem) for TTRPGs wants, and, perhaps, if it has changed in the last few years.
In other words- is Daggerheart going to keep building on the momentum it has gained? Is it appealing to a crowd that is craving something different (a newer, younger crowd)? Or will it hit a ceiling / time limit (fad) and peter out as many prior games have before?
I don't know. But I think it's possible to have reasonable conversations about it.
Finally, I will reiterate that it should be possible to discuss whether or not Daggerheart is successful commercially and have that be a SEPARATE conversation than whether it is a great TTRPG. A lot of the games I love best are ones that never appealed to the majority of gamers ... and that's okay!
). Different games can coexist and even grow the hobby.
