D&D General D&D's Utter Dominance Is Good or Bad Because...

[Wolfpack48]

One of the things I enjoyed about old Dragon magazine was that everything in it wasn't hyper-focused on D&D, or even TSR, or even RPGs. It had a book review column, a mini review, articles about other company's games, general advice...we have definitely lost something precious.

Even more so, White Dwarf and Different Worlds. We really could use more general RPG industry focused media. YouTube doesn't quite do it. I miss paper magazines in general.

 

[Madzero]

I'm personally not sure that it's good for a single system to dominate the market. Variety's good, even if I do remain a DND fan as a system. Trying new things can be fun, for sure !

 

[Thomas Shey]

IDK, the only community I have control over is the one i'm engaged with. What I put in is what I get out.

But of course sometimes it isn't. Its not actually hard to put out a fair bit of effort and get nothing back, and if you ignore the nature of the medium you're in, that becomes all the more likely. So the question isn't just "Do I have the motivation to do things to get this game more exposure" but "Is what I'm doing going to be at all likely to do that to any meaningful degree?"

Having a pulpit is only as useful as the number of parishioners you have.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Even more so, White Dwarf and Different Worlds. We really could use more general RPG industry focused media. YouTube doesn't quite do it. I miss paper magazines in general.

Unfortunately, the economics of magazines isn't what it once was, and general purpose gaming magazines always had some limitations here. They didn't go away by accident. And with digital magazines, its always the question of how many people even know about them; at least physical gaming magazines sat around game stores.

 

[Reynard]

The idea that some other game or company could enjoy D&D's same dominance if the creators just did a little marketing is nonsense on its face.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The idea that some other game or company could enjoy D&D's same dominance if the creators just did a little marketing is nonsense on its face.

While I agree "same" is ridiculous, I don't think its unreasonable to assume better marketing could help. I think people are just a little naive about how expensive decent marketing is.

 

[payn]

But of course sometimes it isn't. Its not actually hard to put out a fair bit of effort and get nothing back, and if you ignore the nature of the medium you're in, that becomes all the more likely. So the question isn't just "Do I have the motivation to do things to get this game more exposure" but "Is what I'm doing going to be at all likely to do that to any meaningful degree?"

Having a pulpit is only as useful as the number of parishioners you have.

Sounds like worrying about things you cant control. There are things you can do to get a lot of attention, but those things I find are of little value and very divisive. So, put your best foot forward and do what you can and enjoy what you get. Or stop. Either way you can only control what you put into it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sounds like worrying about things you cant control.

If you're going to put in effort to get a result, those kind of things are always going to be a factor in whether you do that. Most people won't put in a lot of effort to do X, if it looks likely they aren't going to do it anyway.

 

[Wolfpack48]

I was thinking a little about RPGs and the music industry. Before today, record companies, radio, music magazines (Rolling Stone) and record stores were the primary media by which you learned about new music. Today, none of those are much of a factor anymore. You hear about a band by word of mouth, in a commercial, "similar music" on college radio (if you are so lucky to have one in your area), Amazon or Spotify or Pandora or iTunes and by artist touring. Getting into a festival (specifically large festivals that feature new music) are ways new artists can control where people can "bump into" new music. It's really hard for a new band to break onto the scene these days. Music COULD be opened up if were less corporate and more managed by independent jockeys again.

For RPGs, we have YouTube, Kickstarter, Roll20, (podcasts?) as our electronic media and small but benevolent hobby stores that might feature alternate titles. But the best way to get a game into view is probably at conventions, and having enough referees and tables to introduce new games. It'd be interesting to see some conventions spring up that feature non-D&D games (or at least a smaller percentage of D&D games) and market itself as "genre-expanding roleplaying" similar to a college radio station.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Unfortunately, the economics of magazines isn't what it once was, and general purpose gaming magazines always had some limitations here. They didn't go away by accident. And with digital magazines, its always the question of how many people even know about them; at least physical gaming magazines sat around game stores.

Is it possible to lament the loss of something you miss without being immediately told that it's loss was inevitable and it wasn't really that great anyway? I just miss Dragon Magazine.