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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 6061219" data-attributes="member: 87792">Indeed.  Gamers were more unified when there were fewer games out there.  Why do you think gamers being unified is a good thing?  Are we not meant to take on different roles?Because I think it points to quite how impoverished the gaming market was.  That people were having to fit themselves onto beds of procrustes to play the games they wanted to rather than being supported.  I have on my shelves a good half dozen games which give very different experiences to play - Dread is not Dogs in the Vineyard is not Marvel Heroic Roleplaying for example.  I believe that we are far, far richer for this diversity.I also believe that most lasting games of AD&D were not played by the book - they were played using the local game's often very significant houserules.  In many cases these groped towards the richness indicated by my earlier point without getting there terribly effectively.  But that they needed to houserule the game means that the unity was spurious - they were all playing separate unfocussed games.As for the rise of TSR, it was first on the scene and D&D was a revelation.  It lacked competitors in the same weight class - and did what it did pretty well (including the red box being simple enough for novices).And he's now wrong.  The most played adventure now must be one of the introductory adventures for World of Warcraft.  If you want unity, go and play World of Warcraft where even the solutions are pretty unified.  Me, I play tabletop roleplaying games precisely because they aren't unified.  Because they have completely different angles and allow for different stories, narratives, and events.  This means that disunity and diversity among the hobby aer a positive strength - and a quest for unity merely serves to undermine the points of tabletop roleplaying that do not happen in World of Warcraft or a boardgame.Shorter me: If the hobby is less unified than before, this does not point to the end of a golden age.  If anything it points to a richer and more diverse hobby - and unity only removes the strengths of tabletop roleplaying.</blockquote>

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