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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnSnow" data-source="post: 2904370" data-attributes="member: 32164">I'm not actually trying to frame this strictly in terms of "what I like." I grant, my comments tend to be colored by "what I like" (mentioning Iron Heroes, etc.). But basically, I'm looking at a huge surge in the popularity of fantasy and thinking the following:"Harry Potter books are hugely successful. It's hard to imagine that of all those millions of HP reading kids, more of them don't become D&D players. I wonder why that is..."I can brush off The Lord of the Rings movies. They're movies. I can brush off the popularity off fantasy video games (again, different, more passive level of involvement). But I can't look at the popularity of a series of novel like Harry Potter and not think that a substantial portion of  them would be as eager to play in Harry Potter's world (or something similar) as I was to play in Middle-Earth (or something similar) after reading the Lord of the Rings. And yes, I admit that the Harry Potter novels have magic shops and might not be any more "low magic" than default D&D is.The point is D&D isn't getting those people. They're looking at D&D and thinking "huh, I'll pass." Or their parents and the other adults in their lives are looking at D&D and NOT thinking "Hmm, he likes Harry Potter, maybe he'll like THIS." D&D seems too different.RPGs (all RPGs, D&D included) are games for gamers who read and want to be creative/imaginative. And D&D is no exception. In my mind, it seems more sensible to make the game appeal to readers who already have to imagine how the stories they're reading look (and who maybe could be encouraged to game), than to make it appeal to gamers (who'd have to be encouraged to read and be creative and imaginative).Maybe that's an insurmountable problem. But maybe there's a way to appeal to that crowd of readers. I'm just suggesting that maybe D&D isn't doing as well as it could because it's become too focused on the "gaming" aspect and not focused enough on the "attracting new gamers" aspect.Basically, I think the drug analogy is more apt trying to hook readers on "gaming" than trying to hook gamers on "reading and imagining."Make sense?</blockquote>

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