I really don't think it should be called the "ORC license"

[Bill Zebub]

Note: my 18yo doesn't like to play remote, my 22yo does so reluctantly. Dismissiveness won't change that it's not a generational thing; in fact, it flat out smacks of gatekeeping mindset.

In my two current groups (the third group is a subset of the second); Only my wife and I are past 35; the FTF group is mostly under 22, except for my wife and I; the remote one is low of mid 20's and high of (IIRC) 32 year old, excluding myself. And I started a few weeks before Moldvay's D&D Basic Set hit the shelves,

Sure, different people have different tastes. Not arguing with you.

But from there you extrapolated to some pretty sweeping hypotheses/generalizations about barriers to play for novices.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

But if it weren't called the ORC, I wouldn't be able to play it's theme song.

 

[MNblockhead]

License for Inclusive and Creative Homebrews

Yes! An undead license to ensure it "lives" in perpetuity.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't even consider myself as having a particularly strong opinion on this, but I certainly would not want to release anything that makes it an "ORC license" product.

I think you're making a pretty big error here.

You think your opinion is mainstream, but it's actually, far, far, far out on the rim, opinion-wise.

This is easy to see if you look at how PoC and other minority RPG designers are reacting to ORC, which is not going "OMG BUT ORCS ARE RACIST!". That's not how things go today - today you reclaim things you like, you don't abandon them unless they're beyond help. And Orcs have never been beyond help. Even back in the '90s they were starting to get reclaimed, starting to become "just people" (like it or not), via multiple RPGs.

Hell, let me go further - that started in the late '80s, in Shadowrun! Orcs were people! People who faced terrible and unfair prejudice. That's an '80s idea. WotC screwed up big with 5E and tried to push Orcs back into a racist corner, particularly in Volo's, but that's not representative of the industry - and even WotC 180'd on that (the 1D&D conception of Orcs is absolutely at odds with the Volo's one).

Some people really don't care about it. Other people are offended that others are feeling offended by it.

Like, citation needed, man, and it needs to be actual RPG designers/commentators (indie, sure, but ones who've actually done stuff, got stuff on itch.io at least and so on), not like far-out Twitter people who run a podcast with a 130 listeners or whatever.

 

[MNblockhead]

Note: my 18yo doesn't like to play remote, my 22yo does so reluctantly. Dismissiveness won't change that it's not a generational thing; in fact, it flat out smacks of gatekeeping mindset.

Yeah, my middle-school aged son and his friends play with books, pen and paper. Me the fuddy duddy 50-year old dad and my friends are the ones running games on Foundry. My kid's friend's parents love that their kids are spending time socializing away from their phones and iPads. It isn't a matter of one's level of technological competence, for many getting a away from screens is part of their enjoyment of TTRPGs.

I don't understand the evangelizing over what parephenalia other gamers use to play the game.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yeah, my middle-school aged son and his friends play with books, pen and paper. Me the fuddy duddy 50-year old dad and my friends are the ones running games on Foundry. My kid's friend's parents love that their kids are spending time socializing away from their phones and iPads. It isn't a matter of one's level of technological competence, for many getting a away from screens is part of their enjoyment of TTRPGs.

I don't understand the evangelizing over what parephenalia other gamers use to play the game.

Yeah anecdotally that reflects what I'm seeing as well with my friends who have kids who play, the kids have far less interest in using VTTs than us Ye Olde Folkes. They like the dice, they like talking to people, they like minis (where used). Some seem to like digital/PDF books as much as physical but even that's not a rule.

It's also notable that before the pandemic, the gaming cafes in London at least, were JAM PACKED with 20-somethings, like absolutely dominated by them. When me and a couple of friends were there, all like 38-42, it was like a bunch of aging businessmen in a club or something lol. It was nice to see all ethnicities/genders there too and we're just three old white dudes lol.

 

[DMZ2112]

Note: my 18yo doesn't like to play remote, my 22yo does so reluctantly. Dismissiveness won't change that it's not a generational thing; in fact, it flat out smacks of gatekeeping mindset.
...
I staunchly support people's right to play online... but one thing I've heard at local cons aplenty: "How do I find a group?"

No. It's not gatekeeping to not make time for people who won't put in the effort themselves. That's just self-respect.

Finding a game online is not the same thing as playing a game online. If you can't find a local group, start one. If you can't get players, travel. If you're unwilling to travel, why should anyone else be willing to travel to you?

We used to have to do this without the benefit of Web 2.0, and in a much smaller community. Sure, today, maybe only 50% of the roleplayers you meet are interested in playing something other than D&D, and 30 years ago maybe that was more like 75% (although many of those were Vampire die-hards).

But the community has grown by two orders of magnitude. The 50% of the community playing something other than D&D in 2023 is 5000%, corrected for inflation.

The way you find a group to play the games you want, live or digital, is you work. And then you compromise. And then you work some more. Maybe you do some wheedling. And then you work.

If you don't want to play online, that's fine, but yes, it means you have to put in more effort. I guess that's a hard sell, but the effort required is still lower today than it has ever been. I've played more live games in the first half of my forties than I did in my teens and twenties combined.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But the community has grown by two orders of magnitude.

I'm not sure that's true.

It seems more like it's about 5-10x bigger, rather than hundreds of times bigger. I'd be interested in why you think that. Or do you mean that because of the ability to contact people through the internet, it's effectively hundreds/thousands of times bigger than in the '90s? Because that would make a lot more sense.

 

[DMZ2112]

I'm not sure that's true.

It seems more like it's about 5-10x bigger, rather than hundreds of times bigger. I'd be interested in why you think that. Or do you mean that because of the ability to contact people through the internet, it's effectively hundreds/thousands of times bigger than in the '90s? Because that would make a lot more sense.

It absolutely may not be, and if you find it exaggerated I'm happy to walk it back to one order of magnitude; that's still a comparison between 500% and 75% -- I'll take it.

I based my statement on D&D's numbers alone being in the (lower?) tens of millions, and that making up about half the community. Where I probably overreached was in underestimating the '90s numbers; I was thinking tens of thousands but it was more likely hundreds of thousands.

...Of course hundreds of thousands to tens of millions is still two orders of magnitude, but yeah, it's probably an optimistic guess. I'm not married to the estimate. My point stands.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Where I probably overreached was in underestimating the '90s numbers; I was thinking tens of thousands but it was more likely hundreds of thousands.

There's no real question '90s numbers were in the millions (single-digit, I'm sure). I don't know why you'd think they were lower than that.

Are you younger? Like weren't around in the '90s? I don't think there is any possibility a few hundred thousand people worldwide could have supported the sheer number and diversity of FLGSes, as well as other RPG outlets, and the huge and diverse RPG market, which had to exist in print - far harder to do than in PDF/PoD! - particularly as those RPGs often had vast arrays of supplements (far larger than we see today). As an example, throughout the '90s, the largest media retailer in the UK - Virgin Megastore - maintained a large and diverse RPG section in its stores. It actually got bigger and better-stocked from about 1991 to 1995, and wasn't that much smaller than the console/PC games section in that period.

Also personally I very much doubt that the non-D&D RPG playing community is currently 100% the size of the D&D-playing one, right now in 2023. In 1994 or 2000? Sure. In 2010 and counting PF1 as "non-D&D" (questionable)? Definitely. Now? When D&D has jumped from 10 to 20 to 30 million players? You think non-D&D RPGs just jumped up with it? I surely do not. I think it's much more likely we're looking at 30m D&D players and 10-15m other RPG players (on a good day).

My point stands.

Sure. The massive change in the ability to find people to play with certainly means it's effectively true, regardless of the figures. And 5-10x is a pretty hefty increase.