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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The-Magic-Sword" data-source="post: 8308324" data-attributes="member: 6801252">Yeah, most of the people I know who play TTRPGs at all, started with DND and then branched out-- the big thing is the other games don't have any actual penetration outside of spaces filled with people who are already in the hobby, beyond maybe something like the original Bloodlines video game nabbing White Wolf some fans, or Warhammer having enough clout to have its own stores to bring in interested people (and now the Total War products.) So there are avenues through which people might hear about DND from outside the hobby, but its more limited for the other products we're discussing-- although Paizo, Onyx Path, and Games Workshop all have stuff in that department, even Call of Cthulu has some stuff-- some Japanese TRPGs have associated Anime and such too (Record of the Grancrest War comes to mind, along with Log Horizon) from what I know. But for instance, there's no Blades in the Dark branded video game-- the closest thing to that is that it wears it bloodborne/dishonored/thief influences on its sleeve, so if you manage to get it into someone's hands there's a chance they're already a fan of its milieu. There's no celebrity voice actors who are popular outside the TTRPG sphere trying to play Dungeon World, they only really advertise themselves in ways-- whether due to resources or whatever, that will reach current DND players, whereas DND advertises itself to the general public. It also has a longer history and a built up cache in pop culture, but even if you yeeted the franchise into the sun, its players might go elsewhere but other games would still have to develop that presence outside the hobby.______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ [USER=7027139]@loverdrive[/USER] that idea of DND as a narrow bespoke experience  that lies to its audience about being broad is more of a you thing than a universal truth thing, the game certainly tells you that its for swords and magic fantasy, if there's anything within that particular category that you think it can't do, you will (and certainly have, whatever you chose to do with the information) have found that people have done it quite successfully. I know from reading your other posts that you just sort of dismiss that as them not understanding what a truly successful experience would be like, but short of some sort sort of credentialism / appeal to authority where playing a bunch of games is an intrinsically more valuable experience than learning how to make one game do lots of things, that would be hotly contested by people who have as much or more experience than you do, you aren't likely to make it very far with it. That's a big part of what this comes down to, its literally differing aesthetic movements over what it means for system to matter, to some people that means the mechanics must be as tailored to the fantasy as possible, but to others it can mean a need for versatility within a single set of mechanics. Its literally the difference between "System Matters, therefore you need a system tailored for what you're trying to do" and "System Matters, therefore you need a broad system that allows you to do all the things you want to do" while there are games arguably even broader than 5e DND (side-eyes FATE) whenever we have this discussion about how DND should be used, those two movements are clashing. As an example, I can run horror in DND no problem (or hell, in Pathfinder 2e), but other people see it as a deal breaker that players can optimize and be powerful, a big part of that is that the essence of horror and what is necessary to create it, is inherently subjective. For me, something like Dragon Age works well, you don't need to be disempowered but to experience dark themes, creepy implications, and gruesome lethality, but other people see disempowerment as the essence of horror. I'm not wrong by default or anything, and I have a decade of experience backing up my view, nevermind the people that agree with it that have even more, and that doesn't go away even if someone can match that experience who says otherwise. Heck, its a view I hold even though I do also play some bespoke games-- sometimes they're too bespoke so they break when my needs differ in some specific way (which is separate from when I play them to experience them as intended in a 'study the game design' kind of way.)</blockquote>

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