Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Keldryn" data-source="post: 6366427" data-attributes="member: 11999">This right here is why tabletop RPGs will always have a limited appeal.Most of us today have near-instanteous, on-demand access to more entertainment than we could consume in several lifetimes.  Whether it's watching a movie, playing a video game, or reading something on the Web, we rarely have to spend any amount of time not being entertained.  Unless you're driving a car.Modern interactive entertainment is not just readily accessible, it also has few barriers to get started.  You can start playing a complex and deep CRPG with a couple of clicks or button presses and the game teaches you how to play as it eases you into the experience.  If you only have an hour to play, you can just save your game and come back to it later.D&D requires significantly more effort just to get started playing.  Virtually every step of the way requires more effort than most forms of entertainment that we have available today.  You need to read and understand the rules before you start playing.  You need to schedule a good 2 to 4 hours of time for playing the game, plus coordinating schedules with 3 or 4 other people.  Unless you're using a VTT, most of the players are going to need to travel somewhere.  If you're the one hosting the game, you might need to clean up the house a bit.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  If you're one of the players attending, you might need to buy enough snacks to share.  Whoever is running the game needs to prepare an adventure in advance (either buying and reading one or making one up).And you need to do this on a semi-regular schedule as well.  Potential players not only notice that playing the game is more work than their other entertainment options, but they also perceive that the game requires a certain degree of commitment on their part as well.  And they wouldn't be wrong about that.If D&D sounds interesting to you, but none of your friends play it or are interested in playing it, then you've encountered another barrier.  Now you need to find a group of players and hope that you like socializing with them for a few hours every week or two.  If not, then you get to awkwardly pretend that you're leaving the game because other commitments have come up.As I said above, every step of the way requires more effort than nearly any other form of entertainment on the market today.  I don't know that there is a whole lot more that can be done about it.</blockquote>

Verification