Online communities more important than in-game interactions to get into RPGs

[Jd Smith1]

I find that online gaming allows for vastly more interaction time. My online group chats on Discord nearly daily, and I spend a lot of time talking with new players on Discord, whereas in my old F2F groups, such discussions cut into table time, and so were kept to essentials.

 

[aramis erak]

Interesting find, but talk about a tiny sample sample size... two "experts" and five D&D 5E noobs. I'm not saying their observations aren't valid (I haven't read the paper, just the abstract), but in the absence of a much greater sample size, the results evidently are very limited and insufficient for making wider generalizations.

at that sample size, it's axiomatically invalid as research.

 

[aramis erak]

I find that online gaming allows for vastly more interaction time. My online group chats on Discord nearly daily, and I spend a lot of time talking with new players on Discord, whereas in my old F2F groups, such discussions cut into table time, and so were kept to essentials.

My online groups have not done so. My FTF group, however, chats off topic daily...

 

[Li Shenron]

I found this abstract very interesting:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/10468781221119829

The author is giving more importance to forums and online communities than interaction at the table for those who approach for the very first time an RPG...
This aspect may bring to some conclusions like:

• Rules are not easily accessible/understandable (?)
• Experienced DM and players do not adequately support new comers (?)
• Online communities have a model more friendly to the eyes of newcomers (?)

I will not buy the whole paper but i might be worth to have a look at it...

OMG... I would pretty much suggest the opposite i.e. that anyone approaching RPGing for the very first time stay away from online communities interaction as much as possible!

Online communities are strongly opinionated and behave as they wanted everyone to play the game exactly the way they want them to. Or they just work towards convincing everyone that the game is unplayable.

 

[Jd Smith1]

My online groups have not done so. My FTF group, however, chats off topic daily...

YRMV.