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Message: <blockquote data-quote="robertsconley" data-source="post: 9658019" data-attributes="member: 13383">I appreciate the clarification, and I get your Wynton Marsalis example.In the 21st century, that kind of fandom pressure just doesn’t matter.Anyone who wants to build something, sandbox, narrative, shared authority, whatever, can do it at a professional level in the time they have for a hobby and find their audience directly. If you have a vision for what a campaign should look like, there’s no need to ask permission from fans or worry what is popular or not-popular at the moment. Just do the work and put it out there.Back in the mid-2000s, when The Forge was at its peak, all of this was still in its infancy. Indie creators were competing for limited warehouse space, limited shelf space in stores, and often had to invest significant capital just to bring a product to market. Angry, frustrated, and feeling marginalized, figures like Ron Edwards, Vincent Baker, and others lashed out, not by selling their ideas on their merits, but by leaning into rhetoric designed to inflame: “stick it to the man,” “rage against the system,” and so on.So when the conversation starts focusing on what “fandom” likes or doesn’t like, or whether one preference is stagnating the hobby, It is missing the point. Those debates don’t stop creative work anymore. They don’t gatekeep access. They don’t define the boundaries of what’s possible. The limiting factor isn’t fandom, it’s whether someone actually builds the thing they want to see.The OSR had its share of loud voices, but it thrived because people focused on building the things they wanted, then used tools like Lulu, PDFs, and blogs to get them out there. They embraced the tech, ignored the gatekeepers and criticism, and let the work speak for itself.Nor was this ever limited to the OSR.  As new folks entered the hobby, many also took advantage of our time, put out their own creative vision, in the form they want to see it. And this spread throughout the different niches of the hobby, until today when it is the default not the exception.The expansive hobby you want is already here. I can be seen at places like DriveThruRPG with nearly 170,000 titles. It can be seen in the rapidly expanding catalog of Itch.io. But if your goal is an even more expansive hobby, then let’s talk about procedures. What works. What fails. Because that’s where growth actually comes from.</blockquote>

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