RPGNet - What's Up With the d20 Ghetto?

[Particle_Man]

Thirded.

 

[mattcolville]

I think it might work out, we'll see.

The premise of separating out a game into its own forum makes sense, but using d20 as the test case is probably a mistake. ENWorld serves that community way better than RPGnet can.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Matt, I know ShannonA said that he wasn't prepared to limit what RPG.net could be by ceding the largest segment of the hobby by far to another site altogether.

In other words, his opinion is that RPG.net should do its best to discuss all aspects of the roleplaying hobby, without regard for what other sites might be doing.

Plus, there probably is more discussion of non-D&D-focused d20/OGL material like Mutants & Masterminds or whatever over on RPG.net than there is here.

 

[Crothian]

I like the change. It is easier to find the d20 threads and there seems to be a lot less thread crapping in them.

 

[mattcolville]

Matt, I know ShannonA said that he wasn't prepared to limit what RPG.net could be by ceding the largest segment of the hobby by far to another site altogether.

In other words, his opinion is that RPG.net should do its best to discuss all aspects of the roleplaying hobby, without regard for what other sites might be doing.

Right, well I understand that, but I don't think it makes sense. I mean to say, he's testing out his new idea on D&D because it's the most popular game out there, ok. But it's also served by THIS community which it does not make sense to ignore.

 

[jezter6]

I'll just chime in to object on moving the d20 forum to general. The general forum is polluted with other topics and actually makes it easier for those of us who have no interest in D&D or other random gaming general stuff.

 

[Piratecat]

Matt, I know ShannonA said that he wasn't prepared to limit what RPG.net could be by ceding the largest segment of the hobby by far to another site altogether.

Makes perfect sense to me. Both sites are stronger and more interesting by having less specialization.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I mean to say, he's testing out his new idea on D&D because it's the most popular game out there, ok. But it's also served by THIS community which it does not make sense to ignore.

The idea seems to be about improving RPG.net's coverage of the entirety of the hobby, not compensating for a dearth of places d20/OGL players can go to discuss their games.

In other words, it doesn't matter that EN World does a great job of catering to D&D players, because it's about improving RPG.Net's capacity to do that rather than about improving the Internet's capacity to do it.

Does that make any sense, the way I phrased it?

 

[Psion]

So, should this site just throw in the towel since WotC covers D&D, and it's bigger.

Anyways, I think the forum is a mixed blessing. In the same way that I would have some discussions here I would never have at WotC because of biases that the WotC forum and its general members have, there are topics that would be better for me to float there due to biases in the ENWorld audience.

That said, sometimes when I would post a thread at RPGnet before, I specifically intended/expected the topic to be vetted by a mixed d20/non-d20 audience, and now I sense there is no on place to get that anymore like you once could in the RPGnet general forum.

 

[jaerdaph]

I guess I've always just associated RPGNet's RPG Open forum with general RPG discussion and idea exchange, either system dependent or independent. Even more so than I do with the General forum here at EN World. Separating out D&D/d20/OGL seemed to me like an odd choice to make for such an established site.

I also think comparing RPGNet to EN World is a little like apples and oranges (or perhaps oranges and tangerines is a better analogy?). I associate RPGNet with all RPGs and roleplaying in general. I associate EN World primarily with D&D, the d20 System, and OGL games. I like the structure we have here - the breakdowns and breakouts of forums are logical and natural.

But don't get me wrong - I think we have some excellent roleplaying in general discussions around here (not to mention the myriad of other tangentially related or unrelated ones as well!)

I also think folding the non-D&D d20 games back into General would cause a lot of items to get lost or swallowed up, not necessarily build awareness (although some of that would probably happen as well).