D&D General Shocked how hard it is to get new players now-a-days

[AnotherGuy]

I'm pretty fortunate everyone is within 5km-25km (3-15 miles) and it takes 20 min max.
The problem with online computing (for me) are not the specs required for your computer, which admittedly are pretty low, but the necessary preparation, sometimes required, as @J-H mentioned upthread.

 

[Horwath]

How far are you willing to drive to get to a weekly live group? Twenty miles? Fifty? A hundred???

if they are RL friends, about 45min one way.

if they are random group from RPG hobby shop... maybe 5-10 mins.

 

[Horwath]

Good god. An hour and a half to drive 25 miles?!? Yikes.

well, it all depends on the road and traffic jams.

Highway; about 140miles in hour and a half.
City: 25-35 miles seems about right.

 

[tetrasodium]

In no small part because they're designed that way. Planned obsolescence is very much a thing, and I don't seen any need to support that paradigm.

No, they have not been "similar to a car or appliance in terms of how it ages" going all the way back to the days they were room sized devices days when they & had all caps names like UNIVAC & ENIAC

Which is awful

You are basing this on misplaced reasoning.

My take is that until-unless something simply wears out because I've used it too much, I should never have to buy another one. Further, things should be built with longevity and reliability in mind; and that something breaking should be seen as a source of shame for the company that made it rather than a source of revenue.

If you want this sort of thing from a computer it's simple... Never connect it to the Internet and never install anything new after you get and setup your computer like these ones

5.25-inch floppy disks expected to help run San Francisco trains until 2030

"We have a technical debt that stretches back many decades."

arstechnica.com

Nobody used their personal user PC for that sort of role though

Err...200-300 is a 3-digit price tag.

It should have said four, it was a reference to you naming a four digit buyin for using vtts. Even with new computers from the store it's not a matter of spending 1000s

That, and refurbished items are cheaper for a reason; that reason being they've already broken once and thus have already shown the lack of quality in their construction.

Most of the time refurb PCs are corp leases. A company will pay dell or whatever a set amount over the life of the contract and when the contract ends the old computers go back to Dell with the company getting new ones with a new contract. I mentioned it as an example of the extreme low end &am going back to bed now

 

[Hussar]

It’s not really “planned obsolescence” when computers improve at the rate they do. Ten years is a LONG time for computers.

2014 is iPhone 6. Just about the very first MacBook Air.

 

[Cergorach]

One of the primary appeals of D&D (and RPG-ing in general) is that in the end it's a very inexpensive hobby.

Having to lay down $1000+ for new tech just to play it kinda blows "inexpensive" right out of the water.

That, and I refuse to get on the treadmill that Big Tech has set up, where (in their ideal world) incremental "improvement", usually to software, forces us all to buy new tech every few years just to keep up even when the functional lifespan of the machinery is far longer.

That's like saying, you have to buy a house to play D&D in... People that are interested in playing with Tech (D&D via VTTs) generally already have Tech. Be it a tablet, a laptop or PC. You could theoretically even play on a smartphone or console... People that aren't interested in playing that way, generally don't.

Buying new Tech every couple of years is purely in people's heads and people that just don't understand Tech do that. How many people buy a new car every couple of years? Many. Way more just don't. The time of having to buy a new PC every year/couple of years is long, long past. A new smartphone or tablet have also reached the performance threshold a long time ago. Even laptops have surpassed the threshold of 'functionality' and performance.

My PC is on 12+ hours per day, I work and 'play' behind a computer, and even my last workstation lasted 7+ years before being replaced by a very energy efficient mini PC. Sure, it is a little less powerful in the GPU department then it's 7 year older brother, but extremely impressive for an integrated GPU, but the CPU runs circles around that same brother. The reason I upgraded is not because the previous machine lacked power but the difference in power consumption and thus heat was a couple of hundred Watts. Which especially in summers adds up when it's running 12+ hours per day...

Even in my players group, people are not buying a new PC every couple of years (anymore). An old Linux laptop, a family iPad, the family laptop, etc. We play on a VTT just fine.


Computers are like cars, you buy a good car and it will serve you well for a long time, you buy a clunker and it won't. The trouble is, most people that complain about computers in your way, don't know how to choose the good computer from the clunker computer... And thus wind up with a machine that won't last for a long time. You bought a Best Buy $300-$500 budget laptop and it won't hit that 7 year mark (well)? Or bought that minimal spec Mac? Yeah, you're going to run into issues eventually...

Do I need a $1000-$1500 GPU to play the newest games? Hell no! I can play a lot of games on my integrated low power GPU and I'm not powering a space heater at the same time. If I want, I can stream games via Geforce Now if I want the extra bling. Does the average consumer need to buy a new AI laptop? Hell no! You want to play with AI, first learn to use the online services, many of which are free... Would I be willing to pay thousands for a heavy workstation with a big GPU for AI? Absolutely! But I'm in IT and that would definitely be a business expense. But I'm not actually there yet that I need it, and I realize that I might never get there. There's only so much time in the day/week/year...

And depending on what you're using, you might even be able to play a VTT on a sub $100 Raspberry Pi 4/5 (8GB RAM) board on your TV...

Blaming Tech, without understanding said Tech is a problem of the user. Big Tech is doing the same thing every other company is doing, convincing you that you always need the latest and the greatest. TSR/WotC/Hasbro have been doing the same for 50 years with every new edition of D&D... It's up to the consumer to wise up and make better purchasing decisions!

If your computer potato can't run VTT X, you're maybe running the 'wrong' VTT, not properly updated your PC, or you just bought the wrong potato back in the day... And maybe your expectations are out of whack on the Tech front...

 

[GrimCo]

Well, to be honest, you don't need VTT to play online D&D.

If you usually play ToTM in person, for online, you can do with regular old Google Meet, Teams, Zoom etc. Hell, you can do it via Whatsapp conference call on your phone. We used mostly Google Meet but switched to MS Teams when we played online.

 

[Hussar]

I'd point out that most poeple replace their care at least every ten years and often far more frequently than that. YOu most certainly are not driving a 1960's car to commute to work every day. I doubt you are driving a car that's more than 10 years old. At least, most of us aren't.

 

[Scott Christian]

In a physical game at a game shop. I have no desire to play online.

I've been trying to get 2 more players for a while. A lot of bites but I bring next to nothing to shore.

I've tried friends and family. Had one cousin express interest but never show.
Friends, same thing. "Sounds cool" but don't show. Even when they lament about not having anything to do that day.
Online boards in my metro area. Made a post about what I'm DMing and wanting players. I've had 3 people say they wished to join. None of them actually show.
People at the store approach and ask if they can play next week. Sure! Don't show.

Closest I had was a co worker and his 2 friends. All 3 showed. Next week the co-worker was sent to another state for surprise job training and his 2 friends were MIA.

I asked my local store to put up a notice board so I can put a posting, can't be bothered.

Why is this so hard? I thought this was the RPG golden age?

I had a much easier time getting players to a table for 3rd and 4th ed. This is like pulling teeth. If my current group ever decided to break up, I don't know what I'd do.

Edit: Some seem to miss that this is less about "no potential players" and more "just don't show up after expressing interest".

Wow, that is surprising to hear. Sorry about the hard luck finding players. In my experience, it does seem very out of the norm. I am on the East Coast (US), and our gaming shop is sorely in need of DMs. Has about twenty players and three DMs. (The guy who runs it is a pain in the butt, which often leads to DMs saying screw it.) Also in my city, we have a pay option, where players pay for a DM; two-hours, twenty five bucks a session. Right now, there are 11 sessions in 6 different sites: a brewery, the gaming store, a different board game gaming store, a vape shop, and the public library. Every single one of those sessions is full.

I do not know your situation, but from my experience you may just haven't found the right venue.

 

[Cergorach]

Well, to be honest, you don't need VTT to play online D&D.

If you want a decent experience, you want to use a good VTT. But you could play D&D over the phone or even over radio... There are even instances of play-by-mail (actual snailmail)... But all that, is not what we're talking about. Using Teams, Zoom, Slack, etc. to play D&D might be technically possible, but would imho be a less then great experience. We've ran one session in person with on person called in on a tablet via videocalling from the other side of the world. It worked better then expected, but after playing with a VTT we never want to go back to that situation.