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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 4802666" data-attributes="member: 59082">Yup, this. I always find that there is something...awkward about "we must grow the hobby" discussions, not unlike the awkwardness of the stereotypical FLGS clerk that follows you around the store and for whatever reason is under the impression that you want to hear about his latest game session or character or miniature set-up. Why do gamers, in some sense more than others, insist that everyone be into what they are into?I'd rather take a step back and look at the larger picture, namely: what are TTRPGs a subset of? One answer is imaginative play. As an educator this is what I'm primarily interested in, and what I would like to see grow, especially in this era of decreasing creative imagination and increasing re-creative simulation. Imaginative play can include many activites, from TTRPGs to theater to art to improvisational music to creative thinking to, as my school just sponsored, Model United Nations. TTRPGs are a very specific form of imaginative play, and D&D is a specific form of TTRPGs that especially emphasizes combat, adventure, treasure seeking--things that, generally speaking, appeal more to males than females. There is just no way (or need, quite frankly) to "grow the hobby" into the ranks of folks that just aren't interested in that specific sort of imaginative play. But the encourage other forms of imaginative play...that is something I feel should be one of the very most important tasks of educators in "this day and age," especially high school students, who are so inundated with media and technological gadgetry that the imaginative capacity starts to literally atrophy.On the other hand, I am always pleased at just how many "non-gamers" like TTRPGs if they give it a shot. And there is certainly no doubting the fact that TTRPGs, especially D&D, have a ton of baggage attached to them, largely pejorative pre-conceived notions that border on prejudice. But in terms of growing the specific hobby, I see it as being more fruitful to appeal to MMORGers and others who enjoy fantasy, but approach it in a more simulative (and re-creative) fashion, rather than creative and imaginative. To me, MMORGs and computer games are a pale shadow, even a mockery, of TTRPGs and other activities that employ imagination. I would even go so far as to say that they represent a cultural pathology, a masturbatory escapism into (static) virtual worlds not (dynamic) imaginative ones. In other words, get your MMORGer friends out of their game console drug dens and into the wider world of TTRPGs! I am reminded of something Gary Gygax said, that when a bunch of kids back in the 60s or 70s were asked whether they like TV or radio more, one kid said radio, "because the pictures are better." Beautiful.</blockquote>

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