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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7713509" data-attributes="member: 4937">Well, yes.Because it is...  I mean, that is the hobby.  And I don't think I'm in any way saying anything controversial to say that everyone on the EnWorld boards knows that, and that they know that primarily EnWorld is a website that engages with and serves the table top Role Playing game community.  That's just obvious.   None of us gets to "define the hobby".  The hobby is what it is regardless of what we may want it to be.  There are no gatekeepers.  There are no fences.  There is nothing snobbish about saying that.  It just is true.No, because in 1982 D&D was mainstream and now... well, possibly not, despite the seemingly strong claim otherwise.  The basic assertion can be boiled down to "D&D is mainstream because at any one time 7,000,000 people are playing* D&D**".  And that sounds like an assertion of mainstream, in the same fashion that something you might think of as niche like say professional wrestling was actually mainstream in the 80's and 90's.   But it turns out you need to read the fine print because by "playing" they mean "engaging with in some fashion" and by D&D they mean "any ancillary D&D branded product".  And what's really at issue here is whether table-top games have become mainstream (again), something that can't be proved by saying, "Our numbers show a lot of people play video games, and a few even read books."Here's the thing.  We are not "D&D hobbyists".  I like D&D.  I'm running for the last 7 or so years a house ruled version of 3.0e D&D that would be I think completely familiar in almost every regard to anyone that had played any edition of D&D between 1982 and 2002.   I've spent countless hours playing D&D, but do not count my time playing Baldur's Gate or NWN or Planescape:Torment among that time.  Those things were D&D branded video games that have more in common with Ultima IV, Exile III, Fallout II, Path of Exile, Skyrim, Mass Effect and what not than they do with the experience of playing D&D.   They are largely solitary pursuits that involve basically no roleplaying.  They are no more RPG's the way D&D, GURPS, or the Call of Cthulhu RPG are RPG's, than the old D&D 'Choose Your own Adventure' books were playing D&D, and when I read those books I was not "playing D&D".  The hobby isn't "D&D".  The hobby is table-top/traditional/pen and paper role-playing games, of which D&D is the flagship brand and the one most likely to have penetrated the mainstream consciousness.   Back in the 80's, when D&D was actually mainstream, there was a cartoon every Saturday morning.   It was pretty good.  I own all the episodes on DVD, and they've held up much better than most 80's cartoons like GI Joe, Transformers, The Real Ghostbusters, and so forth.  All of my friends in elementary school/junior high were familiar with the D&D cartoon.   But in no manner did having watched the cartoon make them a member of the hobby, nor was the cartoon causing the game to be mainstream rather than a result of the game having become so popular.   In fact, the cartoon exposure on the whole didn't really help, as it just contributed to the occult scare that nearly destroyed the brand, and certainly ended in the short term the brands viability in the marketplace, in the mid 80's.As a table-top gaming hobbyist, the mainstreaming of my hobby mostly would be a good thing.  It would mean more players, more acceptance, and more general esteem of my skills and experience as a long time player.  It would mean more people with whom I had common experience and with which I would have mutual shared experiences that we could relate to each other and build empathy with.  I honestly don't care what brand this comes about through.  If suddenly everyone was playing Paranoia or Monsters and Other Childish Things or GURPS Transhuman Space (presumably because The Expanse became the biggest cultural phenomenon of the decade), I'd be cool with that too.But World of Warcraft has already been mainstream, and it's success really didn't mean much of anything to making our hobby mainstream.You keep saying bonkers things like that.  What in the world are you talking about?</blockquote>

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