Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 9662309" data-attributes="member: 2013">No, I'm not suggesting that we remove experienced players that enjoy many pages of rules.The particular question (among several asked by the OP) that I was attempting to answer was, "What would make it easier for new players to get into the hobby?" What experienced players want/need is mostly irrelevant to answering that question, because, by definition, they are not "new players." <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />The problem any group runs into is that there is a natural inflow and outflow of members of the group over time for a multitude of reasons. But any group where the net outflow exceeds the net inflow is destined to (figuratively or literally) die out. If new players aren't coming into the TTRPG hobby, the TTRPG hobby will, over a long enough timespan, eventually die out.However, it is probably not worthwhile to "remove" experienced players from the hobby because I think in most cases, it is easier for new players to onboard while mentored/guided by the experienced players.The general problem I have with any members - or potential members - of a group comes when they insist "everything must be designed for me" (which is especially funny to me because generally our tastes change over time... what got my younger self interested in TTRPGs would be kind of embarrassing to my current self and what keeps my current self interested in TTRPGs would have made my younger self never get into them). I think the current parlance is, "yucking someone else's yum?"Basically, we need some "simple" products if we're going to onboard new RPG'ers. That doesn't mean we ONLY need "simple" products, but it does mean we need existing players to stop being actively hostile towards things like Starter Sets ("I already know how to play the game, stop talking down to me!") and we probably also need existing players to be willing to learn and play (not all the time, but some of the time) some RPGs with simpler mechanics so they can help the next generation find TTRPGs.It's not a perfect analogy, but if Football Fans insisted that Pop Warner Football for 5-year olds had to run the complex offensive and defensive schemes that NFL teams run, we'd see the death of Football in about 30 years, because 5-year olds aren't interested (or indeed, capable) of running those schemes and so there would be no new football players and eventually the ones already involved in the sport would age out. Players have to start simple and over time build the ability to use more complex schemes. NFL players don't despise Pop Warner offenses because they aren't complex enough, they have enough self-awareness to know that this is the foundation upon which NFL offenses will eventually be built.But I often see hostility towards the simple in the TTRPG community (and indeed, many other established communities, and not just in the TTRPG space, this isn't just "our" problem). Let's not kick anyone out, but let's embrace the fact that we need some simple games for people to cut their teeth on before they move on to more complex games. I'm not going to live forever. Once it stops onboarding new participants, any hobby will die out within a generation... ask the philatelists.</blockquote>

Verification