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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8045598" data-attributes="member: 18">The world just doesn't work that way, Oofta, and I think you know it doesn't. D&D is a brand name, for an entire concept, and has massive cultural inertia and brand recognition, where the concept of RPGs, especially as meaning something other than "computer games with a lot of numbers and equipment in them", absolutely does not.It has absolutely happened. It happened in the 1990s. If it's going to happen again, it'll happen in the 2020s, or early 2030s, if it follows a similar timeline.It's also not a matter of "better" and "worse". That's a fundamental misunderstanding of the entire situation. You don't need to be the best game. You just need to be good enough, accessible enough. Most people who play an RPG aren't even thinking about whether a game system is "good", let alone "the best", they're just thinking they want to play some D&D with their friends. Many people either don't know, or only have vague and sometimes hilariously inaccurate ideas that other TT RPGs even exist. Just go on the 5E reddit and look for threads where other RPGs come up - some people, particularly grogs like ourselves, have played a bunch of RPGs and understand the differences and so on, but most of the people there have really vague and/or misguided ideas about other RPGs. I do see the beginnings of change, though. PtbA stuff for example clearly has some following among RPGers under 30 (esp. BitD and similar approaches).What's key is accessibility, and 5E slam-dunked that. It wasn't because of the vestigial alignment system (if anything, that's slightly anti-accessible), or the Great Wheel or any of that nonsense, it was because you can create a character in single-digit minutes, and learn the basics of play in single-digit minutes, and it doesn't require to think in an unusual way (unlike PtbA, for example - albeit if you'd never played an RPG at all, including not even CRPGs, PtbA would be more natural). 5E is a triumph of accessibility. And because the brand is gigantic, and boosted by everything from Stranger Things to Critical Role, people come to it, and aren't pushed away by the rules. And because FLGSes are basically dead, and most new people are just buying from Amazon, or Beyond, unlike us, they're not constantly walking into shops were D&D is only part of what's on display, and dozens of other RPGs are there to see, or pick up, or browse through.So simple-but-complex I agree on - that's the key. But stuff like alignment and the Great Wheel, these weakly push people away, they don't add to the accessibility except for the 11%ers, basically. But the thing is, when 5E launched, the audience was so much smaller than the 11%ers were probably the 40%ers or perhaps even higher, so they seemed important. A number of issues 5E has are because it wasn't actually targeting the massive audience it now has, but rather just trying to reunify the 4E and PF crowds.</blockquote>

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