Do you think it's good or bad that D&D is growing more popular and being accessed by people in their twenties who want...

Do you think it's good or bad that D&D is growing more popular and being accessed by people in their twenties who want in on the nerd culture?

On one hand I enjoy the fact that what was once a very small hobby thing is growing and I firmly believe nearly anything needs a growing fanbase to be healthy. On the other hand I play D&D as one of my main form of entertainment and creative outlets, and now I have more frequent games where casual players drop out and never really see the game as anything more than just something to spend a few hours drinking and talking. Which is fine I guess if that's what a group wants but I find it more hard to find narrative-focused people. Even when I join groups that are asking for committed players a lot of people who join up just don't seem to care and just want that experience of having tried a nerdy thing once in their life.

I have an upcoming game in January with some newer people. I'm hopeful in meeting some nice people who can possibly become a hobby group. I'm also expecting it to die out after a few weeks when casual players get bored after the initial hype and go back to their usual party life.

Anything that makes the nerds uncomfortable is a good thing

Fuck off Chad.

The more people into it means a bigger pool of potential players. Even if they tried it and were kind of indifferent, I may be able to talk to them and figure out what they didn't like and what they did and find something we'd both be happy with playing.

That all said, I do hear you on those not interested in narrative. Coming from text-based roleplaying, that was pretty much what we had going for us, so I didn't realize until I started playing tabletop that there were people all about the stats and gave no shits about story. But there will always be people you're just not compatible with as a player, so all that means is you can keep moving on if there are more people rather than being stuck with whoever you can find.

I think it's a good thing in that it gives more people an opportunity to discover something they might end up enjoying a lot.

>On the other hand I play D&D as one of my main form of entertainment and creative outlets, and now I have more frequent games where casual players drop out and never really see the game as anything more than just something to spend a few hours drinking and talking. Which is fine I guess if that's what a group wants but I find it more hard to find narrative-focused people.
Honestly, I know just as many nerds who treat the game that way as I do normalfags. I don't think it's necessarily a conscious decision; if the story isn't engaging you, then you're basically just having a boardgame night, and you'll act accordingly.

Even my online group that's very roleplay-heavy now had issues with this when we first started. For us it just came down to establishing some ground rules about focusing on what's happening in the game, and not giving people shit when they try to roleplay. In one of Chris Perkins's old columns (which I can't find anymore) he talked about the importance of starting the session with a recap, not just to remind everyone of what's going on, but to clearly delineate a point in time after which off-topic chatter is to stop. Implementing that worked out well for us.

>Do you think it's good or bad that D&D is growing more popular
What I think or don't think is irrelevant, this was inevitable. When something survives far too long, can be proffitable to the creators and can be enjoyed by different kinds of people then its only a matter of time until more and more players come in.

There was nothing that you could do to prevent this.

DnD has been playing played by people who want to be in on nerd culture for a long time

Other tabletop games are still safe though

Like GURPS or Cyberpunk 2020

Not for long, as those people start getting "acclimated" they will do the same as everyone else and inspect other systems.

Shadowrun will always be safe. Normalfags don't have the capacity to deal with handling three separate yet interconnected worlds at the same time, or the math behind the explosives rules.

>Anything that makes the nerds uncomfortable is a good thing

My high school used to have a Video Game Club. It was a band of miscreants that got together with xboxes after school/midterms/finals and played Halo, Calladuty, and Rock Band over the school's LAN.

One day after finals, the Sports Chads found out about it and joined in. The Nerds were REALLY excited about this; finally, they were competing - in a social setting - at something they were GOOD at. Something they based their entire identities around. Something they finally had self-confidence in.

The Nerds got -absolutely destroyed-. (The Chads, after playing football or whatever, would go home, smoke weed, and play Halo for hours online, with the same competitive drive that they brought to the rest of their lives. They were fucking amazing.)

You would not believe how uncomfortable the room got. The Nerds, in the course of 30 minutes, had their entire lifestyle invalidated. They were no longer good at *anything*. They were passive-aggressively bitching, and didn't want to play any more after a few rounds.

To this day, it's one of my favorite school memories.

They will, just you wait.

They'll learn, adapt and play, just like you did. Unlike you they have friends to tell, teach and play with.

>normies reeeee
>I know, let's make our game fucking impenetrable autism, that'll stop them
This is why I'd rather play with normies than fucking sperger-kings like this.

>having pride in anything, caring about it, or committing to anything are for losers

t. ~radical centrist~

You're safe as long as it doesn't appear on the Big Bang Theory.

What, did you find shadowrun trough some shitty meme show or did you find it because you heard about it.
Trust me, dnd is the gateway drug and if they find it interesting, they'll play it.

I remember that the thing that really bonded every single male in high school for me was Call Of Duty - everyone from permavirgin to chaddiest chad would have each other on xbox live and play together. Pretty fond memories of those days.

>D&D is growing more popular
Literally fucking where? Because I can't think of any other place than US where this is or even could be a thing.
I don't mind RPGs being more popular recently. Maybe it's not the state of affairs from early to mid 90s, where everyone and their dog was still into it, but it's definitely a good thing and a massive improvement over the dreadfully dull and self-entrenched late 90s to late 00s, where the whole bullshit stereotype turned into reality and now you've got people actively being angry about their hobby no longer being some sort of elite stuff and "normies ruining it"

Imagine being this bad at reading comprehension

Also most chads and normies are unironically nice people . My group is about 50% nerd, 50% normie and it works out pretty well.

So let me get this straight - they've got butt-mad for being shit at playing, something that was entirely on their side?
How fucking dense and socially unadjusted one must be to do something like that?!

>Literally fucking where? Because I can't think of any other place than US where this is or even could be a thing.

Perhaps they're talking about the US. Just because something isn't popular worldwide doesn't mean it can't get more popular in one specific place.

>Shit game that nobody wants to play because it shit is your safe bet at never encountering any players whatsoever for it, aside people as delusional as I am
Here, ftfy

I never said it can't. But D&D is literally losing ground all over the world for past decade, while in the same time the hobby itself is getting more popular, hence I'm confused from where the hell OP comes from.

He’s coming from, specifically, the US. I’m not sure why that’s particularly hard to grasp: 2017 was allegedly D&D’s most profitable year in 25 years, and the new book they put out last month was their fastest-selling book ever. Those are just the facts.

To someone outside of the US it may look like the popularity of D&D relative to other games is waning, but the growth of the IP within the United States has been so big over the last two to three years that it would be remiss not to consider it anything other than a surge in popularity.

Your gullible as fuck if you believe anything WotC says, they tried convincing people 5e has been the most successful D&D edition ever a while back.

>How fucking dense and socially unadjusted one must be to do something like that?!
Nerds are usually like that

It was the most financially successful of all the editions at launch, which is the only metric Hasbro cares about.

Yeah senpai, it was so successful they printed subsequent printings at 3rd party budget printers and laid off several D&D staff members from a department of

>D&D is growing more popular
Good. It's fun, and I'm glad the nerds are lame stigma is gone because now they can learn why we liked this stuff in the first place.
>and being accessed by people in their twenties who want in on the nerd culture
Bad. If you weren't bullied as a kid or weren't in some way ostracized for liking this stuff then screw you you never earned "nerd culture." You are welcome to come play and like the things we like, but now it's just "culture" because you're the same group of people that mocked us for this when we were kids. If you've grown up enough not to be a bully then you've also grown up enough not to demand inclusion in a culture you didn't grow up in. Now shut up and come play d&d.

Too many splat books causes diminishing returns. While I miss the frequent releases, the much lower staff and much higher sales per book means WotC is making higher profit margins than they ever did before.

>Bad. If you weren't bullied as a kid or weren't in some way ostracized for liking this stuff then screw you you never earned "nerd culture."

That's "beta bitch" culture, user. Beta bitch culture is about suffering because you can't make friends. It has nothing to do with any particular set of interests, because people will use any available part of your personality to make fun of you.

"Nerd culture", on the other hand, is mostly about purchasing and consuming themed products, and it's nothing worth gatekeeping for.

>How fucking dense and socially unadjusted one must be to do something like that?!

See, nerds disparage Chads and normies based on the delusion that, despite the nerds' failure at communicating and making friends, it is actually everybody else who's at fault and the nerds are secret geniuses.

In reality, they aren't nerds because they're clever: they're nerds because they suck too much to be anything else. So "how fucking dense?" Dense as a fuckin' nerd.

>t. ~radical centrist~
The only people who ever post this are /pol/tards who are currently upset at being told to keep their political shitposting off of the elfgames board.

this made me smile

>It was the most financially successful of all the editions at launch
Have you fucking read the actual financial reports or just what WotC is claiming on its official facebook page?
Because facts are: 3.0 still wins, for better or worse. Mostly because they've sunk into marketing that cancer so much money that it was bound to be a success, regardless of any other factor.

Everybody outside of reddit bullies "radical centrists" senpai, not just /pol/.

>"Nerd culture", on the other hand, is mostly about purchasing and consuming themed products, and it's nothing worth gatekeeping for.
I wish people would fucking finally realise that, instead of crying about "normies ruining reeeeeee". Ruining what? Fucking theme-based consumerism?

Go fuck yourselves. Both of you.

Fun fact: D&D sales peaked in 1982 and have been in decline since then.

>Your sources are wrong
>Here's my bullshit assertion, no you don't get any evidence

According to IRS reports, 1983, but that comes solely from the way how it's accounted on yearly basis, rather than when most income was made. If you include inflation, then the profit generated by WotC is fucking laughable compared with what sort of money TRS was making.

>I didn't provide any evidence for my claim, but you are the bad guy for questioning it
Sure, hon

It wasn't my claim, but it is WotC official line AFAIK.

I’m sure if you adjust everything for inflation AD&D was still the height of the game’s popularity, but Mike Meals has outright said that 2017 has been the most financially successful year for the game in his 25 years working for the company, and Xanathar’s Guide being the game’s fastest-selling book is something that you can freely look up and find. Trying to imply that the game is still on some steady decline in popularity in the age of D&D livestreams and roll20 apps is is strangest kind of disingenuous, because even to a casual observer it isn’t true. Even normie mainstream outlets have been reporting on the game’s resurgence in popularity.

... which is against their financial reports, so?

>I seriously don't know the difference between profits and sales at launch
k

>Trying to imply that the game is still on some steady decline in popularity in the age of D&D livestreams and roll20 apps is is strangest kind of disingenuous, because even to a casual observer it isn’t true. Even normie mainstream outlets have been reporting on the game’s resurgence in popularity.
Not him, but like this thread already stated few times:
In the United States of America.
Nowhere fucking else.

So when people question you about claims in tune of "D&D is doing fine", they are not Americans, don't know the situation of WotC on American market and probably don't care. From perspective of any other country, D&D literally commited suicide with 4e and is limping in the tail end of games that are played or not even that, because 5e had no/very limited release.

tl;dr D&D doesn't exists as anything even resembling popular game outside States.

Hey guys, want to know how to spot ignorant Americans trying to talk about the international RPG market? They'll claim that literally not a single person outside the US plays D&D

I'm the guy he was replying to and even I know that's not what he was saying. Come on now, there's no reason to go out of your way to pick fights.

I'm not American, you dumb shit.
And 5e wasn't even published in my country. Sorry, it was. Untranslated, which killed that little popularity D&D still held as a franchise.
Nobody cried, since most people preferred WFRP anyway.

Right, but they always have an acclimation period behind them from D&D. By the time they hit shadowrun or cyberpunk they know the deal usually.

I'm glad it's becoming more popular because it means I can get a group together and have much lower chances of them being obese smelly weirdos with strange opinions about bizarre topics, and who literally for-real hate or are afraid of women.

Holy shit I fucking love this

>Nobody cried, since most people preferred WFRP anyway.
but that's a dead game