Thursday, April 24, 2025

D&D is the LCD

I am helping a friend start her gaming group, and she goes on endlessly about how hard the whole "getting started" thing is. There are days she just wants to give up because "Getting people to commit and get started is impossible."

She got the D&D starter set as some sort of "social contract," as if to say, "Trust me, we will run the boxed set as it is, and this is designed so everyone has fun." That increased interest somewhat, but she still has far too much difficulty getting a group started and off the ground.

I bet 70% of the people who try to play D&D are in that "We could never get it started, so we gave up" camp. Half of those turn into collectors, who help ruin the hobby for people who play the game. I have collected too many games, and they sit in crates in my garage, so I have a right to complain since that is my weakness. If a game has a collector's component, that is a huge negative. The game gets too bloated to play and eventually dies under its weight.

D&D also suffers from this, so some clones are in slightly better shape. They are not popular enough to support a collector's market, so they are the basic books, and I am happy with that.

But getting people to start feels impossible. She talked to me last night, wishing D&D were as easy to begin as Monopoly. She said that because roleplaying "opens people up to each other," it felt impossible to start with people, even if you know them, because of a fundamental lack of trust.

The more you make D&D a "self-reflective exercise," the less people will play it. Nobody trusts each other. Nobody wants to open up to each other. No one wants to express themselves honestly to each other anymore. It is safer to adopt the persona of a "Scottish dwarf" and talk in a funny voice than to "play yourself" and open yourself up to attacks and let people into that personal space.

D&D feels doomed with a degradation of social cohesion and a loss of reading and math comprehension. I don't see how roleplaying survives outside of the older age groups. I don't know how D&D transitions to the next generation if the game isn't a mobile app for phone-addicted eyes.

This is why old-school games are generally easier to start, which also applies to Shadowdark. A "random character" is far easier to start playing with new people than a "reflection of yourself." Random characters are also easier to deal with the loss of, being just a random "playing piece" of a gamer and played without too much personal and emotional investment.

Wizards is killing D&D by turning it into a "lifestyle game" because society is becoming more divided and factionalized. The already running groups will be cemented in, and very few new groups will be able to start. The already close-knit groups don't have a problem with this and probably wonder what I am talking about. Those on the outside, trying to get started, have a massive "ice-breaking" problem.

You have to use starter sets. It has to be the name-brand game, D&D.

Trying to sell some obscure "other game" to people, even though you know it aligns with their interest and would be more fun for the group, is a nonstarter. D&D is the lowest common denominator. We put up with it since it gets people into the hobby before we can transition them to the games we like.

There are fun parts to 2014 D&D, but I prefer other game implementations.

Even she has a new favorite game after I introduced a bunch to her, which was a mistake since she now wants to get to them and find interest. This puts her in a worse spot. She will probably be stuck with a freakishly mutated and expanded 2014 D&D, but that is a far better place to be than "not playing."

I am helping her through this, but it is a massive challenge for her, and reflects the wider hobby.

No comments:

Post a Comment