One thing I suggest to guys here, most of us will tend towards older and tend to DM.  Make it a point to DM at your local hobby shop with a homebrewed 5E.  Add in components from other games and run older AD&D content updated to 5E.  Put in components from other games, like the Luck Mechanic from DCC.  And run a good game.  Slowly bring up the lameness of WotC and their current content.  Slowly poison your group towards WotC.  I've done a fairly good job of inoculating my group towards WotC.  I've been able to turn about 15 players over the last 3 years to using older D&D modules and contents , many of whom now DM their own games now,

WotC has generated a fair bit of bad press, people are looking at other content.  Get people used to creating their own content and using older content and you can start hemming in WotC's D&D margins.  The best way to remove the censorship from WotC is to starve them of money.  Even if only 10% of players are dissafected, it can spread.  And with the depression coming, people won't have money to buy new content.  People will be looking at the local hobby shop for free content.  You can offer good D&D sans WotC's filth and train a lot of people to not buy WotC content and hurt WotC even more.

Most D&D players just want to play a fantasy RPG and will go along with whatever is fun with a cool DM, regardless of system. There's a chunk of the D&D fandom who will only play the official current edition, but those aren't your targets.

Naw, just run a good game that isn't WotC at all.  Anything.  Let things develop from there.  The really nice thing about this approach is you don't have to care about what WotC is doing, or risk the negativity bleeding into your own game.

I'm about to start up a third group for my system.  Many of the players are 5E players.  I'm not being coy about why I wrote my own--but I'm not exaggerating it either.  I didn't do it because of WotC.  I'd been moving that way for a long time.  WotC's contribution was giving me that last little nudge to work at it.  If they ask, I'm not hiding that fact.  But after that, it's not about WotC at all.  It's about playing the game in front of us.

Quote from: Spinachcat on August 03, 2023, 04:25:58 AM
Most D&D players just want to play a fantasy RPG and will go along with whatever is fun with a cool DM, regardless of system. There's a chunk of the D&D fandom who will only play the official current edition, but those aren't your targets.

There's a chunk of tabletop gamers who will only play the current trendy bandwagon. Tons of indie devs have written everything from cyberpunk to space opera using 5e rules because that's the quickest way to get views.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on August 03, 2023, 07:47:03 AM
Naw, just run a good game that isn't WotC at all.  Anything.  Let things develop from there.  The really nice thing about this approach is you don't have to care about what WotC is doing, or risk the negativity bleeding into your own game.

That's what I am doing with OSE and it has been a lot of fun,

Quote from: Spinachcat on August 03, 2023, 04:25:58 AM
Most D&D players just want to play a fantasy RPG and will go along with whatever is fun with a cool DM, regardless of system. There's a chunk of the D&D fandom who will only play the official current edition, but those aren't your targets.

In my experience, if you are willing to run a game and provide players with materials, 90% of them will at least give it a shot. I had a stack of Labyrinth Lord manuals at one point and gave them out like candy, never had a problem getting anyone to play.

I concur with Brad. Back in the day, I would suggest GURPS, but nowadays you can find legal and free PDFs everywhere! And when it comes to what's 'trendy' - just start your own trend! Ask the FLG to carry something you've been running, or ask to leave flyers or something. Geez, it can't be THAT difficult if it's allowing non-Hasbro games to be played in-store!

I've never played D&D. 

It's not malice.  It simply was the fact my first RPG was Palladium RoboTech, and then we bought their other genre games that use the same set of rules.  Palladium had a universal system before that term was a real thing.

I don't think D&D style rules are actually good, both from simply reading them, and seeing it played once or twice. THAC-0 also didn't help.

These days I'm tempted to try an OSR d20 game like Basic Fantasy just to see what I'm missing.  However, I keep finding little rules lite games that look fun as hell, so my backlog keeps building. 

1.  Dungeons and Delvers Dice Pool.
2.  Mini-Six Bare Bones
3.  Black Star
4.  Tiny D6 Mecha vs Monsters.

I told my players we are shifting to Shadowdark because WOTC/DNDBeyond will soon start charging not only the DM but players through the nose for monthly fees.  In this way we are massively simplifying our game and moving into a playstyle that allows more flexibility and simplification with easy PC management.

We converted all their PC's over to them with their current classes, this is the hard part, and told them the basics.  Now on our 5th sessions no one gives a fuck about DNDBeyond or WOTC as they, like everyone else, is just here to roll dice and have fun in a make believe world of elves and flying lizards the size of semi's guarding imaginary treasure.

Quote from: Brad on August 03, 2023, 04:45:49 PM

Quote from: Spinachcat on August 03, 2023, 04:25:58 AM
Most D&D players just want to play a fantasy RPG and will go along with whatever is fun with a cool DM, regardless of system. There's a chunk of the D&D fandom who will only play the official current edition, but those aren't your targets.

In my experience, if you are willing to run a game and provide players with materials, 90% of them will at least give it a shot. I had a stack of Labyrinth Lord manuals at one point and gave them out like candy, never had a problem getting anyone to play.

In my expirence this works in person, but if you play online it can be hard to pry people away from 5e. Though tbh 5e has consistently had the flakiest players, though i havent run 5e since 2017. My expirence in person has been that people are just happy to play as long as the broad genre is similar to something they want.

One way to invite people to "play 5e" is just use the SRD.

Not that I think it is a good idea, I'd rather play something else nowadays. But at least you're not giving them money.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on August 02, 2023, 10:21:37 PM
One thing I suggest to guys here, most of us will tend towards older and tend to DM.  Make it a point to DM at your local hobby shop with a homebrewed 5E. 

FAR better yet.  Don't run ANY WotC crap.  Run PF or C&C or other modern D&D like games. 

Quote from: Brad on August 03, 2023, 04:45:49 PM
In my experience, if you are willing to run a game and provide players with materials, 90% of them will at least give it a shot. I had a stack of Labyrinth Lord manuals at one point and gave them out like candy, never had a problem getting anyone to play.

That's why I like that Troll Lords gives away its PHB PDF for free

Quote from: Scooter on August 04, 2023, 05:30:50 PM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on August 02, 2023, 10:21:37 PM
One thing I suggest to guys here, most of us will tend towards older and tend to DM.  Make it a point to DM at your local hobby shop with a homebrewed 5E. 

FAR better yet.  Don't run ANY WotC crap.  Run PF or C&C or other modern D&D like games.

Interesting so Keep on the Borderland, The Village Homlett, Temple of Elemental Evil and Against the Giants are crap?  5E = 2E + Advantage + Monster Stats from 3E, that's it.  You are essentially playing 2E when you are playing 5E.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on August 04, 2023, 09:28:29 PM
Interesting so Keep on the Borderland, The Village Homlett, Temple of Elemental Evil and Against the Giants are crap? 

Who said those were crap?  WTF are you babbling on about?