Ben Riggs should consider getting out and touching grass sometime.

The only 'sides' people are going to come down on are going to fall into two camps: WotC, and non-WotC. And even then, the lines will be blurred.

See, you can play 5E, and also play Pathfinder. Or 2E. Or Savage Worlds. You don't have to adhere religiously to one system. Aside from the johnny-come-latelies (who only know 5E), who does that?

Quote from: Ghostmaker on January 08, 2024, 03:54:08 PM
Ben Riggs should consider getting out and touching grass sometime.

Not sure I know what you mean here (?) I thought Ben's analysis and predictions were spot on. One exception is that he laments the passing of the 5E Golden Age, but I'm looking forward to it.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on January 08, 2024, 03:54:08 PM
Ben Riggs should consider getting out and touching grass sometime.

The only 'sides' people are going to come down on are going to fall into two camps: WotC, and non-WotC. And even then, the lines will be blurred.

See, you can play 5E, and also play Pathfinder. Or 2E. Or Savage Worlds. You don't have to adhere religiously to one system. Aside from the johnny-come-latelies (who only know 5E), who does that?

You can surely play 5/e along with other games, but who has the money to dole out for multiple game systems?  And who, with that money has the will? 

Game Masters are the big spenders.  And they need money to do that.  And in an ever economy that money becomes more and more scarce.  So perhaps each GM will only spend on what they think will benefit their pet system and their gaming group. 


This coupled with the glut of AI-created garbage that we are about to see being released will make finding good quality gaming matereal difficult.  We will have to actually invest time, and effort iinto searching through countless websites, just to find something worthy of our money.

Plus, many of the big names in TTRPG publishing have embraced wokeness and will give gaming in general that woke stench.  Potential new gamers will associate "gaming" with woke-crap.  This will result in even less newcomers to gaming.

It won't be the death of TTRPG's, but it will be a dark age.

Quote from: Svenhelgrim on January 08, 2024, 05:40:42 PM
You can surely play 5/e along with other games, but who has the money to dole out for multiple game systems?  And who, with that money has the will? 

Game Masters are the big spenders.  And they need money to do that.  And in an ever economy that money becomes more and more scarce.  So perhaps each GM will only spend on what they think will benefit their pet system and their gaming group. 

Who says a group must have one Game Master? Back in the day one our players ran an occasional RuneQuest session, another ran Twilight 2000, and a third did Space Opera and Ring World. Also players can't contribute to the purchase of a new game. A large number of games are free or very cheap and 5E hardbacks will join that club when 5.5 or 6.0 or whatever comes out and Hobby Shops need to get rid of old stock.

A lot of the players that "can't afford multiple game systems," buy a $7 coffee every morning.

Quote from: Grognard GM on January 09, 2024, 08:07:32 AM
A lot of the players that "can't afford multiple game systems," buy a $7 coffee every morning.

And pay $15/each for half a dozen streaming services they watch for 1 hour each month.

Quote from: Zalman on January 09, 2024, 09:06:10 AM

Quote from: Grognard GM on January 09, 2024, 08:07:32 AM
A lot of the players that "can't afford multiple game systems," buy a $7 coffee every morning.

And pay $15/each for half a dozen streaming services they watch for 1 hour each month.

Indeed. When I was a broke-ass kid I still had a shelf full of RPG books. Because I was seriously committed to my hobby of RPG gaming, I wasn't some tourist that plays performatively.

Quote from: Grognard GM on January 09, 2024, 09:23:23 AM

Quote from: Zalman on January 09, 2024, 09:06:10 AM

Quote from: Grognard GM on January 09, 2024, 08:07:32 AM
A lot of the players that "can't afford multiple game systems," buy a $7 coffee every morning.

And pay $15/each for half a dozen streaming services they watch for 1 hour each month.

Indeed. When I was a broke-ass kid I still had a shelf full of RPG books. Because I was seriously committed to my hobby of RPG gaming, I wasn't some tourist that plays performatively.

I guess I did not make my point clear, so I will try again:

-Less people will be in the hobby.

-There will be a glut of AI generated garbage material that we serious gamers will have to sift through. Casuals and newbies won't know where to start.

-Potential new players will be turned off by woke companies like Baizuo, Hazards-of-the-Bro, etc, and associate wokeness with D&D and other rpg's.

Those of us who are already here will carry on.  It will just suck more.

Quote from: Grognard GM on January 09, 2024, 08:07:32 AM
A lot of the players that "can't afford multiple game systems," buy a $7 coffee every morning.

When they could be buying TWO issues of The Pundit Files for the same price!

Quote from: yosemitemike on January 05, 2024, 10:17:21 PM
I'm not sure I buy the premise that there was a golden age to begin with.  I don't think that a large influx of tourists represents a golden age.  That's what a lot of these people are really.  Fads are, by nature, short-lived.  When the fad is over, they will be gone.

I agree with this. Whenever I see shill channels say dumb rubbish like "We're in a golden age, RPGs are better than ever and there's more players than ever." no, dummy. We are or soon will have  passed an age where the RPG hobby was infested with people who had no interest in RPGs and only wanted a very singular kind of game that is best represented by Baldur's Gate 3. An aimless plot, everything revolving around the player, quirky lolsorandom decisions force fed, lots of heckin valid explicit sexual content to validate terminally online hedonistic fantasies, and purposefully bad encounter design so players can quickly get it over with and get back to the heckin valid bits. Those people do not want to game with people who actually want to play TTRPGs. It was a seperate audience with it's own needs and a fairweather one at that.

We weren't in a golden age but I can't help but think we're about to head into a Dark Age. Even without the current economic troubles, the phantom audience is about to dissipate and I don't think smaller companies like Chaosium and Paradox wearing an ill fitting White Wolf skinsuit have prepared for this. We're going to see a marked reduction in ALL tabletop gaming after the Theatre kids leave and companies who aren't WotC realise there was never as much money in TTRPGs as they thought because it was always a niche hobby for a handful of people. This isn't going to lead to better games rising to the top. The really small indie companies making your favorite OSR game aren't going to have the marketing budget to fill the void WotC will leave. Hell nor will mid tier companies either. There's too few people spread over too many games.You and your group might be okay if you're one of those boomers who's managed to keep their 70's DnD group together. But anyone under the age of 40 is going to struggle even more than before to find groups IRL or online once the trend chasers leave. There will be far less players and far less opportunities for anyone to game. And I'm sure the out of touch boomers are going to say I'm being pessimistic because THEY can find games amongst other boomers who want to play RPGs. And that'll be great for them. But it's already really hard to get a decent game of anything not Critical Role with anyone who doesn't want Critical Role and once those people who just want Critical Role leave, there will be frighteningly few people in the Millenial to Gen Z bracket that actually like and want to play TTRPGs. And that's going to shrink even more.

The best thing that can happen to the RPG industry is for it to stop being a Fad and let the actual hobbyist get back to gaming.