Saturday, April 25, 2020

Jaded Gamer Diary - gaming community


Community matters in the tabletop gaming hobby, it matters a whole lot. People may say otherwise and there may be a few small exceptions to this idea. But on the larger scale it is the truth.

Dungeons and Dragons has had 40+ years of community building behind the brand.  This is why it's on top and continues to stay on top. Despite having a scumbag like Mearls in charge right now and some push back against about the founding ideas about the overall game design. It still remains one of the easiest and by far the largest communities to hop into. With plenty for designers, content providers, game masters and just plain ole' players to be involved with.

Other game communities cannot match this, especially with people being able to find a place. The OSR community is large but it seems focused more around designers and content providers than anything else. Game masters can find material to use and players just don't seem to be addressed all that much.

The community that has sprung up around PbtA games (as much as I dislike the system) have gained some ground by being an all purpose community. Since their system is more designed around player agency they have a draw for that crowd to come in. Along with designers and content providers. However with the overall variations of the system the community isn't unified as much and has splinter communities springing up.

While the indie crowd outside of PbtA seems to be a self fed group of designers and content creators. There is a lot of playing each others games and talking back and forth while refining what they have made. Having something that springs up a following outside of that circle is not that common.

You do have communities propped up by single games or game lines. These would include Pathfinder, the old White Wolf properties (mainly Vampire) and GURPS with it's shrinking support and supporter base. Even these combined aren't a match for what has been built up for Dungeons and Dragons over the decades.

So the easiest community for somebody new to the hobby to find a place in is the one for DnD. Even if you have moved on to playing other games you can usually still fall in with it's fans in a gaming discussion rather easily. Wherever there are gamers gathering there is usually DnD there in some form.

So instead of people bitching about DnD constantly, throwing insults at those who are fans and raging over it's design focus try working on your own community. Slip into their community a bit with a smile on your face and start working on bringing folks over to trying something new in a more inviting manner. Telling people that what they are playing sucks or that they are having fun the wrong way and for the wrong reasons isn't working and it isn't going to start working anytime soon.

Now for the record the last Dungeons and Dragons game that I played quite a bit in was when 3.0 came out and I was out of it long before 3.5 came along. Since then the only edition that I have ever ran was a couple of one shots of the BECMI version. Currently I'm more of a content creator and wanna be designer who doesn't fall into any of the main communities out there.

This has been my two cents, your mileage may vary.

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