5e Generation: What Lies Ahead

   In the last post I’ve written before the pandemic, I mentioned how Sly Flourish had said that 51% or more of all D&D players had now only been playing for three years. And it got me thinking. Because, you know, we all had lots and lots of time to think during corona, didn’t we?

   The 5e crowd may look like a solid, monolithic bloc right now, but it won’t remain that way. The AD&D crowd of the early eighties sure looked like a monolithic bloc. Forty-odd years later, it has exploded in hundreds of scattered pieces. The exact same thing will naturally happen to 5e. Some players will try dozens, if not hundreds of other RPGs; some will become hardware buffs; some will become collectors; some will become wargamers only; at least a few of them will open up their own role-playing games companies, like Monte Cook and Shanna Germain; at least one of them will become a talk show host, like Colbert.

   Yes, there might be a Sixth Edition. Maybe a full-on crossover with Magic: The Gathering. Your D&D Beyond character made available as a custom, print-on-demand card. Literally anything can happen within the next ten years. If you had walked into the TSR offices in 1980 to proclaim in a clear voice that ten years down the road, Dungeons & Dragons would be dead and buried, everyone would have laughed their heads off, including Gary himself.

   Much, much more people are playing D&D now than four years ago. This is great. But not all those people will stay with the hobby of tabletop role-playing games for the next thirty-seven years. A lot of them will eventually move on – and never come back to it again. It’s like the Harry Potter craze. Some fans went on to read numerous SF/F authors, and some never read any more fantasy after they’d finished J. K. Rowling’s books. Some became lifelong fans of the genre, and for others, it was just a phase, like inline skating in 1990 or Tamagotchis in 1997.

   I have two cousins that played First Edition AD&D back in the eighties, like maniacs, and then quit playing around 86-87, never to touch a tabletop role-playing game again. I’m pretty sure they can’t even name another TTRPG besides D&D. Today, if I share an AD&D memory with either one of them, they hardly remember it at all. One of them even seems to be annoyed when I touch on that subject.

   This phenomenon will reoccur. Part of the 5e players will quit after 4-5 years – but some will become lifelong RPG aficionados, and that’s the awesome part. Some of them are going to experiment with other systems, other styles, more rules, less rules, weird rules, diceless, et cetera. They’ll come up with their own stuff. The shift towards “more realistic” role-playing will happen for them, too: it’s inevitable. They shall have their own HârnMaster, sooner or later. They shall play those late-nights games in unfamiliar apartments with that one stoned guy who keeps repeating, “I wanna CAST A SPELL!!!” and that other, slightly less stoned guy who answers, “You’re supposed to be wise like GANDALF – he doesn’t cast spells willy-nilly!” and the first guy who replies, “Go fuck you.” The 5e generation shall witness those absurd game sessions with the two jocks who keep killing each other’s characters, immediately rolling up new ones, and again fighting to the death as soon as the new character walks into the blood-soaked inn, with no consideration whatsoever for the adventure at hand.

   Yes, the 5e generation shall have to endure through that also. All the steps. That is – if they keep at it for thirty years. You have to write two or three bad books before you can write a good one. You have to cook several disgusting meals before you’re able to whip up a tasty feast.

   Under what assumption do we believe that the Fifth Edition crowd somehow become mature, multi-tooled, level-headed players in a matter of weeks? Like it or not, it’s a process. A journey. You can’t click the Matt Mercer button or the Jerry Holkins button, and be there already. Same with everything else. If you’re a budding writer, you won’t be able to go directly to “Stephen King.” If you take up cooking, you can’t go directly to “Gordon Ramsay.” Of course, some people would like you to think that you can – but it’s impossible. You gotta put in the hours, that’s all. The infamous “10,000-hour rule” has been disproven, aye. Some gifted folks become excellent at something in less than 5K hours. Some require even more than 10K to hit that excellence plateau. There is no fixed, universal number. But one thing’s for sure: you need some time. Meaning: more than a hundred hours – at the very least.

   Ten thousand? Jesus. I’m not even sure I have that.

   Well, maybe.

   Luke spent time training on Dagobah, but Rey doesn’t need that – she decides to order a stormtrooper out of the room, and succeeds on the second try. This illustrates the “You Have It In You” doctrine. It’s Disney. Screenwriters must love that doctrine, because you save so much screen time when you don’t have to waste 40 minutes on Dagobah. After all, if one doesn’t need any kind of experience to become President of the United States, what good is experience in anything anyway?

   But, please, don’t be like that. You need to put in the hours – lots of hours. And you really need to go to Dagobah. Trust me, you won’t regret it. Read the blogs. Read all of Grognardia. Read as much of Chirine’s Workbench as you can. Read Greyhawk Grognard and The Mule Abides and Havard’s Blackmoor Blog. Read David Hartlage and Sly Flourish. The Force is strong with them.

   I don’t want to afflict and discourage anyone – it’s definitely not my goal here. A woman recently tweeted: “Going to three rallies won’t make you an activist.” And you know what? She is absolutely right. I went to one Black Lives Matter rally. I am not an activist. Someone who played one game of D&D last January is not a tabletop role-player – not yet.

   It ain’t gatekeeping. Just plain old logic.

   You need that investment of time and effort. Well, “effort” is such a big, scary word these days. It won’t feel like an effort. You know what they say. If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life.

   If D&D for you is just a phase, congratulations are in order, because you’ve picked something truly amazing. You’re gonna have a LOT of fun, and actually learn more about yourself and other people than with any Tamagotchi.

   If you’re in it for the long haul, I cannot wait to hear about the crazy homebrewed sci-fi barbarian mummy crossover you’ll come up with 10 years from now. And I’ll make sure to read your blog, your quantum-indeterminate holofeed, or whatever these things are called in the year 2040.

   And if you host a late-night talk show – you can count on me, I’ll watch it!