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!

Tabletop Role-Playing In Your Dreams

   Once in a while I’m lucky enough to dream about things related to role-playing games. Some of those dreams are overly vague, and easily forgettable. But a lot of them are actually quite wonderful. So much so that, for more than six years now, I have devoted a section of my gaming journals to the recording of such dream-episodes.

   Documenting dreams, describing them, putting them down on paper, is notoriously fastidious. Dreams don’t follow any of the rules of storytelling or dialog.

   Bear with me, folks.

   Plus, this is my first article since the pandemic and months of staying at home. Let’s begin with something light and funny, shall we?

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   In one memorable 2016 dream, I found myself in a garage with Chirine and Tim Kask, and we were busy converting miniatures. Especially, I remember a series of Efreet and Efreeta with diamond-shaped turbans. The turbans were little acrylic diamonds: I don’t recall exactly how we got them to fit on the figures’ heads, but the end result was amazing – and I was gonna get to keep one of the finished minis for myself.

   But what I remember the most vividly about that garage is how I felt. Did we have neon lighting on the ceiling, or individual lamps? I don’t know. Was it day or night? I don’t know. What I know is that it was the best damn feeling ever. A totally awesome sense of camaraderie and creativity and boundless gaming possibilities. I wanted to remain in that place forever. Really. Assembling and converting and painting miniatures – and maybe crafting terrain – with other tabletop enthusiasts for all eternity: isn’t that one of the planes of Elysium, or one of the Seven Heavens?

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   My funniest RPG-related dream from last year was the Lich Convention. In this dream, I was an unidentified character attending a huge convention full of liches – and at the same time I seemed to be the DM running it... You know how dreams can be convoluted and illogical.

   The event took place in some enormous underground temple. As a character, I was shocked and amazed at the number of liches, demiliches and dracoliches I passed in the halls and corridors; and as the Dungeon Master, I kept thinking: “Even if I get my hands on all the lich miniatures ever produced in metal and plastic, I don’t have nearly enough different liches to run this!”

   Waking up from that dream, I immediately picked up a pencil and drew this little booth with the sign: Lichdom: How To Get Started. Note that I didn’t actually see any such booth in my dream; the sketch was just a quick, silly way for me to remember the Lich Convention, a fascinating con where I seemed to be the only non-lich wandering the halls – and yet no one ever accosted or bothered me. I didn’t have the balls to talk to anyone, either!

   For months afterwards, I kept thinking about turning this into a real adventure. What would the player characters’ goal be? What would they want to achieve and / or prevent? As of now, I still have no idea whether I’ll actually use it or not. It’s on the back burner. But what an awesome D&D dream it was!

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   Dated November 14, 2015, one full page of my “Dream Log” is about a very atmospheric Empire of the Petal Throne / RuneQuest crossover. It took place within a sheltered valley shaped like the number 8, with a lake shaped like the number 6. Someone in the dream said that verbatim, and I jotted it down the next morning. “The valley is shaped like an 8 but the lake is shaped like a 6.”

   Oddly enough, that 8/6 valley was a hidden enclave of Tekumel within the world of Glorantha, led by a little 5-year-old seer who spoke of Pavar and the wizard Subadim. This young seer also possessed the only technological device in the valley: some sort of advanced spyglass with a blinking yellow light on it. I don’t know if the valley’s denizens were Tsolyani or Yan Koryani, but they lived mysterious, superstitious lives within the confines of the “enclave,” while Gloranthan heroes and travelers passed them by without ever noticing the place.

   This is a scan of my original sketch. It’s not much, but it was made right after I woke up from that dream.

   The lake was lined with dwellings and shrines, and I remember a big temple of Sarku under construction on the island, near the base of the southern volcano. There were two (inactive) volcanoes in there. In my notes there’s also this line that was part of a song:

Far from the last city and the ultimate oasis...

   In the dream, somebody sang that song at dusk, after the sun had set; it had much more lines, of course, but I couldn’t remember them. It was a sad melody, but utterly beautiful. That dream was amazing, and I still think about it from time to time. I really wish I could return to that wonderful, secluded place, if only for a few minutes – see if Sarku’s temple is finished and if that little seer is now 9 or 10 years of age.

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   Last but not least, I’ve had numerous “Game Store dreams” over the years. It’s never the same FLGS, but it’s always packed with breathtaking, unfindable sourcebooks, maps, accessories, miniatures, and pieces of terrain. There was this one time when I walked into an unidentified “dream” store, and lo and behold: they had the entire line of miniature trees and flora for Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, each weird plant and thorn-bush in its separate box with never-before-seen Erol Otus art! I was ecstatic. It was like I had just discovered the Ark of the Covenant with the Holy Grail inside of it.

   Game Store dreams are the most common of all RPG-related dreams, but I still love them. I have them perhaps once a month or so. It’s always a bummer to wake up and realize you didn’t actually buy this or that rare item – but I’m still very happy when it happens. It makes me smile from ear to ear.

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   There’s no “practical” point to this post, except to say that sometimes it appears that I continue in this hobby just to keep my brain immersed in it – and dream about it every once in a while. Indeed, those dreams are more frequent than the actual games I get to run in any given year.

   I also wanted to write this post because I never came across any article broaching this particular topic, and I’m genuinely interested by it. Really. I’d love to read about some of James Maliszewski’s RPG-flavored dreams, and David Hartlage’s – and Jeremy Crawford’s, for that matter.

   Tell me yours in the comments section.