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!
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