The Value of Genuine Success

I'm going to say a whole bunch of extremely unpopular opinions here. Get ready to have your modern gaming sensibilities threatened.

The RPG Renaissance is Bullshit.

Since 2012 with the appearance of D&D Next, which progressed to 5th edition around the same time Critical Role found its audience, the RPG hobby has experienced a massive growth. Thousands upon thousands of new players of all ages are discovering D&D for the first time right now. In general, this is a good thing, I think. It means the RPG industry is getting a much needed influx of cash to perpetuate professional game design in a previously oversaturated and underfunded market. It also means gamers now have more options of where to play and who to play with than they ever did in the past. That's the good in the RPG renaissance. Full stop. There's some bad.

Oh god, what has my generation done?!

I'm a millennial. I was born in 1988. I remember a time when nobody I knew and no schools in town had computers. I remember when cell phones were weird things you only saw in movies about New York business people. I remember riding bikes, swimming in a lake, building tree forts, and actual chalk boards in class.

In a span of 30 years, we went from that to THIS. And this just keeps getting wilder. Every house has MULTIPLE computers of varying forms, all of which are interconnected by a variety of methods. We manage our lives with pocket computers with full touch screen interface. 3D graphics have reached a point of near-photo-realism. We now live in a time where a new born child will learn to type before they learn to ride a bike or swim.

That insane change of culture and technology had a pretty big impact on my generation. Mostly we just feel confused and overwhelmed, but also excited, but also worried about where the future might take us. This song adequately expresses my feeling of being left behind and lost in the tidal wave of technological progress.

...But people keep criticizing my generation, saying that technology has given us inappropriate expectations of life. That we seek instant gratification, that we believe we deserve good things by virtue of being alive. That kind of stuff. I used to scoff at those articles. I'm not like that. My friends aren't like that.

D&D has taught me that me and my friends are statistical outliers. We are the weirdos of my generation. Me and most of the other financially poor kids with conservative parents. For the majority of millennials, all of that criticism is 100% true. I have learned this through interacting with new players my age and younger and comparing their beliefs and attitudes to my own and those of older generations of gamers. The difference is striking, but it appears most clearly in how people expect a D&D game to be run today. To understand that, you need to understand Matt Mercer a little bit.

*swoon*

Now, I like Mercer. A lot. He is the best DM for that show, and he really makes it what it is. Hell, he's probably the most talented DM I've ever watched. He has had a profound impact on popularizing D&D, more so than any other celebrity DM at the moment. He is an incredible DM who has shown talent at running very large games efficiently, and even running satisfying solo-player games for newbies within 30 minutes. Every DM has something to learn from Mercer.

But more importantly, he is a professional voice actor. A performer. The games he runs are not really games, so much as they are shows. Thousands of people tuned in every week to watch him and his players (also professional actors) improvise an exciting narrative within the framework of a fairly heavily customized 5th edition D&D system. And these people take that experience away and want to become a part of something like that. So they go and play D&D for real. And while Mercer has been very vocal about the fact that most people's games won't (and shouldn't) look like his show, that message isn't getting out anywhere near on the same level as the influence of the show, and it fails to address the core problem of the expectations Critical Role has set for thousands of people.

The core problem? People are coming to the table expecting roleplay. When you present them with a game, they feel neglected and cheated. They want to tell stories, not overcome legitimate challenges. They want to experience an emergent narrative, not plan the logistics of a 10 day sea trip to the next city. They have mistaken the roleplay, the performance element of D&D as its core and primary purpose, its main function.

But that's not D&D. In fact, that's not even RPGs in general. There's a whole separate hobby community for that.

The kings of roleplay at work.

It's just called roleplay. There's whole forums and chat services dedicated to it.

There's also collaborative fiction communities as well.

But very few people know about that. And the folks on Critical Role are playing D&D, sort-of. And D&D is part of the cultural consciousness. So people gravitate to what they know, even if they don't really understand it.

If all you want to do is tell fun stories and improv act with your friends, I have to ask: why do you need a game system? Or character sheets? Or dice? What does that add aside from the chance of anticlimactic results and narrative breaking limitations?

Now, I love roleplay! I've spent countless hours participating in wiki, chat, and forum RPs, and even did a little live RP play when I got older. I still sometimes go back and dabble in it from time to time. And I've gotta say: that hobby needs a renaissance! They are really struggling to remain active and relevant, much the same as how RPGs were 10 years ago. And RP is still core to the RPG experience, it is in the name after all, but it's not the only or primary purpose of play. I've also gotta say, I think the RP hobby has a lot more of what the new D&D players are really looking for than D&D proper can deliver on.

Surprise! It's all crass entertainment! Hooray!

But, culture changes in stupid ways, and this is how the hobbies are evolving. Standard RP is dying out while RPGs abandon the G in their name.

Typical.

Kind of like how what was once country music would now be called folk, what was rock would now be called country, what was metal would now be called rock, and metal has become some ridiculous caricature of itself.

The ignorance of the masses defines the nature of the culture we live in.

Personally though, I believe this hobby is inherently about playing a Game with a capital G. I am a GM. I am not here to suck your dick or blow smoke up your ass, I'm here to present you with meaningful challenges that you can overcome using your own ingenuity, teamwork, and dedication. I am here to give you the experience of a well-earned meaningful success, an experience that you can learn from, grow from, and take with you into the rest of your life.

And hopefully, I'll learn something from you in the process as well.

Come with me, and you'll be, in a world of arbitrary dungeons!