Lets talk about Dungeons & Dragons. Not the game. Not the mechanics. The place in the market and the place in the community. To do that I need to talk about some basic concepts from political science, economics, marketing, and business theory. https://twitter.com/Pandatheist/status/1280170656156594177

These can be third rails for some people. Discourse. So let me set some boundaries at the get go.

1) I WILL have a clearly defined end. If you respond before the end on this I may very well be getting to your point. If you respond to the first tweet I will probably ignore you since you clearly didnt read this right here. And if you cant take the time to read, why should I?

2) Im not arguing for a way things should be or a moral stance. Im looking at how things are and a direction theyre likely to go. If you come here looking for a fight Im just going to mute or block you. See point 1.

3) I have played dnd for 20 years. I also play lots of other things. This isnt about mechanical elegance and it isnt about how easy it is to learn a system if I just consider system X. I have likely played system X and I agree with you. This isnt about that.

Sorry for all that. I really want to avoid internet drama on this. All that aside lets get to it.

The first thing to establish is that dnd isnt 3 core books and a set of mechanics. Its a cultural touchstone and a generic product. Its kleenex. Band aids. Frisbees, post-its.

Its scotch tape. It was a brand name, but now, with the public, its synonymous with RPG. There are some game companies cognizant of that. Both Labyrinth and Quest brand themselves as “adventure games”. Quest literally has “game book” on the spine. We’ll come back to that.

The other half is that dnd is a cultural touchstone. It was in stranger things. The announcement of 5e was in Forbes. There are alignment memes, class memes. In jokes and shared language and reference point. Cultural cachet.

When you have in jokes you have in group/out group dynamics. So. Dnd isnt just a game. Its certainly not just a product. Its not a community, all though there are several dnd communities. Its something bigger. It exerts social pressure.

If you worked in an office during Game of Thrones you know what Im talking about. It was a thing people references jokingly in emails. Office pools on who would survive. It was an excuse to pretend you werent strangers with strangers. A strange sense of belonging.

Horizontal Segmentation

An important part of buying products is personal preference. In most product categories those preferences can be grouped. The classic origin in marketing was tomato sauce. Some people prefer chunky tomato sauce, some people prefer thin tomato sauce.

When you have more specific preference than that you end up spending more on a niche product. It costs more in time, resources, effort, and labor to tailor products to individual demands than to make something for larger groups. The benefits of economy of scale.

So cost is the primary motivator of choice barring anything else. You can spend leas for something more broadly close to your taste or spend more for something thats closer to your exact taste.

But barring anything else is a bit of a distraction, because there are other factors, particularly for social activities and when groups are involved. Societal pressure again. The classic example for this is coffee. “Real men like their coffee black”. Its horseshit.

Total fabrication. Coffee isnt liked by everyone, and those that do like it are also affected by horizontal segmentation. Some like it black, some like it with a little milk and sugar, some like a hint of coffe in their glass of milk. But group dynamics change behavior.

Lets talk about defaults. When most people find something they like in categories they assume are interchangeable, they do not change brands except during major life changes.

If you buy Crest toothpaste its likely youll only ever change that during a large move, a marriage, a divorce, or after the birth of a child. You know it works, it hasnt killed you yet, and theyre all the same. Why switch from something you trust?

In markets with market leaders, where social pressure and economies of scale occur, where platfroms are involved, those leaders are the default. Anyone remember Windows Phone? It was excellent. It had a bunch of cool innovative ideas. It was dead on arrival.

Why? Partly it was because creators were all picking sides between iphone and android. Partly it was brand recognition and sales incentives. But a lot of it? What are your friends using? Theres assumptions of compatibility and trust and fallback there even before the rest.

A better example I think is Linux. A friend this morning was asking me about how the current controversies around WotC would impact use and the indie community. And I said the indie community is Linux to WotC’s PC(the Mac changes generationally. Palladium, Vampire, Pathfinder)

Indie games are marginally harder to get into. Theres so much to choose, where do you start? Theres not as much guidance as a lot of people think to play. Rules light does not mean easy to learn or teach. Theres not as many people playing game of interest. There arent pbta memes.

None of this is to say that those games cant be successful. But it is saying they are, for the most part niche. They have communities they target. But rando on the street? They just want to sit down amd play with their friends without thinking.

Theres also trust at play. “Buy this on Amazon” is easier to convince someone of than “go create a lulu account and use this mo thly code to get a copy of my favorite game printed”. This isnt saying that indie game isnt better. It probably is for some people.

None of this is saying what you should or shouldnt play. If youre reading this you likely already play multiple things. But if someone stops drinking Coke they arent suddenly drinking Sioux City Soda’s. Theyre going to ask for Pepsi.

And when someone stops playing dnd? Some of them may join the indie/osr/swordream/lyric/etc communities and play all the things. I’ll be here to welcome them. But most of them are going to go looking for dnd without the dnd problems.

Not a lot of my favorite games think about these questions. Audience, market segmentation, onboarding, outreach, community building, growth, brand identity. To be a large presence in the market you need to. To take advantage of the current issues you need to.

To capture a dissatisfied user base you need to be thinking about these things.

...

Adventure game. I promised you Id get back to adventure game. Dnd is synonymous with rpg. How do you get people to think about you without thinking about dnd the second you say “rpg”?

You redefine your market or you redefine your place in the market. I dont think Labyrinth has aspirations that large. But Quest? Quest is built with onboarding in mind. Its targeting new players. It wants new players. Its looking at the future.

Heres the things to look for. It will start expanding content soon. And adventure is coming out shortly, a new kickstarter too. It will continue to target new players. After that how does it maintain brand loyalty? Where does it show up next? How does it capture older players?

How does its advertising and distribution change over time? It could very well be another flash in the pan. But my favorite OSR game isnt coming for WotC. That cool new indie hit isnt coming for wotc. They lack the cohesive vision and ambition necessary.

And WotC could indeed do what is necessary to maintain their market dominance. They dont sot on a throne unaware of the masses. They can change. They can fight back. They have survived near collapse at least twice if you include the TSR era.

Its going to be a fascinating decade ahead in rpgs. Lets see what comes of it. Thanks for reading.

(And with that feel free to drag me through the coals)