D&D 5e has failed

[TiaC]

It sounds like people are recommending the model used by most video games.

If a new player opens Starcraft for the first time, they get a few enjoyable missions of increasing complexity and then they are fully ready to play.

[OgreBattle]

I learned D&D from Shattered Lands.

Well, I didn't learn anything useful about the rules, but I did learn Thri-Kreen are badass, and so are Dragon Kings.

Those goddamn caravan elves never showed up for the final battle to help me!

Man I need to go find a way to play it on a modern computer, that game had so much personality. I loved finding that asshole announcer in the desert and watching him beg for his life before my Thri Kreen party tore him up.

[radthemad4]

Man I need to go find a way to play it on a modern computer, that game had so much personality. I loved finding that asshole announcer in the desert and watching him beg for his life before my Thri Kreen party tore him up.

DosBox

[ACOS]

ACOS, Mike Mearls has words for you.

Sounds about right.

Well, it's very seldom printed out, so there's that. But it is still 200 pages long, with no fluff or card descriptions. http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/t ... 140601.pdf

Well, to be fair, the majority of that seems to be noted as "optional" (yeah, I know, ch9 is the one actually labeled "options", but ch7&8 also appear to have the "optional" quality.
Card descriptions are directly on the card, so there is that.
There is also formatting. M:tG format looks like an actual legal code; which eats up an irresponsible amount of space in itself. You might actually be able to get a QuickReference guide of the essentials down to less than 10 pages.

If memory serves, most of the nuance happens in the interaction between specific cards; and not really much to do with the game at large.

It sounds like people are recommending the model used by most video games.

If a new player opens Starcraft for the first time, they get a few enjoyable missions of increasing complexity and then they are fully ready to play.

Hey, if it works, it works.

edit: found it!

OMFG, that thing is horrid!
I mean, I appreciate the gesture; but ... yuck!
As I was watching that, I couldn't help but feel like it was talking to me like I was literally 7y.o.
And then it hit me: new-hire corporate training videos. The same type of people who put those together did that tutorial. And since front office suits tend to think of bog-standard employees as being functionally retarded, what you get is something that talks to you like you're 7y.o. Which should tell you what they actually think of us.

And all of that is perfectly in line with the rant in my previous post.
Fuck Hasbro.

[Ravengm]

M:tG, by its very nature, inherently has much lower barriers to entry, on multiple levels. So, it's not that hard to rope in new players.
A starter deck is only a few dollars (money)
the rules are much simpler and easier to learn (effort)
you play a hand and can move on to something else (time)
you only need one other person to play (coordination of time and effort)

and I'm sure I'm missing a few.

Angry laid out just exactly how to actually package a "starter set"; I think the brainiacs up at D&D just get too tunnel-visioned.

Did you ever try to play Odyssey limited as a new player? Holy shit, it was hard to figure that out as someone with a bit of experience. MTG used to not be newbie-friendly in really any way. MTG used to rely on the "older cousin" model just as hard as D&D does today. The fact is that the Magic division at Wizards started catering hard to new players starting at about the release of Magic 2010. They changed the framework of the game in general:

• Instead of a core set targeted at getting reprints into the Standard environment, now they had a core set designed from the ground up to be accessible to players who had no idea what the game was about. In it, they ditched card concepts like "freaky half-snake half-salamander humanoid dude from a setting no one's ever heard of" except in rare cases and embraced things like "Sleep". Basic tropes from fantasy works that most people had heard of and could recognize, especially thanks to shit like Harry Potter and LOTR.
• Dumped most of the game's complexity into rare cards, which by definition show up less often. When a new player opens a booster pack, they see a bunch of relatively easy-to-understand cards, a few oddballs, and maybe one giant wall of text of a card.
• Significantly reduced on-board complexity. Instead of having giant wars of attrition with six creatures on either side that had abilities like "Tap: tap or untap another target creature", they now had a bunch of "spell effect" creatures. Stuff that has an effect when you play it and then doesn't do anything aside from being a meatsack of power/toughness so you can forget the card has text.
• Changed the game terminology to make more sense flavorfully. "Is put into a graveyard from play" was reworded to "dies", "in play" to "the battlefield", "play" to "cast" (in most cases), etc. This made it easier for new players to identify what the hell was going on with this giant collection of cards on the table mentally. Things on the battlefield interact with each other, things in the graveyard are dead, you cast spells.
• Release products periodically that are targeted specifically as "new player" products, and that actually cater to those players. Starter decks are crafted with a beginner-level mentality, and even include a couple booster packs so that after playing the deck once or twice, the player can start customizing and get interesting in buying more product. Duel decks are playable and (usually) balanced against each other and meant for a 2-player experience. Booster duel packs introduce the concept of deckbuilding right away. None of these are optimized products, and none are targeted at people who already are playing the game. From what I know of, they don't sell terribly well, but the real money is in selling booster packs anyway, and once you're hooked, you drop tons of cash. The first hit is free.
• Duels of the Planeswalkers, which has been covered, is ridiculously effective at getting people to show up to the physical table.
• Free starter decks that are specifically constructed to teach people. I went to the EMP museum in Seattle and since there was some Magic art hanging in a fantasy-themed exhibit there, they literally were just handing out these things to people that bought a ticket. They have people dressed like planeswalkers that show up to PAX and wander around asking if people want to try out some (stacked) sample decks and give out a free promo card for anyone that tries it. They actively try to get people to pick up the game by showing them that "It really is fun, here, try it."

D&D either doesn't do any of this, or does it poorly.

• Books are still designed with existing players in mind, as per the Angry DM article and the "older cousin" model. 5e didn't change this.
• All of the game's complexity is up-front. You look at a PHB and before you know what the hell is going on, you're looking at getting +2 STR and darkvision (60') for being a half-orc. Neither of those things actually means anything unless you're familiar with the system already.
• Action Paralysis is still a real thing in D&D. Outside of combat, the question "what do you do now?" can send players into a fit of indecision that is legendary without the DM railroading. And if you're a new DM, you won't know how to drop hints or keep the party focused without using ham-fisted tactics like "a mysterious man teleports in front of you and hands you a quest scroll". If the party is stuck on a puzzle of some sort, you have to know how to edge them to get more info rather than just letting everyone get bored and go play Smash Bros. while the one dedicated guy tries to figure it out.
• Release products are more like teasers of the full game than they are an introductory experience. "Here's some stuff that will be in the main game, buy our books!" as opposed to "This is how you play the game. Buy some books if you want to do more!"
• There is no effective interactive experience for teaching D&D currently. Sure, you've got licensed video games like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights (targeted towards people who are already D&D nerds) and Daggerdale (an abomination of a video game), but those either aren't introductory or don't actually have anything to do with the game, respectively.
• Pretty much every D&D product is priced at "premium" level. There is no effective "free sample" of the game since the SRD was axed. You have stuff like the starter pdf, but like in the Angry DM article, it's not actually meant for new players; it's constructed as a sort of spoiler for existing players.

Ironically, they got going in the right direction with 4e Essentials, but the execution (and game) was horrible, as we know. They released a pretty solid intro set that actually had a choose-your-own-adventure style into that eventually left you with "By your choices, you'd probably like playing a [insert class]! Turn to page X to check out all the details!" They had reasonably pricedless wallet-shredding softcover books that gave you chunks of information rather than a legal document full of rules. They still didn't have newbie-friendly DM material, but it was at least a start.

It's just the wrong idea, targeted to the wrong people. They're specifically trying to appease the grognards, customers lost to Pathfinder, and 4urries all at once, and didn't even start to consider that maybe the reason they can't sell as many books as they want is that they can't attract new people to the hobby effectively. Magic knows their shit. They figured this out. And they did it to the detriment of the existing playerbase, because they knew that new players were the lifeblood of the game. The subsequent shitstorm after the M10 changes was intense.

D&D needs to do something similar. They're going to piss off a lot of established customers if they take steps to make a newbie-friendly experience, but if Magic is any indication, it pays off if you do it right.

[fectin]

Would it be worthwhile putting out some QuickStart character books?

Roughly, build a complete, competent character with pregenned sheets for the first ten levels, and a reference for a the rules that character uses? Probably that's a 30 page pamphlet or so.

[hamstertamer]

M:tG, by its very nature, inherently has much lower barriers to entry, on multiple levels. So, it's not that hard to rope in new players.
A starter deck is only a few dollars (money)
the rules are much simpler and easier to learn (effort)
you play a hand and can move on to something else (time)
you only need one other person to play (coordination of time and effort)

and I'm sure I'm missing a few.

Angry laid out just exactly how to actually package a "starter set"; I think the brainiacs up at D&D just get too tunnel-visioned.

Did you ever try to play Odyssey limited as a new player? Holy shit, it was hard to figure that out as someone with a bit of experience. MTG used to not be newbie-friendly in really any way. MTG used to rely on the "older cousin" model just as hard as D&D does today. The fact is that the Magic division at Wizards started catering hard to new players starting at about the release of Magic 2010. They changed the framework of the game in general:

• Instead of a core set targeted at getting reprints into the Standard environment, now they had a core set designed from the ground up to be accessible to players who had no idea what the game was about. In it, they ditched card concepts like "freaky half-snake half-salamander humanoid dude from a setting no one's ever heard of" except in rare cases and embraced things like "Sleep". Basic tropes from fantasy works that most people had heard of and could recognize, especially thanks to shit like Harry Potter and LOTR.
• Dumped most of the game's complexity into rare cards, which by definition show up less often. When a new player opens a booster pack, they see a bunch of relatively easy-to-understand cards, a few oddballs, and maybe one giant wall of text of a card.
• Significantly reduced on-board complexity. Instead of having giant wars of attrition with six creatures on either side that had abilities like "Tap: tap or untap another target creature", they now had a bunch of "spell effect" creatures. Stuff that has an effect when you play it and then doesn't do anything aside from being a meatsack of power/toughness so you can forget the card has text.
• Changed the game terminology to make more sense flavorfully. "Is put into a graveyard from play" was reworded to "dies", "in play" to "the battlefield", "play" to "cast" (in most cases), etc. This made it easier for new players to identify what the hell was going on with this giant collection of cards on the table mentally. Things on the battlefield interact with each other, things in the graveyard are dead, you cast spells.
• Release products periodically that are targeted specifically as "new player" products, and that actually cater to those players. Starter decks are crafted with a beginner-level mentality, and even include a couple booster packs so that after playing the deck once or twice, the player can start customizing and get interesting in buying more product. Duel decks are playable and (usually) balanced against each other and meant for a 2-player experience. Booster duel packs introduce the concept of deckbuilding right away. None of these are optimized products, and none are targeted at people who already are playing the game. From what I know of, they don't sell terribly well, but the real money is in selling booster packs anyway, and once you're hooked, you drop tons of cash. The first hit is free.
• Duels of the Planeswalkers, which has been covered, is ridiculously effective at getting people to show up to the physical table.
• Free starter decks that are specifically constructed to teach people. I went to the EMP museum in Seattle and since there was some Magic art hanging in a fantasy-themed exhibit there, they literally were just handing out these things to people that bought a ticket. They have people dressed like planeswalkers that show up to PAX and wander around asking if people want to try out some (stacked) sample decks and give out a free promo card for anyone that tries it. They actively try to get people to pick up the game by showing them that "It really is fun, here, try it."

D&D either doesn't do any of this, or does it poorly.

• Books are still designed with existing players in mind, as per the Angry DM article and the "older cousin" model. 5e didn't change this.
• All of the game's complexity is up-front. You look at a PHB and before you know what the hell is going on, you're looking at getting +2 STR and darkvision (60') for being a half-orc. Neither of those things actually means anything unless you're familiar with the system already.
• Action Paralysis is still a real thing in D&D. Outside of combat, the question "what do you do now?" can send players into a fit of indecision that is legendary without the DM railroading. And if you're a new DM, you won't know how to drop hints or keep the party focused without using ham-fisted tactics like "a mysterious man teleports in front of you and hands you a quest scroll". If the party is stuck on a puzzle of some sort, you have to know how to edge them to get more info rather than just letting everyone get bored and go play Smash Bros. while the one dedicated guy tries to figure it out.
• Release products are more like teasers of the full game than they are an introductory experience. "Here's some stuff that will be in the main game, buy our books!" as opposed to "This is how you play the game. Buy some books if you want to do more!"
• There is no effective interactive experience for teaching D&D currently. Sure, you've got licensed video games like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights (targeted towards people who are already D&D nerds) and Daggerdale (an abomination of a video game), but those either aren't introductory or don't actually have anything to do with the game, respectively.
• Pretty much every D&D product is priced at "premium" level. There is no effective "free sample" of the game since the SRD was axed. You have stuff like the starter pdf, but like in the Angry DM article, it's not actually meant for new players; it's constructed as a sort of spoiler for existing players.

Ironically, they got going in the right direction with 4e Essentials, but the execution (and game) was horrible, as we know. They released a pretty solid intro set that actually had a choose-your-own-adventure style into that eventually left you with "By your choices, you'd probably like playing a [insert class]! Turn to page X to check out all the details!" They had reasonably pricedless wallet-shredding softcover books that gave you chunks of information rather than a legal document full of rules. They still didn't have newbie-friendly DM material, but it was at least a start.

It's just the wrong idea, targeted to the wrong people. They're specifically trying to appease the grognards, customers lost to Pathfinder, and 4urries all at once, and didn't even start to consider that maybe the reason they can't sell as many books as they want is that they can't attract new people to the hobby effectively. Magic knows their shit. They figured this out. And they did it to the detriment of the existing playerbase, because they knew that new players were the lifeblood of the game. The subsequent shitstorm after the M10 changes was intense.

D&D needs to do something similar. They're going to piss off a lot of established customers if they take steps to make a newbie-friendly experience, but if Magic is any indication, it pays off if you do it right.

Yeah but MTG is a different type game, so it's not really fair to compare them. Plus a lot of things that you mentioned have been tried. The issue has more to do with what David Rozansky said in the comments then what the angry DM said...

tl/dr:
WotC was great at selling RPGs before being bought out by Hasbro.
Three great selling tools of old Wotc were:
1) The RPGA was "greatest older-cousin network ever."
2) The OGL and D20 system.
3) Dragon Magazine and its sister Dungeon Magazine.
plus Novels

Then Hasbro's Wotc killed all that.

Things like starter kits and interactive teaching tools are nonsense and have been tried before. In my opinion, Hasbro nearly killed their own property (D&D brandname) when they fired their fans and made "the 4th."

[Stinktopus]

Would it be worthwhile putting out some QuickStart character books?

Roughly, build a complete, competent character with pregenned sheets for the first ten levels, and a reference for a the rules that character uses? Probably that's a 30 page pamphlet or so.

That would run afoul of grogs who insist that the only way to get new people into RPG's is to have an experienced player run a game where all the rules are concealed behind purely naturalistic RP.

[fectin]

Those guys aren't a useful target audience anyway.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

Those guys aren't a useful target audience anyway.

That makes their choice of consultants all the more questionable.

[ACOS]

@Ravengm:
Here's what I know about M:tG - when I was first introduced to the game back in '95 (via the "older cousin model"), it took me all of 2 minutes to get started with my first game. That's it - 2 minutes. There's obviously a learning curve, but it's very natural and doesn't provide the barrier to entry like it does in D&D.

That being said, M:tG and D&D are very different games, designed for very different experiences.
But surely there is something to be learned in looking at the business model.

But no, D&D wants to try to cater to ... well, everybody at once but newbies. And that's just a fools errand.
When 3rd came out, I decided to switch from 2nd because I was able to look at it and determine that it was objectively superior while still providing the kind of experience I was looking for. I looked at 4e and saw that it didn't provide that kind of experience, and so I never made the switch. I actually had very high hopes for 5e, because I'm starting to get bored with 3rd. And they dropped the ball so hard with 5e that I'll not be spending a single penny on it. Way to "consolidate the base" there, WotC!

[Stubbazubba]

Yeah but MTG is a different type game, so it's not really fair to compare them. Plus a lot of things that you mentioned have been tried. The issue has more to do with what David Rozansky said in the comments then what the angry DM said...

tl/dr:
WotC was great at selling RPGs before being bought out by Hasbro.
Three great selling tools of old Wotc were:
1) The RPGA was "greatest older-cousin network ever."
2) The OGL and D20 system.
3) Dragon Magazine and its sister Dungeon Magazine.
plus Novels

Then Hasbro's Wotc killed all that.

Things like starter kits and interactive teaching tools are nonsense and have been tried before. In my opinion, Hasbro nearly killed their own property (D&D brandname) when they fired their fans and made "the 4th."

These were great once you were already a player; they keep you playing the game and buying more stuff. But none of them are outward-facing. To bring new people into the hobby you need to actually give people a safe way to learn the game that doesn't include putting yourself out there in front of a bunch of strangers from every position on the social and hygienic spectrum.

A well-done interactive tool can teach you the basic mechanics just like any video game can, one step at a time. Better yet, it'll do so without derailing into optimization strategies you can't possibly comprehend, advanced mechanical interactions you're not ready for, or making funny references that go right over your head. Just basic stuff like "DM presents a scenario; you think what your character would do and say it; DM will tell you what skill to roll; here's how you roll a skill check; if your roll total meets or exceeds whatever difficulty the DM set, you succeed; DM narrates the result, and you repeat the process." In combat basics, it can cover movement, attack basics, damage, spell basics, and saving throws. Advanced Combat goes into line of sight, area of effect, reach, attacks of opportunity, and maneuvers.

The point is it's focused, it walks you through it step-by-step, and it lets you actually go through the motions of doing it while you learn it, instead of just being told. It doesn't give you anything you're not prepared for and it whets your appetite for the game by having an intriguing narrative you're playing through that should lead you into the starting point for a starter set of some kind. It builds your confidence in the basics of what you'll be asked to do before you're asked to do it. If it was well done and widely available, I don't see how this wouldn't help more people get into the hobby.

[Username17]

The issue has more to do with what David Rozansky said in the comments then what the angry DM said...

tl/dr:
WotC was great at selling RPGs before being bought out by Hasbro.
Three great selling tools of old Wotc were:
1) The RPGA was "greatest older-cousin network ever."
2) The OGL and D20 system.
3) Dragon Magazine and its sister Dungeon Magazine.
plus Novels

Then Hasbro's Wotc killed all that.

Things like starter kits and interactive teaching tools are nonsense and have been tried before. In my opinion, Hasbro nearly killed their own property (D&D brandname) when they fired their fans and made "the 4th."

While that's a nice sounding theory, the problem with it is that it's total bullshit. Hasbro bought WotC in 1999. So if you thought any part of the 3rd edition was a good idea, then you liked Hasbro's WotC. Hasbro owned WotC for a full year before the OGL happened. Hasbro owned WotC before the SRD happened. Hasbro owned WotC for three years before Dragon Magazine was licensed to Paizo.

Hasbro's WotC did everything to make 3rd edition D&D a success, and then Hasbro's WotC did everything to make 4th edition shit all over that success. It was all wrong, but every strategic decision they made in making 4th edition terrible was made in good faith based on real problems they saw with how the game was unfolding.

-Username17

[ACOS]

These were great once you were already a player; they keep you playing the game and buying more stuff. But none of them are outward-facing. To bring new people into the hobby you need to actually give people a safe way to learn the game that doesn't include putting yourself out there in front of a bunch of strangers from every position on the social and hygienic spectrum.

That's why a starter kit needs an aggressive marketing campaign based in Wal-Mart and Target. The starter kit, minis, whatever other paraphernalia that might sell a few units.
I'm not saying that you need to pull out all the stops a la MLP or whatever; but anything would be better than nothing. Christ, I now see M:tG stuff stocking the check-out isle at Wal-Mart. This isn't really all that hard.

They can't even properly get their cross-over products right. One of the guys that I brought in to the game was a big fan of NWN ... and didn't even know that it was directly tied to the TTRPG. He just happened to have seen my books and asked what it was. As I was explaining it, he was like "hey, this kind of reminds of NWN".
Dafuq?

[hamstertamer]

The issue has more to do with what David Rozansky said in the comments then what the angry DM said...

tl/dr:
WotC was great at selling RPGs before being bought out by Hasbro.
Three great selling tools of old Wotc were:
1) The RPGA was "greatest older-cousin network ever."
2) The OGL and D20 system.
3) Dragon Magazine and its sister Dungeon Magazine.
plus Novels

Then Hasbro's Wotc killed all that.

Things like starter kits and interactive teaching tools are nonsense and have been tried before. In my opinion, Hasbro nearly killed their own property (D&D brandname) when they fired their fans and made "the 4th."

While that's a nice sounding theory, the problem with it is that it's total bullshit. Hasbro bought WotC in 1999. So if you thought any part of the 3rd edition was a good idea, then you liked Hasbro's WotC. Hasbro owned WotC for a full year before the OGL happened. Hasbro owned WotC before the SRD happened. Hasbro owned WotC for three years before Dragon Magazine was licensed to Paizo.

Hasbro's WotC did everything to make 3rd edition D&D a success, and then Hasbro's WotC did everything to make 4th edition shit all over that success. It was all wrong, but every strategic decision they made in making 4th edition terrible was made in good faith based on real problems they saw with how the game was unfolding.

-Username17

I don't recall when Hasbro bought wotc, but that doesn't matter because that wasn't my theory. I was just reporting what was posted at the angry DM's. Besides it doesn't change what happened at all.

[Ravengm]

@Ravengm:
Here's what I know about M:tG - when I was first introduced to the game back in '95 (via the "older cousin model"), it took me all of 2 minutes to get started with my first game. That's it - 2 minutes. There's obviously a learning curve, but it's very natural and doesn't provide the barrier to entry like it does in D&D.

That being said, M:tG and D&D are very different games, designed for very different experiences.
But surely there is something to be learned in looking at the business model.

For sure, I don't mean to say that D&D should copy Magic's approach wholesale. The experience is different and the game is different. But the idea of "attract new players at all costs, even at risk of alienating some of the current fanbase" was the main thing. Every change that made the game easier to get into or more newbie-friendly sent droves of people to forums threatening to sell off their collections and quit forever. To which Wizards effectively responded with "psh, whatever, nerds!" and ziplined off into a giant pit of money.

Hasbro bought WotC in 1999. So if you thought any part of the 3rd edition was a good idea, then you liked Hasbro's WotC. Hasbro owned WotC for a full year before the OGL happened. Hasbro owned WotC before the SRD happened. Hasbro owned WotC for three years before Dragon Magazine was licensed to Paizo.

Hasbro's WotC did everything to make 3rd edition D&D a success, and then Hasbro's WotC did everything to make 4th edition shit all over that success. It was all wrong, but every strategic decision they made in making 4th edition terrible was made in good faith based on real problems they saw with how the game was unfolding.

I have a feeling that's partially due to Hasbro taking an "I have no idea what I'm doing" stance on how to run D&D and just kind of letting the team go for it. Plus, Hasbro probably didn't acquire Wizards looking to score off the D&D license, since the game wasn't doing great at that point anyway.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I was introduced to TTRPGs with this.

[hamstertamer]

These were great once you were already a player; they keep you playing the game and buying more stuff. But none of them are outward-facing. To bring new people into the hobby you need to actually give people a safe way to learn the game that doesn't include putting yourself out there in front of a bunch of strangers from every position on the social and hygienic spectrum.

A well-done interactive tool can teach you the basic mechanics just like any video game can, one step at a time. Better yet, it'll do so without derailing into optimization strategies you can't possibly comprehend, advanced mechanical interactions you're not ready for, or making funny references that go right over your head. Just basic stuff like "DM presents a scenario; you think what your character would do and say it; DM will tell you what skill to roll; here's how you roll a skill check; if your roll total meets or exceeds whatever difficulty the DM set, you succeed; DM narrates the result, and you repeat the process." In combat basics, it can cover movement, attack basics, damage, spell basics, and saving throws. Advanced Combat goes into line of sight, area of effect, reach, attacks of opportunity, and maneuvers.

The point is it's focused, it walks you through it step-by-step, and it lets you actually go through the motions of doing it while you learn it, instead of just being told. It doesn't give you anything you're not prepared for and it whets your appetite for the game by having an intriguing narrative you're playing through that should lead you into the starting point for a starter set of some kind. It builds your confidence in the basics of what you'll be asked to do before you're asked to do it. If it was well done and widely available, I don't see how this wouldn't help more people get into the hobby.

Already been done. They had interactive tools for 3rd edition (and probably other editions as well). Single player walk-throughs, examples of combat, everything, all done before. Nothing original about using interactive tools. Nothing original about explaining what an RPG is. So, therefore, that's not the problem.

The problem is that there isn't enough people that like TTRPGs, or will like RPGs. It's a niche market and always will be. I could go around town with the best damn interactive learn-how-to-play D&D cd/dvds, and hand them out for free, and get no where. It would be like I wasted my time. The "complexity is a barrier" is a myth. People who want to play, will play, and they will eat up the rules and read the books.

Another myth is that geekdom is mainstream now, so there more opportunity to recruit them for TTRPGs. False. Geekdom is popular, yes, but superficially. Like a hipster that wears glasses with no lenses. And more importantly, the products, like movies and video games, make big money. People see legitimacy in things that make big money, so being called a "geek/nerd" is ok now, because geek/nerds make lots of money. Wanting to be apart of geek/nerd culture does not mean you want to sit down and play a TTRPG on Friday night. The other problem is that in geekdom, since it's mainstream to be geek now, is that cool "geeks" are repulsed by the part of geekdom that are actually geeks/nerds. No one wants to sit at table on Friday night playing a game with actual geek/nerds.

[Stubbazubba]

Already been done. They had interactive tools for 3rd edition (and probably other editions as well). Single player walk-throughs, examples of combat, everything, all done before. Nothing original about using interactive tools. Nothing original about explaining what an RPG is. So, therefore, that's not the problem.

The problem is that there isn't enough people that like TTRPGs, or will like RPGs.

Let's not jump to conclusions. There hasn't been a marketing push for D&D in decades. Not since Gygax was himself negotiating TV shows has anyone tried to push it outside of its existing or former fanbase. And there's no reason for that whatsoever. Sure, there was a time when D&D had occult connotations (and therefore couldn't really be marketed effectively), but I think Harry Potter kind of put to rest the voice Jack Chick types have in mainstream culture. A renewed marketing push that marketed outside of the existing player base would be necessary to see what kind of demand there actually is. It could just seem like a niche market because of the exact problems the Angry DM points out--the only marketing is word of mouth. You could be right, but until Hasbro gives marketing D&D a fair shake, concluding the market is simply static in size is premature.

[virgil]

No one wants to sit at table on Friday night playing a game with actual geek/nerds.

Did you lose your kilt somewhere?

[hamstertamer]

Already been done. They had interactive tools for 3rd edition (and probably other editions as well). Single player walk-throughs, examples of combat, everything, all done before. Nothing original about using interactive tools. Nothing original about explaining what an RPG is. So, therefore, that's not the problem.

The problem is that there isn't enough people that like TTRPGs, or will like RPGs.

Let's not jump to conclusions. There hasn't been a marketing push for D&D in decades. Not since Gygax was himself negotiating TV shows has anyone tried to push it outside of its existing or former fanbase. And there's no reason for that whatsoever. Sure, there was a time when D&D had occult connotations (and therefore couldn't really be marketed effectively), but I think Harry Potter kind of put to rest the voice Jack Chick types have in mainstream culture. A renewed marketing push that marketed outside of the existing player base would be necessary to see what kind of demand there actually is. It could just seem like a niche market because of the exact problems the Angry DM points out--the only marketing is word of mouth. You could be right, but until Hasbro gives marketing D&D a fair shake, concluding the market is simply static in size is premature.

We were talking about building a interactive how-to-play thingamajig to help show people how to play. Now you are talking about marketing D&D with tv shows.

If we are talking about marketing the name brand more, then fine, I'm down with a TV show. In fact, if I was advising pathfinder, i would tell them to develop a Pathfinder cartoon for cartoon network immediately based off their signature characters in Golarion.

But revised starter kits and interactive how-to-play bullshit is not gonna make a difference.

[hamstertamer]

No one wants to sit at table on Friday night playing a game with actual geek/nerds.

Did you lose your kilt somewhere?

I hate to ask, but what the fuck does that mean?

[RadiantPhoenix]

No one wants to sit at table on Friday night playing a game with actual geek/nerds.

Did you lose your kilt somewhere?

I hate to ask, but what the fuck does that mean?

I think he's trying to say something about "No True Scotsman"

[ACOS]

The thing with starter kits and beginner how-to's is, you do have to start them young. The starter kit and basic sets actually do need to be designed for and marketed to children ... maybe 8-10y.o. - you need to grab them before they form hard-coded biases against geekdom, but old enough to grasp the mechanical aspects. Your online tools can be aimed at an older audience.
Hell, seeing some of the things kids actually watch these days, I believe that a reboot of the animated series might actually be viable (target = 7+). You'd obviously need to revamp it, but there's all kinds of tie-in products that could branch out from that.

Though, it is entirely possible that I'm just overly optimistic here.

No one wants to sit at table on Friday night playing a game with actual geek/nerds.

Did you lose your kilt somewhere?

There's actually some truth to that.

[...You Lost Me]

No one wants to sit at table on Friday night playing a game with actual geek/nerds.

Did you lose your kilt somewhere?

"At a table on Friday night playing a game with actual geek/nerds" literally describes over a year's worth of my Fridays.