The Culture: The Tourist Mouthpieces Say It's Happening

I will not hear any gainsaying of my position. Not when Conventional Play Cargo Cultists and the Tourists speaking for them keep reporting that it's happening.

As I explained in this video's Comments:

The goal is to turn D&D into a videogame property.

The reason is obvious: videogames do Conventional Play better across the board. No need to Schedule Your Fun. No risk of becoming the next Neckbeardia video. No risk of having anyone else at the table screw you over either due to incompetence or malicious intent. You show up, roll up your man, play how you like as long as you like, logoff/shutdown and put it away until you want to play again.

I'm not talking about World of Warcraft. I'm talking about a lobby-based system where playing with others is optional. (If you know Guild Wars 1 then you have a good model to start with.)

Hasbro and WOTC can see the data. BG3 is far and away more Normie-friendly than tabletop ever has been, or will be, and in a Network Effect-driven business like this popularity IS profitability.

All of the signals are there, and have been for some time, that this is the play. Now it's not a signal, it's an air raid siren and it won't shut off.

"But-"

No, Anon, you are screwed.

Most players (a) only play Current Edition, and (b) only play what is shoved into their faces; Normies do not go out of their way for a God-damned thing, certainly not for entertainment. If Current Edition becomes a videogame, then WOTC yanks the pillar propping up Conventional Play out from underneath it; it will collapse, as there is no funnel for player recruitment outside of "get people playing Current Edition" going and there never has been (as Dancey noted over 20 years ago).

There is no recruiting of new players, and no plan to reactivate lapsed players, and yet attrition remains ongoing. What does this mean? WOTC throws a permanent DOT on Tabletop, one that cannot be dispelled or Wished/Miracled away, that results in the slow (at first) and then sudden collapse of Tabletop as a thing within a few years. Stores close, publishers either follow WOTC's lead (and a few of them can, like Catalyst) or wither and die (Palladium, sadly, will go this route) if they don't downshift into a self-sustaining hobby in itself like Gonnerman's Basic Fantasy.

There is no will to change this fate. There is no skill demonstrated to change this fate. Therefore this is how it will be, and sooner than you think because Tabletop has put all the effort on the big dog (TSR, then WOTC) to do the recruitment and onboarding into the hobby for them so they can feed off of it like remorae and lampreys.

For my part, I am fine with this. I maintain that Tabletop should never have been more than a self-sustaining hobby, and I am happy to Return To The Clubhouse from which this hobby came. However, a lot of you feel differently, and that I acknowledge. Therefore, I challenge all of you: if you want the Tabletop you enjoy to stick around, you have got to take up that slack HERE AND NOW!

That's a big ask, and it will be too much for many of you. That's okay; we all have our limits. For those of you that can, guess what your new job is? Find a way to keep Tabletop going without all of the heavy lifting WOTC has done. You can't avoid the collapse, but you can survive it and be in a good position to rebuild faster than expected. Let's see if you have what it takes.

The Cargo Cult will do nothing. They will double-down on their denial.

Then one day, like the spiritual Boomers that they are, they will wake up to find that their game stores are gone- realspace and online alike. They will find it harder to keep their tables manned, and thus their six-session slapdash psuedo-games going.

No way to replace their files other than piracy. No way to get new physical copies cheap, if they can be had at all. No ability to get players to join them. Then they will go online and complain, and I will be there waiting for them with a cake made of ashes.

I told you all. If you didn't listen, that's your problem. I'll be over at The Clubhouse, playing the real game, and enjoying the real magic.