More people in the D&DTube sphere telling the quitters and whiners that they are dogshit.
Remember what I said yesterday about game design being product design?
The same applies to YouTube. Video publication is product design. It can be--is being--weighed, measured, and analyzed to optimize performance. It is a craft, a skillset, a base of acumen AND THAT MEANS IT CAN BE SUCCESSFULLY TAUGHT!
The whiners and quitters suck because they are shitters. It's that simple.
What BLG and others are pointing out is that you can learn how to succeed on YouTube. There are multiple channels dedicated to teaching people how to succeed on YouTube; this is not esoterica, concealed from the Normies and only for the occult inititates, which means You Can Win At YouTube.
BLG gave all of those shitters free lessons on how to not suck. They should listen. The good channels are serving their fellow hobbyists.
But they won't because they're shitters. The sooner they go away, the better for all of us.
Dunder's on a roll. Yesterday he had on Rob Kunze and Griff. Regardless of my take on Griff, this is worthwhile.
While a good show, both Griff and Rob exhibited a curious habit.
There is a curious thing. You'll see this a lot with people that made something when they talk about what they made.
The thing is that they never talk about their own creation as if it were a finished, set-in-stone thing; it's not real to them as it is to the end-user. They always see it in its unfinished state, and some folks are so caught up in this mindset that they have to have finished pieces taken from them so they stop tinkering with them.
The other thing you'll see--and you see it here with Rob and Griff--is that they don't necessarily grok why the thing works as it does. It is not uncommon for their own users to sit them down and walk them through how their own creation works to point out exactly that.
The better designers do grok this. That's why they are the better designers. They also grok that game design is product design; if the widget executes the function that justifies its existence, then it is properly designed- you're now on to refinement to perfection. (Best example to date on this? Glocks; there's a reason that the Glock is the global standard for sidearms, as D&D is for adventure gaming.)
And product design can be, has been, and continues to be taught as if it were any other trade or profession successfully- which means that game design can be taught. Has been taught. Successfully.
This is not the 1970s. We know what works now; we have for 30 years. Nothing changed in the 1990s. Nothing changed after WOTC took over D&D. Nothing changed. There's just been one false hope of dethroning the king after the next.
The best thing you can do going forward is focus on teaching people how to play and training them on how to win: serve your hobby. Competing on product is a dead end.
Last night Dunder Moose had on Ryan Howard, formerly of Rollin' Bones.
Ryan has decided to close up shop on YouTube; he explained why here.
It's not a bad idea. He's seeing the writing on the wall and getting out on his own terms. Smart move.
D&DTube is a shithole. Tourists who don't know what they're talking about. Grifters shilling Latest Thing. "Advice" that isn't. "Instruction" that doesn't. Clout-chasing fart-huffing bullshit everywhere, and that's from the people who ought to know better (but don't).
Ryan's correct to conclude that when "Big Names" have to go e-begging to keep up their audiences, or trying to get them to buy merch no one wants (including your "games"), that's a niche in sharp decline and it's time to head out of Dodge before you're dragged feet-first to Boot Hill.
The only thing I have to disagree with is not with Ryan specifically, but with the scene generally: none of you are replacing D&D.
Not your Daggerheart. Not your Shadowdark. Not your Precious Darling. Not your half-assed B/X clone. Not even the whole-assed B/X clone. The only thing that can replace D&D is D&D. (Only a previous edition will fill the gap.)
There is nothing in place to usurp D&D's supreme Network Effect. Therefore there is no alternative to D&D; there are only the D&Ds of even narrower niches (Traveller, RIFTS), all which bow to the Master.
That's what everyone is going to be forced to confront as the collapse goes on, but all those alternatives get eaten before D&D does due to the Network Effect providing D&D the power of resilence and anti-fragility; we'll see that mirrored in the lesser niches as only the masters of those niches will survive. Furthermore, when it comes to editions, only the most turnkey-complete one will stand when it's over.
You will be rolling 3d6 in order down the line when it's over. You will be rolling for Surprise. You will roll Morale Checks. You will roll for random encounters, random dungeons, and random treasure. You will play the game preserved in the Clubhouse, if you are admitted at all.
And the D&D channels are not ready for that- only those ready for what is now coming, which is none of them, will still be around.
The other night Alexander Macris had on Commodore of Coldlight Press to talk classic adventure gaming.
Doesn't this sound familiar?
They're already most of the way to the Real Game. They just need to be introduced to Braunstein; the #BROSR has already solved all of the complaints specified.
Someone point them to BROZER and get them to run it. Then point out how this improves their own campaigns by integrating the necessary elements into it, and how to do it seamlessly. Their enjoyment of the hobby would be greatly increased, and the quality of their play improved, by doing so.
This weekend we got a reminder that Tabletop's poz problem came from within:
Of course he had an excuse, which (in typical Death Cult fashion) is pure projection.
TTRPGs can be a bridge, but fascists want to burn that bridge. They want one party rule tied to ideas of nationalism and elitism that despises the other and constantly projects a sense of fear that they use to derive power.
I didn't say anything about people who vote Republican
— Jason Bulmahn, Game Designer (@JasonBulmahn) August 9, 2024
By now it's not hard to translate that Death Cult cant: "This is Our Thing, not Your Thing. Get out before we kill you."
Cultists like him are rotten in the commercial end of Tabletop. They run Wizards of the Coast. They run all of the adjacent operations, such as Paizo (and everyone else out of Seattle), they dominate bottom-feeders like you see on Roll For Combat or cringy retards like J. Scott Garipay, and they are the majority of the D&DTube loser soybois and Tourists.
I'm not the only one who's less than sympathetic to D&DTube dying in the gutter like the worthless rats they are.
DM's Lair argues for being slaved to the robot in order to "stay relevant".
What bullshit.
The problem is simple: those channels LACK UTILITY. Utility is evergreen. None of them do any practical instruction; it's all drama, shilling, and Muh (Performative) Opinions.
Utility gets referenced. Utility gets clicked. Utility gets watched. Utility is evergreen content that still generates views years after first publication. Utility IS NOT FASHIONABLE.
That's what DM's Lair is really blathering about: being fashionable. Fuck that, fuck him, and fuck the rest of that cohort of useless trend-chasing twats.
You want your channel to still be getting recommended decades from now? Still be bringing in ad revenue? Still contribute in the positive manner that DM's Lair and the rest of those retards can't despite all protestation to the contrary?
Focus on practical utility to the audience.
Which none of these channels have done, or even thought to do, so they are subject to fashion trends because they have nothing of substance for people to rely upon. That video on Network Effects I link to or embed regularly? That is utility. A short video showing a cutaway view of how a firearm works? That is utility. A video demonstrating how the financial tools exposed by the Panama Papers works? Utility. Those videos get referenced, linked to, embedded, and otherwise used on a regular, even frequent, basis because like a well-made hammer or wrench it is a handy, useful tool that solves an immediate, practical problem for the viewer- and it will in perpetuity, so it becomes Passive Income.
Shilling doesn't do that. Muh Opinion doesn't do that. Drama doesn't do that. Lots of other crap these channels do are not that and thus don't do that. No wonder they're dead or dying. Fuck them; they're worthless bottom-feeding maggots, and DM's Lair ain't any better.
Trying cutting videos with utility. That will turn your channel around, but then you can't be fashionable and far too many of you would sooner kill yourselves than be useful to people.
As Call of Cthulhu successfully made the medium jump years ago. Pathfinder has some well-regarded videogames. Paranoia has a game, and we all know that BattleTech (as "MechWarrior") has been in Vidya for decades. R. Talsorian used Cyberpunk for a videogame and single-handedly overturned decades of being the also-ran of cyberpunk gaming, going from Also-Ran to Winner.
More Tabletop losers need to go this route if they want to stay in the commercial end of things.
Legend of the Five Rings? Shadowfist? Ars Magica? All those Theater Kid products? All of them would do far better as videogame products than in tabletop, and videogame publishers are always on the lookout for new IP to exploit. It's long past time for most of the people wasting time and money in Tabletop to give up, go to Vidya, and make something that would actually get played.
And you'd actually make a real living by doing so. Just ask Warren Spector, Ree Soesbee, or Scott Harring.
Leave Tabletop to The Only Game(s) That Matter and the non-commercial hobbyists because there's no more fortunes to be had here for anyone else. That's why you have to beg on Kickstarter.
