My Life As A Gamer: Geek Gab Talks The Joy of Wargaming

Count on this building upon Jeffro and Rick's appearances over the past two weeks, in addition to whatever else Jon Mollison has to say.

The big takeaway here is that Normies (a) play games to socialize and (b) playing according to the Standard is easier than anything else.

A Normie playing a game run Rules As Written has no worry that shit will not work exactly the same way this time as last time. He rolls his attacks the same way, makes Saves the same way (and under the same conditions), etc.- he doesn't have to worry about sudden jumps in difficulty because his expectations, now established, are not upended out of nowhere.

A Normie doesn't have to worry about the game suddenly changing because the Referee got new product that he just has to use. A Normie can just email his downtime moves to the Referee and then go out to dinner with his wife. A Normie can pop into a Discord call with an allied player for a few minutes while his son cuts up the venison they got from last weekend's deer hunt. A Normie can throw a confirmation text to the group while he waits for his wife to come out of the dressing rooms at the shop, and then go play online from his home office on a Wednesday evening after dinner- playing one of his characters while he finishes up a quarterly report the city's Rotary Club.

And at an actual table? He gets to socialize with some folks casually while delving into some mountain stronghold for a few hours, and during the break he DMs the Referee what one of his other characters intends to do with the treasure found last time.

Compare that to Fake D&D and its ilk.

Commit--like a job--to a more-or-less fixed group with a likewise fixed schedule? NOPE. Normies don't work for entertainment, and job-like rigidity of time is work. Normie fun is drop-in/drop-out pick-up play with short engagements with regard to in-person gatherings, realspace and virtual alike. (It's also why raiding in MMOs is considered "elitist".)

Rules that can change from session to session because of some stupid brainfart, crying Karen, or Pop Cult Idol command (via Muh Product)? NOPE. Normies required rock-solid consistency, and rules that change on a chaotic (or worse) basis--such as favortism--is none of that for Normies, so that drives them away. This means that violating expectations is so frequently taken poorly, often in the form of "Fuck This Shit, I'm Out", and it's not just in games that this is a thing. (Just ask the Devil Mouse and its subsidiaries.)

Proper gaming--that which meets the Standard--is nothing more than Poker Night with more fidly bits and a better Poker Face subgame that greatly influences the table game.

Once more Normies see it that way, watch the Preference Cascade kick off- and watch the "industry" panic and scramble to catch up.