The Culture: The (Lack Of A) Future For Tabletop (Part Five)

There is one other option that I want to consider before I get to where the Bros are already at work.

It is the other answer to the situation that Conventional Play Cargo Cultists are either already facing or will soon once Sorcerors By The Sea finish their big move to abandon Tabletop for Videogames and thus rip out the pillar propping Conventional Play in Tabletop up.

The End Comes

The Conventional Play Cargo Cultist thinks that Nothing Ever Happens.

At first he doesn't notice any major changes. His table still has players. His group still meets. His game is still operating.

But some time later, the impact hits. He loses players due to ordinary life changes (job changes, children, injury (I know this first hand), moving away, etc.) and he can't find suitable replacements. Products for his game slow down, physical items go first to Print On Demand/Crowdfunded Only and then purely digital. Local stores stop having events for his game, then local conventions, then the big ones. Online talk withers in a mirrored state.

Soon all he can do is attempt to play solo, talk online with others like himself, or just stare at his bookshelf with its Yards O' Books in despair at what he had.

The people he once played with no longer want to, and it's not actually because of him in particular. Some switched to boardgames because it's easier to do one-and-done than an ongoing affair. Most switched to videogames because they can play when and how they want from anywhere, sometimes not even needing an Internet connection.

It doesn't matter if he was an offline only purist or if he embraced the Virtual Tabletop; the results will be the same, and within a few years most of his scene will be gone because the party responsible for recruiting people into the Tabletop Cargo Cult quit Tabletop and no one else took their place. No recruitment, no onboarding, no funneling to a specific product- no Conventional Play inflow to compensate for attrition.

Boardgames do nothing for him. Videogames are anathema to him. He talks with one other guy who quit his game only to find out that he found the #BROSR and joined the Clubhouse, and in an unusual fit of pique (due to this being contrary to everything the Cargo Cult ever told him about tabletop adventure games) he freaked out and cut him off completely.

Which leads him to the only other route out of the collapse: he quits.

Maybe he sells his collection off. Maybe he doesn't. That no longer matters; he cannot find anyone to do Conventional Play with anymore. His hobby is dead, and he the last one.

"But you said that there were others still playing. Why isn't he with them?"

Because he got locked out of the Clubhouse, and that is tomorrow's post.