The Culture: The Point Of Divergence Is Found

Over at the Clubhouse I penned an article that nailed down the core appeal of this hobby. You should read it.

"The Fantasy of Agency" refers to command, because that's what you did then. The Referee was just that- a disinterested third party adjudicating the results of player actions. Autonomy, while necessary, is not sufficient to fulfill this fantasy: the player must establish and maintain control over events to be satisfied. It is not enough to be Conan the Wanderer. He must become Conan, King of Aquilonia.

This is what everything that the #BROSR has pulled out of the Memory Hole is about. This is what all those stories about the Old Days is about. This is what far too many products promise but fail to deliver.

• Multiple independent parties.
• Operating under a Fog of War.
• PVP is always on the table because multi-player is required.
• Strict Timekeeping to keep all parties honest.
• Disinterested Referees adjudicating all (inter)actions.
• Total Non-Stop Braunstein campaign play.

All of this gets wrapped up in "The Fantasy of Agency", because this matters when you are The Man In Command and therefore are responsible for making and executing plans to chase and achieve Objectives.

In a hobby that is bifurcating, thanks to Wizards of the Coast executing on the Big Move from Tabletop to Vidya (and gutting what remains of said fantasy from Official Game, completing the work that the Cargo Cult of Conventional Play began), into something that is Normie-friendly and the Real Hobby that focuses on the Fantasy of Agency.

We now see how the Colony Drop will end Conventional Play on the Tabletop.

The commercial end will (if they can; many will not) follow WOTC because that's where the money will be. The non-commercial end will rely on patronage of one form (begging on crowdfunds) or another (a proper Clubhouse environment), and those that stay in Tabletop will refocus and retrench upon the Fantasy of Agency to differentiate themselves from the mutant videogames that WOTC wants to push into the Normiesphere.

That's a bifurcated hobby, folks and the key point of divergence is if there is a promise and delivery upon the Fantasy of Agency- to be The Man In Command.

That's our Narrative Frame going forward. "We are the hobby that delivers on the Fantasy Of Agency, from top to bottom."

Focus on this point. Everything fits into place, and we can unfuck this hobby in record time now that we have a Frame and a Name- and also a way to filter out those that do not belong, along with a route to redirect them to what they are actually after.