The Culture: No, Pat, That Ain't Happening

LOL no. This isn't going to happen.

Pat's being hyperbolic here.

There is no competition for D&D. There never has. There never will. Even when TSR was deep in the shitter, it was still top dog by a country mile. It has only gotten exponetially worse since then.

The vast majority of D&D players don't even know that alternatives exist. They don't go to stores; they buy on Amazon, Walmart, or Target. They don't go to cons. They don't watch videos. They play the game and that is it. This is not their identity; they do the thing once a week or so, then grill some brats and do something else.

There is already so much material for them to consume that they can spend several years clearing out the backlog of Endless Product Slop before they even sense that the well may be drawn down somewhat, and that's just Current Edition. If they play any past editions, they're set for life and nothing you can say or do will change that.

This is the benefit of being The Only Game That Matters. D&D is in the Normiesphere; Normies play this game, however half-assedly and incompetently, and not Your Favorite Darling because D&D Is Normie-Approved and everything else Is Not- yes, including those Star Wars games. It's hard enough to get past editions played by Normies; you can't even get them to play near-alikes like Pathfinder and you are never going to get them to play some bullshit like Daggerheart.

The delusion of gaming channels like this, and others, is strong enough to hold up a trans-oceanic suspension bridge.

In reality, it's Current Edition or the Clubhouse now. Conventional Play cultists like Pat--and she's like this with 40K too--are being left behind now, exactly as predicted.