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The problem with RPGs is that normally in art forms, artistic movements that are new or avant garde slowly trickle back into mainstream artists and thus into the audience (in theory). But because D&D is so resolute and controls so much, we have a blockage.
As much as the Hollywood blockbuster has devoured everything else, there is still enough arthouse scene that if a movie does something wacky like Memento with time running backwards then hey, we can do that in Dr Strange or Tenet, when the budgets are higher and risks higher
We can have a almost-indie film like Matrix do bullet time, and then hey, everyone can use bullet time. We can make a movie about topics that are niche and it will bubble up into mainstream. You make the X-Files, now everyone can make shows about greys and conspiracies.
But for forty five years, because D&D has kind of locked in every idea of what RPGs are and everything has emulated them, we keep having artistic scenes make totally different RPGs, and then nothing changes. The core market doesn't shift and the core audience doesn't learn.
So we get kids playing D&D now who are still encountering the same issues, and the discourse is the same, as it was in 1976. There's still designers going "this is the new D&D, it has more classes". There's still roll player vs role player arguments.
There's still poor kids hitting a wall of "wait, what if what is mechanically good isn't what makes good story" and sometimes they bounce off the hobby. Or they kitbash their own solution. And to be fair, that's okay, D&D survives because it IS NOT PLAYED HOW IT IS WRITTEN
But BECAUSE it is not played how it is written, then the next generation learns from the rulebook, and has to RELEARN THE ORAL TRADITION OVER AGAIN.
And they get online and have to ask "but what if we didn't use hitpoints" or whatever.
And they get online and have to ask "but what if we didn't use hitpoints" or whatever.
That's tiresome for people who have seen the discourse repeat constantly. It's hard work for those newbies. But it's also frustrating us as an art form. Because the scenes keep drying up like oxbow lakes, and the river ignores them. And we aren't going anywhere.
Yes, there is SOME trickle through. But it's very slow. And yes, all mainstream issues have this problem - AAA computer games can be stagnant in their need to follow format. But it still gets its moments. We don't have Breath of the Wild or Two Souls in RPGs.
Cam points out that it is getting better. But we still have to pipe things not through mainstream games but through ONE game, a game which is still really fucking strange and has some of the weirdest, not-connected-to-any-other-fiction ideas and rules of any game.
I like to say that learning to play RPGs with D&D is like learning to read by having a bible, and I use that very specifically because for a few centuries, that was what was done, and it's also a clear example of something that isn't exactly BAD but is STRANGE.
You'd learn how to spell SMITE but not APPLE.
We're at a point where the bible is now a lot wider in its vocabulary.
But we're still working through the bible.
And it effects how things come into the art form. We have to nudge that bible.
We're at a point where the bible is now a lot wider in its vocabulary.
But we're still working through the bible.
And it effects how things come into the art form. We have to nudge that bible.
Anyway. none of this is necessarily AWFUL, but it is a thing. If you're feeling dejavu, you are not alone. If you're feeling like your oxbow lake is drying up, you are not alone. Let's talk about this like artist and art historians, and try to do better.
And by do better I mean build pathways so that the avant garde trickles down faster, more, better, and out into the world. If we can. If that's sticking D&D on something to help it get further, so be it. But I feel like that just loops us back around without shifting the stone.
End of rant. Feel free to comment.
