4
votes
Is the current media boost of RPGs a good thing for the hobby?
There are two big unrelated things giving gaming a lot of exposure right now. One is people broadcasting gaming sessions (e.g. Critical Role). The other is that a lot of shows are doing an RPG episode (e.g. Community).
How much of this is a good thing? What happens to the community when the vast majority of fans don't actually play the game? And is anything being done to transition people from audience to participants?
I would argue that D&D in particular has come a long way. We're getting positive media coverage and visibility. People who have never considered it in the past are opening up.
But I also think a fair amount of the credit has to go to the design team at WotC. 5th edition is slick. It's accessible and easy to play while still giving players options.
I don't know if you could have this sort of growth in the hobby under a system like 3.5. And especially not earlier systems.
It's great for the hobby, but I wouldn't really say there's a coordinated effort to bring people in, except for what comes from WotC. I think individuals just find in fun and it spreads organically
It's probably also a result of a generation of people who loved tabletop RPGs growing up now having their own media platforms to showcase why they loved it. So you get things like The Adventure Zone or DiceFunk which show people how much irreverent fun it can be.
Five years ago people were still kind of skeptical when I told them I liked to play tabletop RPGs. Today they're actually intruiged, I know it's anecdotal but to me that kind of shows there's been a shift in perception.