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The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

inlander.com

121–130 of 292 posts

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#121

What a shame that all this attention goes to D&D. There are so many other good tabletop games with exquisite worldbuilding, languishing for attention... Vampire: The Masquerade, RIFTS (my personal fav)

They recently(ish) released vampire: the masquerade 5th edition and it’s great! Gone is the “requiem” stuff and gothic punk is back. The storyline finally continues post-ghenna too.

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#122

My friends and I play D&D because we have no real other option. We used to play Minecraft and other collaborative building games as a group, but then one in our group went fully blind. There is a complete lack of good multiplayer computer games for entirely blind players (admittedly that is quite a challenge), but D&D requires only imagination, which all of us still have. Highly recommend if you have friends with vis…

Sorry to hear about your friend's misfortune.

Are they using their disability during gameplay, and/or in-character?

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#123
post #50

Is it unlikely? Board games were already growing fast. Even CCGs were growing fast, not only through video games but still as physical games too. People want to sit down and get offline and spend time with each other, _and_ people who used to do that want to get online and hang out with each other. All the RPG market needed was one publisher with good production values and broad distribution to discard a big chunk of…

Speaking of CCG's, any collectors who happen to be coders? I haven't met too many at the local shops I stop by so I always figured collecting cards wasn't very popular amongst engineers.

I collected the 1996 Netrunner CCG for years; last year I found someone who was more or less selling off their complete collection (I didn't have any of the 2.0 cards or the majority of the 2.2 cards, and was also missing a handful of the 2.1 rares - inheriting a couple boxes of all the miscellaneous spares was fine by me if it meant a 100% complete binder) so that very expensive chapter of my life has closed.

I also went out and finished my "first TCG appearence of the original 151" Pokémon collection with one of my first few paychecks after graduating (had to shell out the money for Charizard and a couple others that were never in my collection from childhood). I really wanted to retroactively declare myself the coolest kid on the playground at recess, otherwise what was all that work for? :)

Sadly, while card games were an important part of my life growing up, a lot of mental switches flipped over the last year or so and I honestly regret spending so much money and time in the card game world over the entire first part of my life. In 2012 Android: Netrunner introduced me to the LCG model and made me realize that the CCG model was exploitative and a terrible use of my money (obvious in retrospect, but when you're in the thick of it, you try and rationalize it, you know?). Then, working towards my degree for a few years after that kept me out of the tournament ecosystem for so long that I found myself not wanting to go back - there were simply more productive uses of my brain cycles than deck construction and playing games. I know they say "time enjoyed wasted is not wasted time" but if I would have programmed or learned a few languages or focused on competition math or read classical literature or learned to cook or any number of other things in that first 18 years, I'd be so much better off [1]. It's possible many coders feel the same way, and that's why you're not seeing them.

[1] In fact, should parenting be in my future, I don't think I'd let my kids have nearly as much post-pubescent "non-skill-building" fun as I was allowed to have; competition for income is fierce and it's only going to get worse.

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#125

Given the amount of studies/reports coming out talking about how bad screen time is for people, and how insane the amount of screen time we all log is - I foresee a big resurgence in anything "analog".

> the amount of studies/reports coming out talking about how bad screen time is for people

I haven't heard of this, do you have any links for me?

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#126

Not only Dungeons and Dragons, board games are making huge waves around the world. As a game store owner, I have observed a huge growth in tabletop games, including board games. So it's probably not a coincidence that the most highly rated board game (at least according to Board Game Geek) is an RPG based board game. At the time of its kickstarter, I think it raised the most money as well. https://boardgamegeek.com/b…

I've found Gloomhaven, Pathfinder The Card Game, or other "hybrid RPGs" to be the better experience because it doesn't take up a full day.

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#127

I personally know of at least 5 people that started playing D&D because of Stranger Things of all things.

Likewise, several people. Stranger Things also got some people (like myself) who never tried before to give it a whirl.

Watched stranger things with my teenage kids which led me to show them DND. They found a nice break from playing fantasy related computer games

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#128

Is it unlikely? Board games were already growing fast. Even CCGs were growing fast, not only through video games but still as physical games too. People want to sit down and get offline and spend time with each other, _and_ people who used to do that want to get online and hang out with each other. All the RPG market needed was one publisher with good production values and broad distribution to discard a big chunk of…

Board games were already growing fast. Even CCGs were growing fast, not only through video games but still as physical games too. People want to sit down and get offline and spend time with each other, _and_ people who used to do that want to get online and hang out with each other. A friend of mine used to say, "Sometimes you just have to get offline, get real, and face each other over a tabletop with some dice." Sh…

I mean, a haunted house is undeniably "real life" in the "IRL" sense, but it wasn't like she used her new skills to actually save a life, or find a way out of hostile territory, or uncover lost artworks or something.

Not trying to be a downer, just saying that this is kinda stretching the definition of "real life application of game skills" for me. More like "applying a board game skill to a different kind of game"

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#129

My friends and I play D&D because we have no real other option. We used to play Minecraft and other collaborative building games as a group, but then one in our group went fully blind. There is a complete lack of good multiplayer computer games for entirely blind players (admittedly that is quite a challenge), but D&D requires only imagination, which all of us still have. Highly recommend if you have friends with vis…

I used to have several blind friends who were very successful in text based MUDs. It's possible finding one with an active userbase is getting harder and harder.
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