@strangequark @davej @pteryx @Taskerland

@cy @foolishowl @Printdevil @Taskerland
Not sure how gambling addiction (or demonization of all card-playing as equivalent to risking money) really relates to optimization, but I can certainly see how deckbuilding does. Though video games are arguably a better medium for just scratching the powergaming itch; they can get away with more intricate systems to exploit than any analog game could ever hope to match.

Even though I play and like the 3.x games, I still want *roleplaying* in my TTRPGs.

@cy CCGs are a *deeply cursed* medium. They did for the 90s rpg scene what lead in petrol did for child safety in the 1970s. @foolishowl @Printdevil @pteryx

@Printdevil Next time I come over you can arrange that we play this in the FLGS.

@davej @pteryx @Taskerland

@cy CCGs are a *deeply cursed* medium. They did for the 90s rpg scene what lead in petrol did for child safety in the 1970s. @foolishowl @Printdevil @pteryx

CCGs wrecked the club landscape

@Taskerland @cy @foolishowl @pteryx

@Printdevil @Taskerland @cy @foolishowl
What gets me is how the reaction to CCGs, and then to online gaming, has not been "we need to do what only TTRPGs can do better than ever!", but "we need to appeal to competitive combat-obsessed types despite the other media stealing our market share by doing that being better-suited for it!"

I'd thus be inclined to blame various suits who control pursestrings for the decline of TTRPGs more so than the actual CCGs and online games.

@Printdevil @Taskerland @cy @foolishowl
What gets me is how the reaction to CCGs, and then to online gaming, has not been "we need to do what only TTRPGs can do better than ever!", but "we need to appeal to competitive combat-obsessed types despite the other media stealing our market share by doing that being better-suited for it!"

I'd thus be inclined to blame various suits who control pursestrings for the decline of TTRPGs more so than the actual CCGs and online games.

I think it was a perfect storm of things, rather than just any specific one event. Which is why people end up getting tangled in knots arguing about how to improve the current situation.

@pteryx @Taskerland @cy @foolishowl

@Printdevil I think incompetent and predatory business practices can be blamed for what happened to ttrpgs in toto but it definitely makes sense to look at specific mis-steps and consequences that snowballed. The collapse of clubs and specialist shops after the D20 collapse did enormous damage as did the failure to rebuild. @pteryx @cy @foolishowl

I think the personality of gamers is involved too, even if it was exploited.

D20 killed gaming for me as a purchase habit, I stopped buying RPGs for many many years, and you know me, I'm a compulsive shopper for games, so you can tell how utterly repulsed D20 must have made me.

@Taskerland @pteryx @cy @foolishowl

@Printdevil I think incompetent and predatory business practices can be blamed for what happened to ttrpgs in toto but it definitely makes sense to look at specific mis-steps and consequences that snowballed. The collapse of clubs and specialist shops after the D20 collapse did enormous damage as did the failure to rebuild. @pteryx @cy @foolishowl

@Printdevil D20 definitely ended my initial love affair with the hobby. I played a bit after and play now but it is on very different terms. @pteryx @cy @foolishowl

The number of people who just went "but why should we ever learn another rule set, we know D20" drove me out of the clubs. I could see the issues with monocrop so far off, and it was just.. disheartening.

@Taskerland @pteryx @cy @foolishowl

@Taskerland @Printdevil @cy @foolishowl
Yeah, that's kind of what I was trying to get at: that one of those missteps was assuming that combat-focused game = $$$, and that $$$ is the only goal, and therefore the "proper" direction for D&D was to zero in on the combat parts more at the expense of what video games can't really do so well and CCGs can't do at all... and this, in turn, had knock-on effects on the rest of the industry because of the severely unbalanced network effects of D&D.

@Printdevil @Taskerland @cy @foolishowl
Even as someone who *likes* 3.x, I thought the d20 Everything trend was excessive and detrimental to the industry. It's not really a one-size-fits all system... and 5e is even *less* so.

Half of my old club group evaporated to play CCGs when they arrived because they loved having something to spend their money on as "young professionals" that they felt gave them an advantage in games, and once you entrench that personality RPGs are just ... lost to them

@pteryx @Taskerland @cy @foolishowl

@Printdevil @Taskerland @cy @foolishowl
Which does make me wonder if TTRPGs were even the kind of thing they wanted to play in the first place, or if their participation in something so *cooperative* was more of an imposition from their perspective. Kind of like how even today, there are wallflower "players" who only "play" because that's what the rest of the group is doing.

(I mean, I don't mind audience members, but they shouldn't pretend to be players...)