Hacker News Reader

Comment by dallas | Hacker News Reader

Indeed. "Why won't more people play the games I like after I've been snarky about the games most people enjoy?"

Do people most enjoy D&D these days? On one hand, it’s iconic enough to be the Kleenex or Xerox of tabletop fantasy. On the other, recent behavior from Wizards of the Coast have put the brand in an ambiguous space, receiving ample competition from the likes of Pathfinder.

Though that’s somewhat inside baseball consumer-corporate drama.

Is it inside base ball drama when it make headlines in newspapers of note?

To be honest I don't like WOTC-era D&D all that much and prefer early TSR-era stuff and modern OSR games. However, I am surrounded by young people in my circles of real world friends who continue to play and post/YouTube about 5th edition - the game they got started in.

You're not alone, and really the one thing I will give WOTC credit for amidst all the bad they've done is bringing back the 1e/2e books as POD reprints, it felt great to buy brand new hardcover copies so I could shelve my original ones, and not have to worry so much about wearing them out at the table.

Yes, D&D is very popular and most people who play it enjoy it (or they would stop). I would be willing to bet that most players would not be able to name the publisher if asked and have probably never heard of Wizards of the Coast.

It is massive. It is the Hydrogen of RPG elements.

If I show you a random group of gamers playing an RPG and you guess they are playing DnD then you'll be correct more often than not.

As a long-time play-by-poster of D&D, yes, it still dominates the TTRPG crowd. I branch out to other game systems myself, but always have at least two or three D&D games going. The game itself is not hated, just the company, and there are enough free resources available online that anyone can play the game without giving WotC a single dime. As far as we're concerned, the game belongs to the players and WotC are nothing more than Interlopers.

Check out https://5e.tools/ for an example of a good free, self-hostable resource.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com