Ok...I have typed a dozen drafts of this post over the last days and I delete them or just limbo them in draft hell.
This whole D&D fiasco has grown so old and I'm burned out as it is and swore I was taking a break but I always feel compelled to sit back down and get back to it.
Like this post:
http://www.neuroglyphgames.com/marletts-musings-dnd-next-laments
Not only is the material presented as fact so wrong that I will not spend the hours it would take to shoot them all down WITH FACTS but I'm to the point of not caring anymore.
I have watched a community go from a healthy happy group of gamers of all ages into a rage war over editions and the complete ignorance of the actual demographics behind gaming and the changing market place.
There are more people playing rpgs than have played in many years, the numbers are out there. Yet all I read is how we are losing players to these other activities which have existed (for the most part) for some time now. If they were going to kill off tabletop I wouldn't be typing this.
The 'aging population' bit is also one of the major fallacies that drives me insane. Yes, young people are turning away from INDUSTRY gaming but they are tabletop gaming nonetheless.
I have read and logged over 10,000 blogs over the last 2 years on the subject of Non-Industry gaming. That would include the OSR, OSS,etc and I'm not even including the resurgence in wargaming and miniatures collecting.
Without big numbers to show off to shareholders the Industry leaders wring their hands and proclaim the end is nigh.
Thank God.
I hope they are right. I hope the Industry collapses, I hope the masses go away. I hope that we recognize once again that not all role playing games are supposed to be for children. That TRPGs are not dog food or paper towels to be turned out on an assembly line and tuned to the ultimate blandness to reach the largest target market.
I pray every night that the world just forgets about us. That D&D is finally put to rest as a commercial product and that new games rise to take its place. That D&D becomes the cornerstone in the foundation of a greater gaming period than gaming has ever known.
My hope is that people continue to be excited by learning that the key to great gaming doesn't lie in a book of rules but within us, from the primal need to be story tellers to the ability to act out plays of imagination on a stage that is as large as our dreams with players from around the world and, one day, from other worlds (can you imagine playing in a session with players on the ISS, the Moon and even Mars?).
I know...I know...
But one can still dream...
