I'm not talking about VtDA. I'm talking about the club which I run in my own city being pretty much dead on its feet because nobody wants to play anything that isn't fucking D&D.
You're not even in my local club hun, what are you talking about?
I literally have "While it is a factor, it's extremely unlikely that such a large drop-off in player numbers is due to mother's day on its own." saved as my copy-paste reply because I've typed it so often to people who've never come to the club and think they might know the reason why it's dead
So when people insist the hobby is thriving because they see enthusiasm in their timelines or Discord servers, I think about this weekend.
Four prepared games.
Four willing GMs.
Zero players willing to try something that wasn’t Dungeons & Dragons.
Healthy creative ecosystems usually have diversity. Different mechanics. Different genres. Different ways to play. When almost all participation funnels into a single game, what you end up with is a monoculture. And monocultures tend to look stable right up until the moment they aren’t.
And this isn’t about hating D&D. It’s a perfectly fine fantasy adventure game. The problem is what happens when an entire hobby becomes so culturally concentrated around one game that everything else struggles to gain traction.
After years of running open tables, what I see looks less like a rising tide and more like one enormous ship dominating the harbour. The excitement around D&D is real. But the spillover into other games is far smaller than people like to imagine.
But in actual public spaces where new players show up, the imbalance is staggering.
Years ago people said the big boom of D&D popularity would help the whole hobby. “A rising tide lifts all boats,” they said.
Dungeons & Dragons has become the gravitational centre of tabletop gaming to such an overwhelming degree that most casual participation gets pulled into its orbit. Other systems exist. Designers keep making cool stuff. People discuss them online.
A long-running home group among friends is not the same thing as an open table where random newcomers can walk in and try something new.
When you run public sessions for years, the pattern becomes extremely clear.
Whenever I talk about this, someone inevitably says: “Well my group plays lots of systems” or “My Discord server is full of people playing indie RPGs.”
That’s great. Genuinely. But a private Discord server is not the same thing as a public gaming space.
Not because the games were obscure. Not because they were difficult. Not because they required prep from players. They simply weren’t Dungeons & Dragons.
This weekend we had multiple games prepared. GMs had done their prep. Adventures ready. Character sheets printed. Snacks on the table. The whole community event ready to go.
And nobody came.
Here’s the pattern: run D&D and suddenly we have too many players. Chairs appearing from nowhere. People bringing friends. Dice everywhere. Full tables.
Run literally anything else and the room empties out like someone quietly opened an airlock.
We run different systems because the hobby supposedly has a huge ecosystem of games. Horror, sci-fi, investigative mystery, indie storygames, weird mechanical experiments. The whole spectrum.
Our club runs fortnightly games. They’re free. They’re beginner-friendly. People can literally just walk in and play. No membership barriers, no experience required, no gatekeeping nonsense.
This weekend my TTRPG club had to cancel our session. Not because the venue fell through, not because the GM bailed, not because of scheduling issues. We cancelled because we didn’t have enough players to run a single table of anything that wasn’t Dungeons & Dragons.
Moan more :D
It's fine, it's just a dick, everyone's seen one before.
I need to update the website; I've now listened to the first 140 of them :D
An old excerpt from one of the very first editions of World of Darkness. Definitely interesting to see how plans changed since that!
Oh, you're so right!
Something I'm already very sadly aware of, and exactly why I feel there should be a change.
The station's architecture is historical, a post-industrial wonder and genuine work of beasty and source of pride in our city's history, all decimated by a fucking vape shop.
Can we please regulate these fucking things now?
The fire in Glasgow this weekend started at one of those scummy vape shops used for money laundering, and quickly stored to decimate our central train station and hotel.
I knew that bats could live for around 40 years when I celebrated my 40th birthday.....
I just looked and our Queerfinder Special Issue is ONE sale away from our first medal!!!! If you want really cool queer content focused on where sacred and sexuality meet then check out this special issue! www.pathfinderinfinite.com/en/product/5...
I bet they do.
