D&D: is it the gateway game for the rest of the hobby?

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I asked this on Mastodon this morning but this is plainly a different audience.

Do you think D&D (which comprises 60%+) of the hobby is a gateway to other games or is it a giant, bloated tick draining increasing money into a shareholder black hole?
(Yes these are extreme views. Middling views are encouraged).

For me, D&D was always adjacent to gaming. It wasn't my first game and I've played it half a dozen times over a 40 year RPG hobby.

I hear some people saying that ET and later Stranger Things are responsible for bringing people into the hobby. I wonder whether they just bring people into the D&D market as opposed to the wider hobby.

I've not seen evidence that D&D benefits anyone but D&D.

What do you think?
 
I think yes, but not as much as D&D fans would have us believe.

It brings people to other games in the sense that they come to D&D and then a tiny percentage look elsewhere when that grows thin.

But it's probably less of a decent entry to other RPGs than pretty much any other game on the market.

It is to RPGs what Warhammer is to historical miniatures gaming.
 
I'm on my phone travelling so I'm being brief here...

It's a gateway for some people but I think its largely a blocker - ie, people play D&D and no other system, they hack D&D to bend it to work with other genres, etc. Personally, I think that's a bad thing, but I understand where people are coming from that do it. I think any 'thing' that's orders of magnitude bigger than its nearest rival isn't healthy (eg, London and other UK cities); D&D fits this bill and I wish it wasn't the case.

... Can definitely talk about this more but the above is my 'gut' reaction to the question/OP. And anecdotal to the people I game with, the clubs I know about and then looking online at local clubs that play nothing but D&D or draw from a limited pallette at best.
 
From an old nerd, historical perspective, what got me into other games as a kid was when D&D crashed as a fad, sometime in the early 1980s.

At that point, the local mall chain toy store basically dumped a ton of TSR games (along with Avalon Hill and SPI games) at clearance prices of 50%+ off.

Even my working poor, trailer park living self could afford those on my newspaper route pay.

Not sure how you could recreate that sort of thing, but it did lead me to realize that other games than D&D existed and were viable, and that's really the big step players need to make.

Of course, most of those games were the old TSR boxed sets, so short rules (by today's standards) might have helped as well.
 
It is to RPGs what Warhammer is to historical miniatures gaming.

I think this is a very good way of summing it up.

A while ago I read "Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People and Fantastic Adventures, from Chess to Role-Playing Games" by Jon Peterson.

This is a dense but very informative academic account of wargames and the development of D&D.

It clarified a few things for me. My main take away is that despite D&D being the first rpg, rpgs have moved on as an entertainment form. So much so that for me D&D is now closer to a skirmish game like Necromunda or Stargrave than it is to something like Warhammer Fantady Roleplay or Call of Cthulhu.*

Which isn't to reduce D&Ds validity as a game but it does mean that it probably isn't the most efficient gateway to other rpgs. And I think this is by design. One reason why D&D is so commercially successful is that it operates in a gaming space that is not entirely replicated by any other game.

*This was my conclusion not something Jon Peterson himself says.
 
You can live inside the DnD ecosystem for years and never discover the existance of other games. Or feel the need to find out.

That said, we get new players at the club all the time and many will try games that are not DnD. Some won't. If DnD isn't running they won't attend. The "we only play DnD brigade" have been around since the very second the next RPG was published.

The trick, I guess, is them finding a group that wants to play non-DnD games and being seduced over to the dark side. It would be interesting to know if anybody has come into it cold after seeing one of the Star Wars starter boxes in the store.
 
D&D is the alcohol of RPGs. It's the most prevalent, it's the one most people try first, and it's the one most end up sticking with, even though there are others that are WAY more fun.

I have a friend in one of my groups with DECADES of broad RPG experience. We are currently playing DCC, but he campaigned HARD for 5e, even for use as a non-fantasy gaming base, saying "we have THIS, why do we need anything else?"

I'm of two minds about it, because it brings people into the hobby, yes, but it also seems keep a lot of people from exploring the broader spectrum of games.

I don't know what the solution to that is is. I'm mostly a forever DM, so while I take player suggestions to heart (our current run of DCC is in response to my group's wanting a campaign as opposed to shorter arcs/one-shots), I'm also not afraid to say, "We're playing this now." It's been working out so far.
 
For myself and maybe the other 2 dozen gamers I know, some now lapsed gamers, D&D was the gateway to other RPGs. In fact, I've only recently met IRL gamers that started on other systems. I spent years playing D&D before trying other game systems such as 2300 AD, and Top Secret SI and these were only brief distractions as I didn't actually own them. It was only when I discovered Shadowrun that D&D, as far as I was concerned, became extinct. Shadowrun led made me realize there were many other games out there. I think the main issue I had was that bookshops only carried one game system and that was D&D. The same is true today, I can visit some of the larger bookshops and the only RPG is D&D. Sure, the once or twice I was able to make it to an actual game store there were other games, but they were so expensive it wasn't worth the punt.
 
At this point, it is entirely possible to live a roleplaying-game life without a whiff of D&D in your life, but it's both an illusion and a mistake. D&D defined virtually everything important about the experience of table top rpg's and remains one of the best games, generally, and definitely the best game for a style of play that makes up a big chunk of what people really like to do.

This sort of D&D essentialism always draws howls of disagreement and sneers of derision, but save your breath - hating on D&D is a tired, time-worn tradition and everything that could be said on the subject had already been said in 1978, and it was as wrong then as it is now. Of course people have personal tastes, just like they do in music and movies and whatever, and those are perfectly valid. But a predilection for obscure prog rock doesn't change the fact that the rolling stones have been blowing everyone's doors off for 50 years.
 
You can live inside the DnD ecosystem for years and never discover the existance of other games. Or feel the need to find out.

You can live on greaseball fast food, soda, & microwave dinners for years and never discover any other foods too.

While D&D was my first rpg the second game I played in... '88?... was Shadowrun. D&D didn't lead to other games, the other people playing did. But the last, oh maybe fifteen years, I've been feeling that D&D is becoming more and more... monotone. Its become a skirmish fight simulator with continually decreasing options & support for noncombat roleplaying.
 
I'm old and my experience is not representative of kids nowadays, but D&D was definitely my gateway. Because it was the one RPG with any public awareness, so it was the one my parents gave me one Christmas (red box Basic set). That led to Dragon magazine, and the articles and ads there about other systems led me to other games.

It looks to me like a lot of game discussion, especially on Discord servers and the like, is very system-specific. People who have just picked up D&D and want, say, quick ideas for a new magic item or have a rules question might find what they're looking for without any opportunity to 'flip past' an article about how a different game handles a particular situation or even an an interesting ad (if I remember right it was Villains and Vigilantes, but there was one game's ads that had an NPC stat block as the bulk of the ad, which really got my attention at the time).

D&D right now (as ever) has the biggest name recognition in general North American pop culture. And there's so much D&D-specific content that there's no chance of that well going dry and a gamer needing to look into something else to find new content.
 
I think yes, but not as much as D&D fans would have us believe.

It brings people to other games in the sense that they come to D&D and then a tiny percentage look elsewhere when that grows thin.

But it's probably less of a decent entry to other RPGs than pretty much any other game on the market.

It is to RPGs what Warhammer is to historical miniatures gaming.
What he said:thumbsup:.
 
I do believe that a healthy D&D means a healthier rpg community. When the head of Evil Hat, who when not busy destroying Western Civ or whatever is supposedly the personification of anti-D&D says that when D&D is doing well sales for other rpgs goes up, I don't see why he'd be making that up.

Certainly I don't think it is the best intro to rpgs, I'd say something like CoC or for fantasy something less convoluted would lead to fewer people bouncing off rpgs in general.

But at the same time D&D's level system has addictive appeal (as its widespread use in video games shows) and the dungeon is good for new GMs since its restricted and controllable space requires a lot less cognitive load.

And sure lots of people never look past D&D but the majority being incurious is just a fact of life.

Most people are not going to get into hard bop or noise rock; into Japanese noir and Turkish b-movies; into Steve Erickson and Brian Catling. Just appreciate it when someone like Cormac McCarthy actually become (semi?)popular.

But the more people into D&D means that small percentage who do discover other games, even if it's less than 10 percent, slowly grows.
 
I'm old and my experience is not representative of kids nowadays, but D&D was definitely my gateway. Because it was the one RPG with any public awareness, so it was the one my parents gave me one Christmas (red box Basic set). That led to Dragon magazine, and the articles and ads there about other systems led me to other games.

It looks to me like a lot of game discussion, especially on Discord servers and the like, is very system-specific. People who have just picked up D&D and want, say, quick ideas for a new magic item or have a rules question might find what they're looking for without any opportunity to 'flip past' an article about how a different game handles a particular situation or even an an interesting ad (if I remember right it was Villains and Vigilantes, but there was one game's ads that had an NPC stat block as the bulk of the ad, which really got my attention at the time).

D&D right now (as ever) has the biggest name recognition in general North American pop culture. And there's so much D&D-specific content that there's no chance of that well going dry and a gamer needing to look into something else to find new content.
That's a great point. I forgot how much early Dragon (and other magazines) impacted my awareness of other games, especially since I could afford an issue of Dragon, even if I couldn't afford a boxed set or even module.
 
At this point, it is entirely possible to live a roleplaying-game life without a whiff of D&D in your life, but it's both an illusion and a mistake. D&D defined virtually everything important about the experience of table top rpg's and remains one of the best games, generally, and definitely the best game for a style of play that makes up a big chunk of what people really like to do.

This sort of D&D essentialism always draws howls of disagreement and sneers of derision, but save your breath - hating on D&D is a tired, time-worn tradition and everything that could be said on the subject had already been said in 1978, and it was as wrong then as it is now. Of course people have personal tastes, just like they do in music and movies and whatever, and those are perfectly valid. But a predilection for obscure prog rock doesn't change the fact that the rolling stones have been blowing everyone's doors off for 50 years.
I mean, you're not wrong. at least not Wrong-Wrong.

Mostly though, that just tells us that People who like D&D, like D&D.

So, not wrong, but pretty circular.

What's missing is evidence about, well, almost everything else.

In fairness, as someone once challenged me in a very similar sort of exchange of views a long while back, there really is no evidence of...anything else either.

There's no evidence that a different genre, or mechanical approach, or something that does part of what D&D does but mostly something different, or a thousand other possibilities, would have some great appeal that kicks that thing to Fad Status either.

We just don't know.
 
As someone who didn’t grow up in the US, D&D was not that big in Sweden until 5th edition. It wasn’t exactly small either, but it wasn’t the massive juggernaut it is in some places. My first rpgs were The Fantasy Trip, then Drakar och Demoner (Dragonbane now) then Tunnels & Trolls and only after that AD&D. Apart from TFT and T&T, it was similar for other kids in the 90s. We had a bunch of Swedish games and we mostly played them. I was the only one in my friend group who even owned any D&D books for a long time. Kult, despite being Swedish, and World of Darkness were never really our thing but they were games a lot of people played, especially Vampire. D&D was a bit of a niche, but so was every game, and when I introduced people to gaming it was never my go-to.

The current popularity of 5e is a thing even here though, and there’s a lot of 5e content on the shelves. I’ve also noticed people my age, in their thirties, who never played before wanting to try it. I’ve played both 5e and other games with new players and even if their curiosity was clearly piqued by D&D, no one has said “but this isn’t D&D, I want to play something else.” So I would say yes, it can be a gateway.
 
Anecdotal: D&D is not a gateway to other gaming. Some (but not all) D&D players are those gateways.

I've seen a lot of people who only play D&D, will only consider D&D, and if it isn't D&D or directly D&D derived shy away from gaming. Though a few (like I was many years ago) are interested in the broader hobby and look for things other than D&D spread out and find new things to try and play. Choosing instead to experiment with systems, settings, and more.
 
There's also the added complication that it's highly arguable that D&D is one game at this point. 5e has diverged pretty heavily from 3e, let alone OD&D.

And the evidence is that 5e is a gateway to more 5e and potentially to 6e. It doesn't seem to be a gateway to the OSR or to B/X. (I suspect the OSR operates a lot more like games in the "other" category as far as this topic is concerned).
 
There's also the added complication that it's highly arguable that D&D is one game at this point. 5e has diverged pretty heavily from 3e, let alone OD&D.

And the evidence is that 5e is a gateway to more 5e and potentially to 6e. It doesn't seem to be a gateway to the OSR or to B/X. (I suspect the OSR operates a lot more like games in the "other" category as far as this topic is concerned).

I suspect that a lot of OSR people were former players of earlier editions yes but I think a lot of them were brought back to the hobby by 5e or at least the popularity of 5e reignited their interest.

I know that's what happened to me. I had fallen out of rpgs when I went to university and it was due to the publicity around the release of 5e that my interest returned.

Due to my tastes I quickly discovered the OSR and lots of new games but that's also reflective of my obsessive approach to anything I'm interested in.
 
I think yes, but not as much as D&D fans would have us believe.

It brings people to other games in the sense that they come to D&D and then a tiny percentage look elsewhere when that grows thin.

But it's probably less of a decent entry to other RPGs than pretty much any other game on the market.

It is to RPGs what Warhammer is to historical miniatures gaming.
This is probably right.

There's a large group of people who are here for D&D and D&D only. And there's a small group who trickle off onto other games.

My only point of contention is...I don't think any other games are decent entry points to the hobby except maybe some oddball licensed stuff that just draws someone in (The Avatar RPG by Magpie might do it, for instance, or maybe Star Wars).

I genuinely think the only people who are coming in through other games are people who would have been gamers anyway, or people who are really just happy to be at the table.
 
I honestly think more people would check out other games if they were on the shelf next to the D&D books. That's how I discovered CoC and Pendragon. I know most people buy online but that physical presence still makes a big difference.

Its like for show promotion, there are those who claimed you didn't need to poster anymore for live shows but that's bullshit, digital promotion is in addition to the traditional channels, not in replacement of them.
 
My only point of contention is...I don't think any other games are decent entry points to the hobby except maybe some oddball licensed stuff that just draws someone in (The Avatar RPG by Magpie might do it, for instance, or maybe Star Wars).
Is Avatar out yet? I heard a lot of buzz round the KS, but actual play reports not so much. See also Quest.
 
This is probably right.

There's a large group of people who are here for D&D and D&D only. And there's a small group who trickle off onto other games.

My only point of contention is...I don't think any other games are decent entry points to the hobby except maybe some oddball licensed stuff that just draws someone in (The Avatar RPG by Magpie might do it, for instance, or maybe Star Wars).

I genuinely think the only people who are coming in through other games are people who would have been gamers anyway, or people who are really just happy to be at the table.

Perhaps confirming your point but in my experience most of the people I know who do rpgs came in via Warhammer or Call of Cthulhu/Lovecraft.
 
As someone who started RPG's with The Fantasy Trip, in 1980, and a few months later, tried D&D and thought it was really dumb by comparison, I feel like I need to regularly represent those of us who didn't start RP'ing with D&D, and those of us who never got into D&D.

For some of us, D&D wasn't the gateway to RPGs.

And for me, it also wasn't the gateway to serious boardgames. Before playing TFT, I had already gotten heavily into serious games via Milton Bradley games, Chess, staying at a family friend's cabin and playing with their massive vintage boardgame collection, then going to hobby stores and going mostly via the Avalon Hill wargame route Tactics II -> Midway -> Starship Troopers -> Alesia -> Wooden Ships & Iron men -> Squad Leader all before trying TFT.

I've looked at the versions of D&D, and tried to like them occasionally, and have never succeeded. I think that there are fundamentally annoying (to me) design ideas there that have sadly been adopted into way too many other games, especially computer games, and I've been sick to death of those mechanics for decades, so I think of those design patterns (levels, huge piles of hitpoints, easy fast healing, tanking/buffing, absence of wound effects, absence of real tactics, almost no real risk) as a kind of disease of overdone problematic design patterns, infecting not only RPGs but too many computer games, as well.

Oh, and though I do think that D&D brings new people to gaming, I think it loads them with unfortunate thinking, which I have little sympathy for. And I'm not convinced that, if D&D hadn't existed, or had less dominant RPG market share, that there wouldn't have been something different (and likely IMO better, or something I'd like more) that would be doing the same thing just as well, or possibly better.

I hate being on a TFT or GURPS forum, and seeing people looking for ways to have D&D expectations happen in those games. "My character just died when they got hit in the head with a battleaxe!" or "How do I have a party of four beginning adventurers enter a dungeon full of monsters and survive and kill them all without anyone dying or taking serious injuries. It's 'no fun' to have to stop adventuring to heal."
 
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At this point, it is entirely possible to live a roleplaying-game life without a whiff of D&D in your life, but it's both an illusion and a mistake. D&D defined virtually everything important about the experience of table top rpg's and remains one of the best games, generally, and definitely the best game for a style of play that makes up a big chunk of what people really like to do.

This sort of D&D essentialism always draws howls of disagreement and sneers of derision, but save your breath - hating on D&D is a tired, time-worn tradition and everything that could be said on the subject had already been said in 1978, and it was as wrong then as it is now. Of course people have personal tastes, just like they do in music and movies and whatever, and those are perfectly valid. But a predilection for obscure prog rock doesn't change the fact that the rolling stones have been blowing everyone's doors off for 50 years.

Most spicy takes on D&D have all the merits of amoral homily: hackneyed, shrewish and beside the point.
WHICH WAY, WESTERN GAMER?

-I kid, I kid.

On the one hand, yes, I kind of agree with your first post. D&D has, in a sense, defined everything afterwards, whether people admit it or not.


I read once, I think in a blog (I wish I could remember who wrote it, because they deserve credit), that every game since D&D has attempted to distinguish itself either by being like D&D or by not being like D&D. This is quite true. However, the existence of games like the latter point to deficiencies in D&D, or, at the very least, room for improvement. That so many viable and long-lasting game systems have sprung from attempts to "fix" or "improve" D&D (a practice that lives to this day in the OSR and adjacent games), speaks volumes.

That having been said, before we can debate whether or not D&D is the "best" at what it does, we should define what D&D "does" and what it "is". Is it everything from OD&D onwards? Or are we just talking about 5e here?

And what does it do? Combat? Dungeon crawls? Social Interaction?

Sure, in its current incarnation, it does these things. But is it really "best" at any of them? I'd say no, but I suppose that's subjective.

But some of the ways 5e does things have been informed by games that came after D&D. I am particularly thinking of Inspiration, social interaction, Skills, and possibly h0w 5e handles dying. Looking at 5e's adventures, with their focus on social stuff, whimsy, 5e seems to have borrowed from or been informed by other games, including indie stuff. D&D now has been influenced as much as it has influenced. So, in that regard, how much credit can D&D take for its current state?

D&D is like Channel-Lock, or Jacuzzi - a brand that has come to be synonymous with the thing it's a brand of in people's minds. But that doesn't make it the best.

YMMV, etc.
 
A combination of "largest awareness outside the hobby" and "not the best" would be the perfect gateway - bring people in and then let them try other potentially better games - as long as there's some way for people who try D&D because that's all they know for RPGs to find out that there are alternatives that may be better/more fun for them.
 
Another key thing that James Ward noted he regrets they didn't do enough at TSR is to make sure you appeal to kids.

An insane number of current players started with Holmes, B/X or the Red Box. Or were turned onto D&D via the cartoon and/or ads in comicbooks.

I think 5e has succeeded there pretty well, which will pay off in the longrun.
 
A combination of "largest awareness outside the hobby" and "not the best" would be the perfect gateway - bring people in and then let them try other potentially better games - as long as there's some way for people who try D&D because that's all they know for RPGs to find out that there are alternatives that may be better/more fun for them.
That's tricky though.

Even back in the Ice Age when I was using B/X. lots of folks felt those two rulebooks were so lengthy that if those were what RPGs were like, they'd already spent for more effort learning those than they'd intended, and certainly weren't up for learning anything equally as long.

One of those unknowns I was talking about upthread relates to that issue. How many people out there assume that baseline D&D assumptions (any edition) are what all RPGs are like, and therefore why bother trying them out? This would be true whether they liked or disliked D&D* really.

*ETA:
I've had people nix playing a different game because of things they both liked and disliked about D&D baseline assumptions at the same time.

For example, my friend who didn't want to try a new game because he didn't want to commit to a campaign. I pointed out that this game could be played in short chunks of just 1-3 sessions pretty successfully and brought or put away easily. He then countered that if there wasn't a long-term consistent campaign, there was no point, as he wouldn't have time to develop and get to know his character. ( Which one is the I think I'm Going Mad smilie?)
 
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My first-ever game that ended up seeming like part of the TTRPG hobby was Melee (not counting Chainmail, if you are counting that as some sort of proto-D&D). Nevertheless, the 1E hardbacks were so central to the understanding of everyone in my social circle in the late 70's that ever since we have referred to every rpg as 'D&D' whenever we are talking about them in casual conversation. As in: 'Want to play D&D this weekend? ... Sure, let's keep rolling with our current Flashing Blades campaign!'.
 
This is probably right.

There's a large group of people who are here for D&D and D&D only. And there's a small group who trickle off onto other games.

My only point of contention is...I don't think any other games are decent entry points to the hobby except maybe some oddball licensed stuff that just draws someone in (The Avatar RPG by Magpie might do it, for instance, or maybe Star Wars).

I think both Vampire/World of Darkness and various local games (Drakar och Demoner, Das Schwarze Auge, etc) would disagree.

I genuinely think the only people who are coming in through other games are people who would have been gamers anyway, or people who are really just happy to be at the table.
 
At this point, it is entirely possible to live a roleplaying-game life without a whiff of D&D in your life, but it's both an illusion and a mistake.

It's really not. It's an informed choice that's led to greater happiness and satisfaction.


D&D defined virtually everything important about the experience of table top rpg's

um, well, it introduced the concept of RPGs to the world.
Everything else it lifted from wargames.

and remains one of the best games, generally, and definitely the best game for a style of play that makes up a big chunk of what people really like to do.

*giggle*


This sort of D&D essentialism always draws howls of disagreement and sneers of derision, but save your breath - hating on D&D is a tired, time-worn tradition and everything that could be said on the subject had already been said in 1978, and it was as wrong then as it is now.

I always find it amusing when D&D fans act like they are a persecuted minority in the hobby.

Of course people have personal tastes, just like they do in music and movies and whatever, and those are perfectly valid. But a predilection for obscure prog rock doesn't change the fact that the rolling stones have been blowing everyone's doors off for 50 years.

 
I think most people find RPGs through D&D, so I would say yes, it is a gateway. At the same time, most people seem to stick with D&D. That has waxed and waned over the years. I feel like there were a lot more systems being played in the 90s for example prior to the OGL. But the RPG culture was different then as well.

For me personally I started on a game called Mech Warrior I believe, but the guy who ran it had started on D&D and he soon ran us through a bunch of D&D modules. I was also aware of D&D as a brand because I watched the cartoon as a kid and loved it (and I had D&D themed toys). In my own group in middle school and highschool, D&D was probably 60 percent of our gaming and we spent the other 40% on games like CoC, TORG, GURPS, TMNT, and finding new systems.
 
I feel like the important question isn't so much "is D&D the gateway game for the rest of the hobby?"
so much as "is D&D good at being a gateway game?"

Or to put it anther way, how good is current D&D as a "beginner's game"? If someone with no knowledge of RPGs picks up the current rulebook off the shelf, how good is it at teaching them, not just how to play, but the concept of "roleplaying games"?

As good as the red box was?
 
I feel like the important question isn't so much "is D&D the gateway game for the rest of the hobby?"
so much as "is D&D good at being a gateway game?"

Or to put it anther way, how good is current D&D as a "beginner's game"? If someone with no knowledge of RPGs picks up the current rulebook off the shelf, how good is it at teaching them, not just how to play, but the concept of "roleplaying games"?

As good as the red box was?
Well that’s not the job of the core books, the equivalent of the core books during the red box era was AD&D, how good was it at teaching? The question is how good are the current starter sets at being gateway games.
 
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