This post is driven by some YouTube stuff I saw recently but it's been showing up anywhere people discuss RPGs - forums, social media, reddit ... everywhere. The "it" is the shocking discovery that there are a lot of other games out there besides D&D! Really? Incredible!
I know that new people come into the hobby all the time and that's a good thing. I know that D&D is the first encounter for a lot of people - which is cool, it was for me as well. I just don't understand how people could spend, say, months getting into D&D and looking into it online, and remain blissfully unaware that other RPG's exist. I mean you have to run into references to, discussions about, and ads for things like Pathfinder, right? Shadowdark? You'd at some point hear that there is a Marvel RPG, or a Star Wars RPG, or a Star Trek RPG, plus various other pop-culture relevant games too, right?
There is a similar thing with Warhammer players too when they first notice/discover/get into other miniatures games, especially other genres. "Hey did you know there are miniature rules for WW2 battleships?" Yes, yes I am quite aware and I've even played some.
I think the latest surge of this is probably due to the 5E changeover to 5.5E - an edition change is always a good place for people to jump off the bandwagon - as over the past year or two the game that so many people were attached to became less of a stable, settled thing. I suspect that 5E D&D was the only game that was big enough to support blogs, YT channels, Discord channels, 3rd party companies, and the like as far as running a single-focus channel. Even Pathfinder seems to have trouble supporting narrowly-focused media. As that monobloc is shaken up, cracked even, people start looking around and realize there are other options and the (re?) discovery process begins.
One example: I actually played my first session of Dungeon Crawl Classics over the weekend. I've run it a fair few times over the years but I've never gotten to experience it as a player. You'll see people mention it when they find it as if it was a hot new OSR game. It's been out longer than 5E has! DCC came along in 2012 and has been continuously in print the entire time, supported by a stupidly huge line of adventures from the publisher and a pretty good pile of 3rd party support as well. It's cool when you see someone discover it but it's weird when they act like it's new. Sure, it's new to you, now, but it was there the whole time while you were caught up in 5th Edition.
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| One of the older covers - not the oldest, but it's up there |
Another example where this happens a lot, at least on the internet roads I travel, is Savage Worlds. I feel like Savage Worlds might be the king of this. D&D players and groups are excited to find a game that works completely differently to D&D - although they do often struggle to grasp the mechanics - they can tell that it's a cool thing and want to give it a whirl. While it does get some coverage online there is not anywhere near the blather on this game that there is on D&D. I guess this makes people feel like it must be new - it's not! It's over 20 years old now! And it stings to say that! Because I remember when it was new and radical and we were all just figuring it out and we had the email lists and google groups to help us along! But no, SW has been around for over two decades and with a few rules tweaks along the way is still pretty much the same game now that it was then.
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| You don't see much about this one anymore |
I think maybe this being the first big edition changeover since the juggernaut of 5E D&D becoming a modern media centerpiece might be why so many people keep proclaiming it as "the golden age of RPGs". My beef there is with the "the". It's easily "a" golden age of RPGs but every decade has a great run of new or revitalized games that earn that title for that decade all over again. For example, what are the big games now besides D&D itself?
- For fantasy we have Pathfinder, Shadowdark, OSR games...
- In the 80's besides D&D we had Runequest, Tunnels and Trolls, Chivalry and Sorcery, Pendragon, Warhammer Fantasy RP, Fantasy Hero, GURPS Fantasy, and a bunch of small press games that were tweaked versions of D&D.
- In the 90's we had most of those plus Earthdawn, a resurgent Palladium Fantasy RPG, and possibly Torg and the various White Wolf games depending on how you want to count those.
- For Science Fiction we have versions of Traveller, a Star Trek game, a Star Wars game, Cyberpunk Red, and the various Alien space-horror games.
- In the 80's we had various versions of Traveller, we had a Star Trek game, we had a Star Wars game, we had other takes like Other Suns, Star Frontiers, Space Opera, plus GURPS Space and Star Hero and, of course, original Cyberpunk
- In the 90's we had a new Star Trek game, a new version of Traveller, a new version of CP, and increased multi-genre weirdness like Rifts, Shadowrun, and Torg
- We have superheroes both name-brand (Marvel, Justice League) and do it yourself with Mutants and Masterminds, various FATE and PBTA games like Masks, Icons, and others.
- In the 80's we had a Marvel game, a DC game, and do it yourself games like Villains & Vigilantes, Champions, and Heroes Unlimited
- In the 90's all of those were still going with new edition and we added GURPS Supers, Aberrant, and the awesomeness of Underground to the mix as well.
- For more universal systems I'd say Savage Worlds is exhibit A today, plus maybe the Cypher System from Monte Cook, the AGE games, and maybe even BRP making a late comeback these days
- In the 80's it was Hero, with GURPS coming along late
- In the 90's it was definitely Hero, GURPs, and then maybe BRP even then as a third. The White Wolf games were kind of a multi-genre system as time went on but not really one for playing normal people.
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| Man this makes me want to drag this game out again |
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| Before the cartoons ... before the movies ... this was already a thing... |
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