Another question from the dark forest, which is essentially creaky old people muttering about how much better it was back in the day. I tried to answer the following self-summarized prompt, posted in late 2022:
"JD! You absolute fool. You dunce. Why do you say 'System Matters' lost the debate in the public sphere? What's all this about "the streaming generation" of players? And don't you just hate all that shit, why are you talking about it like it's legitimate?!"
Over the last...maybe year and a half, I came to terms with the population of people entering the hobby via twitch or youtube streams (the Actual Play podcast phenomenon continues but is greatly diminished in comparison). I have my issues with how those streams are conducted, but that's only of tangential interest here. I challenged myself: "You claim to care about your local gaming community, in fact you often assert that it's (and local communities like it are ) the only gaming community that exists. These people are going to flood your community and you are going to know nothing about their point of view. Are you one of those pieces of shit artists who sit around being like 'oh man we solved all these problems in 2005, these new artists are dumb and have nothing to show me and will do nothing to help the world'". Are you that kind of guy, where they'll laugh at you behind your hand because you're old and have nothing to offer them?
I decided I was not that kind of guy.
Google and Amazon are the bad guys. The users of Google and Amazon are the survivors, not the villains. So I began to run games in spaces where I would come across people who got into the hobby through streaming primarily. Here is what I discovered about them and their approaches.
Choice of Game
Overwhelmingly they prefer D&D for the following reasons:
1.They got here because they were excited about watching someone play D&D (in a particular way, more on this below.) They have not been here that long. So they probably haven't had a chance to play that much D&D! Usually they've played a one-shot or sometimes a short camaign. But they truly have not had a lot of D&D experience. It feels like forever but the streaming explosion truly has not been going that long. A lot of them have been here only 1-2 years. Considering how hard it is to get a campaign rolling and keep it rolling, saying "let's play something other than D&D" is often a big disappointment. They haven't gotten to play that much D&D! When I say they're often very new, you really have to take into account that they may have been getting themselves psyched for a D&D game for over a year, then only actively seeking one for a matter of months.
2. D&D has many systemic qualities that inform the tone of play they seek (a little more on this below.) They're working from a common language of D&D Plus The Internet. They can crack jokes in D&D+Internet. They've learned it before they even set foot in your game.
3. D&D lets you be quiet for long periods of time. This is important to their view of the importance of audience to play. (more on this below) You can do a whole lot of not much in a D&D session and not derail or drag things. Compare to a character-driven game like Apocalypse World where if you're not Doing Something Right Now then the whole game stumbles over its feet.
4. D&D supports a feeling of positive camraderie. The Old Bad Days of the "can I play an evil character" and thieves stealing from the party are completely alien to this cohort. They're here to have fun together. (Compare to the PVP elements of Apocalypse World or Urban Shadows.)
That said, they are fully aware of the existence of other RPGs and "willing" to play them, in the sense that if you're friends, and you have a friend-group-playing-a-game, they won't make an objection to a non-D&D game. But often times they're looking for D&D for the reasons above.
Tone and Style of Play
1 - Careful. They have been taught from day one that difficult content should be approached in full view of all players and discussed explicitly. They are more considerate of each other's feelings and boundaries than the cohort I came up with for sure. And say what you want about the adequacy of those "how to be a good DM" youtube videos, dealing with boundaries is a MUCH more common topic there than it was in publications in the 90s (for example). And they have no problem pausing and checking in with each other during play, and expressing their out-of-character feelings about how the game's going. Honestly they are so far ahead of where I was on this subject when I'd been playing as long as they have, I am really happy to even think about it.
2. The Audience. This is probably the biggest place where streaming has had an impact. And as much as I hate the streaming services, it's honestly not all bad. Here's my observation:
A) they are fully aware they are putting on a performance for their fellow players. Making funny or badass comments, doing things that are exciting or weird, and other things that "play to the audience" are a VERY high priority and if they are shut down in some way they (whether as performer or audience member) are highly disappointed.
B) Consequently, they are very willing to sit and be a quiet audience member while someone else is in the spotlight, if that person is able to hold the spotlight. Remember in 1998 when you "played Vampire" but actually you had 4 separate Vampire games and nobody quite liked it? This cohort is absolutely fine with just sitting there and listening and reacting and experiencing someone else's story to a degree I absolutely was not. They might not love the 4 separate Vampire games (see "camraderie", above) but they are very willing to let people have their spotlight time and encourage them to "go big" with it even if their character "wouldn't be there" or "isn't really doing anything."
Tonal/Stylistic Properties of D&D in the Streaming Youths
How do their tonal/stylistic priorities mesh with D&D or, if not D&D, what the text of the game is? This bit is less of an observation than a conclusion on my part
This cohort embraces irony via dissonance. One thing about D&D that they like is that sometimes D&D just says something stupid. Someone acts in a way no real sentient entity would act, a room in a dungeon makes no sense, a rule that leads into a blind alley, a half-baked scenario with big holes in it. They love this shit. Commenting on it, either in- or out-of-character (or in that quasi-in-character way that sometimes you do in D&D to make jokes to each other in the voice of your character) is a common source of comedy. Remember, as audience members of a stream they'd be joking with each other in the chat about exactly this stuff!
I remember Vincent Baker's admonition that the purpose of a game system is to produce "disagreeable" outcomes, that is, outcomes that we couldn't just sit there and talk it through and agree on it. And I think this is embraced in a very unusual way. Pick lists like PBTA moves where you know what the options are and they're fully transparent and the players pick from them don't provide the opportunity for the GM to roll the die, look behind the screen, and lay up a softball straight line for the players to knock out of the park with a funny joke. This is not to say that PBTA games can't provide this type of outcome, but often it comes about because the GM or players are looking to introduce it on a fictional level, when the system can't really produce something unexpected due to its complete transparency.
This is also why I predicted that despite turning up their nose at WOTC during the latest controversy (the OGL withdrawal debacle), they would always simply go back to it because WOTC owns D&D and that's the end of that story.
A dislike they have: blocking the performance. This is something that sometimes happens and it's really negative towards their preferred playstyle. This actually happened many times in previous generations too so you'll recognize the pattern: someone announces some bizarre or off the wall action. The GM says "that's awesome, now roll Acrobatics, then Stealth, then an attack roll, then save versus Constitution" or whatever combination of rolls they assess the bizarre action to require based on the text. Nobody can make 4 of those rolls in a row so the action always fails.
Remember that in the D&D they watch, nobody adheres to the written rules this closely so they truly "see right through" the "but that's what the rules say!" response. A GM is supposed to know that you really just make em roll Something, Anything, and if they roll high they do it and if they roll low they don't. (This is the only rule that actually exists in many/most of the most popular streams.)
So I think, again, looking at the state of the art, there are games that they might embrace that really lean into this performance aspect of play, not necessarily in the sense of weird voices or whatever, but in the sense of "my character is gonna do something wild, check this out!" Here I am thinking of things like Feng Shui, but you could also get some traction from (for example) PBTA games like Masks where a big crazy action can indeed be boiled down into a single roll.
So speaking overall the displayed belief of this cohort is that System Doesn't Matter, in the sense of the original essay. The success or failure of a game is based on a skillful GM who discards the text when they feel it is pushing them to block the performance, and based on skillful players who provide good entertainment and interaction with each other.
Opportunities for positive play with this set of preferences
Once you start to see the performance aspect of their play, it opens up a lot of doors. Here are some opportunities that I've used with this cohort of players that have worked:
- Just Ask. This is something I learned from my 1990s play when people might come to the Vampire game with a six page background. Just say "Hey you said your character spent a long time in the feywild. What if your hot ex boyfriend from the feywild showed up and caused you a problem?" Because they've fully embraced the "let's talk about game content" for questionable topics, they have absolutely no hesitation in discussing it for "regular" topics too. This is also how you can emphasize comedy, drama, horror, etc. elements and tones. Just say "hey what if this were a little more dramatic" "are you scared? are you scared?" etc. Essentially you are setting them up for success in performance. They know their streamer idols do this so why not them? In wrestling terms, they're smarts, not marks. They know that the great moments are planned out, so why not embrace it?
- Gas them up. Say "sweet" when they do something badass and laugh when they do something funny. Embrace your role as straight man - or put a funny character in against something that they want in a "normal" way. Simulation is a tool you can use (especially if, like D&D's simulation elements, it's sometimes broken or makes no sense) but if you look at the simulation and it's a bunch of nothing, skip it.
