# RPG A DAY 2024: An engaging RPG community tags: #thoughts #thoughts/RPGaDay/2024 ![[RPGaDAY2024-024x723.jpg]] Look, I'm going to lay it out for you. In internet years, I am old. I mean, really old. I'm not talking about I rolled dice with Gary Gygax (or more likely [[Tekumel|M.A.R. Barker]]) old. I mean, I predate-the-web old. When I started using the internet, the primary interface was character cell. We had 88 characters wide, and we liked it. And the primary social media interface was Usenet, which remains the superior experience even today. [I was involved in the massive "Hey Net Punks," blow up with White Wolf.](https://groups.google.com/g/alt.games.whitewolf/c/ZLVNWrOIAOM/m/9Sj21YgScp0J?pli=1) And ironically ended up writing for them later.^[The truly amazing thing, looking back on that thread, is the sheer *number* of nay-sayers blasting Chupp and WW who ended up writing some of the great texts from White Wolf. I'll say this for them: At the time, they learned to respect their critics enough to hire them. Pretty much how I ended up doing so.] My work in flame wars was literally cited in academic papers from Carnegie Mellon University. I'm saying that I arose from the primordial ooze back in the old days, and I remember when online communities were actually *good*. That was a long time ago. The advent of cheap web space and easy web creation combined with the rise of the original blogging platforms/independent servers led to a diaspora of online RPG communities, spreading to the four winds like humanity away from the galactic cultural core in **Dune**. There were some brief reverses as certain forums bubbled to the top. For instance, *[the Forge](http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forge/index.php)* was a literal bubbling birthplace for RPG industry newcomers who felt like they were locked on the outside because of their ideas and their design principles. The designs that rose from that constant state of warfare are still massively impactful. Like all insular communities, eventually the inbreeding brought down the population. And again, there was diaspora. A brief reverse was experienced when [Google+ circles became incredibly widespread among the indie RPG community](https://www.vice.com/en/article/google-plus-rpgs/), in part because it was so tightly bound with the real-time voice and video conferencing, allowing for online RPGs to be played with your buddies while you could see each other and record it. Actual play as a *mechanical thing* came to be largely because of that combination of community and technology. So, of course, it had to come to an end violently. Everybody knows about [the purple site](https://www.rpg.net/) and the trials and tribulations of trying to have a compelling and meaningful conversation about pretty much anything there. It's hit or miss. It's a hit when the mods leave you alone to have a conversation and productive disagreement. It's a miss anytime you see a mod show up. Such is the nature of what used to be a somewhat useful site for conversations and what has turned into a lot of abortive attempts and a lot of people who only play one game and have to hammer things into that format. Shockingly, not just **D&D** players. So where does that leave us now? Well, **[Twitter/X](https://x.com)** is not as bad as the geek literati keep complaining it is. But it is really bad because there's no way to narrow down anything by topic. The disdain for hashtags and the limited length of messages mean that any kind of in-depth consideration or thought is crushed until all it has is a little bit of squeezing. Not to mention the infestation by the BrOSR, which reacts to any new idea like a white blood cell reacts to a foreign body. If you can find people talking about anything other than **D&D**, you're probably in a good situation. Unfortunately, you're also probably talking to people [playing **BattleTech** and horrified by what CGL has done to the property](https://www.reddit.com/r/battletech/comments/1el243v/why_is_cgls_online_marketing_so_bad/). **[BlueSky](https://bsky.app/)** is full of blue hairs^[No, we're not talking about old women. That would be Red Bonnets. As opposed to Redcaps.] stomping around and rubbing their mental illnesses against one another, using RPGs as an excuse to promote their own particular skewed view of reality and insisting that your fictional reality conform to their broken view of reality. Hades forfend that you suggest play of anything that's not cozy, comfortable, and reassuring. The idea of challenge in any way, shape, or form, intellectually, ideologically, or narratively, is entirely out of their domain. It's an out-of-context problem for them. They don't know how to think about it. They don't want to learn. Discords connected to a particular RPG can be useful if you need particular help with an RPG. But they tend to be inhabited by people with a complete lack of imagination who want to be told how to play because they lack the backbone to figure it out for themselves and then to do it. **[Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/)** likewise. It's weird that the isolated insular islands devoted to a particular topic share the same failures as a relatively large, lightly siloed social media platform. But I chalk it up to being inhabited largely by the same kinds of people in both examples. **Reddit**, of all the social media heavyweights currently standing, had the most potential to actually be a place for useful and effective communication on the subject of RPGs in general. And yet, the [Eternal September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September) hit them just as hard as everyone else. Its echoes continuing to wreak havoc even on platforms after its original formation. Which leaves **[Mastodon](https://social.vivaldi.net/home)**, which I have not yet mentioned, and which I remain conflicted about. It's probably where I currently read most of my RPG content, and that's *entirely* because I can set filters based on hashtags, which allow me to only see stuff that I'm interested in and very little that I don't care about.^[In some other context I'll rant about the massive failure mode of social media UI design theory I've denoted "firehose theory" and how it has actively damaged human discourse, but that's a topic for elsewhere.] While it's dug in pretty deeply by the blue hairs, every conversation is not entirely about how an individual can make a fictional setting all about themselves, which is a massive plus. Would that it were different, but here we are, the inheritors of a massive technological singularity of communication, and this is what we have. May Hell have mercy on our souls. You want to know where I have the most engaging RPG community conversations? *My friendly local gaming shop*. Both of them. I have two within 20 minutes drive. And both of them are really quite nice. One of them, *[Galactic Quest](http://www.galacticquest.com/)*, I've been hanging out with the owner since he opened his first shop.^[That was high school, aeons ago, when giant AlphaServers roamed the Earth.] Not too far up the road. And now he has one literally on our town square and another in a neighboring city, which is fantastic. He carries primarily comics, but he does a pretty good business in board games and a little bit in RPGs. Very RPG friendly. The other is *[Level Up Games](https://levelupgamesatl.com/)*, located close to the nearest mall. It is entirely devoted to board games, wargames, and RPGs -- three massive racks full of RPGs, only a small portion of given to **Dungeons & Dragons**. The rest is all indie RPGs and a beautiful collection it is. I've known the owner since before he had the shop when he used to hang out at the original *Galactic Quest*. Good guy. Hires good people. Has games almost nightly, and an open table on pretty much any night that doesn't have a big CCG tournament. If you wanted to walk in and throw down some **Warhammer** or throw down some **Scum and Villainy**, or throw down some **Starforged**, or throw down your little indie, not even published yet, homebrew game that you just want some players to test — it's that kind of place. It's the kind of place you can go and have a productive argument about your favorite RPG and walk away feeling pretty good the fact you've learned stuff about some other RPG. You can walk in, sit down and play a game you've never played before, and talk to the people who are also enjoying sharing that experience with you. If you're looking for a place to have engaging RPG community experiences, *find your local gaming store.* It doesn't have to be a big one. It can be a complete hole in the wall. It can be a couple of shelves and a counter in the back selling **Magic the Gathering** cards. But that's where to find the *real* RPG community that's going to make you feel like you're part of something. It's not connected to a particular RPG. It's not connected to a particular online platform. It's the people that live near you who care enough to go out to a store and hang around, have cool conversations and care about what they're talking about. It's not performant. It's in front of you. If they're not talking about your favorite RPG, bring it in. Set it up. Talk to people about it while it's sitting in front of you and invite them to play. That is your engaged RPG community. See to it, fancy lad.