D&D General D&D "influencers" need to actively acknowledge other games.

Reynard said:

What do you think? Should D&D influencers acknowledge other games that solve problems they are talking about on their channels? If not, why not?

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"Need to"? "Should"?
I'm not big on telling people in other lines of work what to do. I have no skin in the game, nor expertise in their work.

The biggest problem is that content creators are slaves to the almighty algorithim. One of the YouTube content creators for miniature painting I like to watch, maybe Midwinter Minis, said that mentioning Warhammer in in the title or otherwise tagged in his video meant that more people would watch it. He could post a video of him painting with some colors and techniques that would work great for a variety of miniatures but if it doesn't mention Warhammer he gets less traffic. Many other content creators will mention Warhammer even if they're not painting any GW miniatures.

I imagine D&D is the same. Ginny Di and others are chasing that algorithim and mentioning D&D is going to get you far more viewers than most other games. It took Seth Skorkowski a while to build up his following and I bet he'd have even more if he was focused on D&D. I wish we had a greater variety of content as well, but it's hard for me to tell a content creator trying to make a living to focus on something less lucrative.

This is just another example of why it's bad for D&D to be this big of a fish in a tiny pond. I don't say that to slight D&D (I do play it), but when one game/company is the end all, be all of RPGs that's just not healthy.

ninjayeti said:

Two of the biggest RPG content creators out there - the Matts Coleville and Mercer - are actively making their own games right now and talking about their design choices. Ditto with Dungeon Coach. DM's Lair switched to PF2 a while back as did Rules Lawyer. @SlyFlourish talks about Shadowdark all the time. Bob World Builder recently had a video specifically featuring non-D&D games. Seth Skorkowsky mostly talks about CoC and Traveler. The Alexandrian talks about tons of different systems. These are examples I can come up with off the top of my head. So I think you sample size of one video from one creator is not necessarily representative of "YouTube influencers be like..." (sorry, I may have watched too many YouTube influencers!)

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And Numenera and Blades in the Dark

Reynard said:

In this video as an example, she is talking about player investment in world building. That problem has been solved by Fate.

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Maybe she doesn't think that the problem has been solved by Fate at all, actually? Like, just because you like a mechanic, doesn't mean everyone else has to like it.

MGibster said:

This is just another example of why it's bad for D&D to be this big of a fish in a tiny pond. I don't say that to slight D&D (I do play it), but when one game/company is the end all, be all of RPGs that's just not healthy.

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I've said it before and I'll say it again. There will always be a big fish. The Network Effect demands it. You can plead with the big fish to be a good neighbor and not bully the smaller fish. You can advocate for a different fish to usurp the spot of big fish due to its superior fitness. But there will always, always be a big fish.

Reynard said:

So, I want to make this clear: if your job, that you have decided for yourself, is to tell people how to D&D better, then doing your job well absolutely requires you acknowledging the decades of development in the RPG space, both within and outside D&D.

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It really doesn’t. That’s not the job of a D&D Influencer. Except maybe in Reynard’s mind. And not all D&D Influencers subscribe to your newsletter.

Reynard said:

What do you think? Should D&D influencers acknowledge other games that solve problems they are talking about on their channels?

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if they took the solution from that game, they can namedrop it, assuming they know that is where it is from and they did not just come up with something similar on their own

I am not expecting a dissertation on that feature in another game on a D&D channel

Reynard said:

If not, why not?

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it is their choice, they can say as much or as little about that other game as they feel is appropriate

Reynard said:

So, I want to make this clear: if your job, that you have decided for yourself, is to tell people how to D&D better, then doing your job well absolutely requires you acknowledging the decades of development in the RPG space, both within and outside D&D.

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I think it depends on what you believe D&D should be. For instance, Matt Coleville talks a lot about older editions of D&D (see his recent bit on how adventures were better back in the good old days). But he doesn't talk at all (to my knowledge) about Fate, PbtA, or similar games. I imagine this is because he doesn't think that D&D would benefit from being more like those games. He is not tying to address the "problems" that those games "solve" as the OP alludes to. He just thinks D&D needs better boss fights, shorter adventures, and rules for building strongholds. That seems legit. He is not purporting to give you every perspective on what RPGs can offer, just his own perspective on how to run an awesome session of D&D.

Reynard said:

Nothing inspires less confidence than an "influencer" actively telling you that they have been running D&D for 5 years and they have it all figured out. (Note: I am NOT saying GinniD does that.)

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Do you have an example of someone who you believe DOES do this? Because it seems like a bit of a straw man.

The one YouTuber/Blogger who I think does hold themselves out as having "it all figured out" is Justin Alexander. And I don't think you can criticize him for only knowing about 5E (criticizing him for pretty much anything else is totally fair). I think most are pretty candid about giving opinions based on their own experiences and not claiming to be dispensing the wisdom of Solomon. Matt Coleville has a video where he denies that he is an objectively great DM. GinnyDi talks about overcoming her stress and anxiety as a new DM in a way that I think is relatable because she is not that far out from that experience.

Reynard said:

What do you think? Should D&D influencers acknowledge other games that solve problems they are talking about on their channels? If not, why not?

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Hard disagree. I'm sick of the increasingly common trend of "5e D&D videos" that bash on 5e and talk about how much better Pathfinder, Shadowdark, Dungeon Crawl Classic, or whatever is. That's awesome if you like those games and want to make videos about them, but stop clickbaiting me into watching what I think is about 5e but it's actually just an ad for a game I have zero interest in. There are at least a few youtube channels that I've entirely stopped watching because they pull this tactic often. Fortunately, Ginny D is not one of them

I probably watch more Marvel Snap content on YouTube these days, and I have no interest in someone trying to put me onto other card games when I do.

It's fine to focus a channel on just D&D, just as it's fine to cover TTRPG's in general.