D&D General Why Is D&D Successful?

[Oofta]

The only people who thought that 4e's profits were "running on fumes" worked for WotC/Hasbro.

Much like 2E, 3 and 3.5, there was a spike in sales when first released that then decreased. The devs for 5E thought they were working on the last set of books that would ever be released.

As far as whether the people that actually saw sales numbers were the "only ones", I simply disagree.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I haven't studied many languages, but I found German and especially Russian to me way, way harder to study than English.

I agree. I studied several languanges with Duolingo. English has got a simpler grammar, altough oral English is harder for me. German-languange grammar is harder, but Russian is worse, because you have to learn a totally new alphabet. Chinese is not wellcome in the internet age because this uses a different sign for each word, instead an alphabet. Japanese uses a sillabary, a sign for each syllable.

English is very useful for the international market and internet. Its future is safe but I guess the influence of the Spanish languange will grow gradually.

 

[Nikosandros]

but Russian is worse, because you have to learn a totally new alphabet.

My knowledge of Russian is extremely rudimentary, but - for me - the great difficulty is in the grammar. Consider, for example, the perfective/imperfective aspects of the verbs or the usage of the motion verbs.

 

[mamba]

Different strokes for different folks. If you prefer a PbtA style game, that says nothing about D&D style games.

agreed, I can see someone saying D&D has gaps, but that someone should then not be considering DW complete. DW has a lot more gaps than 5e does.

 

[mamba]

I just get tired of people claiming the game is mediocre design. That 5E is "serviceable" and that it's only popular because of advertising is just brought up in every thread that touches on 5E. It's ... old.

that’s fair, but I do not think its level of success can be explained by its rules being so much better than those of other TTRPGs either. I see this more as a pushback against ‘D&D is great or it would not be so popular’ than as a legitimate criticism

 

[mamba]

English is the lingua franca of the modern world.

Would you thus argue that, because so many people speak it, it must be easy to learn?

at least of the three languages I speak, it is the easiest to learn, and it is not my native language

This is not why English is the current lingua franca however, much like it is not why D&D is dominant

 

[mamba]

Here, you are simply, objectively incorrect. English is one of the most difficult languages to learn on Earth.

I would not base that on a blog post, pronunciation and exception issues exist in most languages.

While English may have more words than most (that post says a million), you will be hard pressed to get past 50,000 or so in modern novels or newspapers, so all these obscure words it accumulated over time do not matter that much

German is not easier to learn, while it does have fewer pronunciation issues, the whole der/die/das for male/female/neutral nouns will trip foreign speakers up more than those by itself.

Why is the bed neutral but the door female? Why is the girl neutral but the boy is not…

 

[mamba]

Sure. If Spanish is your native tongue, Italian will be relatively easy to pick up.

On the other hand, while english did show up on the top 10 languages difficult to learn, it wasn't near the top as the most difficult to learn of all languages on earth.

I am also pretty sure that ranking is not comprehensive, most languages in existence will not even be included (and many would end up higher on the list than English)

 

[mamba]

spanish has long been considered one of the easiest languages to learn. I'd find a better source.

I am sure the list was not comprehensive, but that pushes the languages on it further down, it should not affect their relative positions

 

[DEFCON 1]

at least of the three languages I speak, it is the easiest to learn, and it is not my native language

This is not why English is the current lingua franca however, much like it is not why D&D is dominant

My own unknowing guess would be that because so much pop culture comes out of the USA (including film, television, games etc.)... folks from other nations are perhaps inundated with American English so often that it becomes easier to "learn" said language? Because they have so much more exposure to it? Kind of like the same reason why it seems actors from other countries can develop American accents easier than Americans develop English/Irish/Australian accents and the like-- they are exposed to so much American television from an early age that their ears just become more accustomed to hearing it and repeating it.

Us Americans are so isolated when it comes to exposure to other nations' pop cultural influences that we don't hear other languages with any regularity enough to really pick up on anything.