Why GMs are all that matter

I made a comment on one of his posts and Zanazaz wrote a response. So I figure rather than promise him thoughts on this matter, I should deliver. So here goes.

Zanazaz is worried about how to get more players into the hobby. He is discussing the confusing nature of entering the hobby and how to provide resources to new players. But my reply is that he has this all backward.

First of all, this is how social formations actually work. The lesson of that video is that it is not about teaching players, it is about empowering GMs so that they can then go forth and recruit their friends into the hobby and act as advocates for the hobby. One person cannot do it, it requires empowered followers (the GMs in this case) that work to recruit more people into the hobby.

GMs recruit players to the hobby, not the actual marketing of the product. Sometimes people pick up the products based on the marketing, but unless they become GMs then there is no gaming going on. I would be willing to be that most GMs that exist today got started because they picked up a book on their own and said "this is great, I will try to make this work". Well, all those people have pretty much been tapped out. That strategy has run it's course.

And there is no new strategy on the part of the industry to go out and make more GMs proactively. They just keep doing the same thing they have always done.

Right now, I believe the hobby's decline is strongly related to WotCs decisions to publish more products aimed at players than at GMs (ex. Splatbooks). They got some short term sales boosts but the long-term damage has now set in.

Kings to you, Zanazaz.

And here is a little more art to tempt people. This goes on the page where I talk about the Karma stat.