Kelsey Dionne and Mike Mearls on Ben Riggs show Reading D&D aloud.

[darjr]

Kelsey Dionne and Mike Mearls on Ben Riggs show Reading D&D aloud. #trrpg #osr

 

[darjr]

Ben says of the show.
You will not regret spending an hour listening to this conversation between 5th edition designer Mike Mearls and Shadowdark designer Kelsey Dionne. The pair are without question two of the most outstanding game designers working in TTRPGs today, and in this episode, they each give us a peek into their persons and processes.

 

[zottel]

Finally found the time to watch it, was really interesting and entertaining to watch.
The insight into how they got started, while anecdotal, was especially good.

 

[TerraDave]

The origins stuff was good. It meandered a bit, just a bit, but very good overall.

Mearls continues to proclaim we are the very verge of some great indie RPG revival. I guess we will see.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The origins stuff was good. It meandered a bit, just a bit, but very good overall.

Mearls continues to proclaim we are the very verge of some great indie RPG revival. I guess we will see.

At the very least, the indies have an extra 6 months to get their stuff out there to their audiences for this "revival" now that GTA6 has been pushed back and will get released in May of '26. Because that's going to be an exceedingly long spear driven through the gaming community's time for probably at least 6-12 months following that. Yes, hardcore TTRPG players will still find the time to play their TTRPGs... but any gamer that's only tangential to the TTRPG space will probably see their involvement drop precipitously once they can jump into Vice City again.

So if any indy publishers can get their books out this Fall and hook potential players into starting new campaigns before the GTA beast swallows people whole... they might have a better shot at it.

 

[The Soloist]

My take on the supposed Indy revival, from the point of view of solo gamers, is that it started in 2020. So many Indy titles flooded the market since then in PDF or POD formats that it's impossible to follow, and it continues to this day.

 

[TerraDave]

There is so much stuff out there. But there has been.

The hypothesis is that now people are really starting to play it.