TTRPG Scene is thriving locally, it's not like how I imagined ?
TTRPGS remain a somewhat niche hobby even at this age of post-pandemic, locally atleast. Don't get me wrong, the discord servers are blooming, communities are blossoming, for all purposes, this should've been the golden age, right? This statement got even more true when a famous youtuber, Raditya Dika, also started to play Dungeons and Dragons, boosting it's popularityf even futher than what CR did. However, there's a fundamental reason why this hobby will be difficult to be popular to not only popular people, but to one of the demographics that is the most potential in Indonesia: the younger people.
Before we discuss further (and why we're talking about it in the first place), let's ask ourselves a simple question. What are the barriers of entry when you want to try TTRPGs? These are complex, don't get me wrong, and I'm sure other blogs have discussed this extensively, but here are my answers that are relevant to my next points:
Let's break it down
Understanding the Mechanics
TTRPGs, are not an easy system to pickup. It's main function is to help facilitate our immersion in the world, but at the same time, it provides us with it's own models to help us achieve a certain predicament. How do you solve combat? Oh, we have a curated combat system in DnD (although not the best, even in trad games). Let's take a look at DnD, which is famous for being heavy especially for beginners. You have alot to consider even at character creation. All these stats, CHA or STR, which might be overwhelming. Not to mention you have plethora of options of races, classes, equipment, etc. Not only you need to choose, but you need to understand as well what they are and how they function. And you need to read alot. Of course, the payoff is that you can use a system that's fairly robust. You GM has plenty of tools to navigate you and your party, and you too have your own ways to interact with the world. But that is locked behind hours of familiarization and playing. Even if you understand the rulebook, you won't be able to have a complete grasp unless you play it. What ends up happening is that you need alot of investment to simply learn how the game can function, so you can navigate the system clearly. Without that, there's going to be a disconnect between you, other players, and ultimately the GM. Also, if you haven't picked up any CRPGS, then there's a chance that learning these new mechanics will be tough even if you are an avid game, or you play RPG games. They're similar, but the element of instant interactivity makes it so that you have to take decisions quickly, or else your friends and GM will continue the plot without you interupting for something that you wanted to do in the heat of the moment.
Though I'll say, after trying out other systems (and as someone that is an avid user of pathfinder 2e), the statement above becomes even more truer. It's hard to have fun when you don't know what you're doing. You can only have fun after rigirous trials and errors. There are so much spells in pathfinder that I've never even understood each and every one of them. It'll probably take me a good year or two until I can actually make my own judgements without relying on guides. But see, I have a support system, my good friends. What about newcomers? They probably don't, right? Pretty discouraging. This leads me to my next point,
Understanding the Lore
This probably isn't really necessary per se if you are running a homebrew world, but the fact that if you want to dive into the official made campaigns / adventure paths, which has the benefit of you can just play it out of the box without needing to prepare anything other than understanding the campaign itself, is a lucrative promise but at the same time a double edged sword for newcomers. The world of DnD, Pathfinder, is very vast. Lot's of expansions and the wide regions make it so that you can honestly try a new AP and you will probably never get bored trying each of them. Hell, in pathfinder, you can just play your good old forest fantasy, but if you want to play some wild west, there's a book for that! You want to play in a east east asia-ish place? We've got you. There's alot of variety, which means alot of options, which means that although it's nice to have alot of opportunities, it can be daunting, especially if we are just studying it straight from the original book rather than from a media that we are already exposed.
Homebrew itself is a problem in a sense, the fact that you HAVE to write down your desired world is daunting enough. Don't get me wrong, I personally enjoy worldbuilding, but some peoople are less inclined, especially those who hasn't even dipped their toes in this whole nerd subhobbies. And you gotta admit, worldbuiling is scary. There's so much aspects to consider, you don't even know if your world is good enough, or unique enough, or immersive enough. There's just so much barriers in writing your own homebrew world, that given the option, it would be wiser to just pick up a preexisting adventure path or module so that you can pick it up easier.
Woah! Say, you actually manage to pick up the mechanics AND lore. Wonderful! Probably took you a while. Oh but there's a hurdle now...which is....
Filling the Player requirements
TTRPGs, are not a solo adventure, except dedicated solo adventure books. They are made with interactivity, roleplay, and collaboration between players. This means that you cannot play it alone. Either you must convert your preexisting friend group to play DnD, or find people that wants to play DnD with you. This...is pretty daunting. Learning DnD by yourself is already a hard effort in itself, imagine having to convince 5 of your other friends to participate. This also assumes you still have a group of friends, maybe if you're young then that's okay. But if you're in your early 20s and you just started working and your coworkers don't seem interested in TTRPGs! That's another headache...Oh! What's that? Since you're probably the only one engrossed in DnD in your friend group so far, you knowledge of the game makes it so that you'll probably the one that's going to GM the session anyways. Sad...can't even be a player even though you invited the group to play DnD....There's alot of hurdle, really. As for finding communities, I'll talk about it exactly after this, but there's always a chance of not clicking. TTRPGs, after all, even if with their unique system, are a game run by the people. You can't play with either computer bots or AI, it's just not the same. Therefore, your enjoyability is on the hands of the table that you play, which could be exhausting if you want to find people that fits with you and you have to try over and over, or you try onto a long campaign but you don't feel like you're excited enough unlike others.
Fulfilling the Capital and Time investment
I've pretty much said the constraints of the time investment needed to understand the game and mechanics, but at the same time, this isn't technically a cheap hobby either. Of course, there are budget options in offline play to make it decent, but the fact you have to atleast print a map, or if we strip everything down, the cost of transportation is still there. You can opt to "buy" the official guidebook for your desired system, and although you can technically just print it out without needing to pay it (especially for DnD.), the quality will always be subpar to the real one. Don't forget to make the GM screen! Not really important if you're starting out, but like, it's kinda like the main saving grace of playing a DM. What is a DM without it's screen? And sure, you can try the online experience, which softwares like roll20 can certainly fill the minimum requirements, but really, if you want to have a good time with online experiences, you have to invest in foundry, which isn't cheap anyways. And then you have to learn to set up the modules inside, and you need to buy the maps as well if you want to have a smooth experience. There's alot of options, but man is it expensive. And sure, we can leave it at that, but this hobby, once you get invested, there are so many ways to pour capital to appreciate your table more. You can try cosplaying your PCs! You can try buying more premium resin dices! You can buy a custom made table solely for TTRPGs! You can make a room solely for sessions! The ceiling is limitless, really, only your imagination (and money) is what's stopping you!
There's many more, but this all is the main gist of the hurdles of the experiences that I feel newcomers feel when entering the hobby. It's no wonder then, looking at our list of challenges, TTRPGs are essentially perfect for working adults to above.
Before we discuss why is this relevant in the first place, let's flip the screen and see why aren't they alot of children that dips into this hobby.
Why...
It's funny to say this, because roleplay is still pretty famous when it comes to online fandoms, which is famous to be inhabited by the younger audience.CR is still also popular with it's fandom as well, proven by the immense edits and discussions even until today. But even though TTRPGs feature (and really heavily) on roleplay, we can simply see point 1 that the system in which they can roleplay is immensely difficult. Why study so much when you can just roleplay without restrictions?
Understanding the lore if you aren't invested in the first place is really hard. Especially for children, I think it's the opposite. You need to be hooked onto a media, a show, or somebody else's performance, in order for you to be motivated to explore around the world. This is the exact opposite if you're learning about TTRPGs from ground zero, you need to push through the boring rules and explanations so that you are rewarded with immersion of the fictional world that you inhabit together. Hell, on other systems, you are rewarded if you know alot about the current place, culture, etc.
"...That was a weird segment, I still don't understand why did you bring this up Rose..."
Right, let's finally move on then main point of this whole blog.
TTRPGs are mostly run by working adults and above.
"You brought this up what do you actua-"
I'm getting into it! Hush!
This means effectively that the community is run within the culture of working adults. Alot of things. Starting from the obvious one, the likeliness of your humor for example. Enjoyability of your table matters alot, and one of them is dependent on how your humor are closely intertwined with the rest of the group, because if you can't get a good laugh, chances you can't connect further, especially emotionally. This is further divided when the generational gap greatly affects the culture. For example, even though by technicality some older 20s people are gen z, but the humor is greatly placed within a spectrum. You might have heard tung tung tung sahur, or maybe six seven, but the lens to view this as a comedy is different between. I'm saying alot of words for a simple sentence: you might not get along, especially if you are young. In contrast, you're more likely to connect with fellow peers at the same age. Not all obviously, but given the different age gaps, I think you might agree. This also affects alot of things, such as the avaliability of playing in itself. Children has more access due to having less intensive workload at their daytime, and they usually have more leiasure time at night, while adults might be busy with their work at day, and end up getting tired at night, or prefer other nightlife activities that are only avaliable such as bars. Not to mention the economic power difference, children are less likely to be able to invest in their hobbies financially, while adults have more flexible freedom in achieving that dream.
I've met so much people in the Indonesian TTRPG scene, and while they are cool people, I can't help but think why are the dynamic so different from my table? It's not like my experience is suddenly not nice when I play outside my group. But moreso, I have to exert more energy and effort in order for me to immerse myself in it. I've come to appreciate the local communities, such as the really cool community LFG by Afraid of Encounters. There are really cool people that are dedicated to exploring the TTRPG hobby, they are actually insane (positive). I love how they basically discuss niche systems, and really break it down further. Engage in routine discussions, hosting for one another feel. Feels very cozy, I tell you. There are other communities, don't get me wrong, like TPK.JKT, but that community feels like it's focused on DnD, and moreso for casual players trying out sessions tailed for working adult, which is totally awesome! But I am reminded of the different culture that I have experienced myself. There's also a question of morality, such as the usage of AI generated images, which I found very distasteful, and I can't make myself enjoy in an environment where people would freely use AI, when literally TTRPGs is built upon so many artists collaborated, from visual artists, to story writers, to audio engineers. This hobby is supposed to be a celebration of arts, but there are people that openly disrespects artists. One of the few things I openly unfortunately dislike about the Indonesian TTRPG scene. Another blatantly obvious is the usage of the media that the people communicate itself. For adults, the popular application is whatsapp. While for younger people, discord is more robust. Not only discord are used more by youngsters, but also discord features alot of functionality that supports a community better, such as easy channels for different discussions, and also dedicated VC channels, unlike whatsapp's community feature.
Foreword: How do we actually make people attracted to TTRPGs?
We know TTRPGs are hard, and we want more people to understand our passions. It's been a running question for along time for every TTRPG enthusiasts, and the problem is the same as above. As long as those constraints are there, people will have a hard time entering the hobby. I personally have wrestled in this topic as well, and the solution I have come up with myself is to Introduce newcomers to a foreign system with a familiar location. Mechanics will be the more challenging approach, as with lore, you can just simply read and (hopefully) understand. With the mechanics, you yourself need to try it yourself, and try it again and again until you actually get it. This, I would consider the biggest hurdle. And while there's nothing we can do (unless we use a lighter system, but people will be even more unfamilliar), we can instead opt to give our players a theme of the campaign that they are actually familiar.
For example, one of the most popular games right now, gacha games, specifically by mihoyo, are a perfect chance to create a TTRPG session. Their lore are rich, there are alot of characters to choose and use, either as a PC or as an NPC, but also it's easy to insert your own canon, or you own story for your campaign to take place in. This means, that newcomers at least know about the world, and thus can navigate easily. Us, as GMs, are job is to assist their actions onto the system that we play currently. Trad games feels perfect for this (albeit steep learning curve), but I don't see why not other systems can work. it'll be hard though.
As a closing, I have asked alot of nerds that are my peers, that doesn't play DnD but are they willing to play or not. Majority answers they want to! But they can't! The TTRPG scene has long been viewed as niche, but the truth is, the demand are there. The potential to expand our games to more people is a real thing. It's just alot of times, it's hard for newcomers to adjust and learn about TTRPGs within their own pace. If you have your own friend group, you're lucky. If you don't? That's why communities exist. It's not there to replace a friend group though, but instead let's you connect with many others that share the same passion. But the barrier of entry is again, hard. We need to make sure that we can make our games and communities as accessible as possible. I want to be there for people, just like my dear friends and communities first introduced me to their lovely sessions.
Special shoutout to the good friends that helped me inspired writing this blog. I had this blog ready for general purposes, but after reading these I got so inspired I wrote this rambling in one afternoon. I usually write in a more, structured way, but seeing these blogs just drives my hand to overdrive.
https://wicakhidayat.wordpress.com/2026/05/04/we-could-should-be-heroes/
https://beeboobubie.substack.com/p/the-first-encounter-of-the-roleplaying
All stock photos are by pexels, just so the blog isn't that boring :>>.
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