November 12, 2017

Yahtzee Fan Fiction

If you google for “Dungeons & Dragons fan fiction”, you’ll get back over a million results.

The first hit is for a popular fan fiction site that hosts over 1,700 D&D themed stories.

On that same site, there are precisely zero stories about Yahtzee.

What gives?

At a fundamental level, D&D and Yahtzee are both dice games.

Why does D&D inspire so much creative output from fans, and Yahtzee inspires none?

I think the difference lies in the scope of the creator’s initial vision.

Yahtzee is a fun game. It’s an entertaining way to pass the time.

D&D is a lifestyle. It has spawned an entire ecosystem of third party businesses.

I’m not saying one game is better than the other, they’re just different. They were created with different intents and therefore have had different impacts on society, business, and culture.

Now imagine for a second that business is a game.

Is the business you want to build more like Yahtzee or more like D&D?

Yours,

—J

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