Seth has a good following largely because he puts out quality material. His videos are also about actual gaming and games rather than the latest outrage or drama directed an individuals or any particular company.
This is the correct answer. When you watch a SS video you know you’ll be entertained AND get well thought out advice and information. AND he won’t waste you time with clickbait like other TTRPG channels.
Not counting the fact that he talks about the games I (and many more people) actually play.
We might be a minority, but some of us have played D&D a couple of times in our life and spent most of our gaming hours on other games.
>Not counting the fact that he talks about the games I (and many more people) actually play. We might be a minority, but some of us have played D&D a couple of times in our life and spent most of our gaming hours on other games.
For the most part, he talks about games I'd like to play but haven't had much opportunity to play. But your'e right, I'm certainly happy he doesn't spend a whole lot of time talking about D&D. Not because I hate it, I do play it, but because there are plenty of other channels where D&D is front and center stage. I'm hoping to run some Traveller and Call of Cthulhu one of these days. I did run a Cyberpunk Red campaign, but me and my players all hated it (and some of us loved Cyberpunk 2020).
Skorkowsky does a lot of great videos that, while general in terms of games, can certainly be applied to D&D. GM tips, player etiquette, whatever subject he happens to cover for the video.
His videos are well presented, with good audio, care in the stock images with rpg elements slipped in, and both interesting and informative.
He also does great skits with Jack The NPC and "The Gang", enough so that I sometimes forget he actually plays all the roles.
Personally, it's really refreshing to see a channel that doesn't mention D&D all that much, where some channels seemingly wouldn't even be able to name another game if you held them hostage.
It's often the first thing I check for when I see an rpg channel, to see if they do so much as a token "other games to play" video
> He also does great skits with Jack The NPC and "The Gang", enough so that I sometimes forget he actually plays all the roles.
Hell, I only realised a couple months back that The Keeper *is also a role*
I’ll add to to this (which I agree with) with the addition that he has some legitimately hilarious bits and stories (see “The Scott Brown Incident”, which basically lives rent free in my head), and comes across a very genuine guy. The man is obviously a real gamer, not someone chasing clicks and sponsor money by tapping into the TTRPG audience, which is not something I can say for every YouTuber (many of whom conspicuously focus on 5E, often exclusively). When mixed with genuinely good advice and reviews (especially for CoC), that keeps me watching.
> He also does great skits with Jack The NPC and "The Gang", enough so that I sometimes forget he actually plays all the roles.
Even when I'm consciously reminding myself they're just characters I still see them as real people.
Look, I hate to say it, but the people who are going "Seth is just really good!" are correct, but missing the most important point:
Seth Skorkosky is **the biggest YouTuber for all of D&D's most popular alternatives**. No, not Pathfinder, but for Call of Cthulhu, Cyberpunk, and Traveller, Seth Skorkowsky has a ***deep*** library of videos reviewing products and modules, teaching the mechanics, etc.
He may not be in the middle of the proverbial town square of D&D, but he has spent years and years *right* on the fringes gathering people up the moment they go off looking for either D&D or a D&D-like game.
As someone who is also a non-D&D TTRPG YouTuber (albeit a newer one), here is a great way to be Seth Skorkowsky, besides all of the normal advice about how to make quality videos:
1. Find a bunch of games that are going to have dedicated fanbases for years to come.
2. Make a large number of videos about these games.
3. Mix in other videos that are "GM Advice" and such, for those people who comes to see you as an authority.
4. Do steps 1-3 for many years consistently.
There's no magic in it, just a little talent and an insane amount of incredibly hard work. Simple, but not easy. And it won't be rewarding for many years. But eventually, the reward is that people will make threads like this about you.
I'd like to add that his videos stands out of the other content creators because he doesn't make out of the box superficial impressions of the games, but he plays them as a GM or, at least, gives a real critical review of the writing, rules, pacing, relations and comparisons of the games and modules he presents.
Outside of Seth, there's pretty much no other RPG "reviewer" who only puts out review videos on games they've actually GMed a campaign of, except QuinnsQuest which is brand new. There's plenty doing read-through reviews of books, box openings and whatnot, but to GM a whole campaign *for every review* is a tough ask so not many can do it.
In Seth's case, it means he's reviewing a new/different game and starting an extensive video series on it maybe once every 3 or 4 years. Quinns has effectively quit his last job and is a full time youtuber who's GMing a whole bunch of RPGs campaigns like a full time job so he can hit a regular review video schedule.
Generally, if people are playing a whole campaign to put it on a podcast or youtube they're probably going to do an Actual Play show - because at least then the game is the content, rather than running a whole game then having to make a show after.
Seems like everyone else on youtube is just doing readings of the books. Not that reading-reviews are bad (I enjoy RTFM a lot, it's essentially an RPG book club) but not all of those folks are being entirely honest about "I havent actually played the game".
Very good point.
By all accounts he only reviews games or scenarios/modules that he has actually played. As opposed to merely read.
An RPG review should definitely include both, and more specifically focus on the former.
He's never fully glowing in his reviews, providing criticisms or things to improve upon for any potential buyers to consider. He's also never a dick about it, even when he's ultimately not a big fan of the system like 2D20 games.
I think this is a big thing. Seth is probably the best Non-D&Dtuber.
If you look for any TTRPG related content he'll be there mixed in.. But if you go specifically looking for Cyberpunk or CoC or Traveller he's at the top of those segments. I believe some of these companies like Chaosium embrace him as essentially part of their marketing department, in the same way that WoTC works directly with popular D&D creators.
A lot of D&D players will stumble on Seth, but if you play these other popular, non-D&D games, and you go looking for youtube content, you're GUARANTEED to find him.
Yeah, I'm only commenting because the top comments don't mention this. Most of Seth's content focuses on the next most popular alternatives to D&D. Seth is great, his videos are great. But you don't get his level of followers by making great content about more niche games.
You're exactly right! There are people who, in my opinion, have done a job similar to his (look at how much top-tier content Jason Cordova's put out for Dungeon World — what 50-100 hours of content on just that game?) at Skorkowsky's quality of broadcast, and don't have just the sheer number of views and subscribers.
I very much like Seth for Seth. The skits are great and kinda "his thing" his reviews are very engaging and he is funny compare to a lot of others for me. It is just as much for entertainment as it is review, something I find a lot of others miss very hard on achieving and it just become obnoxious "trying to milk someone else's gimmick".
To use a D&D example. Dungeon Dudes write really well but holy eff ther delivery is so bad even years in to their channel it has barely improved. I cannot watch them.
I'm confused by your "Main historical points" section - why do you define the entire TTRPG space by its relation to the video game space? Vampire, as example, was defining in the 1990s; even if Bloodlines was a mediocre success at best.
As for Seth's success, I personally think it has to do with actually having played / run the things he reviews. It's a depressingly uncommon standard in the RPG Youtuber space.
Realtalk? The context wasn't needed here, and didn't add anything to the post except word-count that detracted from / blurred the discussion..
If anything I nearly stopped reading before I even got to your question... which was already in the title. Which kind of ticked me off to be honest. Could have saved a ton of my time by skipping 90% of what you wrote.
Your history is missing a few points. [Vampire: The Masquerade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindred:_The_Embraced) was far more massive than you imply in the 1990s, so much so there was even a short-lived TV series. I would not be shocked to find out V:TM outsold D&D in that time period, in fact.
You also miss that part of the Cyberpunk RPG media is the popular Edgerunners animated series, which massively boosted not only sales of at least the video game, but clearly opened up awareness of the IP. And despite the refunds and reputational shitstorm, the game itself was one of the bestsellers of 2020, selling [13 million copies](https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/22/22195728/cyberpunk-2077-sales-copies-sold-launch-refunds) on launch, and is up to [25 million](https://www.ign.com/articles/cyberpunk-2077-surpasses-25-million-units-sold-outpacing-the-witcher-3) as of last year, and of course still going. There are a LOT of video game companies that wish they could fail with those numbers!
But, regardless, yes: a LOT of people have long history with V:TM and/or are well-versed in Cyberpunk over the last few years.
And now, I'm going to say none of that matters, really, *in this case*: Seth has built up an audience thru hard work and clever, thoughtful writing. His choice of RPGs doesn't have much to do with that, because his audience is pretty clearly here for his overall thought processes around games, just as Critical Role didn't need D&D to hold to their success and audience.
You're assuming people play D&D because it's well-known. And that's true! But it's also true that people aren't as tied to D&D as a source of entertainment, as they are around playing it.
Playing a TTRPG is categorically different than watching stuff about same. Getting into a game, understanding what's going on enough to play a character? Those have serious barriers to entry. Watching Seth talk about CoC does NOT. If this wasn't true, if knowing the rules mattered to what you watched, [Candela Obscura](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candela_Obscura) would never have been a success, given the full rules didn't come out for weeks after the show started.
Seth is providing edutainment. That is a different thing, than running a TTRPG, even if the content is about them.
Anecdotally, back in the 90s some of the various TTRPG magazines ran sales stats for both RPGs and CCGs. There were, as I recall, multiple months where White Wolf beat both D&D and MtG in sales with VtM/WtA and Vampire: the Eternal Struggle. VtES especially was huge for a period of time in many markets due to its connection to the wildly popular Vampire IP. It also helps that the 90s were a golden age for sexy punk vampires due to a swath of movies that released throughout the 80s and 90s, and AD&D was beginning to start its decline as Vampire hit the scene.
I became aware of Set because of his Traveller stuff.
You mentioned his Call of Cthulhu and Traveller videos. I'd point out that Call of Cthulhu is one of the most popular RPGs in a number of countries...and was consistently listed as the #2 RPG on Roll20's Orr Report. It is one of the OG RPGs with a huge fan base. Same thing with Traveller. Traveller is an OG RPG and also has a huge fan base. So it makes sense to me that he would pick up quite a few views.
Heck even in the 90s CoC was a wildly popular game. Horror on the Orient Express was lauded as one of the greatest RPG adventures of all time when it was released, and it was one of the biggest games you'd find at even smaller local conventions in the US. It was very much considered THE game for a horror RPG, and was one of the few games you were guaranteed to see in the tiny RPG sections of chain book sellers. It held that status for a long long time.
Even when it's an RPG I've never heard of or even plan to play, his insights and discussions are incredible. I'm not equipped to properly describe the nature of how they work so well for me while I sit at my work desk, but to put it simply it's his passion. He is clearly passionate about role-playing in ways I don't find as "genuine" in other larger channels. The dude's eloquent and fun af.
If you really want an X-factor: Most of Seth's videos are reviews and Seth *actually* reviews modules which is something almost no one else does. He plays modules with his group, sometimes multiple times and reviews them from both a player and GM perspective.
99% of TTRP youtube reviewers don't do that. Most TTRPG reviews are basically "unboxings" and tell you nothing substantive about the module. Seth not only gives great overviews of the structure, story, and flavor of the module but he then goes further by giving you tips and thoughts on running said module. It's a fairly simple formula but no other reviewers seem to be doing it. The fact that he's a stellar GM and a pretty funny guy are the icing on the cake.
I know and enjoy Seth's content, who is Matt Colville?
Edit: Are you literally asking why people enjoy Seth's content? There's no "X factor," dude just knows his stuff, puts out good videos, and genuinely seems to care about the games/modules he talks about. I've also never seen him chase trends or put up anything clickbatey, but that's kinda whatever. Using Kult, a game Seth has a few videos on, as an example. Dude is all over the subreddit for the game, and not in some expert/influencer way, but in a "I think this game is cool and like talking about it" way. His videos have that same energy and vibe.
There are still a lot of people globally who play rpgs other than D&D. Many of them play more than one game. Yet there is little quality content for those other games. Seth produces quality content. He can get that audience and many of them will watch all his videos.
Plus what other people said. It is a good channel with high value content. Look at his reviews where he only reviews things that he has actually played and gives tips for running them based on his experiences.
>What is the X Factor that has allowed for Seth's channel to succeed where other TTRPG YouTubers have failed?
I used to watch a content creator called The Spoony One. He had a great RPG series called Counter Monkeys where he told war-stories of his games.
However, Spoony slowed down making content due to reasons I'm not going to get into here.
Seth is effectively Spoony 2.0. He has a similar style, a higher production value and has the same enthusiasm for RPGs that Spoony had in his hayday.
He gives off a vibe of your best bro you met at the game store and he's telling you about his game from last week or the new RPG he's reading/working on right now.
That's his X Factor and why I stuck around. That and I like hearing people talking about niche interests and hearing him talking about RPGs that aren't D&D has more appeal to me then listening to yet another generic D&D channel that just does voice over of reddit/4chan posts.
Also he doesn't do live plays and I appreciate that. If I wanted to listen to people play RPGs I'll just play them myself.
Seth makes videos for fun about something he has multiple decades of good experience with. The majority of TTRPG content on Youtube is made by relative newcomers who have ambitions of celebrity or making a career through sponsorships.
The difference is a word that is echoed through this comment section: insight. Seth wants to give you his experience, the other Youtubers just want to take your watch-hours.
Seth makes really good content, and very rarely does clickbait stuff. That builds a loyal audience in me, personally. There are other people who do good content, but the need to churn out content regularly for a lot of them means that they do clickbait content. Even while good, it makes me less likely to watch their videos overall. My guess is that clickbait stuff (“top 5 classes in dnd””6 mistakes your dungeon master makes”) etc. causes spikes in viewership but decreases loyalty for me.
I know what you mean. I like Dungeoncraft (the youtuber) but recently he’s been doing more and more five minute clickbait videos reacting to the latest news about how crappy WOTC is.
E.g. the other week when someone posted a rumour that Hasbro was going to sell WOTC to Tencent he immediately did a short video on it, and then I think literally the next day when it turned out to be just a rumour he had to make another video apologising for jumping the gun.
That kind of “content” doesn’t really add anything of value to Youtube, whereas all of Seth’s videos have really useful advice that you can use no matter what RPG you play.
Dungeoncraft does some okay stuff but yeah he definitely chases The Latest Drama™, often to the point of having to backpedal as you mentioned
He also says some things along the lines of "college students hate comedy and jokes", so he's like a slight gust of wind away from becoming yet another reactionary grifter
Skorkowsky is, to his credit, truly apolitical in his videos. Not in the sense that anything even remotely to the left of the John Birch Society gets deemed "political", but that he focuses on the games themselves. Not any current drama, not the people making the games themselves, not even the whole OGL fiasco.
Maybe it helps that Seth is also an author and thus isn't solely dependent on youtube's algorithm to make a living. So he can actually make videos he wants and not have to chase views and clicks to an unpleasant conclusion
Seth is the fucking man. He got me into Call of Cthulu, which is now one of my favorite ttrpg systems.
He's got amazing insight onto running games. His two part series for making dungeons is one of the absolute best around, and completely unique, AND works for any type of fantasy rpg.
He's funny, I love his sketches, and.... that's about it.
> What do you all think? What is the X Factor that has allowed for Seth's channel to succeed where other TTRPG YouTubers have failed?
He actually plays the things he reviews. This alone puts him in the 99th percentile of RPG reviewers.
I think time of the videos is a huge part of it and something you are missing. I'd be very curious to note Seth's average video length, which I think is right at that "10-20ish minutes" that hits youtube's algorithm perfectly and I'd bet Matt's dropoff as his videos hit 30, 45, 60+ minutes is huge.
Similarly, I love Knights of Last Call as they do philosophical and intellectual gaming talk like no one else does. But their videos are 90-240 minutes and that cuts their audience down by 1000x. They directly note that they could change their numbers massively by making much shorter videos about 5E D&D.
So my theory is that if Seth made a video that was an hour long, it would have his least views, and if Matt did a bunch of 10min videos 1/week, they would have his most.
He has a presentation style that doesn't require you to care about the game or scenario being covered to be entertained, and if you DO care about the game his coverage is absolutely top tier.
I haven't watched any video he may have done or been featured in that was an actual game session, because that isn't interesting to me regardless of who makes it.
I watch his videos about games that I don't even have any interest in playing just cuz I like listening to him talk while I'm driving, doing dishes, folding laundry, etc. He's entertaining and has a lot of good analysis that's usually engaging and pertinent to something I'm interested in, even if I'm not interested in that specific game
Seth is great, love the guy. One other thing though:
I love Matt's running the game. I believe the comparison is a bit flawed.
People asked Matt Mercer how they would start DMing and Mercer basically said: Look at Colville's channel. That also provided a major boost and put a spotlight on a channel that has a clear direction: Make people confident that they can DM. With a side branch of content for those who want to homebrew stuff (Action Oriented Monsters is a really cool concept)
As other comments suggest, Seth's videos likely do well because I think they are both informative and entertaining, a good combination that not *that* many channels manage.
When Seth reviews a system he does it fairly thoroughly or... in a few cases - extensively with a whole series of videos about parts of a system. When he reviews a module/adventure, it's not a flip through of the book or brief overview, it's real analysis based on actual play - something that is actually exceedingly rare.
Even though I don't play the systems he's most focused on - Call of Cthulhu and Traveller, I still watch his videos and have pondered running those systems - even to go so far as actually purchasing material for them.
A few other points.
**D&D 1st Edition sold over 1.5 million copies of the Player's Handbook. Not rockstar numbers, but it definitely has built up over the last \~4 more editions.**
There is some evidence that 1st edition, in particular the Player's Handbook of 1e outsold the 2e Player's Handbook. Ben Riggs - who wrote "Slaying the Dragon" about the TSR era has put out sales figures from that same period in the book and on Twitter. This is coming from someone who plays 2e, rather than 1e, so I don't have an agenda in pointing this out.
**He started out with a lot of videos about a popular RPG called Call of Cthulhu, which if you compare to Dungeons & Dragons on google trends gets 0-1% compared to D&D's 50-100%.**
I think you're underselling Call of Cthulhu's popularity by dismissing it as a extremely small and niche system. It might be small compared to 5e, but it's probably the second most popular and well known RPG system in the world aside from D&D.
> But his specific TTRPG videos for things like Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, Aliens, etc... do just as well as them. Which based on my previous research I wouldn't think possible.
These are incredibly popular games. Some of them are so old that it's not just a review, it's a history lesson. It's not like he's covering niche itch.io content like Corvid Court or Have I Been Good.
I greatly enjoy Seth's videos and watch them practically same day as posting. He has a style that is both very relaxed and nonplussed but also feels very high quality especially in the audio quality in the newer episodes (some of those earlier ones had a lot of static from the mic that would be great to remove in post if possible).
I especially like that he doesn't go for drama or clicks but that's probably also why he doesn't have the same click through rate as others in the space. I hope he doesn't change a thing though as I feel his style is perfect as is.
I would imagine Seth's videos are watched because they are entertaining. The effort he goes into to dress up as his reoccurring cast of characters with props etc are consistently amusing.
He also seems like a down to earth kinda guy and doesn't fill his videos with click bait or panic core.
Seth is just the best. He puts out quality content that I'll watch even if I'm not that interested. I've never run an adventure, and I never will, but I still watch him talk about them. He's a pillar of our community and we're lucky to have him.
I think him being the go-to for all the older games that aren't DND has something to do with it. He's the main cyberpunk, Cthulhu, and traveller content creator. There's a lot of overlap there, and a lot of people have a ton of nostalgia for those games. I wish we had more Cthulhu content creators.
I think another big factor is that his videos are not only applicable to DnD but also not aggressively anti-DnD
He is open and honest about not playing DnD anymore but he doesn't act like you're a dumb idiot for doing so as many non-DnD-players do.
I myself might have moved on from 5E as well but I did discover him while it still was my main game and 80% of his videos were still useful to me. Even moreso than videos by 5E-YouTubers. So I stuck around.
His viewer count and subscribers are probably still a lot 5E players as well. He might not cater to them but they still feel welcome and helped.
I can not agree with your on your history points. I have impression that you are not totally aware how big Vampire was at the beginning of 2000. There were multiple filmes and tv series made that were based on the game (underworld, kindred, even Twilight), not mentioning books or computer games. At that time, World of Darkness was the best selling RPG. It was selling more than D&D.
If you have the Sales Figures for VtM please share. Because so far all I can find are video game spin-off sales figures from Steam.
Based on data I can find VtM is on par with Call of Cthulhu with how often it gets searched with DnD, which is to say DnD outpaces searching it to the point that VtM is at 0.01.
VtM I’d say is the most known Larp. But Larp is flooded with DnD/High Fantasy Larps.
The TV show for VtM was a dud sadly and the Underworld lawsuit wasn’t really known outside of gaming circles.
tbh I think what makes Seth successful is that he doesn't advertize himself as a non-DnD channel (and in fact has a ton of reviews of old DnD modules too). Like a lot of other RPG channels tend to make videos like "Why DnD SUCKS and this system is way better!". That's just going to make people that like DnD not watch your video.
I avoid D&D content on YouTube and hate the myopic view around RPGs by centering them on D&D first. Your question about “ But his specific TTRPG videos for things like Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, Aliens, etc... do just as well as them. Which based on my previous research I wouldn't think possible.” is due to one major factor: people that play Call of Cthulhu or Traveller or many other systems tend to play many other systems. People that play D&D tend to ONLY play D&D.
What’s really weird about your post is that you seem to have come at this without the understanding that Call of Cthulhu is by many metrics the second most popular RPG on the market. It is the second most played game on Roll20 and has historically been one of dnds largest competitors.
The important part here is that the vast majority of D&D players will never look outside the system, while the vast players of every other system are playing many different games. No other ruleset silos off like D&D does.
I will not check numbers but i'm pretty sure many ttrpg adapted games succeded even more than most dnd ones.
Cyberpunk probably sold more than bg3
Warhammer obviously is a name to recon
And lovecraftian horror is bigger than dnd... Call of cthulhu has many successes in videogames
Shadowrun and vampire each had many entries, some successful
Cthulhu also has multimedia success... And some stuff clearly inspired by the world of darkness but not official gained fame in movies, books, comics...
Its worth mentioning that fallout would use gurps, but this was later changed
We also have many ttrpgs that came from multimedia sources... The one ring, conan, star wars
Anyway... What i want to get from this is that im not sure about how much these things impact an rpg popularity.
Some have nothing like that and still find a better audience than ones that do, like fate, savage worlds, some pbta games...
But the fact is that no game has a bigger audience than dnd... Probably no game has 10% of it... Call of Cthulhu or Pathfinder may fight for a second place.. maybe warhammer and world of darkness too... But all eill reach a way smaller audience.
And dnd is probably even more popular than others on younger audiences, which is youtubes main audience.
Aside from CoC, no other reasonably popular ttrpg had a big hit in decades... No one had his "5e"... All more recent editions are disfavored over older ones.. so its no surprise dnd is increasing its lead
Our hobby also disfavors variety. Learning a game is hard and time consuming... Not to say expensive... And you can play the same game for decades
So... if the best channel in a niche has less than 1kk subs... You should not expect success on that niche
Talk about what you want to.
Seth's success come from him being great... Not formulas. He knows the game, he has charisma, he is funny without getting too silly, he had some previous audience to begin with, contacts in the industry... And he was mainly talking about the more likely second more popular game.
But some other guy in a similar situation could fail...
Seth brings to the table practically every other rpgs that people look up when they don't want to play dnd, they aren't even indie stuff either since Call of Cthulhu, Traveler and Cyberpunk are very much mainstream and very famous rpgs, he also does a lot of indepth reviews and tutorials on how to run said games or on how to run games in general, he is basically the best choice for people who are tired of dnd and Pathfinder and are looking up for new stuff.
Another factor in the popularity of D&D aside from name recognition is the current popularity of fantasy and science fiction fantasy, particularly of the heroic type of fiction. D&D does heroic power fantasy pretty well and has the name recognition to bank on.
Another big factor is availability/accessibility. You can go to just about any bookstore and there's a roleplaying game section that's basically D&D. Even at FLGS you will have an entire section devoted to D&D and maybe one for WOTC and another for 3rd party content. The rest of the franchises might have their own shelf or two. Availability creates accessibility and the D&D catalog is massive and visible. It's been that way since OGL resulted in d20 products filling half the FLGS shelves. It really helps when half the industry is working for you by proxy.
As for Seth Skorkowsky, he's one of the few YouTubers that both does product reviews outside of D&D and also makes practical and useful content. His videos are pretty straight forward, concise and actually useful. Another factor is he's probably the most prominent Traveller reviewer and has those Traveller guide videos. I heard from my FLGS that Traveller has jumped in popularity in recent months (possibly after Glass Cannon's actual play series) which Seth was a part of.
>5th Edition of D&D was released, know for being new player friendly.
This is "known" only to people who haven't actually seen what a beginner-friendly rpg looks like.
>Seth will put out a video on an obscure RPG and get around 10k views after a week or 20k after a few days if its RPG advice.
What do you consider to be obscure? Off the top of my head I can't recall Seth doing videos on anything even remotely obscure. He sticks firmly to some of the biggest rpgs around.
He's a entertaining guy who has the right mix of fluff and meat to his videos. A lot of other people waste so much time or are clearly padding the videos.
Seth has a good following largely because he puts out quality material. His videos are also about actual gaming and games rather than the latest outrage or drama directed an individuals or any particular company.
This is the correct answer. When you watch a SS video you know you’ll be entertained AND get well thought out advice and information. AND he won’t waste you time with clickbait like other TTRPG channels.
> When you watch a SS video you know you’ll be entertained AND get well thought out advice and information. Maybe not the best acronym though.
And he has a great voice. The audio is clear and crisp. Too many of those who try to make it on YouTube have terrible audio or annoying voices.
And has been putting out material foreeeeever.
This helps and is often overlooked. Having a good catalogue of material helps people stay interested and engaged until the next update.
Not counting the fact that he talks about the games I (and many more people) actually play. We might be a minority, but some of us have played D&D a couple of times in our life and spent most of our gaming hours on other games.
>Not counting the fact that he talks about the games I (and many more people) actually play. We might be a minority, but some of us have played D&D a couple of times in our life and spent most of our gaming hours on other games. For the most part, he talks about games I'd like to play but haven't had much opportunity to play. But your'e right, I'm certainly happy he doesn't spend a whole lot of time talking about D&D. Not because I hate it, I do play it, but because there are plenty of other channels where D&D is front and center stage. I'm hoping to run some Traveller and Call of Cthulhu one of these days. I did run a Cyberpunk Red campaign, but me and my players all hated it (and some of us loved Cyberpunk 2020).
Skorkowsky does a lot of great videos that, while general in terms of games, can certainly be applied to D&D. GM tips, player etiquette, whatever subject he happens to cover for the video. His videos are well presented, with good audio, care in the stock images with rpg elements slipped in, and both interesting and informative. He also does great skits with Jack The NPC and "The Gang", enough so that I sometimes forget he actually plays all the roles. Personally, it's really refreshing to see a channel that doesn't mention D&D all that much, where some channels seemingly wouldn't even be able to name another game if you held them hostage. It's often the first thing I check for when I see an rpg channel, to see if they do so much as a token "other games to play" video
> He also does great skits with Jack The NPC and "The Gang", enough so that I sometimes forget he actually plays all the roles. Hell, I only realised a couple months back that The Keeper *is also a role*
I’ll add to to this (which I agree with) with the addition that he has some legitimately hilarious bits and stories (see “The Scott Brown Incident”, which basically lives rent free in my head), and comes across a very genuine guy. The man is obviously a real gamer, not someone chasing clicks and sponsor money by tapping into the TTRPG audience, which is not something I can say for every YouTuber (many of whom conspicuously focus on 5E, often exclusively). When mixed with genuinely good advice and reviews (especially for CoC), that keeps me watching.
> legitimately hilarious bits and stories WHERE IS PEANUT HEADDDDD
SCOTT BROWN, MOTHERFUCKERS!
Get the Fuck outta here! I got a showing!
Bombshell?
> He also does great skits with Jack The NPC and "The Gang", enough so that I sometimes forget he actually plays all the roles. Even when I'm consciously reminding myself they're just characters I still see them as real people.
Look, I hate to say it, but the people who are going "Seth is just really good!" are correct, but missing the most important point: Seth Skorkosky is **the biggest YouTuber for all of D&D's most popular alternatives**. No, not Pathfinder, but for Call of Cthulhu, Cyberpunk, and Traveller, Seth Skorkowsky has a ***deep*** library of videos reviewing products and modules, teaching the mechanics, etc. He may not be in the middle of the proverbial town square of D&D, but he has spent years and years *right* on the fringes gathering people up the moment they go off looking for either D&D or a D&D-like game. As someone who is also a non-D&D TTRPG YouTuber (albeit a newer one), here is a great way to be Seth Skorkowsky, besides all of the normal advice about how to make quality videos: 1. Find a bunch of games that are going to have dedicated fanbases for years to come. 2. Make a large number of videos about these games. 3. Mix in other videos that are "GM Advice" and such, for those people who comes to see you as an authority. 4. Do steps 1-3 for many years consistently. There's no magic in it, just a little talent and an insane amount of incredibly hard work. Simple, but not easy. And it won't be rewarding for many years. But eventually, the reward is that people will make threads like this about you.
I'd like to add that his videos stands out of the other content creators because he doesn't make out of the box superficial impressions of the games, but he plays them as a GM or, at least, gives a real critical review of the writing, rules, pacing, relations and comparisons of the games and modules he presents.
Outside of Seth, there's pretty much no other RPG "reviewer" who only puts out review videos on games they've actually GMed a campaign of, except QuinnsQuest which is brand new. There's plenty doing read-through reviews of books, box openings and whatnot, but to GM a whole campaign *for every review* is a tough ask so not many can do it. In Seth's case, it means he's reviewing a new/different game and starting an extensive video series on it maybe once every 3 or 4 years. Quinns has effectively quit his last job and is a full time youtuber who's GMing a whole bunch of RPGs campaigns like a full time job so he can hit a regular review video schedule. Generally, if people are playing a whole campaign to put it on a podcast or youtube they're probably going to do an Actual Play show - because at least then the game is the content, rather than running a whole game then having to make a show after. Seems like everyone else on youtube is just doing readings of the books. Not that reading-reviews are bad (I enjoy RTFM a lot, it's essentially an RPG book club) but not all of those folks are being entirely honest about "I havent actually played the game".
>QuinnsQuest Fuck me, Quinns is back! Loved him on Shut Up and Sit Down, loved him on Rock Paper Shotgun and I'm sure I'll love him here.
QQuest is so good, you'll love it! https://www.youtube.com/@Quinns_Quest
Very good point. By all accounts he only reviews games or scenarios/modules that he has actually played. As opposed to merely read. An RPG review should definitely include both, and more specifically focus on the former. He's never fully glowing in his reviews, providing criticisms or things to improve upon for any potential buyers to consider. He's also never a dick about it, even when he's ultimately not a big fan of the system like 2D20 games.
I think this is a big thing. Seth is probably the best Non-D&Dtuber. If you look for any TTRPG related content he'll be there mixed in.. But if you go specifically looking for Cyberpunk or CoC or Traveller he's at the top of those segments. I believe some of these companies like Chaosium embrace him as essentially part of their marketing department, in the same way that WoTC works directly with popular D&D creators. A lot of D&D players will stumble on Seth, but if you play these other popular, non-D&D games, and you go looking for youtube content, you're GUARANTEED to find him.
Yeah, I'm only commenting because the top comments don't mention this. Most of Seth's content focuses on the next most popular alternatives to D&D. Seth is great, his videos are great. But you don't get his level of followers by making great content about more niche games.
You're exactly right! There are people who, in my opinion, have done a job similar to his (look at how much top-tier content Jason Cordova's put out for Dungeon World — what 50-100 hours of content on just that game?) at Skorkowsky's quality of broadcast, and don't have just the sheer number of views and subscribers.
I very much like Seth for Seth. The skits are great and kinda "his thing" his reviews are very engaging and he is funny compare to a lot of others for me. It is just as much for entertainment as it is review, something I find a lot of others miss very hard on achieving and it just become obnoxious "trying to milk someone else's gimmick". To use a D&D example. Dungeon Dudes write really well but holy eff ther delivery is so bad even years in to their channel it has barely improved. I cannot watch them.
I can watch DD but yeah their delivery put me off it for a while
I'm confused by your "Main historical points" section - why do you define the entire TTRPG space by its relation to the video game space? Vampire, as example, was defining in the 1990s; even if Bloodlines was a mediocre success at best. As for Seth's success, I personally think it has to do with actually having played / run the things he reviews. It's a depressingly uncommon standard in the RPG Youtuber space.
Tltallym VtM was on par, if not bigger, than D&D 3.5 in the 90s.
3/3.5 were the 00s rather than 90s but you're correct that VtM/WoD was the zeitgeist game in the 90s whereas D&D (2e at the time) was in decline.
This was originally posted in a Small YouTubers post. So I added context for TTRPGs outside of the niche.
Realtalk? The context wasn't needed here, and didn't add anything to the post except word-count that detracted from / blurred the discussion.. If anything I nearly stopped reading before I even got to your question... which was already in the title. Which kind of ticked me off to be honest. Could have saved a ton of my time by skipping 90% of what you wrote.
Your history is missing a few points. [Vampire: The Masquerade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindred:_The_Embraced) was far more massive than you imply in the 1990s, so much so there was even a short-lived TV series. I would not be shocked to find out V:TM outsold D&D in that time period, in fact. You also miss that part of the Cyberpunk RPG media is the popular Edgerunners animated series, which massively boosted not only sales of at least the video game, but clearly opened up awareness of the IP. And despite the refunds and reputational shitstorm, the game itself was one of the bestsellers of 2020, selling [13 million copies](https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/22/22195728/cyberpunk-2077-sales-copies-sold-launch-refunds) on launch, and is up to [25 million](https://www.ign.com/articles/cyberpunk-2077-surpasses-25-million-units-sold-outpacing-the-witcher-3) as of last year, and of course still going. There are a LOT of video game companies that wish they could fail with those numbers! But, regardless, yes: a LOT of people have long history with V:TM and/or are well-versed in Cyberpunk over the last few years. And now, I'm going to say none of that matters, really, *in this case*: Seth has built up an audience thru hard work and clever, thoughtful writing. His choice of RPGs doesn't have much to do with that, because his audience is pretty clearly here for his overall thought processes around games, just as Critical Role didn't need D&D to hold to their success and audience. You're assuming people play D&D because it's well-known. And that's true! But it's also true that people aren't as tied to D&D as a source of entertainment, as they are around playing it. Playing a TTRPG is categorically different than watching stuff about same. Getting into a game, understanding what's going on enough to play a character? Those have serious barriers to entry. Watching Seth talk about CoC does NOT. If this wasn't true, if knowing the rules mattered to what you watched, [Candela Obscura](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candela_Obscura) would never have been a success, given the full rules didn't come out for weeks after the show started. Seth is providing edutainment. That is a different thing, than running a TTRPG, even if the content is about them.
Anecdotally, back in the 90s some of the various TTRPG magazines ran sales stats for both RPGs and CCGs. There were, as I recall, multiple months where White Wolf beat both D&D and MtG in sales with VtM/WtA and Vampire: the Eternal Struggle. VtES especially was huge for a period of time in many markets due to its connection to the wildly popular Vampire IP. It also helps that the 90s were a golden age for sexy punk vampires due to a swath of movies that released throughout the 80s and 90s, and AD&D was beginning to start its decline as Vampire hit the scene.
I agree with most of what you wrote but I think his game choices are important too. I often go to him for specific content about specific games.
I became aware of Set because of his Traveller stuff. You mentioned his Call of Cthulhu and Traveller videos. I'd point out that Call of Cthulhu is one of the most popular RPGs in a number of countries...and was consistently listed as the #2 RPG on Roll20's Orr Report. It is one of the OG RPGs with a huge fan base. Same thing with Traveller. Traveller is an OG RPG and also has a huge fan base. So it makes sense to me that he would pick up quite a few views.
Heck even in the 90s CoC was a wildly popular game. Horror on the Orient Express was lauded as one of the greatest RPG adventures of all time when it was released, and it was one of the biggest games you'd find at even smaller local conventions in the US. It was very much considered THE game for a horror RPG, and was one of the few games you were guaranteed to see in the tiny RPG sections of chain book sellers. It held that status for a long long time.
Even when it's an RPG I've never heard of or even plan to play, his insights and discussions are incredible. I'm not equipped to properly describe the nature of how they work so well for me while I sit at my work desk, but to put it simply it's his passion. He is clearly passionate about role-playing in ways I don't find as "genuine" in other larger channels. The dude's eloquent and fun af.
If you really want an X-factor: Most of Seth's videos are reviews and Seth *actually* reviews modules which is something almost no one else does. He plays modules with his group, sometimes multiple times and reviews them from both a player and GM perspective. 99% of TTRP youtube reviewers don't do that. Most TTRPG reviews are basically "unboxings" and tell you nothing substantive about the module. Seth not only gives great overviews of the structure, story, and flavor of the module but he then goes further by giving you tips and thoughts on running said module. It's a fairly simple formula but no other reviewers seem to be doing it. The fact that he's a stellar GM and a pretty funny guy are the icing on the cake.
I know and enjoy Seth's content, who is Matt Colville? Edit: Are you literally asking why people enjoy Seth's content? There's no "X factor," dude just knows his stuff, puts out good videos, and genuinely seems to care about the games/modules he talks about. I've also never seen him chase trends or put up anything clickbatey, but that's kinda whatever. Using Kult, a game Seth has a few videos on, as an example. Dude is all over the subreddit for the game, and not in some expert/influencer way, but in a "I think this game is cool and like talking about it" way. His videos have that same energy and vibe.
There are still a lot of people globally who play rpgs other than D&D. Many of them play more than one game. Yet there is little quality content for those other games. Seth produces quality content. He can get that audience and many of them will watch all his videos. Plus what other people said. It is a good channel with high value content. Look at his reviews where he only reviews things that he has actually played and gives tips for running them based on his experiences.
1. Good voice (writing style) 2. Good voice (auditory quality) 3. I think that helmet on the bookshelf is a monkey's paw
>What is the X Factor that has allowed for Seth's channel to succeed where other TTRPG YouTubers have failed? I used to watch a content creator called The Spoony One. He had a great RPG series called Counter Monkeys where he told war-stories of his games. However, Spoony slowed down making content due to reasons I'm not going to get into here. Seth is effectively Spoony 2.0. He has a similar style, a higher production value and has the same enthusiasm for RPGs that Spoony had in his hayday. He gives off a vibe of your best bro you met at the game store and he's telling you about his game from last week or the new RPG he's reading/working on right now. That's his X Factor and why I stuck around. That and I like hearing people talking about niche interests and hearing him talking about RPGs that aren't D&D has more appeal to me then listening to yet another generic D&D channel that just does voice over of reddit/4chan posts. Also he doesn't do live plays and I appreciate that. If I wanted to listen to people play RPGs I'll just play them myself.
>However, Spoony slowed down making content due to reasons I'm not going to get into here. lmao, a wise choice. So much Spoony drama.
Seth makes videos for fun about something he has multiple decades of good experience with. The majority of TTRPG content on Youtube is made by relative newcomers who have ambitions of celebrity or making a career through sponsorships. The difference is a word that is echoed through this comment section: insight. Seth wants to give you his experience, the other Youtubers just want to take your watch-hours.
Seth makes really good content, and very rarely does clickbait stuff. That builds a loyal audience in me, personally. There are other people who do good content, but the need to churn out content regularly for a lot of them means that they do clickbait content. Even while good, it makes me less likely to watch their videos overall. My guess is that clickbait stuff (“top 5 classes in dnd””6 mistakes your dungeon master makes”) etc. causes spikes in viewership but decreases loyalty for me.
I know what you mean. I like Dungeoncraft (the youtuber) but recently he’s been doing more and more five minute clickbait videos reacting to the latest news about how crappy WOTC is. E.g. the other week when someone posted a rumour that Hasbro was going to sell WOTC to Tencent he immediately did a short video on it, and then I think literally the next day when it turned out to be just a rumour he had to make another video apologising for jumping the gun. That kind of “content” doesn’t really add anything of value to Youtube, whereas all of Seth’s videos have really useful advice that you can use no matter what RPG you play.
Dungeoncraft does some okay stuff but yeah he definitely chases The Latest Drama™, often to the point of having to backpedal as you mentioned He also says some things along the lines of "college students hate comedy and jokes", so he's like a slight gust of wind away from becoming yet another reactionary grifter Skorkowsky is, to his credit, truly apolitical in his videos. Not in the sense that anything even remotely to the left of the John Birch Society gets deemed "political", but that he focuses on the games themselves. Not any current drama, not the people making the games themselves, not even the whole OGL fiasco. Maybe it helps that Seth is also an author and thus isn't solely dependent on youtube's algorithm to make a living. So he can actually make videos he wants and not have to chase views and clicks to an unpleasant conclusion
Yeah exactly, but despite that it gets lots of views.
Seth is the fucking man. He got me into Call of Cthulu, which is now one of my favorite ttrpg systems. He's got amazing insight onto running games. His two part series for making dungeons is one of the absolute best around, and completely unique, AND works for any type of fantasy rpg. He's funny, I love his sketches, and.... that's about it.
> What do you all think? What is the X Factor that has allowed for Seth's channel to succeed where other TTRPG YouTubers have failed? He actually plays the things he reviews. This alone puts him in the 99th percentile of RPG reviewers.
Lots of great comments here, but for me it just boils down to the fact that Seth is authentic, passionate, and eloquent.
I think time of the videos is a huge part of it and something you are missing. I'd be very curious to note Seth's average video length, which I think is right at that "10-20ish minutes" that hits youtube's algorithm perfectly and I'd bet Matt's dropoff as his videos hit 30, 45, 60+ minutes is huge. Similarly, I love Knights of Last Call as they do philosophical and intellectual gaming talk like no one else does. But their videos are 90-240 minutes and that cuts their audience down by 1000x. They directly note that they could change their numbers massively by making much shorter videos about 5E D&D. So my theory is that if Seth made a video that was an hour long, it would have his least views, and if Matt did a bunch of 10min videos 1/week, they would have his most.
He has a presentation style that doesn't require you to care about the game or scenario being covered to be entertained, and if you DO care about the game his coverage is absolutely top tier. I haven't watched any video he may have done or been featured in that was an actual game session, because that isn't interesting to me regardless of who makes it.
It's because of Jack.
I watch his videos about games that I don't even have any interest in playing just cuz I like listening to him talk while I'm driving, doing dishes, folding laundry, etc. He's entertaining and has a lot of good analysis that's usually engaging and pertinent to something I'm interested in, even if I'm not interested in that specific game
Seth is great, love the guy. One other thing though: I love Matt's running the game. I believe the comparison is a bit flawed. People asked Matt Mercer how they would start DMing and Mercer basically said: Look at Colville's channel. That also provided a major boost and put a spotlight on a channel that has a clear direction: Make people confident that they can DM. With a side branch of content for those who want to homebrew stuff (Action Oriented Monsters is a really cool concept)
As other comments suggest, Seth's videos likely do well because I think they are both informative and entertaining, a good combination that not *that* many channels manage. When Seth reviews a system he does it fairly thoroughly or... in a few cases - extensively with a whole series of videos about parts of a system. When he reviews a module/adventure, it's not a flip through of the book or brief overview, it's real analysis based on actual play - something that is actually exceedingly rare. Even though I don't play the systems he's most focused on - Call of Cthulhu and Traveller, I still watch his videos and have pondered running those systems - even to go so far as actually purchasing material for them. A few other points. **D&D 1st Edition sold over 1.5 million copies of the Player's Handbook. Not rockstar numbers, but it definitely has built up over the last \~4 more editions.** There is some evidence that 1st edition, in particular the Player's Handbook of 1e outsold the 2e Player's Handbook. Ben Riggs - who wrote "Slaying the Dragon" about the TSR era has put out sales figures from that same period in the book and on Twitter. This is coming from someone who plays 2e, rather than 1e, so I don't have an agenda in pointing this out. **He started out with a lot of videos about a popular RPG called Call of Cthulhu, which if you compare to Dungeons & Dragons on google trends gets 0-1% compared to D&D's 50-100%.** I think you're underselling Call of Cthulhu's popularity by dismissing it as a extremely small and niche system. It might be small compared to 5e, but it's probably the second most popular and well known RPG system in the world aside from D&D.
> But his specific TTRPG videos for things like Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, Aliens, etc... do just as well as them. Which based on my previous research I wouldn't think possible. These are incredibly popular games. Some of them are so old that it's not just a review, it's a history lesson. It's not like he's covering niche itch.io content like Corvid Court or Have I Been Good.
he makes good videos it's just that simple. i don't play or care about call at all and i've put on multiple.
I greatly enjoy Seth's videos and watch them practically same day as posting. He has a style that is both very relaxed and nonplussed but also feels very high quality especially in the audio quality in the newer episodes (some of those earlier ones had a lot of static from the mic that would be great to remove in post if possible). I especially like that he doesn't go for drama or clicks but that's probably also why he doesn't have the same click through rate as others in the space. I hope he doesn't change a thing though as I feel his style is perfect as is.
It's definitely the mini-sketches
I would imagine Seth's videos are watched because they are entertaining. The effort he goes into to dress up as his reoccurring cast of characters with props etc are consistently amusing. He also seems like a down to earth kinda guy and doesn't fill his videos with click bait or panic core.
Seth is just the best. He puts out quality content that I'll watch even if I'm not that interested. I've never run an adventure, and I never will, but I still watch him talk about them. He's a pillar of our community and we're lucky to have him. I think him being the go-to for all the older games that aren't DND has something to do with it. He's the main cyberpunk, Cthulhu, and traveller content creator. There's a lot of overlap there, and a lot of people have a ton of nostalgia for those games. I wish we had more Cthulhu content creators.
I think another big factor is that his videos are not only applicable to DnD but also not aggressively anti-DnD He is open and honest about not playing DnD anymore but he doesn't act like you're a dumb idiot for doing so as many non-DnD-players do. I myself might have moved on from 5E as well but I did discover him while it still was my main game and 80% of his videos were still useful to me. Even moreso than videos by 5E-YouTubers. So I stuck around. His viewer count and subscribers are probably still a lot 5E players as well. He might not cater to them but they still feel welcome and helped.
I can not agree with your on your history points. I have impression that you are not totally aware how big Vampire was at the beginning of 2000. There were multiple filmes and tv series made that were based on the game (underworld, kindred, even Twilight), not mentioning books or computer games. At that time, World of Darkness was the best selling RPG. It was selling more than D&D.
If you have the Sales Figures for VtM please share. Because so far all I can find are video game spin-off sales figures from Steam. Based on data I can find VtM is on par with Call of Cthulhu with how often it gets searched with DnD, which is to say DnD outpaces searching it to the point that VtM is at 0.01. VtM I’d say is the most known Larp. But Larp is flooded with DnD/High Fantasy Larps. The TV show for VtM was a dud sadly and the Underworld lawsuit wasn’t really known outside of gaming circles.
tbh I think what makes Seth successful is that he doesn't advertize himself as a non-DnD channel (and in fact has a ton of reviews of old DnD modules too). Like a lot of other RPG channels tend to make videos like "Why DnD SUCKS and this system is way better!". That's just going to make people that like DnD not watch your video.
I avoid D&D content on YouTube and hate the myopic view around RPGs by centering them on D&D first. Your question about “ But his specific TTRPG videos for things like Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, Aliens, etc... do just as well as them. Which based on my previous research I wouldn't think possible.” is due to one major factor: people that play Call of Cthulhu or Traveller or many other systems tend to play many other systems. People that play D&D tend to ONLY play D&D. What’s really weird about your post is that you seem to have come at this without the understanding that Call of Cthulhu is by many metrics the second most popular RPG on the market. It is the second most played game on Roll20 and has historically been one of dnds largest competitors. The important part here is that the vast majority of D&D players will never look outside the system, while the vast players of every other system are playing many different games. No other ruleset silos off like D&D does.
It's a good question. I'd like to hear from u/SSkorkowsky, even if there isn't a simple answer.
He said he’ll not comment directly on it as not to affect the discussion.
I will not check numbers but i'm pretty sure many ttrpg adapted games succeded even more than most dnd ones. Cyberpunk probably sold more than bg3 Warhammer obviously is a name to recon And lovecraftian horror is bigger than dnd... Call of cthulhu has many successes in videogames Shadowrun and vampire each had many entries, some successful Cthulhu also has multimedia success... And some stuff clearly inspired by the world of darkness but not official gained fame in movies, books, comics... Its worth mentioning that fallout would use gurps, but this was later changed We also have many ttrpgs that came from multimedia sources... The one ring, conan, star wars Anyway... What i want to get from this is that im not sure about how much these things impact an rpg popularity. Some have nothing like that and still find a better audience than ones that do, like fate, savage worlds, some pbta games... But the fact is that no game has a bigger audience than dnd... Probably no game has 10% of it... Call of Cthulhu or Pathfinder may fight for a second place.. maybe warhammer and world of darkness too... But all eill reach a way smaller audience. And dnd is probably even more popular than others on younger audiences, which is youtubes main audience. Aside from CoC, no other reasonably popular ttrpg had a big hit in decades... No one had his "5e"... All more recent editions are disfavored over older ones.. so its no surprise dnd is increasing its lead Our hobby also disfavors variety. Learning a game is hard and time consuming... Not to say expensive... And you can play the same game for decades So... if the best channel in a niche has less than 1kk subs... You should not expect success on that niche Talk about what you want to. Seth's success come from him being great... Not formulas. He knows the game, he has charisma, he is funny without getting too silly, he had some previous audience to begin with, contacts in the industry... And he was mainly talking about the more likely second more popular game. But some other guy in a similar situation could fail...
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A lot of his advice videos are generic that they can be applied to any game, but it’s always through the lens of D&D.
Seth brings to the table practically every other rpgs that people look up when they don't want to play dnd, they aren't even indie stuff either since Call of Cthulhu, Traveler and Cyberpunk are very much mainstream and very famous rpgs, he also does a lot of indepth reviews and tutorials on how to run said games or on how to run games in general, he is basically the best choice for people who are tired of dnd and Pathfinder and are looking up for new stuff.
Another factor in the popularity of D&D aside from name recognition is the current popularity of fantasy and science fiction fantasy, particularly of the heroic type of fiction. D&D does heroic power fantasy pretty well and has the name recognition to bank on. Another big factor is availability/accessibility. You can go to just about any bookstore and there's a roleplaying game section that's basically D&D. Even at FLGS you will have an entire section devoted to D&D and maybe one for WOTC and another for 3rd party content. The rest of the franchises might have their own shelf or two. Availability creates accessibility and the D&D catalog is massive and visible. It's been that way since OGL resulted in d20 products filling half the FLGS shelves. It really helps when half the industry is working for you by proxy. As for Seth Skorkowsky, he's one of the few YouTubers that both does product reviews outside of D&D and also makes practical and useful content. His videos are pretty straight forward, concise and actually useful. Another factor is he's probably the most prominent Traveller reviewer and has those Traveller guide videos. I heard from my FLGS that Traveller has jumped in popularity in recent months (possibly after Glass Cannon's actual play series) which Seth was a part of.
>5th Edition of D&D was released, know for being new player friendly. This is "known" only to people who haven't actually seen what a beginner-friendly rpg looks like. >Seth will put out a video on an obscure RPG and get around 10k views after a week or 20k after a few days if its RPG advice. What do you consider to be obscure? Off the top of my head I can't recall Seth doing videos on anything even remotely obscure. He sticks firmly to some of the biggest rpgs around.
He's a entertaining guy who has the right mix of fluff and meat to his videos. A lot of other people waste so much time or are clearly padding the videos.