D&D General D&D's Utter Dominance Is Good or Bad Because...

[Oofta]

True, but it can be a bad thing personally if a large majority of the people in a community you're part of like and mostly talk about a thing you don't care for all that much. Does that make sense?

This particular forum dedicated to the current edition of D&D. Why would we not want to discuss the what the forum is dedicated to?

 

[DEFCON 1]

So ... people who play D&D don't like other games ... is not exactly a ringing endorsement of those games.

Which is what I just don't get. Your player really enjoyed playing their dwarf druid. Why is that a problem? Given a choice, shouldn’t they play what they want?

To be fair to @DarkCrisis, I don't think they want to stop players from playing what they want... I've always just gotten the impression that they're just tired of having to give up what they want in order to accommodate their players. At some point they'd like to play what they'd prefer and just wish the people they run games for would go along with it. Which is understandable. It's not something that is WotC's (or anyone else's) responsibility to try and help or fix... but is there nonetheless.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This particular forum dedicated to the current edition of D&D. Why would we not want to discuss the what the forum is dedicated to?

This particular forum is dedicated to "Dungeons & Dragons", not "whatever WotC's most current edition is, so don't talk about other publishers or really any other way of doing things".

 

[Swanosaurus]

Which is what I just don't get. Your player really enjoyed playing their dwarf druid. Why is that a problem? Given a choice, shouldn’t they play what they want?

Well, maybe the GM would enjoy something else more ... (BTW, it seems pretty typical that the "GM type" has lots of games they would like to unleash on their group, but most in the group just want to keep playing their dwarf druid.)
Sometimes, everyone can get on the same page, sometimes they don't ... I guess the thing here is that if D&D has already set the expectations, you will always feel on the defense when you want to try something else. And that can be frustrating ... I mean, why do some people always have to compare other RPGs with D&D? Why can't they just try them out on their own terms and see if they like them?
(of course, the problem is not D&D-exclusive; I played with someone who compared everything with Chronicles of Darkness, and all other RPGs always came up short for him.)

On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with sticking to what you like. But if one person is adamant about sticking to what they like, while the other person would like to try something else ... well, either one of them has to move, or they can't play together. And constantly having to move because so many people find even the notion confusing that you might want to play anything else then D&D can be, as I said, frustrating.

 

[DarkCrisis]

So ... people who play D&D don't like other games ... is not exactly a ringing endorsement of those games.

Which is what I just don't get. Your player really enjoyed playing their dwarf druid. Why is that a problem? Given a choice, shouldn’t they play what they want?

You can't play a Dwarf Druid in Call of Cthulhu? I'm not sure I get what you are saying.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You can't play a Dwarf Druid in Call of Cthulhu? I'm not sure I get what you are saying.

I think Dwarf Druid is WotC 5e in this analogy.

 

[TheSword]

A rising tide lifts all ships.

It’s a good thing.

 

[Swanosaurus]

This particular forum dedicated to the current edition of D&D. Why would we not want to discuss the what the forum is dedicated to?

It's not about not wanting to discuss D&D ... but, for example, a lot of online discussions of general RPG topics (like, recently, this one), end up as discussions about that one edition of D&D vs. another, and if you don't play D&D, much less dived into the minutiae, you'll be unable to take part in these discussions.

 

[Xenolith234]

I don't overall mind D&D's dominance, however, I wish it was significantly more modular in the core rules as was promised instead of relying on miscellaneous 3rd party creators to fill in the blanks (I'd like to minimize the amount of resources I have to parse and read through to run the game like I want).

As a GM type, I do want to play loads of other games, but I might be able to satisfy those wants and needs more if D&D supported them better as written.

I find that the significant sales of games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring does mean that the demand for tougher games with higher lethality exists, and D&D could fill the gap on both ends - low complexity and super-heroics, but offering modular rules that can run with higher complexity and lethality. Unfortunately, D&D has over time distilled into what Hasbro/WotC thinks the "purest", lowest-common denominator form of D&D is, without considering all that's been lost in that distillation, and disregards a desire for other styles of D&D.

 

[billd91]

You can't play a Dwarf Druid in Call of Cthulhu? I'm not sure I get what you are saying.

You literally could, actually. But it would be a very different character from the same description in D&D.