Afrodyte
Explorer
There's a pattern I've noticed in several threads I've started on this forum where instead kicking around ideas or sharing things people like or want to play, someone has to sort of contort it into a debate about statements I never made or completely ignore the actual things I said I want to talk about in order to make comments that completely undermine the purpose of a thread.
It wouldn't bother me in a thread that already has dozens or hundreds of comments, and things just naturally progressed. But it seems that I can't even get a dozen or so comments in before someone makes a comment that undermines the very purpose of creating the thread in the first place. It makes me reluctant to start conversations about anything other than mechanics, which is a shame because I like to imagine that storytelling, worldbuilding, and so on would be interesting to players and DMs.
I don't report the comments because they do fall within the guidelines of behavior for the site. No one has ever been outright nasty about any of this. I don't think anyone is being a jerk. It's just a pattern that tends to inhibit different kinds of discussions I like to have.
So, in the interest of being able to participate productively on the forums: how do I keep my threads from getting completely derailed before they start getting good?
It wouldn't bother me in a thread that already has dozens or hundreds of comments, and things just naturally progressed. But it seems that I can't even get a dozen or so comments in before someone makes a comment that undermines the very purpose of creating the thread in the first place. It makes me reluctant to start conversations about anything other than mechanics, which is a shame because I like to imagine that storytelling, worldbuilding, and so on would be interesting to players and DMs.
I don't report the comments because they do fall within the guidelines of behavior for the site. No one has ever been outright nasty about any of this. I don't think anyone is being a jerk. It's just a pattern that tends to inhibit different kinds of discussions I like to have.
So, in the interest of being able to participate productively on the forums: how do I keep my threads from getting completely derailed before they start getting good?