Is The Forum Getting More Antagonistic?

[SakanaSensei]

I've been lurking here for... a year? Two now? And I enjoy looking at people's thoughts on all kinds of TTRPG stuff. I enjoy the "what piece of art made you love X" threads, I enjoy the breaking down of game mastering styles, I enjoy having a place to check for RPG news.

But I feel like I'm seeing a lot more bickering over relatively minor things since the 1DnD playtest started, in particular. And it kinda makes me sad, because this has been a place I enjoy coming to check and now I feel like I'm seeing posters that I tend to like the posts of getting snarky with others, I'm seeing more moderation actions, and pretty much every thread that goes past 10 pages I feel like I need to mentally prepare myself before checking it out because it's almost a guarantee that people have gotten mean.

Is this all in my head? Is the prospect of the new edition making people more testy? What's going on, here?

 

[payn]

It's just edition churn. Things will mellow eventually.

 

[DeviousQuail]

I've been hanging out here since mid-2020. It seems like it has more to do with a big change to the current edition of D&D than anything else. And I see @payn has beat me to that observation.

 

[Sacrosanct]

It's just edition churn. Things will mellow eventually.

Yep. This. These reactions are typical, and have happened since 2e came out. It will die down

 

[SakanaSensei]

Oof. With release not being for another 2 years, that's... not great.

 

[TerraDave]

It's just edition churn. Things will mellow eventually.

In like 3 years...

5es stability has done a lot calm the board down. That is over.

The only conciliation is that it will probably be worse elsewhere. That has been in the pattern in the past, and I am already seeing a lot of huing and crying out there, and this process has barely started.

 

[SkidAce]

Not sure its "just" edition change.

Conversations tend to polarize into to sides and go downhill more frequently IMO.

Been bothering me for a while.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Not sure its "just" edition change.

Conversations tend to polarize into to sides and go downhill more frequently IMO.

Been bothering me for a while.

Part of that is he last several years have had a lot of big political discussions in the larger community, I think.

One side has little patience for the other and no interest in “agreeing to disagree” about important moral questions (in fact a vociferous distaste for doing so), while some folks use manipulative rhetorical tactics to stay within the rules while ticking people off, or just flat out say stuff that gets them immediately shut down by mods, but some damage is already done by then. Hackles are up.

Add a lot of change to that, and you get what we have here lately.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I've been lurking here for... a year? Two now? And I enjoy looking at people's thoughts on all kinds of TTRPG stuff. I enjoy the "what piece of art made you love X" threads, I enjoy the breaking down of game mastering styles, I enjoy having a place to check for RPG news.

But I feel like I'm seeing a lot more bickering over relatively minor things since the 1DnD playtest started, in particular. And it kinda makes me sad, because this has been a place I enjoy coming to check and now I feel like I'm seeing posters that I tend to like the posts of getting snarky with others, I'm seeing more moderation actions, and pretty much every thread that goes past 10 pages I feel like I need to mentally prepare myself before checking it out because it's almost a guarantee that people have gotten mean.

Is this all in my head? Is the prospect of the new edition making people more testy? What's going on, here?

Agree with the others - anything about rules changes typically engenders discussion, and sometimes that discussion goes acrimonious. I mean, before OneD&D was announced, any discussion about updates to race rules usually ended up getting ban-hammered and shut down for more comment.

I ignore those long comment threads on purpose just for that reason. Life is too short (recently figured out that if I live to my father's age he is now, I'll only be alive another 1352 weeks or so)...

 

[DeviousQuail]

There are a few things you can do to help yourself if you feel like taking action:

• The ignore button is effective if there are one or two people that are ruining your experience regularly. You can always stop ignoring someone if you decide to later. I try to take a break from the site if I'm thinking of blocking someone as a way to cool down. It really does help.
• In the longer threads you can skip a page or two ahead and see if the contentiousness is still going. Just skim for the interesting bits and skip the stuff you don't like.
• Start a new thread or find one with a tighter focus on a subject. The 1D&D Expert UA is live thread is a great example of something that quickly gets too big and unwieldy for discussion. Many of the more focused offshoot threads from that one were easier to follow and less likely to get diverted.
• Sometimes it helps to check other sites and see what their discussions are like. This one has become my go to for many reasons (the biggest one being the depth of knowledge and experience of some of the people here) but other sites talk about D&D, shows, movies, etc too.