Yeah, the DMG is so terrible D&D as we know it will soon cease to exist!
It's almost like I didn't argue that. Oh wait...
I didn't.
I mean, it's not like we have starter sets,
Which you must pay money for...exactly as I said...
Which don't do any better about
teaching than the book does...
Which shouldn't be
required to learn how to play...and come from third parties, to boot! (Indeed, how many people have
explicitly said that trying to imitate Matt Mercer is actually doing a
disservice to the community?)
more free advice and blogs than we've had in the history of the game.
Because you never ever get crappy free advice. Ever. That would be impossible! Free advice is always super valuable and effective and never ever needs to be heavily filtered in ways that
only an experienced person would know how to do.
I, too, can do sarcasm. It doesn't help make your position more compelling. Quite the opposite, in fact--it generally makes the person you're talking to dig in their heels purely out of resentment.
My core point: Free advice is often worth less than what you paid for it. Separating
good free advice from
bad free advice usually requires being at least as knowledgeable as the people giving the advice in the first place.
Nor are they starting to add free encounters with associated videos that walk you through them.
No idea what those are, haven't heard the first thing about them. Even if I had,
eight years after publication is something of a fault all on its own, wouldn't you say?
Poor new DMs only have more advice than anyone has ever had, they need even more!
Yes. I genuinely 100% believe that new DMs
do need more help, and that
the foundational books upon which the game is built should contribute to that. You saying it sarcastically does not mean it's incorrect.
The current has been working quite well for nearly a decade, even if there is always room for improvement.
Given literally all I'm asking for IS improvement, your scathing, hostile tone seems unwarranted and extremely counter-productive, as noted.
Eventually D&D will cease to see double digit growth because the market is only so big. We haven't seen it yet though and I doubt that the DMG has much impact on the growth and health of the game one way or another.
Whereas I 100% believe it is having that. Unless you have some data to back up that assertion--which I doubt you have any more than I do, aka, none--raising this line of response advances the discussion exactly
not at all. Wouldn't it be better, more useful, more productive, to instead say, "Alright. I can see you aren't happy with the way things are. Personally, I am, and I haven't seen any evidence that there's a major issue. What kind of changes are you talking about, then? How much effect do you think these changes will have?" rather than being rude, dismissive, and sarcastic?