Where should "5e House Rules" and 5e "Character Builds & Optimization" Posts Go?

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Putting certain types of posts off in their own "corner" does nothing but encourage the behavior some people have in which they treat things that other people like as lesser than things which they personally like.

And it also ends up leaving some people less likely to be exposed to some idea they hadn't had on their own, but greatly like or are inspired by.

So I say that a forum for all things 5th edition is a thin enough slice of the D&D talk going on, and thinner slices would have a more negative impact on the community overall.

 

[steeldragons]

Putting certain types of posts off in their own "corner" does nothing but encourage the behavior some people have in which they treat things that other people like as lesser than things which they personally like.

And it also ends up leaving some people less likely to be exposed to some idea they hadn't had on their own, but greatly like or are inspired by.

So I say that a forum for all things 5th edition is a thin enough slice of the D&D talk going on, and thinner slices would have a more negative impact on the community overall.

This is both true and not true. In short, yes. What other people like is less important than what I like/want to read. That is the very nature/core of the internet/gimme now culture. I should be capable of seeing what I want to without being inconvenienced or slowed down by things I do not.

And there's nothing "wrong" with that. I already know I don't want to have conversations with min/maxer/charop people because numbers crunch and purposeful mis-interpretation mechanics debates so I can get my cake and eat it too are NOT the conversations I want to be a part of or see. I do not (and will not) belong to an Adventurer's League group. I do not play Pathfinder...

So their concerns and questions and conversations are not mine to have. At the same time, I am very interested in checking out, from time to time, what folks are brewing up in the Homebrews/Houserules forum...and, almost instinctively, return to the 5e the general discussion to take part in conversations or just check out/read threads that have titles that interest me. I go to the General D&D forum, at least once a week, because I am an old school junky, to see/check/read whatever pre-3e stuff gets brought up.

Looking at that forum, I can easily buzz past everything with a 3.5 or 4e tag on it, because they are not my area of interest. IF a title catches my eye on a topic I might find interesting or something I'm looking for inspiration for in my own game, then sure...I can still click on it.

Then there's the occasional distraction of something new/interesting getting posted to the front page and something to read there. Check out Meta from time to time if something seems/is going wonky with the site and see if anyone else is having trouble with it.

I don't think that is so unusual for a user here to do. You go where you want to see what you want/are looking for in that moment. Go to and return to the forums that hold the the things they are interested in. Intrinsically, that means what they are not interested in IS less important...to them.

Furthermore, the proposal that an "All 5e" umbrella forum for all things with a 5e tag can readily and easily give those, presumably like yourself, who just want to see everything all together all of the time. So where's the problem with everyone getting what they want. You want to weed through a forum that is listing everything together all of the time? More power to ya.

There is no reason whatsoever that the site can not have:
All 5e
General 5e Discussion
General D&D Discussion (with tags for any edition)
General Pathfinder Discussion
Homebrews & Houserules (with tags for any edition or game)
Character "Builds" & Optimization ["Charop"] (with tags for any edition or game)
Adventurers' League (which, I guess, is all/only 5e? If not, the tags work there too) [edit]Actually this should be "Organized Play", with tags for AL, Isn't "Expeditions" another one? Does PF have an organized play thing? So, make the sub-forum "Organized Play" or, if you prefer, "Adventurers' League & Other Organized Play" and offer tags for each group./edit]

Seven forums, including the "All" umbrella list forum that takes you to the forum of the thread you click on. That's all you need, tops. If ["enough"] people aren't going to those other forums as much...well, write more interesting posts/topics, I guess.

Having different topics in a different sub-forums does not, somehow, lessen its potential as a source of inspiration. The forums ought not be organized in a way that is universally inconvenient for all users, because no two people are going to have all of the same interests and needs every time they log on, over some misguided notion that everyone should value everyone else's preferences equal to their own.

 

[SailorNash]

I'm not fond of all-editions, personally. Too many unrelated but similar-looking things get all mixed up, and it's a chore to sort through. Either subforums under each edition, or edition subforums under the current main heading, would serve the same purpose either way.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

I should be capable of seeing what I want to without being inconvenienced or slowed down by things I do not.

I think the responsibility for that sits with you directing your gaze, rather than with Morrus stuffing whatever you don't want to see in the proverbial closet.

I'm leaving out the rest of your post for convenience since there is only one other part of it which I have any response, and it's more of a general tone I'm responding to, not any particular statement.

I'm not worried about posters like yourself that already know what they do and do not have any interest in. You know what you don't like and you can avoid it whether it is made convenient by sticking it off somewhere that you can pretend it doesn't even exist or it is there for you to see that it does exist but ignore anyway.

I'm worried about the posters that have yet to figure out for sure what they do and don't want to see and them missing out on ideas that would actually interest them because they didn't have the foreknowledge of that interest necessary to seek out the section of the forum the idea got stuck in for no reason besides that some poster said "I want to be able to hit a button here so that I don't see any posts of [generalized type]".

And I am worried because there are two types of separation at hand here, the separation of editions, and the separation of ideas within an edition. Separating editions makes sense because my knowledge of the rest and healing rules of 5th edition is only going to confuse people asking about healing and rest for some other edition.

Separating ideas within an edition, for the all good that it does organizationally, reduces the chances that someone on the forum experiences an opinion far enough outside their own to actually open their mind to something it wasn't already open to. It reduces actual discussion too, as it leads a home-brew preferring poster to stick to only the home-brew section because they have been made feel unwelcome in other parts of the forum by people talking of them the way you do of optimizers, and so forth.

 

[steeldragons]

So, we can't separate forums, that anyone are completely free to visit or not, or have an "overview all things 5e forum" for those who want to see everything all at once...because people will be made to "feel bad" or will somehow, externally, feel "forced" to stay in/out of a forum, while/where all that is being talked about is the stuff they want to talk about? "Separation is bad." That's your "reasons"?

I'll just reiterate my wholehearted disagreement and we can go our separate ways.

Have fun and welcome to ENworld.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I've got to, again, agree with [MENTION=92511]steeldragons[/MENTION] on this. It's not like a new poster won't see "Hey, there's a General 5E Forum and a House Rules 5E Forum, I guess I should check the latter for house rules issues." I find that sort of organization makes things easier to find, not harder.

And TBH, had the "main" D&D forum looked as cluttered, when I first arrived here back in the Jurassic Era, as the 5E forum does now? That might have driven me away.

 

[Agamon]

We seemed to get less unfortunate threads like this one when the boards were segregated.

I have no problem with those that like to play that way, but I understand the frustration that leads to threads like these.

 

[SkidAce]

I might suggest, however, that you reverse the change - make the charops and homebrew stuff show only in its own forum *for now*, during the migration.

Why? Because I suspect it will lead folks to develop better habits of tagging content appropriately, especially *as they move it*. Even if they don't tag it, if they put it in the right forum, adding the tags in bulk within that forum is a whole lot easier than hunting down stuff placed in the general forum without a tag. If they put it in the wrong forum, for now, it will be easier for us to see and add those tags, as well.

That means you will be able to start, and stop, the experiment again more easily. In addition, we may find that with the new folks, the separated forums work just fine. That's something we *won't* know if they are not really exposed to the separated setup. In general, allowing the experimental setup to stand while there's lots of other stuff going on will tend to screw up your baseline.

Just my $0.02.

I agree with this. At least to get a feel for the baseline.

Personally;

If something has its own forum, then I don't want it in a combined forum. If its combined with other stuff automagically, then it didnt need its own forum.

 

[Morrus]

If something has its own forum, then I don't want it in a combined forum. If its combined with other stuff automagically, then it didnt need its own forum.

So a dedicated SkidAce forum, it is !

 

[SkidAce]

typos

Good one...yah made me spit soda.

Here's what I am trying to say, via screencap...



Since the thread was in the "wrong place" it was moved. But it is still included when you click the 5E thread. So since it will be in 5E either way....what difference does it make where it is, and if there is no difference why was it moved.

I can use tags, and don't mind however it ends up, been here a long time, no worries.

But IMO, what we are doing seems...redundant?

Cheers!