D&D 5E Mearls' "Firing" tweet

Tanin Wulf said:

I would contend there are people I think need help with a topic who disagree with me (e.g. my children). I am assuming those folks need me. It's usually on me to know when its appropriate to insist on helping them and when it's better to step back, treat them as equals, or simply let them make mistakes.

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Tanin Wulf said:

I can assure you, I do.

Is only part of the job in a traditional role of it in more than the D&D community. Indeed, seems gamers may have appropriated a term to mean something else.

Oh? My gay gamers wouldn't exactly agree with that statement. The tests were certainly different, but no less demeaning, insulting, or shameful.

So what about LBGTQ? What about my minority gamers who were often excluded because they were black? Did their experience not count? "History" seem to be rather loaded here. And the black woman who was married to the white man at my table? Oh man... was she being excluded in the past because she was black, or because she was a woman? (She had times where it was hard to tell.)

I didn't say anyone was pretending. Problem seems to be located in the inferences the reader wishes to draw, not in the implications in the text on screen.

Also, you never did answer why mentoring was in quotes. I am still seeking understanding on that.

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Tanin Wulf said:

Oh that's easy! My college gaming group almost fell apart when a woman, let's call her Heather, started dating one of my gamers. She wanted the join our group, and we had an opening, and she seemed like a great person. So we brought her in.

Turns out, we were wrong. She confessed, quite literally, to only joining to get him out of the group and break us up (and she succeeded, three months later, on getting him out... but the group endured). She never had any interest of learning D&D or anything she deemed, "geeky." She just resented the fact that he was hanging with us instead of her. (A year later, he finally broke up with her after their relationship cost him his college career.)

After the fact, I looked back and saw all kinds of red flags that she didn't give a about D&D or gaming in general and was just toxic. A little better vetting (gatekeeping) on what her interests actually were in this, and not in a high inquisition manner, would have done wonders to avoid a situation. But I was 19 and didn't see it coming at the time.

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BookBarbarian said:

Many adults, myself included, do not enjoy being treated like children, whom you used in your example.

If I ever feel like I should "insist on helping" what I should really do is ask whether or not they would like help. And that's true whether it's a D&D game, a car broken down on the side of the road, or a person at the gym.

I should never insist. I should ask. Because these adults are in fact not my children.

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ehren37 said:

I certainly believe that is a story you have now told on enworld...

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Tanin Wulf said:

Oh that's easy! My college gaming group almost fell apart when a woman, let's call her Heather, started dating one of my gamers. She wanted the join our group, and we had an opening, and she seemed like a great person. So we brought her in.

Turns out, we were wrong. She confessed, quite literally, to only joining to get him out of the group and break us up (and she succeeded, three months later, on getting him out... but the group endured). She never had any interest of learning D&D or anything she deemed, "geeky." She just resented the fact that he was hanging with us instead of her. (A year later, he finally broke up with her after their relationship cost him his college career.)

After the fact, I looked back and saw all kinds of red flags that she didn't give a about D&D or gaming in general and was just toxic. A little better vetting (gatekeeping) on what her interests actually were in this, and not in a high inquisition manner, would have done wonders to avoid a situation. But I was 19 and didn't see it coming at the time.

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ehren37 said:

Everything about your mentorship comes across as paternalistic in assuming it's even wanted in the first place. THAT's why it's in quotes.

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You seem to think D&D needs some kind of apprentice program. The best way for many to learn is grab a book and make mistakes with their friends. Not have a kindly old grognard lecture you about the right way to play.

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If you think gatekeepers are needed in any sense, I don't know how to engage you, but honestly, life's too short to bother at this point. It doesnt seem to just be me who thinks your comments are odd, so maybe take it a reason for some self-reflection on why keeping "posers" out of D&D is remotely important.

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Parmandur said:

Quod erat demonstratum. Game, set match for Mearls, right here.

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Tanin Wulf said:

If we're going to assume bad faith, then we have very little we can actually discuss or talk about. I would like to assume good faith on the part of the debaters, but if you believe I am lying, then nothing I can do will make any difference.

So here I stand, I can do no else.

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