D&D 5E Toxicity in the Fandom

[Irlo]

So you are going with "it was never very good anyway"? Ok

No, I loved both SW and ESB as a kid and I still enjoy them. Neither of them has well-written, developed characters.

I've been the target of both sorts of attacks. I'm not sure I agree, but in any event you aren't even really responding here to what I actually said.

I can't really address the details of the Star Wars debates, since I'm far removed from them. I didn't like any the movies after ESB. I saw the first two films in the prequel trilogy and the first two films in the Disney sequels. I disliked the Disney films less than the prequels. There's a lot there not to like (and I'm for those who like them there's a lot there to like -- not my cup of tea). If your negative opinions of the films were dismissed as racist, that's a lousy experience I'm sure. And that fan behavior is toxic.

I was peripherally exposed to some nasty comments about the casting of the Disney movies, so I know that at least some of criticism was born out of racism and misogyny.

These critics to the extent that they cared about race at all tended to not at all be upset that there was a black actor in Star Wars but that a black actor was asked to play such a flimsy poorly written part as "Finn" solely because he was black and with no other apparent consideration.

This bit is of concern to me. The actor was not cast soley because he was black with no other consideration. Why would anyone think that? Would they have said that a white actor in that role had been cast soley because he was white? (Hint: No, they would not.) He's a decent actor in an action movie. They didn't just pluck a random person off the street. There were absolutely other considerations. It's easy for me to read this as apparent racism, even if that's not the intent. I hope I'm making some sense here.

The character might fall flat for most of us, but that's on the writers and the directors. Still no reason to disparage the writers or directors. Plenty of people liked the movie.

 

[Alzrius]

So from my perspective it seemed that the real toxic people where the people who could tolerate no criticism whatsoever of 4e, and that the toxicity wasn't at all solely or even mostly coming from people who preferred 3e.

For what it's worth, this matches with my experience as well. There were a small number of posters on EN World who would tolerate no criticism of 4E during the years when it was being published, and they made the boards a very unpleasant place for a lot of people during that time.

 

[Celebrim]

For what it's worth, this matches with my experience as well. There were a small number of posters on EN World who would tolerate no criticism of 4E during the years when it was being published, and they made the boards a very unpleasant place for a lot of people during that time.

I'm not saying there weren't anti-4e types out there making life heck of the people excited for 4e, but I wasn't their target. It's almost certainly bias, but I am going to mostly notice who is insulting me and I don't feel particular in that regard. I think most people are going to mostly notice the toxicity coming their way and not think as much about what is going out the other way.

 

[Zardnaar]

For what it's worth, this matches with my experience as well. There were a small number of posters on EN World who would tolerate no criticism of 4E during the years when it was being published, and they made the boards a very unpleasant place for a lot of people during that time.

Heh no one cares that much if you make a negative post about 5E. Or 3E or AD&D etc.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Heh no one cares that much if you make a negative post about 5E. Or 3E or AD&D etc.

At least in the case of 3e, I think its been long enough so the really intense hostility toward it in some circles has largely sank below the waves; the only place you're liable to see it now is in some of the most negative Old School places. I mean, let's face it, its been almost 20 years now.

 

[Celebrim]

This bit is of concern to me. The actor was not cast soley because he was black with no other consideration. Why would anyone think that?..It's easy for me to read this as apparent racism, even if that's not the intent. I hope I'm making some sense here.

To be quite frank, this feels like concern trolling here.

By definition, the idea of tokenism is that they wrote the role to be black because they wanted to check off a diversity box as the primary consideration for the character, but that they had no real interest in the character as a character except for its value in marketing as diversity. And this was a controversial position to adopt early in the making of the films since it says nasty things about the Disney executives with little hard evidence to back that assertion up, but at this point I don't feel the critics are the ones with the fringe position, since the group of people who now say this about the character of Finn includes John Boyega himself who quite rightly I think feels ill-used and lied to. Boyega in his widely covered "farewell" interview with GQ accused Finn of being a token character and that he was cast in the role solely so that Disney could have a person of color in the marketing for the movie and then pushed him and his character aside. So if you want to do your concern trolling and accuse people of being a racist for thinking that, take it up with John Boyega at this point.

The character might fall flat for most of us, but that's on the writers and the directors. Still no reason to disparage the writers or directors. Plenty of people liked the movie.

Not apparently John Boyega who seems to have issues with the writers and directors that echo a lot of the concerns of the people I were told were "toxic racists" when the movies were being made.

 

[Zardnaar]

To be quite frank, this feels like concern trolling here.

By definition, the idea of tokenism is that they wrote the role to be black because they wanted to check off a diversity box as the primary consideration for the character, but that they had no real interest in the character as a character except for its value in marketing as diversity. And this was a controversial position to adopt early in the making of the films since it says nasty things about the Disney executives with little hard evidence to back that assertion up, but at this point I don't feel the critics are the ones with the fringe position, since the group of people who now say this about the character of Finn includes John Boyega himself who quite rightly I think feels ill-used and lied to. Boyega in his widely covered "farewell" interview with GQ accused Finn of being a token character and that he was cast in the role solely so that Disney could have a person of color in the marketing for the movie and then pushed him and his character aside. So if you want to do your concern trolling and accuse people of being a racist for thinking that, take it up with John Boyega at this point.



Not apparently John Boyega who seems to have issues with the writers and directors that echo a lot of the concerns of the people I were told were "toxic racists" when the movies were being made.

Boyega character essentially repeated his character arc from TFA in TLJ. Then kinda got ignored in ROS.

There wasn't to much wrong in the acting in the ST relative to say the PT.

 

[Irlo]

To be quite frank, this feels like concern trolling here.

Okay. As I said, I’m not well equipped to dive into the SW arguments. Since to you I seem to be trolling and to me you seem to be attributing bad motives to me about this, I’ll leave you to it.

 

[Eric V]

Now what's wrong with that take? What's wrong with the idea that: "Spelljammer is a problem for me, because if you are printing Spelljammer you aren't printing the heroic fantasy I like, and not only that you are printing Spelljammer you are destroying the brand because this crap isn't going to be popular, doesn't address the needs and wants of most of the existing customer base, and as such you are driving the company to bankruptcy which is a problem for me as a fan." Is it toxic to say that? Are those complaints actually illegitimate?

It's not true that WotC printing products you don't like is zero sum and no harm done. Personally, when I heard they were reprinting Spelljammer as a 5e product, my first thought was, "Wow. So that's the end of 5e, eh? They are so out of ideas for the brand that they are reduced to reprinting Spelljammer? Which of Spelljammer's 10,000 fans convinced them that this was a product that had mass appeal and was the best thing they could put on the production schedule?"

I think it's a mistake to assume that the time spent on something other than Spelljammer would be spent on something you'd like. There's no reason to assume that.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I feel like James Gasik wasn't asking for a demonstration.