Unpopular opinions go here

[Thomas Shey]

I think we recognize that playing RPGs is a leisure activity often punctuated by humor and lighthearted behavior. That said, for those of us who have enthusiastically engaged in this hobby for most of our lives, I think we deserve to be considered with the same respect and be taken as seriously in our enthusiasm as any other hobbyist in their chosen pastime. Whenever someone asserts something like that, the constant litany of responses about the hobby being silly or "playing elf games" are not helpful, are not entertaining, are irritating, and generally just infantilize the participants of the hobby.

Well, to be fair, probably most other hobbies deserve similar sobriquets. Its just that there are elements of RPG play that can get you into either certain kinds of examination that can convince you there's something more to it than, say, model trains, and people can get carried away about it.

(This does not mean I always appreciate the dismissiveness either; I'm rapidly approaching having been in the hobby for a half century now, but I do understand that there's a certain degree of over-intensity that can sometimes use being hosed down a bit).

 

[Thomas Shey]

For all the many complaints against WotC/D&D, I think that one of the issues is that a lot of folks here have a lot of experience with multiple systems or editions and so look around and go 'but this is better than 5e here, and this is better than 5e here, and there, and what about this massive gap!' or they have issues with Wizards (hi its me!) in general.

Or there's just some of us that think, while the whole is obviously satisfactory to a lot of people that the fundamentals of the design are suboptimal in almost every case (and this isn't a slap specifically against 5e--I only have one extremely specific thing against 5e--its an opinion I've had since at least 1977). But I hardly expect heavy-duty D&D fans to share my view.

The only thing I seriously roll my eyes about is the attempt to use the D&D engine for things outside its native evolution, where I think the flaws I see are always exaggerated and any virtues tend to disappear. Its not a desert topic and a floor wax; no game is, and D&D is farther from that than some.

 

[Thomas Shey]

To piggyback off my own post

The people are the single most important factor in good RPGing

And while I don’t know if it’s actually an unpopular opinion, it definitely seems to be an unpopular discussion topic given the amount of text devoted to system discussions in comparison.

I don't generally disagree with this, but a bad system can be an incessant drag on a good group and absolutely sink a flawed one. That tells me that you ignore it at your peril.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Unfortunately, this is true. It doesn't matter that every other game on the planet does what you want to do better than D&D 5E. If people will only ever play D&D 5E, your choice is play D&D 5E or don't play. Simple as.

This is absolutely true, but at some point the proper answer is the latter. System does matter, and if you aren't going to get what you want out of the only one you can get people to play, there's no reason to kid yourself about it.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Correct on both counts. But then, Shazam is one of the only DCU movies that actually tried to be a superhero movie. The rest of the movies are wetworks special ops with superpowers.

(The following is a minor quibble, not a disagreement as such.)

Well... not all of them are wetworks stories. Suicide Squads are wetworks stories, obviously. I would argue that Wonder Woman and maybe BvS are wetworks stories too.

I saw 90% of Aquaman before giving up in boredom. I'm gonna call it NOT a wetworks story. I mean, the villain is going out his way to try to kill Aquaman and everyone around him so Aquaman is just trying to survive and overthrow an illegitimate government. (Does Aquaman actually kill the bad guy? I dunno. I gave up before then.)

But ya now which one isn't? Birds of Prey. And I say that even though one of the central (ish) characters is an assassin on a rampage of revenge. But that's not what the story is about. The story is about personal growth and friendship (and the perfect grilled sandwich.)

No idea about the rest, as I haven't seen them.

Agreed. Also, Endgame is one of the worst MCU movies.

As a stand alone movie you're quite right. The thing is all action and little to no story or character development.

But as others have already pointed out, it's the culmination of many movies that did have story and character development.* Endgame is the big, explosion filled cathartic release at the end of 20 (ish) movies.


* by the standards of superhero movies anyway.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

But enough analysis, back to unpopular opinions: Birds of Prey is the best DCU movie.

 

[Gradine]

But enough analysis, back to unpopular opinions: Birds of Prey is the best DCU movie.

What else would even qualify?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

What else would even qualify?

The Suicide Squad (the second one), which I'd say is one of the few DCEU films of the modern era that is a 100% success.

 

[payn]

I know Watchmen was released by DC, but is it DCU? If so, its hands down the best DC movie.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I know Watchmen was released by DC, but is it DCU? If so, its hands down the best DC movie.

It is not a DCEU movie, which I think was the real question. That said, Zack Snyder's Randian worldview, which he carried over to his DCEU movies, is all over Watchmen. (I would say the HBO Watchmen series understood the core text better than Snyder did, though.)

Otherwise, Dark Knight is the best DC movie, with Superman II close on its heels.