Unpopular opinions go here

[deganawida]

It's not (just) old age.

I think that there is a confluence of factors that has made things worse recently. The two most notable are pretty obvious-

1. Employment issues. While these can vary from place to place, the simple problem that we've had recently is that a lot of employers in low-margin industries (such as service industries which are customer-facing) have struggled to attract workers. It's a combination of all sorts of factors, from low pay to people not wanting to work those types of schedules (which can be erratic).

Apply basic econ 101 to that- high demand for workers, low supply, means that a lot of places are understaffed; moreover, many businesses will hire people, and retain people, that they might not have hired or retained previously.

2. COVID. Without putting too fine a point on it, COVID wrecked the ability of a lot of people to interact with each other in groups. From airplane rage to throwing things at concerts, you're just seeing more anti-social behavior. That should subside.

That said, don't discount old age as well. We have too few lawns, and too many people on them.

Without getting too political (and, mods, feel free to warn me if this is too political), I would add that the constant jingoism in the West has negatively affected everyone on a subconscious level. Think of it as like a mild corruption mechanic.

 

[Velderan]

to people not wanting to work those types of schedules (which can be erratic).

This is a pretty big reason for a lot of people. I remember feeling like I won the lottery when I got my first job that was just a predictable Monday through Friday schedule even though it paid less than what I was making at the previous job that had an irregular schedule that usually included weekends and holidays.

 

[R_J_K75]

Without getting too political (and, mods, feel free to warn me if this is too political), I would add that the constant jingoism in the West has negatively affected everyone on a subconscious level. Think of it as like a mild corruption mechanic.

So true. I have seen it right here literally in my own backyard. There's a good 10 of us that had hung out pretty regularly since 2012. Either we'd hang out in my house or in my garage, my house was the place to meet. In the years since we all still get along but I cant have this person over or that person over if person x or y is around. So yeah everyone is divided for sure. I'm thinking of just flushing all of them and meeting some new people. Its like Peyton Place over here

 

[Scribe]

2. COVID. Without putting too fine a point on it, COVID wrecked the ability of a lot of people to interact with each other in groups. From airplane rage to throwing things at concerts, you're just seeing more anti-social behavior. That should subside.

Its certainly had a lot of knock-on impacts in terms of our social behavior, and then there is of course the wasteland of social media and what its done.

 

[Jd Smith1]

People can be pretty awful lately.

I went to go get my hair cut a few weeks ago, noticed the barber shop had a lot of people waiting when they opened at 9am and since I didn't want to wait the estimated 90 minute wait they had, I went back the next morning at 8:45 to get in line. They open the doors at 9am, took everyone's name in the order they were in line and the last person had a roughly 2 hour wait (which they were fine with because they could just go do the rest of their errands while they waited). Some lady walks in with her kid at 9:10, sees the estimated 2 hour wait and proceeds to throw a fit about how is the line so long they just opened. She started yelling at the woman at the counter because her son needed his hair cut for back to school photos and they couldn't wait 2 hours because his appointment was in an hour. She finally stormed out after realizing her outburst wasn't getting her anything. The person who cut my hair said it's more common than you'd think that someone makes a scene like that over the emergency haircut they absolutely needed.

Other than the employee who didn't deserve that, I felt bad for the kid because you could tell he was extremely embarrassed about how his mom was acting. Guessing it wasn't the first time he's seen that type of scene.

While I run the risk 'the good old days' syndrome, I also spent over 30 years as a police officer, and I will say with firm belief that there is a terrible combination of frustration and entitlement in a growing number of people today.

Society has changed. I remember back in the 80s scaring kids with the idea of prison. That changed as more and more of the (admittedly tiny*) slice of the population we habitually dealt with began to see incarceration as just a part of life. Its hard to scare a kid when he has family members inside.

* = it is a universal truth for local law enforcement that 2% of the population create 80% of our business. Or as one old sergeant in my early years said "the names in the arrest log never change; they just add 'Junior'."

 

[overgeeked]

Being raised in an insane society that places primacy on the self at the exclusion of others doesn’t help. Being taught that you can do anything you want doesn’t help. Being told that everyone always deserves to be happy every second of the day doesn’t help. Being inundated with toxic optimism every waking moment doesn’t help. The trouble with American society long predated Covid.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's not (just) old age.

I think that there is a confluence of factors that has made things worse recently. The two most notable are pretty obvious-

1. Employment issues. While these can vary from place to place, the simple problem that we've had recently is that a lot of employers in low-margin industries (such as service industries which are customer-facing) have struggled to attract workers. It's a combination of all sorts of factors, from low pay to people not wanting to work those types of schedules (which can be erratic).

Apply basic econ 101 to that- high demand for workers, low supply, means that a lot of places are understaffed; moreover, many businesses will hire people, and retain people, that they might not have hired or retained previously.

2. COVID. Without putting too fine a point on it, COVID wrecked the ability of a lot of people to interact with each other in groups. From airplane rage to throwing things at concerts, you're just seeing more anti-social behavior. That should subside.

That said, don't discount old age as well. We have too few lawns, and too many people on them.

Clearly we need more lawns then.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Clearly we need more lawns then.

I mean, we must be increasingly on the alert to prevent the whippersnappers from taking over other lawns, in order to breed more prodigiously and take over our lawns. Thus, flooding our lawns with their superior numbers before we can yell at them to get off of them!

Mr. President, we must not allow a lawn gap!

 

[not-so-newguy]

The purely selfish upside to nobody wanting service jobs is that I have a little more power when I negotiate for something.

I no longer work Sundays in a restaurant* because (1) Sundays notoriously suck in restaurants and (b) that's when I play the D&D.


*I still work the private party gigs. The money is just too good.

 

[Lanefan]

I just find the irony delicious. It's perfectly fine that the latest playtest has stealthed in a psionic warlock with the Great Old One pact. No problems. Completely change the flavor of the class. Perfectly fine. But, add something to fighters? Oh hell no.

Ah well. It's always the way. People constantly complain about how casters get all the good stuff, but, any attempt to give anything to the non-casters and get that that's not really D&D. Like I said, 6 impossible things before breakfast is perfectly fine, but, that seventh boy, that's a doozy.

Would just be nice if just once, people would accept a bit of compromise. Let me have the last eight or ten levels of fighter to make a mythic fighter.

I think what people are suggesting is that instead of just getting the last 8-10 levels of an existing class you get a whole new class for your mythic warrior, while fighters stay largely as they are.

That said, if this whole mythic-warrior proposal is just an attempt to stealth warlord back in, no thanks.