Unpopular opinions go here

[Lanefan]

Re: retiring characters and rolling up new ones:

Will you take it as a given that I'm not lying when I saw plenty of people who treated doing that as a major moral failing at one time, or not?

That you saw plenty of people who treated doing this as a major moral failing is unfortunate. Their problem, however, not mine and not yours.

And...major moral failing? Yikes!

 

[Lanefan]

All of it. Its literally not what I said.

Because what you're saying here is nonsensical and, again, not what I said.

Maybe not what you meant, but it initially did come across as being what you were saying.

They can't. Social mechanics do not work.

On this, we agree.

That has nothing to do with whether or not talking is a part of the game.

This directly contradicts an earlier post of yours that said:

Now, Roleplay is interactive, no doubt, but it isn't mechanical and fundamentally can't be when you get down to it (hence why social mechanics always tend to fail), and without mechanics, you're not actually creating a game.

The bolded says, fairly clearly, that no mechanics = no game. You also say here that roleplay isn't mechanical. Therefore, it's a pretty obvious conclusion that you're in fact saying roleplaying = no game.

And lets be clear about what I mean by social mechanics; Im talking about trying to set and enforce rules for literally talking to your friends.

I am not referring to basic things like mechanizing NPC reactions (ie, does your Intimidate or Lie succeed), I am referring to trying to make the actual conversation between you, the actual, real life human person and another actual, real life human person, a structured, rule enforced thing segregated from any real, natural conversation.

When you put it this way, it makes a bit more sense.

 

[Hussar]

Re: retiring characters and rolling up new ones:

That you saw plenty of people who treated doing this as a major moral failing is unfortunate. Their problem, however, not mine and not yours.

And...major moral failing? Yikes!

A quick perusal through the perennial die rolled vs point buy threads will quickly turn up many, many examples of dms insisting you play what you rolled. It’s not exactly a stretch.

 

[Aldarc]

The distinction between different types of alignment-based celestials, fiends, and extraplanar entities in D&D is absolutely ridiculous and completely unnecessary grid-filling. Most people outside of D&D couldn't tell you the difference between a demon and a devil, and that's even more so true for differences between celestials. So yeah, I wish that it wasn't a thing.

 

[pemerton]

The distinction between different types of alignment-based celestials, fiends, and extraplanar entities in D&D is absolutely ridiculous and completely unnecessary grid-filling. Most people outside of D&D couldn't tell you the difference between a demon and a devil, and that's even more so true for differences between celestials. So yeah, I wish that it wasn't a thing.

But what about the demodands? And the guardinals? Won't someone think of the guardinals?

 

[pemerton]

Social mechanics do not work.

I don't really understand what you are arguing about with @Tony Vargas, but the quoted bit is so obviously false that I thought it might be worth pointing that out, in case it's relevant to the rest of the discussion.

 

[Lanefan]

A quick perusal through the perennial die rolled vs point buy threads will quickly turn up many, many examples of dms insisting you play what you rolled. It’s not exactly a stretch.

"Play what you rolled" still doesn't prevent a player from running a character into the ground, or finding a good in-game reason for it to retire.

And a DM who won't allow a player to retire a character is a poor DM.

 

[Aldarc]

"Play what you rolled" still doesn't prevent a player from running a character into the ground, or finding a good in-game reason for it to retire.

This still seems like a waste of everyone's limited game time.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And a DM who won't allow a player to retire a character is a poor DM.

If nothing else, it makes the game less fun for at least one person in the group. And games are supposed to be fun.

 

[AnotherGuy]

"Play what you rolled" still doesn't prevent a player from running a character into the ground ...(snip)

That is no good, if is purposeful IMO.
If I were the player, the survivalist in me would be to give it my best shot and have fun with it for the stories thereafter. Sadly, not everyone likes this approach.