Unpopular opinions go here

[Thomas Shey]

To be fair, that's not just the responsibility of the GM. When it is another player's spotlight time, you need to stay engaged. And when it is your spotlight time, you need to work toward making the scene engaging. This, more than Mercer's GMing or anything else, is what CR excels at and serves as a good example.

But, yeah, if the GM's game is boring, let them know (preferably diplomatically).

I don't even think people should require to be engaged during other people's spotlight time except to the degree they need to do two things: 1. Know what happens to make decisions with their own character, and 2. Be ready when called on to be able to act. I don't see any point in pretending in interest in parts of the game that don't interest me; that just says you can't have people with different things that interest them.

Basically, I don't feel its other people's obligations to interest me, but neither do I feel its my obligation to feign interest when its not there.

 

[Reynard]

I don't even think people should require to be engaged during other people's spotlight time except to the degree they need to do two things: 1. Know what happens to make decisions with their own character, and 2. Be ready when called on to be able to act. I don't see any point in pretending in interest in parts of the game that don't interest me; that just says you can't have people with different things that interest them.

Basically, I don't feel its other people's obligations to interest me, but neither do I feel its my obligation to feign interest when its not there.

That seems to be counter to the shared, collaborative experience of an RPG to me. If you feel that way why not just play a single player CRPG or a solo.TTRPG?

 

[innerdude]

Unpopular cell phone opinion:

95% of all Seinfeld episode premises become ridiculous and fall apart if you retcon that key scene participants had a cell phone in their pocket.

 

[Emberashh]

Unpopular cell phone opinion:

95% of all Seinfeld episode premises become ridiculous and fall apart if you retcon that key scene participants had a cell phone in their pocket.

Counter argument, Seinfeld characters were on the whole written as morons. I doubt they'd fare better in a world of cell phones. More likely, they get into even stupider bouts of nothing.

 

[MGibster]

Another unpopopinion. All the problems people say are because of cell phones will still be there even if cell phones vanished from the timeline.

Yes, but cell phones, more specifically all the activities we associate with smart phones, have exacerbated certain problems. On the flip side they've proven plenty useful as well.

The only thing worse than someone who thinks they’re funny but aren’t is someone who thinks they’re funny but aren’t and is always on.

I feel personally attacked by this. Where's the report button?

 

[Emberashh]

Yes, but cell phones, more specifically all the activities we associate with smart phones, have exacerbated certain problems

Sure, but thats just the consequence of technology in general. The more capable we are, the more capable we are. For both good and bad.

After all, the machine gun was supposed to end all wars, and if we as a species were more collectively cognizant of what we were preparing to do to ourselves, perhaps it might have.

Cell phones, fortunately, are far less consequential and inversely far more useful as tools to bridge divides and sow peace.

For me though, in a broad philosophical sense, I consider cynicism and contempt to be at the core of much of societies problems, and issues with cell phones are just a symptom of that.

I especially see that in academia. Kids being raised on screens isn't really a problem of the screens just existing and being bad. Its a problem of parents not being, well, parents, and we collectively get held back on addressing these issues because theres just so much rampant cynicism and contempt getting in the way, not just for teachers but even the kids and the parents themselves.

Its a big circlejerk where most of the players basically hate each other and don't see any sincerity in each other.

 

[Aldarc]

Heres a real one.

I honestly believe that even some (dare I say most?) of the people I disagree with, are too smart not to understand a basic truth.

5e is successful in large part by playing to the tropes it does, because they are foundational aspects of the western view on Fantasy, in a feedback loop.

Fighter - Warrior
Rogue - Rogue
Druid - Druid
Ranger - Hunter
Wizard - Mage
Warlock - Warlock
Cleric - Priest
Paladin - Paladin

On the left, we have D&D, and on the right, we have WoW.

All of this stuff is absolutely core in the public consciousness of nerd/gamer culture.

The reason we have this small selection, is that for the VAST majority of gamers, thats all you need.

We dont need some vast shake up. The majority of players will not have even thought of the stupid things we will gleefully fight over for 100's of pages, and most of the 'must fix issues' are simply not relevant to the majority of players.

Unpopular opinion: 5e was what it needed to be, and its release version was not just fine, it was good, and most of you know it to.

I’m puzzled why though think that these “Western tropes” and WoW analogues that you think 5e leans into with its classes weren’t somehow also present in 4e. Every class you listed in 5e was also in 4e.

Also, I actually thought that 4e leaned EVEN HARDER into its “Western tropes” with its World Axis Mythos and particular alignment system.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If you grew up in the 80s, all those cartoons you loved were just cynical efforts to exploit your naiveté and sell you toys.

In all honesty, I don’t recall watching many shows with hard merchandizing, nor buying toys that had shows. D&D would be an obvious exception. I also had a big G.I. Joe, but that was years before the cartoon. But I don’t recall toys for Flash Gordon or Thundarr the Barbarian.

Now, Micronauts & Shogun Warriors DID eventually got comic books. I bought some, but ultimately didn’t care for the stories.

Tell you what: divestment of my Micronauts is among my biggest regrets regarding childhood toys, etc.

 

[Aldarc]

In all honesty, I don’t recall watching many shows with hard merchandizing, nor buying toys that had shows. D&D would be an obvious exception. I also had a big G.I. Joe, but that was years before the cartoon. But I don’t recall toys for Flash Gordon or Thundarr the Barbarian.

Now, Micronauts & Shogun Warriors DID eventually got comic books. I bought some, but ultimately didn’t care for the stories.

Tell you what: divestment of my Micronauts is among my biggest regrets regarding childhood toys, etc.

He-Man was kinda what changed the landscape of toys with cartoons.

Flash Gordon was 1979. Thundarr the Barbarian was 1980. He-Man was 1981. The GI-Joe cartoon and smaller toys were 1983. Transformers were 1984.

 

[overgeeked]

Unpopular opinion: going full Karen on the receptionist at the hospital at 5:15 am is not the amazing look you think it is.