D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[KYRON45]

I suppose so, but what people say still matters I think.

There are an awful lot of people talking. It can’t all matter.

 

[Mournblade94]

A creepy sex-pest who, if they survive to the end, shows that they have learned nothing and is determined to repeat the same mistakes all over again.

The trouble with satire is it invariably goes over the head of its intended target (call it the Starship Troopers effect), but if you know the game was written by liberal Europeans, the subtext is there to see.

It could just be people aren't looking for the satire in the games they play.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Hypothetical: if someone came to you and said that they liked the F104 (or thaco), believed it was associated with a particular group or style that they favored, and felt insulted by your "funny" comments, you would ignore them or tell them to just get over it, or blame them for being offended?

Actual hypothetical for discussion purposes. I'm not personally invested beyond liking debate.

I would probably very politely express my opinion that they should get over it, and/or find a way to disassociate myself from a person who was so extremely invested in this demonstrably extremely fatal aeroplane that they felt the need to approach people to complain about it being mocked. Like, if they designed it, maybe there's a conversation to be had about that, but they probably agree that it was excessively fatal!

If it was a political, religious or moral concept, that's a little more complex and we can't really discuss that here, but I would generally avoid insulting those unless I found them notably vile.

But this is silly rule in an RPG, that I understand and used for decade, and I'm sorry but that's 100% fair game.

EDIT - Also, let's not pretend THAC0 is in any way necessary with or even really associated with OSR-type games. Almost every single one of them has ditched it. So it's not really associated with a particular style. It's pretending to suggest it is.

 

[AnotherGuy]

It could just be people aren't looking for the satire in the games they play.

Weird, weird.

 

[The Firebird]

given what they often complain about loudly, it appears to in fact be their views. If you are opposed to inclusivity and that is why you object to 5e or 2024, then good riddance, we tolerated stuff like that for far too long already.

I don't think this accurately characterizes the views of every person who feels left out or disparaged. It's true for some people with loud voices. It would be a mistake to conclude that they represent everyone, and that everyone with concerns fits into that box.

But it pretty much IS necessary or is at least highly supportive for inclusivity. SOMETHING has to give. I like the older, classic use of humanoids, but I recognize MY ATTACHMENT to that as a part of the game HAS TO GIVE WAY for the good of the game. That’s the adult thing to do here. I can still lament it a bit, but I’m not going to stamp about the place because I know why they’re doing it and accept that the game has a better market for it.

I think this is a reasonable response.

More generally, the point I'm making is not whether or not the orc changes were necessary for inclusivity, but that someone can oppose those changes without being opposed to inclusivity. Someone may be opposed and think they have nothing to do with inclusivity. (They may be wrong about that). But being wrong about whether or not the changes are necessary is a much lesser offense than thinking the changes make the game more inclusive and opposing them on those grounds.

I think there's a bit of a breakdown in how people are distinguishing these two groups and its causing unnecessary conflict and antagonism.

 

[Minigiant]

Ascending AC just makes "sense"? Having everything be additive instead of inconsistently positives and minuses. There's no need for derision about older D&D rules, things just evolve. That's progress.

It's less that AC should be ascending or descending and it's more that either everything goes up or everything goes down.

Most of the criticism to that cocaine from the fact that some aspects where negative values that went down and some aspects were positive values that went up but had to be translated to go down.

The sharp defense against the valid criticism is often what fueled much of the ridicule of various levels.

 

[Incenjucar]

Enjoying satire is not a less legitimate thing than enjoying awkward rules. Lines can be crossed, but the world cannot be only lines.

 

[Mournblade94]

Yeah, it's really not that much of a leap in logic to see how it could be considered personally insulting. The biggest difference is whether you consider it an in-joke (we're laughing at ourselves) or an out-joke (other people are mocking us). And considering that one of the biggest signifiers of the group in question is their opposition to the current management of D&D, it's pretty easy to see how they'd consider it an out-group insult.

100% very well said

 

[dragoner]

I would go even further. It’s not really a faux-European medieval ascetic, it’s a faux-British medieval ascetic.

Southern Europe has always been focussed on trade across the Mediterranean, so North Africans, Turks, Egyptians, Ethiopians or even Arabs wouldn’t be out of place in medieval Venice.

Ibn Battuta in the early medieval period was born in North Africa and travelled to Mecca, Tanzania, Sumatra and China.

True, because Europe was a lot more varied, the romanticist writings from the Victorians would definitely had a British orientation.

I recently read something by a British historian about the "Saxon migrations" into England, and so much written in the past isn't supported by evidence from archeology or genetics. The sweeping maps in history books with arrows look exactly like the same ones from the D-Day, because the same artists made them, and it was an artistic choice to include them in history books.

 

[The Firebird]

Perhaps despite whatever nuanced view one has, if they look around and see that the people nodding agreement with them are of a certain moral view, maybe it’s not the company that has a problem.

Applying this level of scrutiny, essentially guilt by association, to other arguments is imo a large part of the problem. It starts off as "we don't want people with bad view X in our game". But then the circle expands and expands and so what starts off well meaning ends up catching a lot of others in the crossfire. It ends up being very gatekeepy and exclusionary in its own right.

Yeah, it's really not that much of a leap in logic to see how it could be considered personally insulting. The biggest difference is whether you consider it an in-joke (we're laughing at ourselves) or an out-joke (other people are mocking us). And considering that one of the biggest signifiers of the group in question is their opposition to the current management of D&D, it's pretty easy to see how they'd consider it an out-group insult.

Thanks; this does a good job of clarifying the discussion.