I’ve been in the hobby since 1977-78. I’ve played in over 100 different systems.
All I can say about the aversion to 3PP stuff is most prevalent in the D&D community IME. Part of that is because D&D is the origin of the hobby, and as such, there’s probably been more 3PP products made for it (across editions) than for any other game. Possibly more than all of the rest of the market combined.
A lot of it- especially before the OGL- was unbalanced, overpowered, and some was quite odd to be frank. And if you were like me- someone who moved a lot- you’d see a lot of players try to bring their own PCs from previous tables to new ones. Invariably, that meant some spell, item or other entry on their character sheet was unheard of…and probably pretty über.
So that distrust of 3PP in D&D has old roots.
Even with games of similar age, like Traveller, you really don’t see anything like that.
This has been interesting. I've heard bits of how the 3~3.5 era stuff was wild for third party. I've never looked at 3E directly but I have looked at Pathfinder. With the incredibly modular nature I can see how it would be easy to make stuff that plug in. Becoming a nightmare to think on allowing as X option + Y class could quickly get out of hand and is hard to sit down and look at how to keep the idea of the option intact without it becoming a problem.
I'm going to guess that this is your issue since nothing you posted remotely resembles my experience with DnD 5e or 5.5e, but I've only ever played in person. Finding in-person groups is extremely hard (even in a city) so I can understand playing online but I'd rather have no DnD than bad DnD
Side question: what is "posting the alphabet"? Is that some new version of complaining about everything being "Woke"?
Yeah...Online is my only option being in a town of 4,000 with the nearest walmart being a 2 hour drive. I just don't have the option to play in person as the interest isn't here, I've tried. It's rough enough to get some of the guys who have kids and wives to make time for a warhammer game. On your side question it's posting stuff like "Game is MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ friendly" in the title or body of the LFG post. Not a complaint about people being at the game but if a game had "This game is x Friendly" where X could be White, Arab, Islam, Christian ect... I think that's weird and with my experience not a welcoming space if your not in a type of lockstep. r/LFG and StartPlaying have it in about 33~40% of posts.
Thank you! I've heard about it for years but always in a negative tone. I haven't looked around to much yet but everyone responding to me has been pretty nice.
If they have 5 players bringing them 3pp player-material (because if it is done once the floodgates for such become open) then they may feel the need to vet this new material to see if is compatible and balanced for the game they are running. Some DMs just do not have the headspace for that and thus feel more comfortable to be the ones in control of bringing new material into the game (this includes homebrew rules etc).
I do get that. It's just a weird frustration. I've heard forever on "The DM buys everything" and in an instance where a player is buying stuff it's thrown in the trash. I do understand in the sense of fairness what's offered to one is offered to all. But with how ridged 5e's design is it should ben that hard to look at a thing, gauge it's power, offer changes, shut it down or accept it. It's a huge reason why I have a huge hatred of Multiclass. Every instance of it I've seen has either been a player using it in an end for a crazy strong character or for roleplay reason that have made the character far weaker then the rest of the group. I look at systems like PF2 with 27 different classes and think that the multiclass system is the thing that makes asking for something similar in 5e impossible even with the game being more strict.
Mecheon thank you for so much insight!~
Yeah it was a frustrated spew of a bunch of stuff. Just had to get it out as I haven't said this to anyone and just need answers and to know if I should even be trying to play games anymore. I didn't really think on that Dragonlance started the trend. What I've always wanted was something somewhere in-between. I'm not big on a huge story or narrative, preferring a nice session to session feel. It would be nice if an NPC, enemy, theme carried over from time to time. On the power gamer I've never found one of those tables though, I've heard stories on how a power gamer/rules lawyer/wargamer was in a game with someone and they don't want that again. I want to be at that table and can't find it.
I've read/watched/played a bunch of stuff haha, I just posted the stuff I liked. I didn't get into some things that I know were really popular like the Wheel of time or Drizzt's adventures also Warcraft haha. A friend tried to get me into WoW but I preferred FFXI as my high school MMO.
On third party I do see the madness of DnDWiki and just something found off the back of a internet truck. It's more a frustration on supporting something buying into the idea I might be able to used it and feeling like naughty word. Your point on the Blood Hunter is spot on but I'd like to go a step further. Since they came out I've seen no end of people screaming about silvery barbs, Twilight cleric, honestly most of the power creep that came out in Tasha's and I agree with it. In the most recent FR book they put out the power between a bunch of the subclasses is wildly out of balance. That in addition to the martial caster divide being made larger in 5.5 makes me think very little of WotC's designers. With the guys who I did see growing up leaving WotC like Chris Perkins (honest, him running a game for the cast of Robot Chicken was my first time seeing a real dnd game) I lose faith.
On the Pern and sex stuff, I don't mind romance and the like being in the game. I have a hard line at ERP, which I don't think is to crazy of a limit. But it's the first thing people are sharing and making a huge deal about in game after game. I've played in a game where a nonbinary gnome raised by their overbearing lesbian mothers who wanted them to be a lawyer lashed out and made a warlock pact to become on the run. If it was ended there I'd say "ok this is a hard self insert for someone to vent" but the topic kept coming up again and again as the mothers became recuring NPC's. Also I'm frustrated at the amount of self inserts. I just want to have a consistent group where we slay some goblins, gather gold, save a town, die to a dragon. I'm aware of the how freaky FR is, one of the big ways I learned is the Tiefling breast milk thread on Twitter with Ed Greenwood. A thread where I have no idea on what's appropriate anymore where one of the women making a huge deal on how Ed's a freak actively draws/commissions art of her Tiefling vtuber getting railed by dragons... I don't know where the line is on any of this as I see people who seem sex positive being sex negative and people who make sex their entire character. While I don't want any of it to be a big deal. I want to play Dungeons and Dragons not kink's and cantrips... When games go 4 sessions long with no combat and it's just playing house I'm angry.
On the last part, They don't want help... It's a clash of interest. Where I want a wargame with progression and combat as that's what I grew up on they seem to want improv and only to LARP.
James G. Thank you! That was a good read and I appreciate hearing from the perspective of those here longer.
Homebrew is the most prevalent type of D&D home game. You are looking at the wrong places to recruit if people are looking at it as wrong/bad/fun.
Please point me in the right direction. I brought up the places that I've always thought as the most popular, hell even if you ask an AI chatbot they point you to the r/lfg and startplaying. While I'm done doing paid games I really want to know where I need to look.
If this is your being "respectful" and "grumbling a bit", I can say that you probably wouldn't be welcome at my table for very long, so I think you should look inward for a solution to many of your "problems" in this thread.
Oh it is. I feel a lot stronger about things then I do with this post. But it would just unreadable mess of a swears and bitching that come across more as a form of venting. The kind you'd do with a buddy but doesn't get anything accomplished. I cleaned it up twice before putting up, sorry if I missed some spelling errors.
