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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Oni" data-source="post: 5811918" data-attributes="member: 380">A new edition is coming and I think it's fair to say that most of us want two things, we want it to accommodate our preferences and we want it to be it to be as popular with as many gamers as possible so we have lots and lots of people to play with. I do not think either of those are unreasonable desires. However we must take care that in our attempt at the first goal we do not hinder the second. Right now everyone is trying to make their voice heard and communicate their preferences to the designers by making them known to the community at large, mostly by saying what we do and do not like about previous editions, and that is also not unreasonable. Where we are shooting ourselves in the foot, though, is the way in which we are stating our preferences. When you throw around a lot of negative language and loaded terms it creates a toxic environment and makes people feel attacked for their preferences. When someone feels attacked it gets their hackles up and puts their back to a wall, and when you put people on the defensive it puts them in a position where they say things they might not have otherwise said, it makes it harder for them modify their own positions or accept that yours might also be valid. And that behavior breeds like behavior in others as they react to those reactions. In short it creates a self-perpetuating atmosphere that breeds partisans and makes them ever more so.We can do better.It is just as easy for us to frame our preferences in a positive manner as it is to frame them in a negative one. Instead of focusing on what we don't like and trying to explain why it is so terrible, we should be focusing on what we do like and why. When you attack another person's preferences as being shoddy, immature, rudimentary, some form of entitlement, et c. then it can seem you are by proxy attacking them, their own personal sense of taste. A person that feels insulted and belittled isn't going to want to come back to the collective table, especially if it requires some compromise on their part in doing so, every time we engage in that behavior we're killing our hobby a little bit. We're shooting ourselves in the foot.I'm not guiltless when it comes to such behavior and I write this as much as a reminder to myself to be conscientious of how I say things as I do to encourage others also to be mindful of how we talk to our fellow fans. We'll be the death of our own hobby if we keep drawing lines in the sand and trying to push our preferences at the expense of others'. I think we really need to focus on communicating to the designers what we like in the hopes the next edition of D&D will be able to support the styles of play we enjoy, rather than to trying to keep what others might enjoy out, because as long as we're all using the same book, even if we're using it in different ways, it will give us common ground and make it easier for people to branch out into trying other ways of playing, maybe your way of playing. To that end, I'm pledging here to make an effort to frame my preferences in a positive manner, one that shines a light on the things I enjoy, rather than tears down the things that other people love. I can only assume that if you're posting here that you love D&D and roleplaying and you would like to see the hobby continue on for future generations of gamers to enjoy, even if you do not personally care for one iteration or other of the game, and so I ask others to make a pledge of positivity as well, in the hopes that we can help create an environment that gives the next edition an opportunity to live up to its potential and stand on its own merit, rather than being killed on the vine.</blockquote>

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