D&D 5E Arguing, ideating and solution-seeking on the D&D Enworld forum

[Morrus]

I can't imagine the results will be other than "less of the stuff we don't like and more of the stuff we do like". That would apply to pretty much any poll, whatever the topic.

Which best describes your financial situation:

• I'd like more money
• I have the right amount of money
• I'd like less money

That said, I too get frustrated with the ease in which online conversation descends into argument. I feel much better, though, when I look at the Facebook comments of my local newspaper. Compared to that, we're paragons of reason.

 

[Aldarc]

The problem is far less the arguing, but, instead, it's the rude, disrespectful, and impolite tone that is often transmitted through those arguments.

 

[Thunder Brother]

Being mostly a lurker during the more heated threads, my perspective is that there's "missing the forest for the trees" and there's "arguing over whether what we're looking at is really a tree or a tall shrub". Threads seem to always descend towards the latter.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The problem with both "Creative solutions" and "Ideation/brainstorming" is typically the thread starters, in my experience.

What usually happens is someone has some kind of ideas, and they want solutions or brainstorming.

Except actually they don't.

What they want is someone to simply either say their approach is right, or to basically write out the approach they've vaguely hinted at or poorly explained, in numbers/rules they can just use. This is a little unfair of course. About 30% of "help me with ideas" threads actually do feature people who want creative solutions and/or brainstorming, and actually do read the responses, respond in a measured way to the responses and so on. But the majority, in my experience, end up with the OP either ignoring 90% of the contributions entirely, or yelling "You're doing it wrong!" at people without really being able to explain exactly what he wants.

Also re: arguing, that's applicable to a much wider variety of threads than solutions/brainstorming. For example, with the Vox Machina series, there's obviously no "creative solutions" or "brainstorming" to be applied, only opinions and arguing. Or with threads like "DND2024 is making these changes..." there aren't any "creative solutions" or "brainstorms" to be applied, are there?

So brainstorming/creative solutions only even apply to a narrow subset of threads, and even in those, as I noted, most often the OP doesn't actually seem to want what they're asking for and ignores most contributions (with some honorable exceptions).

 

[Hussar]

The problem is far less the arguing, but, instead, it's the rude, disrespectful, and impolite tone that is often transmitted through those arguments.

To be fair, it's REALLY hard to not react to perceived tone. And, I know that I stuggle all the time to explain myself without annoying the crap out of people. I stand in awe of people who seem to do it so well.

I know that I have had to learn to click that unsubscribe button on threads and I really, REALLY need to do it faster sometimes.

And, on a side note, I learned a new word today. Cool.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That said, I too get frustrated with the ease in which online conversation descends into argument. I feel much better, though, when I look at the Facebook comments of my local newspaper. Compared to that, we're paragons of reason.

That is the most amazing thing here. Whenever I think maybe people are just being argumentative and ridiculous or that the standard of argument here is not high, I can go, I dunno literally anywhere else on the internet (Twitter, reddit, comments sections), and suddenly ENworld looks like some sort of high-standard academic debate where people are extremely reasonable.

One thing I notice here is that, over time, there's a lot less in the way of "sides" than a lot of forums, too. There are tons of people I may disagree with on one issue, and yet agree with on others. We seem to have somehow escaped partisanism.

 

[CleverNickName]

Not nearly enough cowbell. (That joke is still funny, right?)

I voted Goldilocks on all three options because honestly, if I didn't enjoy the amount of arguing, brainstorming, and game discussion here, I would go elsewhere. I'm an adult; I get to decide where I spend my time on the Internet and who I spend it with...why would I hang out in a place I didn't enjoy?

 

[FrogReaver]

...or yelling "You're doing it wrong!" at people without really being able to explain exactly what he wants.

IMO, oftentimes if someone can clearly state their problem the solution becomes obvious. But often the person cannot clearly state their problem because they don't fully understand their problem.

 

[Seramus]

One of the most common reactions in a disagreement is to assume someone is less experienced, less educated, or less intelligent than yourself. They must have misread something, misunderstood the rules, haven't played as much as you, etc. It's such a knee-jerk reaction you can see it happen like a tin of popcorn in a bonfire. I've done it, you've done it, your dog has done it. It's really hard to say "Self, this person has done similar things to me, is just as smart as me, and knows as much as I do... read/watched/listened to the same thing I did... and came to a different conclusion."

 

[Ruin Explorer]

One of the most common reactions in a disagreement is to assume someone is less experienced, less educated, or less intelligent than yourself. They must have misread something, misunderstood the rules, haven't played as much as you, etc. It's such a knee-jerk reaction you can see it happen like a tin of popcorn in a bonfire. I've done it, you've done it, your dog has done it. It's really hard to say "Self, this person has done similar things to me, is just as smart as me, and knows as much as I do... read/watched/listened to the same thing I did... and came to a different conclusion."

This applies in both directions though. You don't see it quite as often here as on, say, reddit, but people who don't know much about a subject, but know, say, hugely more than their friends, often think they're amazing super-expert, and when they talk to people who know vastly more than them, they can't even comprehend that. On reddit you often see it with the history of videogames. Some 20-something who has watched tons of YouTube videos on gaming history and maybe read a few wikipedia articles, will make these wild claims about games, which literally anyone who was around then and gaming with the devices/games in question knows isn't true, but he's an "expert" and another "expert" on YouTube sort of implied it was the case, so people arguing with him are dummies.

The best recent one was a guy trying to tell me that open-world games didn't exist until GTA3. He was very determined. When I and others showed unavoidable examples he started just trying to argue we'd edited Wikipedia to try and prove him wrong, and he refused to watch videos of the games in action about "YouTube can be faked" lol. Before that someone was very insisted that "CRPG" meant "Classic RPG", despite the fact that the term went back to when those game were new lol. That was pretty amazing.