Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8340623" data-attributes="member: 42582">Best practice for ballet dancers is going to overlap at least a bit with best practice for gymnasts, and both will overlap a bit with best practice for acrobats, and all will be as different from best practice for responding to chess openings as would be a 5e D&amp;D best practice guide. Maybe more different.I get that different leisure activities are different, and that they differ in the ways that they are different from one another, and that some admit of more mathematical precision (eg chess, backgammon) than others (eg dancing, fly-fishing).But we can still talk about what it is to do them well, or better. It's sometimes, even often, rude to tell someone they're doing something poorly; nevertheless that's probably an inevitable shadow cast by any attempt to conceive of what it is to do something well. (And Gygax certainly wasn't shy in calling out some D&amp;D play as poor practice.)In this respect I just don't see that, or how, 5e D&amp;D is different from all these other hobbies.And I absolutely reject the notion that telling people to have fun is giving them useful advice at all. I mean, someone might have fun using the PHB as a frisbee, but that can hardly be what we have in mind when we invite someone to play some D&amp;D with us.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8340623, member: 42582"] Best practice for ballet dancers is going to overlap at least a bit with best practice for gymnasts, and both will overlap a bit with best practice for acrobats, and all will be as different from best practice for responding to chess openings as would be a 5e D&D best practice guide. Maybe more different. I get that different leisure activities are different, and that they differ in the ways that they are different from one another, and that some admit of more mathematical precision (eg chess, backgammon) than others (eg dancing, fly-fishing). But we can still talk about what it is to do them [I]well[/I], or [I]better[/I]. It's sometimes, even often, rude to tell someone they're doing something poorly; nevertheless that's probably an inevitable shadow cast by any attempt to conceive of what it is to do something well. (And Gygax certainly wasn't shy in calling out some D&D play as poor practice.) In this respect I just don't see that, or how, 5e D&D is different from all these other hobbies. And I absolutely reject the notion that telling people to [I]have fun [/I]is giving them useful advice at all. I mean, someone might have fun using the PHB as a frisbee, but that can hardly be what we have in mind when we invite someone to play some D&D with us. [/QUOTE]

Verification