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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JamesonCourage" data-source="post: 6011337" data-attributes="member: 6668292">Here's my thoughts on this. When you say the following things, you do seem dismissive:When I run my game, I don't consider it a "silly little game." Maybe you do for your game, and that's cool. I don't think that way about my game. I invest in it, emotionally and mentally. As a writer, it's a strong, healthy creative outlet for me. Planning for it, thinking about it, running it, etc. all help me relax, get my creative juices flowing, practiced, and ready for the rest of life.As far as emotionally investing in it, I mean that I play for the emotional payoff. I've written about this briefly before on these boards, but that's why I hold immersion so high. When my players are running their PCs, they get emotionally affected by the events in-game. The lives of their characters matter to them, in a sense, while they immerse in them. They can feel the failures truly sting, and they can feel sadness when a PC's friend or loved on passes on (especially when they think they caused it or could prevent it). They also feel happiness when their PCs are happy (for their friends, for personal issues, etc.).Sure, go ahead and play your "silly little game" however you want. I, however, engage with my close friends of many years in a healthy creative outlet that lets me see new things from new angles. I've learned quite a bit from my time in gaming, and I mean that in a societal sense. I can put myself in the shoes of someone else, and that can truly affect who I am as a person. If that's not something that people engage in regularly, fine; but don't tell me that caring about my game is somehow unhealthy, especially when someone who's been selling me this helpful, healthy game for years is now mocking an aspect of it.**I say this as someone who wasn't offended by the gnome or dragonborn / troll videos, even if I thought they were stupid. And, really, I'm not a big fan of gnomes, but one of my players had a gnome PC who was one of his favorite characters.As am I. Whether you meant it or not, this statement carries the implication that those who disagree with you are looking at the issue as children (which your "maybe back when I was 14" statement backs up). That's dismissive. And when I'm emotionally and mentally invested in my game, that's a problem. Not necessarily for you, as a poster, because I can just ignore your statements easily enough. But when you've been supplying me with my creative outlet, and then you start trying to sell me a new creative outlet while making fun of the old play style I had, that's going to be a problem to me, and others.Again, I'm sorry if you don't get that adults would invest into such a thing, but people do, for reasons I went more in-depth into above.This is another point I wanted to touch on: I don't define myself by my work, and probably never will. I haven't been lucky enough to work in a field that's truly fulfilling for me (some construction was the closest I got, I think; building something wasn't enjoyable for me, but looking at the finished product definitely was fulfilling).My hobbies, however, are fulfilling. This includes gaming with friends, writing (mostly short stories), helping friends (and some choice family), and on and on. But work, not so much. Many people are lucky, and get to work in a field they love; I'm not one of them. I'm more invested in my writing, my game, my friends. These things are precious to me, and I have little respect for statements that try to make them less than they are. I truly learn from my game, and in ways that I feel make me a better person. I do not get that from my work. I get that you didn't feel that way. I do get that. I didn't feel "betrayed" or "insulted" either, even if I thought the shorts weren't funny and were stupid. But, I get why people do get upset. People can tell me "you're doing it wrong" all they want to, but it's not going to change how I feel. I get something out of this hobby, and so do others. And sometimes, when you make fun of the things they care about for legitimate reasons, they can and do get offended. In very adult ways.I'm glad you like the game, and I hope you get something special out of it; RPGs are a special type of game. Good luck in the future. And, most importantly, play what you like <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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