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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6315824" data-attributes="member: 2067">1) I'm not defending a guy. I'm defending anyone's ability to play D&D however they have fun with D&D. Which includes nixing elements they don't like for whatever arbitrary reason they don't like 'em. 2) Specifically, I'm defending anyone's ability to say that they don't like eladrin teleportation. 3) The counterpoint I'm criticizing is the idea that no one should actually have a problem with eladrin teleportation -- the asumption that if they do, they are Doing D&D Wrong. That is, to borrow a fun little phrase, bunkum. 4) I'm not really interested in backing off of the idea that someone who mandates that another player be cool with some arbitrary game element is being inflexible. Yeah, if you're saying that playing 4e D&D requires you to accept eladrin teleportation, you are being much more inflexible than someone who says it doesn't. The first solution to people quitting over minor game elements like this is to not imagine that they are sacrosanct and inviolate things that must be accepted as they were handed down from on high -- to be able to tell them, "Well, okay, just do something else, not a big deal."Since there's no Fun Police or Natural-Reading-O-Meter that objectively quantifies and enforces these things, we have no choice but to rely on people applying their best understanding. D&D's never really been a game about One True Way To Play. All right then, apparently we can drop the idea that someone is applying the rules wrong or that the complaint is illegitimate. Different folks got different problems. There might be ways to solve it or not have it, but whatever. Nobody needs to do any of that solving. They can just kick eladrin out of their games if that breaks it for them and keep on keepin' on. Is it fragile if this breaks their game? Sure. But D&D is optional, it has to compete with other stuff for our attention, and our attention is very fragile. If DDNFan's handle is any indication, it sounds like 5e, with its stripped-down basic core, is going to be right up his ally, and he knows it. Plus, it sounds like those who really like eladrin teleportation will probably be able to still do it, if they want. And viola!, we have a robust game that can accommodate multiple playstyles and no one has to tell anyone else that they're an Edition Warrior if they don't like Rule X.People get to like or dislike anything for any arbitrary reason they want, ya know? Some people don't like 4e. Some of them don't like it for completely irrational reasons. You can't make someone like something they don't want to like with reasonable debate and discussion. It doesn't reach the level of Edition War until they start playing Fun Police and telling everyone else that 4e is objectively somehow awful in some way that everyone who is a reasonable person must surely agree with. "I don't like teleporting eladrin" is a fine (if kind of shallow) reason to not like 4e, if that's what kills it for you. People get to be arbitrary about that noise. It's their own subjective experience.It becomes an Edition War when someone says "You are WRONG to not like teleporting eladrin!" or "You CANNOT enjoy teleporting eladrin!" When you presume to speak for the game as a whole or start trying to define what others can do with it. Avoid that, and everything else is just wishy-washy subjective independent arbitrary whatevering. I mean, someone could say "I hate 4e because I don't like THAC0," and they'd be very silly for saying that, and they're wrong, on so many levels, but that's their right. Whatever, man. When someone says "No one with any wit likes 4e because it has THAC0, which only idiots like, BAB is clearly superior in every relevant way" then, whatever wrong-ness they have, they're being an edition warrior, which deserves the mod-bombs.</blockquote>

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