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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 8764682" data-attributes="member: 7023840">So, I didn't want to get into this, but since you replied again ... this is what you had in the original post .... I suspect that its unintentional, but the bolded part of the sentence is one of those things I see a lot, and it always strikes me as ... problematic ... for two reasons.The first (the idea that people get "imprint{ed}" by D&D "early") echoes some truly horrendous comments by a particular person in the TTRPG field made some time ago. That's as much as I'd like to say about that. I do think it is best practices to avoid using language that negates individual agency and assumes that people are only playing a game not out of preference, but because of some type of conditioning they can't overcome. That's kind of insulting. The second is the "opera problem." There is often an assumption that if only people knew better, they'd like this better thing that I like! But that's not often the case. I call it the "opera problem," because most people can instinctively understand that- that someone might talk down to others who enjoy, say, Lizzo and not opera. But the history of "betters" telling hoi polloi what they should like is not a long and glorious one; far from it. It's always better to understand why people like what they like, even if you don't have the same interests. You tend to learn more.It's the same here; it seems that a lot of time is spent trying to explain away the success of D&D, instead of grappling with what it might mean. There are many things in life I don't personally understand the popularity of (SUVs and CUVs, TikTok & Twitter, canned wine, hard seltzer, abominable pizza toppings, etc.), but I can recognize that there may be a reason that these things are popular. Shrugging and saying, "People be stupid, yo" might be satisfying to my ego, but isn't productive in understanding why people are doing what they are doing. YMMV.</blockquote>

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