I wasn't so much responding to you, in the sense of "why did YOU say this thing," but rather speaking to the thread in general, taking what you had said as an accepted baseline.
That is: given I accept what you've said, why do we get what has happened in this thread (just from other people, rather than strictly yourself), and in the Quick Primer, and in so many other places and discussions? Why is it that, in order to extol the virtues of this style, so many resort to comparing it with bad versions of other styles? And, if there is no answer (or no more answer than "because people aren't great at discussing things," which is sort of a given), could we try actually doing the good-vs-good, or at least mixing "here's what's great about this!" with "...and here's what's often not-so-great, and tools for addressing it"?
The Quick Primer aimed explicitly to explain to others why this style of gaming was enjoyable, not merely for nostalgia's sake, but as an end in and of itself. It is very much about defining what "SP" is and why anyone should care. And it continues to be referenced as an allegedly good and useful tool for this purpose. But it does so with exactly the sniffing, dismissive, compare-good-SP-to-bad-NS metric I'm so frustrated by. It's hard to take a discussion about the virtues of a thing seriously when it becomes just as much about how the things I already like can suck.
Um, okay. So ... here's the thing. This is an internet forum. A place where people (like us) gather to chat about our favorite hobbies. Maybe share some tips. Maybe tell some jokes. Or, as I like to put it, "I'm here to mock bards, and chew bubblegum. And I'm all out of gum."
But it's also ... an internet forum. Which means that while some people enjoy conversing, other people get their dander up and argue. No matter what someone says, no matter how innocuous the hobby .... people will argue about anything.
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That's the famous thread of people arguing about
how many days there are in a week. If people can argue about the number of days in a week, is there anything that cannot be argued about?
I don't know a lot of what you are talking about (what is the quick primer, and why is it capitalized?). What I do know is that people get really, really defensive about playing styles/modalities of play/theory in D&D. It is nearly impossible to have a conversation about them without people taking offense. Look at this- from your perspective, you think that this thread was about comparing SP to NS? And yet, from my perspective (see above), that was the last thing I wanted. All I was hoping to do is have a conversation about the ways in which some of the SP concepts are still relevant to discussions people continue to have about 5e. I am more than cognizant that it is not the preferred modality of play for the (vast?) majority of people, and I would go so far as to say that while I employ aspects of it myself, it is not the primary way that I engage with the game.
That's the problem. The lack of moderate opinions and discussion. Three months ago, or so, I made the tragic mistake of participating in, and taking a moderate position in, one of those interminable theory threads (I think it was because it was ostensibly about Jon Peterson). Long story short- after a particular nasty response, that had a number of people liking the nasty comment*, I chose to ignore that person and everyone who liked that response. And I am immeasurably happier!
So, to fully answer the question- the reason the issue of the DM comes up so often in this particular conversation is because those who don't like SP constantly use the "Bad DM" as the counterexample. I mean, if I was
arguing against SP, that's what I would do to, because that's kind of the key issue with SP. So when people
argue for SP, they use the "Good DM." If you wanted to extrapolate that to 5e, it's the same thing with "rulings not rules." Reliance on the DM is either the key selling point, or a major drawback.
From your perspective, if you're arguing for a particular modality of play, you only see the ways that people attack it; not the ways in which you attack other people's preferences. Because it's the internet. Because people argue. Because you can either forget and forgive, or carry forth the same arguments over and over again.
Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.
*Most of those types of threads, I had observed, are just tribal arguing with people giving XP to those who agree with them. If that's your thing, and you are getting something out of it, that's cool, but it's a little too "Mean Girls" for me. And I'm not interested in making fetch happen.
