D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

[Maxperson]

Once again, I do not believe the phrase was meant literally, but rather to illustrate that D&D is at a minimum something that just about everyone will play. Some people's favourite. Some people's second (or third, or fourth) favourite.

Then just say that. The phrase used is wrong and as such, is causing the pushback. A lot of page space would have been saved with...

"You're right. It's not everyone's 2nd favorite game and for a whole lot of folks it's their 1st favorite. I was just saying that it's a game that just about everyone will play as it ranks highly over all."

Doubling, tripling, quadrupling... down is why you(and the others taking this position) keep getting pushback .

 

[soviet]

Then just say that. The phrase used is wrong and as such, is causing the pushback. A lot of page space would have been saved with...

"You're right. It's not everyone's 2nd favorite game and for a whole lot of folks it's their 1st favorite. I was just saying that it's a game that just about everyone will play as it ranks highly over all."

Doubling, tripling, quadrupling... down is why you(and the others taking this position) keep getting pushback .

Keep getting? The rest of us stopped talking about it nearly a week ago.

 

[Oofta]

But it isn't relying on "extreme coincidence." It's relying on the fact that this character is established in the fiction as having the type of worldliness where they WOULD know someone in every city.

This is a very common fictional trope!

If you want to play a game where such a character background wouldn't make sense (maybe all the PCs are teenagers from the same farming village on their first adventure), then simply disallow the background.

In the modern world, we regularly interact with people from around the globe. My D&D campaign world is not the modern world. It also doesn't necessarily excuse the miraculous coincidence that someone just happens to run into an old ally when they are in a city they didn't even know existed. If and when I see that in fiction? Yes, it makes the fiction less believable and it requires more suspension of belief. I don't care if it is a common trope or not.

If the feature is interpreted it means the PC could be on a different plane of existence, an alternate universe or even have gone through a time portal to 500 years in the past.

"Groan-inducing" is also pretty negative. If I said "A game where people just play their characters, and have to wait for the DM to tell them any little detail would produce a pretty groan-inducing game, for me and my preferences", I don't think you would view that charitably.

It's my opinion. For example I don't like movies or TV shows about anti-heroes and have never watched The Sopranos. For other people? It was an amazing shows. A game with evil PCs? A big nope for me. For other people? Bring it on. Have fun, just don't expect me to join.

Saying I don't personally care for something, even expressing how I would react, is not in any way saying other people are doing it wrong.

 

[TwoSix]

Saying I don't personally care for something, even expressing how I would react, is not in any way saying other people are doing it wrong.

How you say it matters. You could have used something neutral like "I don't care for it." You actively chose to use "groan-inducing".

 

[Maxperson]

Keep getting? The rest of us stopped talking about it nearly a week ago.

Some of us are catching up!!

Still, you argued against it a lot. A whole lot, rather than just shift to what you really meant.

 

[soviet]

Some of us are catching up!!

Still, you argued against it a lot. A whole lot, rather than just shift to what you really meant.

I wasn't the person who said it. I responded to it

 

[Emerikol]

<snip>

I do like other RPGs by the way, just not any of them more than D&D. My players are the same way. I think it's presumptive(arrogant) to assume that D&D would be 2nd, but popular if folks weren't ignorant of other RPGs. I'm sure D&D is 2nd or further for a lot of people, but it's also 1st for a lot of people.

I don't think that was the point at all. The point was that D&D was unoffensive to enough people to get groups. Meaning everyone liked it well enough so grouping is easy. The game you really like is perhaps not everyone's cup of tea. So you can't get a group. For roleplaying, D&D has to be the easiest to find a group for these days.

 

[Oofta]

How you say it matters. You could have used something neutral like "I don't care for it." You actively chose to use "groan-inducing".

It can be groan inducing for me when repeated coincidences, especially when they feel forced in order to advance a specific plot or if they happen too often in a movie or on a TV show. It's my reaction and I'm not going to deny it.

 

[Maxperson]

Holy shnikeys, @Oofta. Take a breather. You're getting mad about a turn of phrase that was clearly not meant literally. People have explained what was meant... if you want to continue to read it in the way you've interpreted it, despite clarification from others, that's on you.

If it was not meant literally(and I believe them when they say it wasn't), then they should have immediately backed off of it and just altered what they were saying rather than continuing to use it and defend it. Clearly the term was/is problematic as it was initially used.

 

[Emerikol]

You can't know that. You can assume it, but that assumption does not make it true..............or false. It's simply a belief. I've played other RPGs with a lot of people over the years. D&D still remained our favorite. Not that we didn't like the others, but they were 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. favorite. Not D&D/

You have to agree though that D&D has an enormous brand recognition advantage over almost every other game system. A lot of D&D players likely have never even heard of games ranked 4th and beyond in sales. Some probably don't even know of Pathfinder though that is rarer. These boards are not indicative of normal in ANY way.

Now having said that, I am not arguing I know everyone's preferences. I would argue the fact most people play D&D is not proof of your case though.