D&D General Rant: Sometimes I Hate the D&D Community

[Ancalagon]

And you still haven't invited me over for punch and pie!

it's that orc you see... always watching the pie

 

[Scribe]

Again, yes it is rude to tell people that you hate the thing someone else likes and that it shouldn't exist.

Indeed.

 

[Li Shenron]

You could probably swap out "D&D Community" for "Knitting Community" or "[Sport] Community" or any number of categories of so-called communities out there and little would change about everything that follows in a general sense.

Eh... that's not my own experience at least. The amount of hostility I've seen in RPG forums (worst of all was the original WotC official D&D forum I think) beats on average every other forum I've been part of, and I've been even on political and religious forums, in fact I've been more than once tempted to quit all RPG forums for good. It still fortunately doesn't reach the hostility of social networks, which is why I'm not on them except one which I barely use at all anyway. But again, that's my own experience only.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Never did. The whole OP is about how trying to control the preferences of others is bad, remember?

Never tried to. Unless you think saying "hey, can we all be a bit more polite and mindful of the preferences of other people?" is trying to "control the speech of other people".

Again, yes it is rude to tell people that you hate the thing someone else likes and that it shouldn't exist. If I told you that I hate something you really like and wish it didn't exist, that would be rude/offensive. You can dislike something without wishing for it to not exist as an option for the people that do like it (I do the same with Dragonlance).

If I don’t want a rule in my game, you are saying it’s wrong for me to say so whereas you can want it and by extension say so.

It’s like a baseball fan disliking the infield fly rule and saying so (which by your criteria is wrong) but it’s ok to push for its inclusion.

I don’t care what you do in your own game—not telling you what to play in your back yard. But it’s not wrong to want the official rules to hew closer to one’s preferences. Even having to say that seems like stating the obvious.
Now if saying “I don’t like exhaustion rules and wish they were not in the game” on a forum to discuss games with fellow fans hurts someone’s feelings….oh boy.

Put another way: if a rule is official, it’s more likely to make its presence known in other people’s games…People should be able express their distaste for this without it being a personal attack.

Some have argued for the exclusion of alignment. Let’s say I like it. You’re telling me they are being rude to me?

That is…a very unusual take. You have a right to it of course, but it’s not something I can relate to. Anyway, have fun gaming and discussing games. It’s a fun pass time.

 

[S'mon]

If something changes in a new printing of the thing I like or a setting is updated in a way I don't like, I can ignore it and use the older version.

With electronic sources like D&D Beyond, 'updates' and 'errata' can be effectively compulsory, and obnoxious if you don't want them. This started in 4e and affects 5e now too.

 

[S'mon]

Eh... that's not my own experience at least. The amount of hostility I've seen in RPG forums (worst of all was the original WotC official D&D forum I think) beats on average every other forum I've been part of

I recently posted on a Facebook ad for Diablo: Immortal that I was enjoying the game... eek

 

[Bolares]

To be fair, that might be a language issue: I remember being g surprised that the divide is less strong in Romance languages than it is in English, though it is a biological breakpoint.

we do have a divide in portuguese, I just never made the connection that ape meant that. Planet of the apes being translated to Planeta dos Macacos (planet of the monkeys) never helped.

 

[Alzrius]

Great and now we have a chart that implies the Existance of Tarsiers, which we all know to be a myth propagated by Big Primate (a collection of unusually sized gorillas)

I knew this video had to be propaganda!

 

[Reynard]

I haven't read the whole thread so maybe someone mentioned this, but it just occurred to me:

There isn't A D&D community, there are many D&D communities. ENWorld is not like r/dnd which is not like Tenka's Tavern which is not like the Critterverse. Note that this is a good thing. if you are not enjoying one D&D community, you can find another that better fits your preferences and things you love about D&D.

 

[Parmandur]

we do have a divide in portuguese, I just never made the connection that ape meant that. Planet of the apes being translated to Planeta dos Macacos (planet of the monkeys) never helped.

Ah, I see. I know from having looked into the history of Curious George that French really doesn't make the distinction. And historically, English was fuzzy about it: Macaques used to be called Barbary Apes despite being monkeys.