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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 8446574" data-attributes="member: 7023840">Well, I'm glad that you thought it was a good framework. I hope you understand that I am choosing not to respond to the post because it is, for some people (like me) deeply insulting. If anyone can appreciate hyperbole, I can. But I don't really enjoy having the same group denigrate my playing preferences again. I'll explain after the jump!Imagine a slightly different perspective. Let me take this away from 5e for just a second before going back in, because it's not really about 5e. Whenever there is a conversation about TTRPG theory, or something interesting, it always ends up being the same people talking about the same things. It's not like 'Murika (I mean, really?). It's more like a high school cafeteria, where the same bullies patrol the area. They make fun of all the kids for either being part of the "crowd" (who wants to be like all those people, they don't even know what they want) or they make fun of any other smaller group that isn't like them. No other conversations are allowed, or they get shouted down (or reported to the principal).I can understand this because I've seen it occur. Do you want to have a conversation about FKR and the recent re-discovery of interest in rules-lite neo-Arnesonian games? Yeah, no. Sorry. Can't talk about that. It doesn't fit in the box for the cool kids. Do you want to have a jargon-free discussion about 5e, so you tag it with "5e" and say it's about 5e and try your darnedest ? Yeah, no, can't talk about that either. Even though it's a 5e discussion, you aren't allowed to have it because it's ... 'Murika?This thread wasn't about 5e at all; it's about the rejection of this singular dogmatic approach. That's what this thread was about. Umbran got it in one.It is okay to have a favored framework, but for goodness sake realize that it is only a framework, not TEH TRVTH!That's why I put in a number of different resources- and because I don't consider myself the arbiter of the truth either, I included in the list of sources what I think is the best, and most representative, example of something that I think is kinda divisive. And if that book is too expensive, you could just look at Playground Worlds (available on-line with a link) starting on page 232. It's all good.People like what they like.So yeah, I see a lot of really smart people on enworld. I'm sure you do too- and I keep noticing that most of them don't participate in any of these conversations (I'm not going to name them or 'at' them because I respect their choice- obviously, they are smarter than I am because they avoid these threads). Which is sad to me- because they often have a wealth of real-world experience that I'd like to hear from, and would be more interesting and valuable than just seeing the same quote from (designer who shall not be named) trotted out again. Not to mention that we sometimes see newer people that post here, and don't see again because they get shouted down in conversations because they didn't play some indie game or were aware of someone's playing transcript from 3 years ago.Finally, I think the issue with 5e (and why it was introduced) keeps getting misunderstood. There is a cadre of people that routinely dismiss it because it is popular (well, for other reasons too, but that's neither here nor there*). It's just branding. Or it's just because people don't know any better. Which are common refrains we often hear to explain away popularity in all sorts of areas- but those explanations usually don't hold up.**It's far more productive, and interesting, to examine what else is behind that. There are a number of plausible reasons- network effects (it's easier to find a game because "everyone" knows how to play D&D). Division of authority (games that only require a single truly engaged person, the DM, require less 'buy in' from every member of the group and are therefore more likely to be successful with a mixed group of people). Second-best (the concept that D&D does a number of different things "well enough" to make it an overall first choice, even though it might not be any particular person's first choice- kinda like a TTRPG social choice or Arrow's theorem). The reward loop of D&D and the persistent campaign leads to long-term engagement (XP+level+more abilities and rinse/repeat). Or maybe because D&D has a long culture of homebrew and expansions and "hackability," it is considered an incomplete ruleset and people are comfortable modifying it to their needs- which is not the case with other complete rulesets.I don't have an answer- but those are some ideas, and I think exploring them are better and less insulting than 'Murika, truck yeah. More importantly, if someone doesn't want to engage in discussing the application of theory to 5e (whether it's simple design theory, or division of authority, or whatever), there's a simple solution- don't. You don't have to mock the people that do want to discuss it. The point is not that 5e is good because it is popular, the point is only that it is bizarre to ignore the most popular TTRPG and the largest dataset when it comes to discussing TTRPG theory. So I'm going to wrap this up here. And why I usually exit threads after a short period of time. Everything that really needed to be said is in the original post. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />*I do think that some portion of the pushback and non-engagement with this specific issue is because it would necessarily require asking about 5e's relative popularity vis-a-vis other versions, and what that says about whether certain aspects of the prior versions, whether it's Gygaxian skilled play and high mortality, 3e's high crunch, or some of 4e's innovations, are effective in broadly popular games at this time. To acknowledge that 5e is broadly popular is to acknowledge that the design decisions of 5e, that are not in accord with prior versions, might be part of that success.**"Apple fans only like their products because of branding." "The only reason people buy SUVs is because of branding and marketing." "MCU fans only like their movies because they are marketed better." etc. Yeah, marketing and branding can be important- but there's always something more to learn. Marketing and branding works by exploiting things that consumers already like and want.</blockquote>

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