D&D General Thaco the angry clown... really?

[Vaalingrade]

I’m not part of the NCAA. WE are part of the DnD gaming community.

There's like a bunch of different games with a design ethos I'm not interested in that bare little resemblance to what I am involved in.

What am I even supposed to do? Seek out and review games I don't like or understand? Because my twitter feed and forums are full of grumbly old guys who don't like the game design I do and tell me I'm weak for not liking character death? Why is it my responsibility to clean up the neighbor's yard when I'm getting annoyed that their garbage keeps landing in mine? It's not my movement and I don't even have a vested interest in their success. I just want the annoying ones to go away.

 

[Sacrosanct]

There's like a bunch of different games with a design ethos I'm not interested in that bare little resemblance to what I am involved in.

What am I even supposed to do? Seek out and review games I don't like or understand? Because my twitter feed and forums are full of grumbly old guys who don't like the game design I do and tell me I'm weak for not liking character death? Why is it my responsibility to clean up the neighbor's yard when I'm getting annoyed that their garbage keeps landing in mine? It's not my movement and I don't even have a vested interest in their success. I just want the annoying ones to go away.

I think you're missing the point, and your comment is pretty illustrative as to how. You've viewing old school as garbage while viewing your preferences as just fine. I'm sure the fan of other editions says the same thing about your preferences. So they shouldn't take any effort to bother to listen to you when your preferences (garbage) is spilling into their yard (the game)?

I go back to my analogy above. Would it be a good thing if the posters on this forum took a position: "4e is an old unsupported edition. Who cares what 4e fans think, this is 5e. It's not my responsibility to make them feel welcome when their 4e garbage is spilling over into my 5e game." I don't think so. I think it would be a bad thing, and kind of jerkish as part of a community, to tell a fan of any edition that they aren't welcome and their ideas don't matter.

No one is saying it's your responsibility to police every other group of fans. I'm only saying that referencing a group of fans in generally pejorative contexts and refusing to make a minimal effort to include them in the discussion but instead make unwelcoming comments isn't helpful to our community or group as a whole. Since you're posting here, you are part of this community. There is a lot of value to listen to diverse ideas and people. I can't speak for anyone else, but as a fan of 1e and older games, I've learned a lot by listening to fans of newer editions and hearing what they had to say. Listening to them is one of the main reasons why I even have a heritage system in the OSR clone I just did, and frankly, I think it's one of the better mechanics of the game.

If all we ever did was care about our own preferences and screw everyone else, we'd still have very little diversity within the game.

 

[J.Quondam]

Because my twitter feed and forums are full of grumbly old guys who don't like the game design I do and tell me I'm weak for not liking character death?

To be fair, they're not all "grumbly old guys."
Many are edgelords in their 20s or 30s who pathetically aspire to become "grumbly old guys."



* And to be clear, I'm not talking about OSR in general! Just the axehats who pollute the OSR community.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I think you're missing the point, and your comment is pretty illustrative as to how. You've viewing old school as garbage while viewing your preferences as just fine.

Okay. No.

I'm viewing the jerks who keep putting themselves at the forefront of the movement who don't know how to behave as garbage. They and their posts and actions are the garbage. And I feel I was VERY clear about that.

 

[Vaalingrade]

To be fair, they're not all "grumbly old guys."
Many are edgelords in their 20s or 30s who pathetically aspire to become "grumbly old guys."



* And to be clear, I'm not talking about OSR in general! Just the axehats who pollute the OSR community.

Point. Edgelords that talk like old men.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

Okay. No.

I'm viewing the jerks who keep putting themselves at the forefront of the movement who don't know how to behave as garbage. They and their posts and actions are the garbage. And I feel I was VERY clear about that.

For what it is worth, that is exactly what I got out of the original statement.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Okay. No.

I'm viewing the jerks who keep putting themselves at the forefront of the movement who don't know how to behave as garbage. They and their posts and actions are the garbage. And I feel I was VERY clear about that.

Still, point stands. You said you won't even bother to engage a fan of the OSR unless you felt they were saying something bad. Then you also painted the whole group as having a "giant marquee hovering overhead with 'NEGATIVE TRAITS HERE'. Seems like you're painting with a broad brush anyway, but leaving that aside for a moment...(along with the strawman that OSR fans are asking everyone else to ignore the bad actors)

If you're gonna take the position that you don't have to try to be welcoming of any fan of an older game because of some of them doing bad behavior, how would you feel if it were on the other foot? I.e., how you feel if a forum like this said, "Newer fans keep spewing garbage (phrases like 1e is nothing more than a murder simulation of black people, or that anyone who likes 1e is a racist), so we won't make any effort to engage in a conversation with any of these new fans unless it's to call them out."

That's still problematic. Any time you're generalizing an entire group of people based on bad actors is going to be problematic. You can do that on your own time, sure. No one is saying you have to talk with anyone you don't want to in your personal life.

But by posting here, we are part of a group; a community. And when you're part of a community, you have certain responsibilities. Forum rules are one. Unspoken civility is another. You can choose to not want to follow the forum rules which is perfectly fine, but then you need to do that elsewhere. As part of this community of gamers in general, I feel that it is our unspoken responsibility to try to be welcoming of everyone regardless of what edition they like, because we are all fans of D&D, and the game is better when we all have a voice. If you don't want to be part of the community, that's your choice. But posting here and engaging in conversation infers that you do in fact want to be part of this community. No one is forcing any of us to be here or part of this community if we don't want.

Edit I'm also not saying you have to go to the effort to make positive posts about a style of game you don't like. All I'm saying that we shouldn't be making pejorative generalizations about all fans of a particular edition, because it makes the area unwelcoming to them when we do.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Okay. No.

I'm viewing the jerks who keep putting themselves at the forefront of the movement who don't know how to behave as garbage. They and their posts and actions are the garbage. And I feel I was VERY clear about that.

And it's not the job of the people who aren't a part of the movement to acknowledge the good people and creators of the movement. That's the community's job. I don't like OSR. I'm not going to go out of my way to praise the OSR creators for products that I don't like for a playstyle that I don't enjoy. It's up to the members of the community to lift themselves up and praise the creations that they like, not the people who aren't in that community.

Yes, I'm a part of the D&D community, but I'm also a part of the TTRPG community in general. Does that mean that I have to praise other TTRPGs that I've never played and likely wouldn't enjoy? Do I have to praise Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, or any other TTRPG because not everyone in those communities are bad people? Not being one of the naughty words isn't enough to deserve praise.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Still, point stands. You said you won't even bother to engage a fan of the OSR unless you felt they were saying something bad. Then you also painted the whole group as having a "giant marquee hovering overhead with 'NEGATIVE TRAITS HERE'. Seems like you're painting with a broad brush anyway, but leaving that aside for a moment...(along with the strawman that OSR fans are asking everyone else to ignore the bad actors)

You are really reaching to make me the moustache-twirling villain here.

So here we go: I'm going to lay it out as plain as I can:

I don't play OSR games. I'm not part of the community. The only interactions I really have is when in public and I'm observing the problem that most of the time when I do encounter them, it's people being incendiary at best or offensive at worst. I know there's good OSR folks out there, but it's hard to notice their voices from the outside over the blaring foghorns that are the incendiary or offensive folk.

It is an image problem and I've never not presented it as an image problem. One that should be addressed.

But the response seems to be assuming a defensive circle around the whole of OSR and weird presentation of a subculture as a persecuted minority instead of addressing the problematic sect in that subculture in what looks distressingly like a distraction from that problem.

 

[Campbell]

And it's not the job of the people who aren't a part of the movement to acknowledge the good people and creators of the movement. That's the community's job. I don't like OSR. I'm not going to go out of my way to praise the OSR creators for products that I don't like for a playstyle that I don't enjoy. It's up to the members of the community to lift themselves up and praise the creations that they like, not the people who aren't in that community.

Yes, I'm a part of the D&D community, but I'm also a part of the TTRPG community in general. Does that mean that I have to praise other TTRPGs that I've never played and likely wouldn't enjoy? Do I have to praise Pathfinder, Call of Cthulhu, or any other TTRPG because not everyone in those communities are bad people? Not being one of the naughty words isn't enough to deserve praise.

Not praise necessarily, but we should all respect each other. There's a lot of artistry that goes into every corner of our hobby. From indie games to OSR games to 5e. I think we should respect what people are trying to do even if it is not what we are looking for. I think it's great that the OSR exists. I think it's great that people have Powered by the Apocalypse games. I think it's great that people have games like Vampire, Wrath and Glory, Dune, et al. A more inclusive community that respects the strengths each of us bring to the table is what we should all want.

We should take exception to all kinds of gate keepers.