D&D 5E The "Stop Trying to Impose Your Playstyle" Argument

[Caliban]

Stop trying to impose your debating style on me!

 

[delericho]

So from what I'm gathering, the point of the original post is to say that if someone comes on here and says "X sucks and shouldn't be in the game"... it is a waste of time for someone else to come into the thread and say "Well, then just don't use X."

If I'm misinterpreting the point, please correct me.

But assuming I'm on point, there are really two different aspects of this that require discussion. The first is when the game already includes X, the second is when the game does not yet have X in it and there's still a possibility that the D&D staff could be convinced NOT to include it in the future.

This all comes out of the "No Magic Shops" thread (which I don't recommend you read), and your second aspect is the accurate one.

Beyond that, I'm not going to comment - I should have had the sense to stay out of that "discussion" the first time around.

 

[Xetheral]

It may be my DM is my best friend and loves option X, and if it becomes an official option he's going to use it in our game. And I really don't want that. (And given in that case if what I'm doing is preventing somebody from using their preferred playstyle I'm apparently willing to do it to my best friend. So I'm not likely to be persuaded by that argument from some stranger on the Internet.)

I find this section concerning, to the extent that I'm wondering if I'm reading it correctly. It sounds to me like you would desire (the continuance of) an external constraint that gives your personal preferences leverage over the personal preferences of your best friend. Is that correct? If so, wouldn't that mean you were systematically valuing your own preferences over the preferences your friend? How is that compatible with friendship?

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

It's been commented by WotC staff that upwards of 9 million people play the D&D tabletop roleplaying game.

But, there are roughly 2500 WPN stores that run Adventurer's League. Even assuming each store has 20 regular players (enough for 4 tables) that's only 50,000 people. More people watch Critical Role live each week. It's only 0.5% of the audience.
While I think they look at AL and consider it, they likely consider streamers and online players and people who play homegames only far, far more heavily.

And there are also all the players who play AL as their home games and those players who only get a chance to play AL at conventions and those players who only get to play AL on digital platforms in online games and those players who play at other non-WPN stores or other public locations such as gaming clubs at schools and libraries and all those players who would play in AL games, but who do not have time free when local games are scheduled. Don't assume that the only AL players are those in WPN stores, as I am sure WotC does not make that assumption. If WotC did not care about the impact of new books on AL play, they would have never reprinted material in XGtE, material that seemed to be reprinted solely to benefit AL players and their +1 rule.

 

[Jester David]

And there are also all the players who play AL as their home games and those players who only get a chance to play AL at conventions and those players who only get to play AL on digital platforms in online games and those players who play at other non-WPN stores or other public locations such as gaming clubs at schools and libraries and all those players who would play in AL games, but who do not have time free when local games are scheduled. Don't assume that the only AL players are those in WPN stores, as I am sure WotC does not make that assumption. If WotC did not care about the impact of new books on AL play, they would have never reprinted material in XGtE, material that seemed to be reprinted solely to benefit AL players and their +1 rule.

True.
But convention play is a few thousand people at most, and local cons likely overlap with FLGS play.
And even if twice as many play in schools and libraries and other stores... that's still <2% of the player base.

Unless you're arguing there are something like only a tenth of game stores are WPN stores, again while also regularly having four or more tables.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'm specifically talking about the following:

"Let's talk about X"
"It sucks. I hope they don't add it to the game."
"Then you are selfishly imposing your playstyle on others."

It's that third bit that I have a problem with. It's basically saying, "Don't participate in this discussion unless you like X."

The one part of "Don't participate in this discussion unless you like X." that I do understand is when someone makes a thread wanting to talk about a certain style of play and finding new and creative ways to make it work, and people show up to say "It already works fine this other way so don't even bother." In those threads, I certainly agree with the OP when they want to say in so many words "If you have nothing to add to the discussion, stop derailing the thread because it has nothing to do with you." Which is true... if someone asks for new ideas for X, then its polite if you're going to jump in to actually respond to the query being asked, and not just to say they're dumb for even asking it.

But it doesn't sound like that's what you're referring to either. It sounds like you're talking about someone who creates a thread where they say they hope for X to appear in the future, but then doesn't want anyone to respond to the thread disagreeing with assertion. In that regard, that person really needs to get over themselves. This is a discussion about what could appear in a future product, so giving the pros and cons of adding X to the game makes all the sense in the world. Now, we would HOPE that both sides would actually be able to discuss X by giving concrete examples and reasons why their side is the more correct one, because that's how arguments are made and won. And I could therefore understand why one side might get annoyed at the other if the other side wasn't actually giving reasons to support their argument... they were just interrupting and derailing the thread by saying "Nuh uh! You're wrong!" over and over and that's it. At that point, I too would want to doofslap them off the back of the head for being an interrupting idiot who can't support their own argument. Because that kind of attitude just wastes time and energy, making it harder to follow the posts that actually have something to say.

Basically, it all boils down to that if you are going to participate in a thread, actually have something meaningful to say. Just don't be a cockblock because you don't like the idea and have nothing better to do with your time than stopping others from talking about it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This all comes out of the "No Magic Shops" thread (which I don't recommend you read), and your second aspect is the accurate one.

Beyond that, I'm not going to comment - I should have had the sense to stay out of that "discussion" the first time around.

Heh... yeah, I never cared about Magic Shops one way or the other, so I never bothered to read it. Sounds like it was the right call.

 

[BoldItalic]

Is this thread fun?

 

[77IM]

[MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION], if you want the community to help shut down unhelpful arguments, you need to come up with a general principle with a catchy name, e.g., the Oberoni Fallacy. That way when the unhelpful argument comes up in a discussion somebody can just reference the principle and anyone interested can google it. (I note that "elfcrusher" is not a popular enough search term to rate on Google Trends...)

 

[cbwjm]

This is like the new book announcement. Some people were hoping that it would introduce the blood war and others crapped on that idea because in their campaign the war has been resolved or isn't included. That there is a weak argument not to uodate a well known piece of lore to 5e.

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