D&D 5E Toxicity in the Fandom

[Hussar]

Oh I’m sure there are terrible players out there. There can be no doubt.

What I’m getting at is folks who are constantly running up against it (look around here…there are folks that have little on offer save for lament…after lament…after lament)? Might want to do a little personal inventory/house-keeping! Our nerd culture clearly has an abundance of bullies and misanthropes…but it’s not THAT pervasive.

Its kind of like some twisted version of the Poker saying “if you sit down at a table for an hour and you can’t spot the sucker…well…you are the sucker.”

There are plenty of ways to perpetuate a positive micro-culture in your own “gaming house” (no matter if you’re a player or a GM). If someone is constantly having trouble, might help to focus on that rather than ritually lamenting how awful all your players are.

And if your gaming sucks and you think your players are playing crappy all the time? Maybe focus on your own GMing misplays and clean that up (I’ve been GMing forever and I’m still annoyed with personal misplays after every session)?

I’m guilty of this.

I am very vocal about bad DMs. I have argued about it pretty at length and probably far too much really. Mostly because my formative gaming years are characterized by a rather alarming number of really bad dms.

But even if I’m not blaming all my gaming problems on dms. Lots of my problems are of my own creation.

The key here is to always try to reflect on your own contributions to problems and then try to solve the problems typically by burying your ego.

 

[Umbran]

Franks has imo kind of weird and very specific flavour imho, that doesn't work with everything

Nothing works with everything.

Franks Original has the following ingredients: aged cayenne peppers, distilled vinegar, water, salt, and garlic powder. That's it. Not sure what in that comes to you as "weird".

Tabasco is aged tabasco peppers, vinegar, and salt.

...but works very well with certain things. I've never actually experienced it as a "hot" sauce because it's so mild.

Disagree on tabasco not having much flavour. It's not very hot...

I mean, I just got done noting how "hot" is a subjective experience. To some folks, it will be perceived as hot. To others, it won't. It depends significantly to how habituated you are to the stuff.

Interesting tidbit - if you give someone a hot sauce above their normal tolerance, you can be pretty sure they won't taste anything you think of as the "depth" of the sauce. You see, when you give people something too hot for them, their body treats it as an irritant, and starts with watering eyes and runny nose used to protect you from irritants. That runny nose will stop most of their sense of taste.

Apply this in analogy to gaming materials as you will.

Oh yeah?!?! That sounds like the sort of thing someone who can't handle hot sauces would say!

No. It is what someone who is more interested in the culinary function of hot sauces than in the macho posturing nonsense would say.

 

[MGibster]

Yes, people griping about Star Trek being "too woke" now do amuse me. "Hey, do you remember that classic Trek episode about the race of people who were white on one side of their bodies, and black the other, and the people who were white on the right side of their bodies hated the people who were white on the left side? What do you think that was all about?"

Sure, but Star Trek did better than some of those hamfisted episodes. One of the best things they did was just drop people into the story without an explanation. Remember when we were introduced to Dr. Daystrom, the Federation's foremost expert on computers?

Or what about Portmaster Stone from the episode "Court Martial?"

From that same episode, Captain Chandra, a Starfleet officer who served on Kirk's court martial.

Just dropping a diverse group of actors into a show says a lot more than any of those special episodes trying to teach us a lesson.

 

[MGibster]

Franks Original has the following ingredients: aged cayenne peppers, distilled vinegar, water, salt, and garlic powder. That's it. Not sure what in that comes to you as "weird".

I'm pretty sure there's a little bit of Frank in every bottle...

 

[Thomas Shey]

I’m guilty of this.

I am very vocal about bad DMs. I have argued about it pretty at length and probably far too much really. Mostly because my formative gaming years are characterized by a rather alarming number of really bad dms.

See my repeated comments about "scar tissue".

But even if I’m not blaming all my gaming problems on dms. Lots of my problems are of my own creation.

The key here is to always try to reflect on your own contributions to problems and then try to solve the problems typically by burying your ego.

Absolutely. Though in some cases your fix options are limited.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Nothing works with everything.

Franks Original has the following ingredients: aged cayenne peppers, distilled vinegar, water, salt, and garlic powder. That's it. Not sure what in that comes to you as "weird".

Tabasco is aged tabasco peppers, vinegar, and salt.

The proportion of vinegar, likely.

I find Tobasco-backed hot sauces live or die for me on the amount if vinegar.

 

[Hussar]

See my repeated comments about "scar tissue".



Absolutely. Though in some cases your fix options are limited.

Oh, absolutely. There is nothing wrong with "just walk away" and it's a lesson I've had to learn far more often than I should have. Walking away from groups where I just didn't fit with the group is absolutely one of the hardest things I've had to learn in gaming. Particularly if the tone of the group shifts over time. It's really hard to turn to someone you've spent a considerable amount of time with and just say, "Sorry, but, I'm not enjoying pretending to be an elf with you anymore."

It is once aspect of gaming that I think should be talked about more often - how to recognize when it's time to walk, and how to do it gracefully.

 

[Faolyn]

Sure, but Star Trek did better than some of those hamfisted episodes. One of the best things they did was just drop people into the story without an explanation. Remember when we were introduced to Dr. Daystrom, the Federation's foremost expert on computers?

From what I've heard, Roddenberry apparently wanted to do a show about gay rights during TOS but was having too much network trouble so couldn't.

 

[Mercurius]

Random and tangential fun fact, inspired by mention of Star Trek: Did you know that, according to Wikipedia, Star Wars has approximately five times as many "species"(259) as Star Trek has "aliens" (52)?

Of course presumably the "species" list includes everything, including animals, and the "aliens" list are just races. Not sure how long the Trek list would be, or even if the two lists are accurate, but still.

The More You Know.

 

[MGibster]

From what I've heard, Roddenberry apparently wanted to do a show about gay rights during TOS but was having too much network trouble so couldn't.

According to an interview with all around good guy Takei, he said Gene wanted to address the issue, but couldn't because he was walking a tightrope with the network. I don't think there would have been a chance in hell of such an episode airing in the 1960s. They really couldn't even do it very well in the TNG era.