D&D 5E Toxicity in the Fandom

[Thomas Shey]

Oh definitely. If you can pull it off in the "almost no-one notices" way, kudos, but here it was the exact opposite. Anyone who'd seen either of those movies would immediately make it as both heavily derivative and lesser. I'm sure there are cases to the contrary, where in fact the material was improved (I can almost think of one, tip of my brain, as it were), just not here.

I meant as in "The majority of the audience isn't aware enough of the works derived from that they'll notice." There's a rather famous case of a movie from the 50's SF genre that looks very much like elements of Alien were inspired by it. But by the time Alien came along the fast majority of viewers would have been unlikely to have seen it, so the percentage of people who would make the connection were going to be very small.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This is passionate without being toxic. Which, frankly, is never really the problem. Where it becomes a problem, and becomes toxic (and no, @Ruin Explorer I am in no way pointing any sort of finger at you in any way, I'm just using you as a springboard for my own point) is when any discussion turns personal. It's no longer enough to say, "I don't like this movie. I think it's unoriginal" but takes that next step of "if you were smart/educated/right thing enough, you would of course agree with me and anyone who doesn't agree with me is obviously too stupid to understand".

Specifically, it often starts turning into not judging the work, but either implicitly or explicitly judging those who like it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If we're talking about people who didn't play 4E much, or not at all, which is a lot of the loudest and most consistent complainers, that's absolutely not true. The vast majority of "external" complaining about 4E was pretty broad and non-specific in nature and related things like the existence of Roles at all, the AEDU power system in general (rather than, in either case "actual powers" or "class design" relating to actual classes), changes to the lore, or just wild opinion-based complaints which ranged from the utterly nonsensical ("It's just WoW!") to the valid from a certain perspective ("It's not D&D!").

As someone who found 4e "off" somehow, I'd like to add that its outside critique reminded me a lot of the--extremely vigorous--reaction 3e had when it first came out by some elements of the community, without having the advantage of a lot of returnees from outside to to dilute the hostility. I.e. it seemed ridiculously over the top and reductionist in many cases.

 

[James Gasik]

As someone who found 4e "off" somehow, I'd like to add that its outside critique reminded me a lot of the--extremely vigorous--reaction 3e had when it first came out by some elements of the community, without having the advantage of a lot of returnees from outside to to dilute the hostility. I.e. it seemed ridiculously over the top and reductionist in many cases.

The hatred 4e garnered wasn't entirely fair, and some of the more bizarre talking points get repeated to this very day. I mean, I didn't like it when it first came out- I was still firmly ensconced in my fortress of 3.5 books, and it felt somewhat soulless initially.

When I was finally dragged into it a few years later, on the other hand, it felt like such a breath of fresh air! Reasons for monsters to not ignore Fighters beyond "gentleman's agreement" or wacky, specialized builds. Caster/Martial disparity being brought to more sane (if not strictly equal- the Martial power source still had limitations no other source had) footing.

And my goodness, encounter design was so easy, I could focus more on the adventure with my setup- I haven't had such an easy time since 2e, and even back then, I had to strictly "eyeball" critters to make sure my players weren't going to TPK every fight.

It wasn't without it's flaws, of course. They were constantly adding more content to the game to correct imbalances, some classes were much more flush than others with options, ditto for the PHB races versus ones made later. They fixed math late in the edition (which wasn't a big deal for me, but it's kind of weird that they took so long go "oh, yeah, I guess that doesn't work, lol!". And of course, far too many Feats were printed, and a lot of noncombat options fell by the wayside- you didn't know if you were going to need more languages, but by Arneson and Gygax, you were going to need more combat ability!

Social mechanics were weak, but that's nothing new for D&D. What I really found unnerving was how the game mostly ignored non-adventuring things. No real rules for strongholds (you could buy them, but there wasn't a reason to) or investing in the world (you can't break wealth, players can use that to gain power!). Skill challenges were rarely exciting, and players quickly realized what skills were worth investing in, and how to get strong numbers. A lot of the later options, like Themes, were strictly power upgrades, and some of the later classes were screwy (I'm looking at you, Mr. Vampire!).

I think it was when I tried to run White Plume Mountain in 4e that I realized, this game just couldn't do exploration challenges well, and encounter design, while easy, had a certain paradigm that needed to be followed: an encounter with a werewolf sorceress and her fighter boyfriend, you say? Better make them both solos or find minions for them, or they're toast!

But 4e could have been improved. Instead, they tried to completely transform it into a kinder, gentler game with Essentials, while still claiming it was the same game. And when that didn't work, it wasn't even allowed to retire- WotC did their level best to cremate it and scatter the ashes!

And ever since, the haters run around acting like they were somehow justified in their vitriol, when the real reason 4e bit the dust wasn't that it was the worst thing ever, or that no one played it, or that it wasn't making money. It was because It wasn't making all the money for Hasbro.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It was because It wasn't making all the money for Hasbro.

This has killed so many things I love.

I remember when Young Justice got canceled because it was too popular with the wrong demographic who they thought wouldn't buy toys because apparently that market research hadn't been updated since 1986.

 

[mythago]

No, let me be very clear here. I am saying you did and you did. "Joe is an idiot" is not an ad hominem attack. "Joe is an idiot" is merely an insult. Read your own definitions. "Joe's argument is wrong, because Joe is an idiot" is an ad hominem attack. And you post is very much of that character.

So it's not actually an ad hominem attack - as we both agree I did not say the poster's argument is wrong because he smells like a bugbear, or whatever - it was "of that character" in some unexplained manner?

Because I don't necessarily find mocking of positions to be uncivil. I think the community of people that have adopted fault finding, puritanical, outrage as a culture very much do get taken with more seriousness than they deserve. They are hijacking legitimate subjects of legitimate concern and deploying that as a cover to promote strategies for dealing with those issues that are problematic and destructive and thereby preventing more serious and helpful dialogues from occurring. And humor has a role in that. That his gentle mockery would be enough to offend someone strikes me as ridiculous as if some of the maybe less gentle mockery of Vegans caused some Vegan on the board to start complaining about how mean everyone was.

So, his mockery (which was not gentle, c'mon) was acceptable, because you believe the targets of his mockery were deserving. But my alleged mockery of his position was unacceptable and was at least kind of sort of like a personal attack fallacy, because he's not, in your opinion, among the community that deserves to be mocked.

Sorry, no. That's the logic of the schoolyard bully who punches you in the arm and then screams "No tagbacks!"

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I meant as in "The majority of the audience isn't aware enough of the works derived from that they'll notice." There's a rather famous case of a movie from the 50's SF genre that looks very much like elements of Alien were inspired by it. But by the time Alien came along the fast majority of viewers would have been unlikely to have seen it, so the percentage of people who would make the connection were going to be very small.

You mean IT! The Terror from Beyond Space? I'd say that the inspiration there is about 1/100th what we're seeing with The Joker given the massive aesthetic borrowing, it's not even comparable. With IT! the similarities were basically very broad plot outlines and nothing which makes Alien unique. Like it's entirely possible Dan O'Bannon or Ronald Shusett had seen IT! among dozens of other monster movies and parts of it were bouncing around in they wrote the story that they later re-wrote to be the screenplay for Alien, but the similarities are shallow as hell. You can see them discussed here for example:

The 1950s Sci-Fi Movie That Ridley Scott's Alien (Possibly) Copied

Is Alien secretly inspired by obscure '50s sci-fi?

screenrant.com

I would say Dark Star was more probably more influential, but I guess because O'Bannon wrote that too it's kind of different. People point to Planet of the Vampires too, but I don't remember anything about that movie other than that it was INSANELY stylish, and ridiculously before its time looks-wise. I suspect that's all it had going for it, but those costumes! Very different look to Alien of course.

I hear Aquaman 2 is "heavily inspired" by Planet of the Vampires (according to the director of Aquaman 1/2), so that should be fascinating!

 

[Thomas Shey]

The hatred 4e garnered wasn't entirely fair, and some of the more bizarre talking points get repeated to this very day. I mean, I didn't like it when it first came out- I was still firmly ensconced in my fortress of 3.5 books, and it felt somewhat soulless initially.

When I was finally dragged into it a few years later, on the other hand, it felt like such a breath of fresh air! Reasons for monsters to not ignore Fighters beyond "gentleman's agreement" or wacky, specialized builds. Caster/Martial disparity being brought to more sane (if not strictly equal- the Martial power source still had limitations no other source had) footing.

And my goodness, encounter design was so easy, I could focus more on the adventure with my setup- I haven't had such an easy time since 2e, and even back then, I had to strictly "eyeball" critters to make sure my players weren't going to TPK every fight.

I played in a campaign of it some years ago, and I quite agree it definitely had its virtues. I still felt it was a little too--I don't know, structuralist?--for me, and that's given I'm very much a gamist leaning player who much appreciated some elements of it, including the actual functional encounter design (it and PF2e are the only D&D derivatives I know of where that's the case). I'm also still distinctly conflicted about the difference between PC and enemy design, but I'm too aware of the problems it addressed to be overly critical of it there.

Social mechanics were weak, but that's nothing new for D&D. What I really found unnerving was how the game mostly ignored non-adventuring things.

Yeah, it felt that way to me too; I've gotten arguments about it, but that was still the way it felt. Which is, again, an odd complaint from me, but then I'm used to non-D&D style games, whereas when you get down to it, the design history of D&D has always had non-combat mechanics as pretty much an afterthought, so its probably more me comparing it to other kinds of games than to prior versions of D&D.

But at the end of the day, it was a respectable design, just not for me.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Speaking of toxicity and Aquaman, I went to that movie fully expecting it to be bad, only going because my then gf was getting into superheroes, loved Aquamn and from Batman: Brave and the Bold, and was deeply unaware of the entire rest of the character's history.

I tried to gently warn her, kind of felt smug as she blew off those warnings and my frantic gesturing to Man of Steel and BVS, which she hadn't seen... and then in the middle of the movie caught myself being genuinely upset that I was enjoying it and she was too.

And there was the moment, during the romance montage, where I was genuinely soul searching at the fact that I was actually getting angry at the happiness of not only someone I cared about -- BUT MYSELF.

So I gave the part of me a mental sack beating and that weekend researched and purchased an arrangement of edible flowers.

 

[CleverNickName]

Speaking of toxicity and Aquaman, I went to that movie fully expecting it to be bad, only going because my then gf was getting into superheroes, loved Aquamn and from Batman: Brave and the Bold, and was deeply unaware of the entire rest of the character's history.

I tried to gently warn her, kind of felt smug as she blew off those warnings and my frantic gesturing to Man of Steel and BVS, which she hadn't seen... and then in the middle of the movie caught myself being genuinely upset that I was enjoying it and she was too.

And there was the moment, during the romance montage, where I was genuinely soul searching at the fact that I was actually getting angry at the happiness of not only someone I cared about -- BUT MYSELF.

So I gave the part of me a mental sack beating and that weekend researched and purchased an arrangement of edible flowers.

This is the way.