D&D General Who shouldn't play D&D

[EzekielRaiden]

How about "D&D is like Dark Souls in many way. It is difficult and demanding. If you don't want a Dark Souls like experience, try a different TTRPG."

Absolutely not. At the very least, D&D would need to be consistently fair for that, and there are far, far too many DMs who are not and never will be fair (despite their many protestations to the contrary).

Also, what @Scribe said, or rather, showed.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I do often keep things general. If I need to narrow something down to a single game, I'll mention it by name.

This is just a pure dodge of the actual question. Name a game--any game, any single game--that actually works the way you described. That's all I ask for--the name, not even an excerpt from the text showing the truth of it. I'll actually do the research and track this down.

Until then? You are literally inventing boogeymen to scare others without having a scrap of evidence that they actually exist. I won't just take your word for it.

I'm not sure there is an answer to that....It's a Matrix type thing. If you are hopelessly in the Matrix, then you willingly follow all the rules. If your not part of the Matrix things are different.

Ah, so it's a totally ineffable thing that cannot be spoken of or shared, but makes you strictly better than anyone who doesn't understand it? Wow. This has gone well past ridiculous and into parody. Do you expect anyone to take you seriously when you pass such heavy-handed judgment on anyone who disagrees with you, and then when someone actually tries to understand, you say, "You're incapable of understanding."? For real?

If I didn't know better, I would genuinely think you were pulling my leg.

So your looking for a game rule that says you don't have to follow the game rules?

A rule, an advice passage, a discussion. Anything in the text itself which talks about it in the way you described. Which, for the record, was as follows: "In the vast majority of game the DM just does what they want, on a whim. And you want and need a good DM to have a good game."

I know, from past experience, that you're very sincere and intentional about the use of "on a whim." You very specifically do in fact mean the DM doing LITERALLY whatever they want, whenever they want, for as long as they want, with absolutely no considerations, limits, restraints, or anything else. If they feel like snapping their DMG shut and saying, "Rocks fall, everyone dies" then you would be 110% supporting them.

So: Where do the books tell us that DMs should behave that way? Where do they describe DMs acting "on a whim" whenever, wherever, however frequently?

 

[bloodtide]

So: Where do the books tell us that DMs should behave that way? Where do they describe DMs acting "on a whim" whenever, wherever, however frequently?

I don't think your getting it.

So I make a statement and you say "what book?"

And then you don't quite get it that I'm not talking about "some book".

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't think your getting it.

So I make a statement and you say "what book?"

And then you don't quite get it that I'm not talking about "some book".

You have said that this is how some particular game or games work. What games? Where?

If it literally isn't, in any way AT ALL, written down for people to learn about, or described by the people who made it, or discussed in the literature about it, etc., etc., is it actually part of that game? Or is it simply your playstyle, which is obviously distinct from the game itself?

 

[clearstream]

I shouldn't.

Who should not play DnD?

Me!

But could you, if you wanted to?

I have in mind these two questions from the OP

Should people without required skills play D&D? What are the required skills?

Anything else that would make a person unsuitable for D&D?

Is it that you should not because you cannot, or because of your predilections?

I ask this because to my reading the thread has generally argued that anyone who wants to can play D&D, but not all want to. Some prefer other things. Implying that only the middle question from the OP matters.

Which preferences does D&D not cater to?

Emphasis mine.

 

[Lanefan]

Er, what? There is no nuanced context. I will reproduce the bolded portion here, with relevant hostile or generalizing phrases bolded.

People whose characters got their swords destroyed by a rust monster and who threw a hissy fit over it. People whose characters died to a hold person spell and who wrote angry letters to Dragon magazine. People who didn’t have fun, whose entertainment was destroyed by this monster or that spell. Meet WotC’s focus groups, meet the people who are the target audience for future releases. The people 4e will be designed to accommodate.​

I've played with (note the past tense) both those bolded types of players. And yes, because D&D contains in its run of play those kinds of setbacks that these people have trouble handling, it's probably not the game for them.

I'd like to think that those people are greatly in the minority. Enough so that if the game is designed to sometimes be a bit hard on its players and thus those people don't play, their numbers are small enough that the market won't miss them.

It is quite clear, just from the specific part you bolded, that this poster does not give two craps about why the person was upset--they simply think that anyone who ever got upset, anyone "whose entertainment was destroyed by this monster or that spell", is inherently a whiny complainer. That anyone who ever has their enjoyment of the game damaged by a crappy experience somehow deserves to be treated with, in their own words, "snobbery" and exclusion.

Having one's character die or its armour destroyed in a game where such things really should be expected outcomes now and then, similar to landing on a snake in a game of snakes and ladders, shouldn't qualify as a "crappy experience" to get upset about; and if it does then I say that's a player problem rather than a game problem.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mod Note:

Sometimes, threads go down the drain very quickly. I think this is one.

Closed.