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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DammitVictor" data-source="post: 9805269" data-attributes="member: 6750908">So it's a bad pitch that nobody wants to play, but they're going to join the game anyway and ruin it for the person who wants to run that game and the theoretical players that actually joined that game because they wanted to play that game?And somehow that's supposed to make them less of an naughty word than the person who wanted to try something specific and/or didn't do a very good job of explaining what they were trying to do?Sorry, no; I'm not buying this argument at all. If the game they want to play is so much better/more popular than the games they're trying to crash, there should be no shortage of those games for them to join, play, and mutually enjoy.Sure, but while I'm complaining about the plague of selfish, self-centered egoists making the hobby and community worse for everyone else, let me point out that as a helpful member of the community... I'm primarily interested in solving my problems and helping people with similar problems solve theirs.If my "anecdata" lines up with a bunch of other people's "anecdata" and helps them make their games better... I've contributed to the betterment of civilization and done my part for the greater good.The Greater Good.Not gonna lie, I am aware of this and I know it's a big part of my problem. I'm just not interested in episodic convention-style play... and most people say they're not, either. Most of the people who are doing this will swear that's not what they want, and that's not what they're trying to do.But they still do it every time and still fight any measure intended to give them the game they say they want.I'm not interested in speculating on their motivations or their moral character. I just want to identify the best practices for identifying the people who want to play the kinds of games I want to run, and deliver those players the best game experience according to that desire.The players I want and the players who want to play in my games exist.. just like the players who want and deserve to play in the games they want to play. They're both being drowned in the same sea of entitled prima donnas.Not Gonna Lie, I'm still looking for DMs who'll let me play some of my "stupid PC tricks" characters... like thr 4E Rocket Fist or the 3.PF 6 INT/WIS Arcane Hierophant whose companion familiar is smarter than them and/or possibly the smartest member of the party.Am I "just as bad", or is my shame mitigated by the fact I want to be upfront about this, join a suitable game, and make the effort to make my "joke" characters feel like naturally weird expressions of a world that makes sense?I want to run high gonzo games, too. But when I do that, I'm going to be inundnated with pitches for po-faced "Four in the Core" pizza cutters."A few sessions" is longer than most online games last, especially when they're undermined by these... if not "players", because they'll "act different" in a "real game", but by these behaviors/mindsets. How do you run the kind of game most people say they want when most people are the ones sandbagging you?I'm not always in the mood for Dead Serious, either, but sometimes I am and sometimes lots of other people are. They should be able to make that choice. For me, even when I'm "trolling"-- with people who want that-- committing to the bit by playing it Dead Serious is an important part of my fun.I don't want anyone to not be able to find and play the kinds of games they want to play in. Not even the people I'm complaining about. I just want them to stop ruining everyone's fun, including their own, by demanding that everyone else cater to their narcissitic BS. It doesn't matter if they're the pizza cutter or the spinach fairy, they'd also have a lot more fun if they'd be more considerate of other people's preferences.I was having these exact same arguments--from your side--on this board 25 years ago as part of the AD&D-3rd Edition flamewars, because of 3.0 doing away with a ton of character restrictions.I was having them 30 years ago on AOL's TSR portal, between "Forgotten Realms" 2E fans (when FR was a vanilla kitchen sink) and "Planescape" 2E fans who wanted a 4E/5E style everything bagel kitchen sink. There wasn't an edition war or generational facet to those arguments--that I remember--just people.complaining that they were outnumbered by the small umimportant minority of players who refused to play the game right.Maybe a hot take, but it's not "cultural trends" or "design philosophies" exacerbating the problem... it's more people playing with strangers and more people playing D&D without needing to have friends who play D&D with them. Those are good things, not problems I want to solve, but they're part of the problems I do want to solve.</blockquote>

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