People are very bad at explaining what they like about things, because usually they like things in contrast to things they don’t like. And people who do identify what they like positively often just get told that their input isn’t welcome, either.
The problem isn’t whether someone is focusing on negative aspects of what you’re playing or the positive aspects of what they are, it’s that discussions about minority systems are often just puked up onto people who weren’t asking. The conversation is often:
“Hey, how can I do [thing] in [game I’m playing]?”
“[Game you’re playing] sucks at [thing]/isn’t designed for [thing]. You should play [something else].”
“But I like [game I’m playing], and don’t want to convert to a whole new system.”
This means not only is the asker’s question being totally ignored, but they’re being hit with – sometimes even bombarded by – value judgements they weren’t interested in.
This is called the X/Y problem. You ask “how do I use X to do Y”, and the answer is you don’t. You don’t even want to. You want to do Y, and just assumed that X is how you’d do it. So the answer might actually be “don’t use X.”
To some people, they see your question as “How can I do [thing] in [game that does not do thing]?” Since they see it as an inherently flawed question, they try to fix your root issue and explain how to do [thing]. It’s not the answer you wanted, but it might be the one you need.
I will admit, some people just like to shit on [game you’re playing], and will take every opportunity to hype up [game they’re playing]. But just as often, I see people defending [game they’re playing] just because they’re already playing it. And there is no harm in playing multiple games.
I have a game on my shelf built for pure fight scenes that can’t do downtime (Panic at the Dojo), and a game built for wholesome slice-of-life that doesn’t let you do combat (Golden Sky Stories). They simply cannot do what the other does, and I wouldn’t like either of them as much if they did.
The thing is, this applies much less firmly to an imagination game where you can easily bolt on a sub-system to do that one thing you wanted to do differently than, say, if someone wants to beat in a screw with a hammer.
And yes, maybe there are people who want to gut their whole game and rebuild it from scratch for some reason, just because they really love sailing on their ship of Thesus, and would be better served by trying a new system. But if they don’t want to do that, someone trying to redirect the conversation in that direction are going to be viewed as hostile and smug, not helpful.
People are very bad at explaining what they like about things, because usually they like things in contrast to things they don’t like. And people who do identify what they like positively often just get told that their input isn’t welcome, either.
The problem isn’t whether someone is focusing on negative aspects of what you’re playing or the positive aspects of what they are, it’s that discussions about minority systems are often just puked up onto people who weren’t asking. The conversation is often:
“Hey, how can I do [thing] in [game I’m playing]?”
“[Game you’re playing] sucks at [thing]/isn’t designed for [thing]. You should play [something else].”
“But I like [game I’m playing], and don’t want to convert to a whole new system.”
This means not only is the asker’s question being totally ignored, but they’re being hit with – sometimes even bombarded by – value judgements they weren’t interested in.
This is called the X/Y problem. You ask “how do I use X to do Y”, and the answer is you don’t. You don’t even want to. You want to do Y, and just assumed that X is how you’d do it. So the answer might actually be “don’t use X.”
To some people, they see your question as “How can I do [thing] in [game that does not do thing]?” Since they see it as an inherently flawed question, they try to fix your root issue and explain how to do [thing]. It’s not the answer you wanted, but it might be the one you need.
I will admit, some people just like to shit on [game you’re playing], and will take every opportunity to hype up [game they’re playing]. But just as often, I see people defending [game they’re playing] just because they’re already playing it. And there is no harm in playing multiple games.
I have a game on my shelf built for pure fight scenes that can’t do downtime (Panic at the Dojo), and a game built for wholesome slice-of-life that doesn’t let you do combat (Golden Sky Stories). They simply cannot do what the other does, and I wouldn’t like either of them as much if they did.
The thing is, this applies much less firmly to an imagination game where you can easily bolt on a sub-system to do that one thing you wanted to do differently than, say, if someone wants to beat in a screw with a hammer.
And yes, maybe there are people who want to gut their whole game and rebuild it from scratch for some reason, just because they really love sailing on their ship of Thesus, and would be better served by trying a new system. But if they don’t want to do that, someone trying to redirect the conversation in that direction are going to be viewed as hostile and smug, not helpful.