Kichae

Bingo. Especially when what they’ve done to trigger the comments telllimf them to “play something else” is ask how to extend the thing they already like, or to replace some subsystem that is so clealy not core to the game.

But with 5e, there are also just so many third party releases that you can also replace core systems, like magic, with little difficulty, and people know it.

They don’t want to play something else. They’re not ready to try something else. They want to keep their dragon ampersand and their dis/advantage rolls, and telling them they’re doing something wrong by holding on to that isn’t convincing. It just communicates that other games are played by fucking assholes with boundary issues.

Ok, but these discussions aren’t happening at you’re table. “Well, fuck them then” isn’t exactly helpful.

Aye. NodeBB and Lemmy have a couple of rough edges here and there.

Sute, but the thing they like is “D&D”, and D&D isn’t just a game anymore, it’s an identity signifier. Pointing people to other games before establishing yourself as firmly not attacking their identity is going to trigger a fight.

alexanderthedead@lemmy.world said in A lesson so many need to learn: > Anyone who wants to make the claim that the system is bad will have bang their subjective arguments against the steel wall that is its popularity.

Yes, but this is a thing that people want to do. They want to try and dent that popularity, and they want to shift some of it towards their own preferences. It doesn’t matter that it’s a subjective opinion on what is better or what is bad, it doesn’t feel subjective to the person interjecting.

They believe their preferred game is better, they probably have had this discussion numerous times with people who have ignored them or chewed them out for trying to evangelize, and they are infinitely frustrated that others won’t see the light.

People who leave popular things behind for niche things often just have this habit of having to bury the thing they left behind. It can’t be good. The new thing is better, but the new thing is better both because it is better, and also because the old thing was just objectively bad.

People do this with a lot of things. TV shows, ice cream flavours, toys they used to play with as kids. There’s a sense of shame attached to having liked the old thing, not just a sense of joy of having found the new one. It’s one of the reasons the people they evangelize to get so defensive: They can sense that they are being judged.

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.

I’ve also found that it’s really easy to convert D&D 3.x and PF1 modules to the system. Not so easy that thought and care doesn’t need to be put into it, but most creatures are based off of the 3e monsters, and there’s a similar philosophy of DC adjustments. So, you get both Paizo’s catalogue of well designed adventure books, as well as a massive back catalogue of classic favourites that you can dig out for a relatively modest effort.

I don’t know. My experience with the community has been a lot of people yelling “You’re playing my fantasy XCOM board game wrong. You should probably play a rules-light game,” and no one stepping up to challenge them.

The bestiary is also really good (and free!). There are thousands of enemies, most of which have solid gimmicks that tell you straight from the stat block how you can best run the creature. And the they’re balanced to the same levels as players, so encounter power budgets are very intuitive.

The game gets a bit of a bad rap for having “nitpicky” rules, but people often seem to fail to recognize that the rules are spelling out how people already usually resolve things, rather than introducing something novel. It’s written in a very systematized way, and people aren’t used to reading about their intuitive experiences in systematized language.

The game’s broader community’s obsession with rules orthodoxy doesn’t help…

The downside of PF2 is if you try to engage with the core of the online community with this “rules for if I want/need them” attitude, someone will come out of the shadows to shank you.

There’s a rabid “by the rules, and all the rules” cohort within the community, and they are pretty effective at chasing new players away.

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.

I should mention, too, that Bob was an early playtester, so he also has “chosen fan” energy around this. It’s surprisingly how often people are not aware of how their feelings are easily manipulated by being “seen” by “important people”. Influencers are amazingly easily and cheaply bought.

And I don’t mean this as a slight to Bob. This is normal and natural human behaviour. He likes the game, and that’s legit. But people don’t go to war over things they like. They go to war over how others make them feel valuable.

Bob’s got “new hobby horse” glasses on. He likes the game, and is treating criticism of the company publishing it as an attack on the game itself, which…

He’s been playing 5e for years. He should know better.

Have you seen the discourse around 5.5? The toxic individuals are the ones bringing the culture war shit to the table. Shutting down mention of it ensures that there are only toxic tables.

Careful, you’re risking summoning the Pathfinder Pedant Demon with that one.