WotC is trying to indoctrinate a whole generation of kids to play D&D wrong, by completely changing the text of "rule 0".
#dnd #dnd5e #osr #ttrpg
Not sure how much I agree.
Rule Zero is something which is theoretically true, but in practice doesn't work equally well in all situations. Specifically, it's very easy to use it to do whatever you want between campaigns, but it's actually relatively difficult to use it to patch a campaign while it is running and active, and almost impossible to use during a session rather than between sessions.
I have had to do a whole lot of table politicking in the past, and this generally colors my perspective. When I am changing the rules of a game while we're actually playing it that I tend to call for a vote, even though I technically don't have to for Rule Zero. I have several reasons for this. The first and most practical is that players remember the conversation better if they participate in the process. That can definitely be important if you have a problem rule which has to be changed multiple times. That hasn't ever happened to me in the past, but that's usually because players will either complain like the boy who cried wolf or take a stiff upper lip to a rule that's already been changed. Given the problems I've seen with homebrew campaigns, I think there were times we probably should have double-changed rules rather than letting the second iteration stand.
The second and more pragmatic reason is that problem players out themselves if you give them a vote. Good players do sometimes disagree with the GM and sometimes they have good points the GM should consider. But when you are dealing with an old fashioned asshat player, few things turn the rest of the table towards ejecting the problem player quite like them seeing the GM put something up for a vote and said asshat votes against it in bad faith. If this technique for getting a bad player out of a campaign doesn't work, the campaign is officially toast.
More recently I have been in situations where I don't have actively belligerent players, but I can't actually eject players, either. In this instance I still call for a vote so I can ask one of the players who voted with me to take the problem player aside and say, "hey, that was out of line." Typically, problem players become better players after being taken aside like this, which is obviously the best outcome. But at the same time, unrepentantly delinquent players tend to leave of their own accord after they lose two votes and had two different players say they're doing something inappropriate.
I do agree that 100% consensus is moronic, though. When I call for votes, it's a simple majority with the GM voting twice. Not all campaigns are meant for all players. If you've got a majority, but a player dislikes it, they should probably not play that campaign. Whether that means sitting out and waiting for the next campaign or playing the B campaign (my groups tend to have an A, B, and sometimes even a C campaign going on at the same time) or ejecting the player depends on the context and the reason the player is objecting. But at the end of the day I do think it can be perfectly appropriate to alter a campaign if one player objects and has a good point. It's just that the proof of the point being good is usually that it convinces me, the GM, and the rest of the players at the table.
The most insulting piece is that they called this "rule 0" in their text. "Rule 0" as a term is not something owned by Hasbro, the term comes from the community a couple decades ago, and it does not belong to them and we should be mad that they are wiping their ass with something that is not fucking theirs. That part makes me mad, the absolute gall of this fucking corporation, taking something from the community and using their stupid fucking megaphone to tell people it means something that it does not.
As far as the practical effects? I'm not too concerned. Many D&D forums consist of a large number of normal player and DMs, with a tiny loud contingent of like, "involuntary non-players"- lets call them innops- who have all these opinions about how every game they aren't participating in should be run, but never seem to actually be involved as a player in games run to their liking- and assuredly they don't go and run one themselves according to such a phiilosophy. The more a system leans into, or coddles these people- either with actual rules, org play policies, or even just rhetoric- the sparser DMs get, first in the places they stomp around in, and later in the actual games. It's a problem with a little bit of self-regulation, is my point.
I don't think it's anything that complicated or sophisticated. That's just how they think about the role of the GM. You can see this same sort of thing in a lot of more narrative games. We are all making a story together.
In my experience, kids pretty much never played by the book and seldom actualy read the book. They'll do fine.
Quote from: RPGPundit on January 08, 2024, 03:35:15 PM
WotC is trying to indoctrinate a whole generation of kids to play D&D wrong, by completely changing the text of "rule 0".
#dnd #dnd5e #osr #ttrpg
I'd rather see you do a "To Catch a D&D Predator" using D&D Beyond LFG Forums. That forum during covid and D&D was popular was a cess pool of posts like:
-Totally new to D&D, 14+, LGBTQ+ mandatory
posts. There is no way that child rape did not take place due to D&D Beyond's LFG forum. I kept reporting that shit when I saw it and they did nothing to stop it.
Quote from: David Johansen on January 08, 2024, 09:33:08 PM
In my experience, kids pretty much never played by the book and seldom actualy read the book. They'll do fine.
They sure didn't play OD&D or AD&D by the book, at many tables.
Quote from: Jam The MF on January 08, 2024, 11:39:31 PM
Quote from: David Johansen on January 08, 2024, 09:33:08 PM
In my experience, kids pretty much never played by the book and seldom actualy read the book. They'll do fine.
They sure didn't play OD&D or AD&D by the book, at many tables.
I remember when I first saw people saying that D&D was sexist because of the cap on exceptional strength for female characters. My response was, "There was a cap?" I didn't even notice that at the time.
Quote from: yosemitemike on January 09, 2024, 08:36:28 PM
Quote from: Jam The MF on January 08, 2024, 11:39:31 PM
Quote from: David Johansen on January 08, 2024, 09:33:08 PM
In my experience, kids pretty much never played by the book and seldom actualy read the book. They'll do fine.
They sure didn't play OD&D or AD&D by the book, at many tables.
I remember when I first saw people saying that D&D was sexist because of the cap on exceptional strength for female characters. My response was, "There was a cap?" I didn't even notice that at the time.
It was so unlikely to even come up, that I had 1 character with 18 str, and he didn't get near the cap. But it's not about actual fairness or balance, it's just wedge issue #109,234,876. Stick enough wedges into society and it cracks open, then comes Utopia!
Also I can't be the only one who sees the title, and thinks to how MtG basically became a Farmer's Market for child molesters? I remember when the Quartering first became known for outing the staggering array of REGISTERED sex offenders not just playing MtG in tournaments, but officiating! And the WotC response to his messages was cover-up, and banning The Quartering for life.
Quote from: yosemitemike on January 09, 2024, 08:36:28 PM
Quote from: Jam The MF on January 08, 2024, 11:39:31 PM
Quote from: David Johansen on January 08, 2024, 09:33:08 PM
In my experience, kids pretty much never played by the book and seldom actualy read the book. They'll do fine.
They sure didn't play OD&D or AD&D by the book, at many tables.
I remember when I first saw people saying that D&D was sexist because of the cap on exceptional strength for female characters. My response was, "There was a cap?" I didn't even notice that at the time.
The usual storm in a thimble.
I can actually speak with some authority on this as someone who's still doing an ongoing game for kids aged 10-16. It's all going to be determined by the GM and the group itself. Not the book. And even then, kids are smart. I actually started out with a simple B/X clone with these kids and eventually they demanded more complicated mechanics and more combat. I was running Savage Worlds for a bit and now I'm doing Dark Heresy with them. I even roped them into my ongoing 1:1 Real time SWd6 game and they're loving that too. They want a systems driven sandbox or I wouldn't do it for them. So there's hope there. More hope for Gen Alpha than Gen Z and Millennials to be honest.
As far as I can tell from nearly thirty years of observing online discussions, if you're playing D&D, you're somehow playing it wrong. ;)
Quote from: RPGPundit on January 08, 2024, 03:35:15 PM
WotC is trying to indoctrinate a whole generation of kids to play D&D wrong, by completely changing the text of "rule 0".
It's my humble opinion that what they are really doing is grooming them to not be customers.
Kids like solid and easy to understand rules and structure and can be deeply offended if they feel there's cheating or deception. They are also pretty sensitive to it and generally far more understanding of the things around them than we give them credit for.
More likely than not, kids are going to see this and go "this sucks" and do something else.
Quote from: BadApple on January 12, 2024, 04:01:02 PM
Quote from: RPGPundit on January 08, 2024, 03:35:15 PM
WotC is trying to indoctrinate a whole generation of kids to play D&D wrong, by completely changing the text of "rule 0".
It's my humble opinion that what they are really doing is grooming them to not be customers.
Kids like solid and easy to understand rules and structure and can be deeply offended if they feel there's cheating or deception. They are also pretty sensitive to it and generally far more understanding of the things around them than we give them credit for.
More likely than not, kids are going to see this and go "this sucks" and do something else.
Yeah, any half-conscious kid from my generation would have immediately realized that a game where you would win no matter what you did sucked. But you know, this generation is literally being trained about "equity" from age 2, so who knows?
Quote from: King Tyranno on January 12, 2024, 09:29:18 AM
I can actually speak with some authority on this as someone who's still doing an ongoing game for kids aged 10-16. It's all going to be determined by the GM and the group itself. Not the book. And even then, kids are smart. I actually started out with a simple B/X clone with these kids and eventually they demanded more complicated mechanics and more combat. I was running Savage Worlds for a bit and now I'm doing Dark Heresy with them. I even roped them into my ongoing 1:1 Real time SWd6 game and they're loving that too. They want a systems driven sandbox or I wouldn't do it for them. So there's hope there. More hope for Gen Alpha than Gen Z and Millennials to be honest.
But if WotC teaches the kids how to DM badly then you will end up with a generation or two that grow up to game badly or are put off by the bad DMing they received.
Quote from: Omega on January 16, 2024, 05:58:41 AM
Quote from: King Tyranno on January 12, 2024, 09:29:18 AM
I can actually speak with some authority on this as someone who's still doing an ongoing game for kids aged 10-16. It's all going to be determined by the GM and the group itself. Not the book. And even then, kids are smart. I actually started out with a simple B/X clone with these kids and eventually they demanded more complicated mechanics and more combat. I was running Savage Worlds for a bit and now I'm doing Dark Heresy with them. I even roped them into my ongoing 1:1 Real time SWd6 game and they're loving that too. They want a systems driven sandbox or I wouldn't do it for them. So there's hope there. More hope for Gen Alpha than Gen Z and Millennials to be honest.
But if WotC teaches the kids how to DM badly then you will end up with a generation or two that grow up to game badly or are put off by the bad DMing they received.
I believe that they will "discover" or "invent" hard GMing and it will be a fad that takes over. For a while, they will be convinced that the old school gamers were a bunch of softies. Then they will finally uncover the fact that we knew all along and be mad about it.
Quote from: Omega on January 16, 2024, 05:58:41 AM
Quote from: King Tyranno on January 12, 2024, 09:29:18 AM
I can actually speak with some authority on this as someone who's still doing an ongoing game for kids aged 10-16. It's all going to be determined by the GM and the group itself. Not the book. And even then, kids are smart. I actually started out with a simple B/X clone with these kids and eventually they demanded more complicated mechanics and more combat. I was running Savage Worlds for a bit and now I'm doing Dark Heresy with them. I even roped them into my ongoing 1:1 Real time SWd6 game and they're loving that too. They want a systems driven sandbox or I wouldn't do it for them. So there's hope there. More hope for Gen Alpha than Gen Z and Millennials to be honest.
But if WotC teaches the kids how to DM badly then you will end up with a generation or two that grow up to game badly or are put off by the bad DMing they received.
You're giving kids far too little credit and assuming they're all going to be homogeneous. This isn't the case. Let me repeat, the kids in my group demanded I make the game more of a hardcore and sandbox experience. No prompting from me. They wanted it. One of them had been watching some of the various OSR You Tubers and other related channels. And was extolling the virtues of old school gaming to the group when I wasn't around. Those kids then prompted me to make our current game better. So that's when I started doing KotBL using Savage Pathfinder. Just to make it abundantly clear. I was hired as a GM to run games for this group of home educated kids. I tried to do it more like a Critical Role style thing as I thought that's what kids wanted. But then those kids demanded I run fairly hardcore and combat focused sandbox games. and now my name is out there and I got good word of mouth there's a demand for my services from other groups of kids. So I'm actually getting a bit booked up for games with multiple groups of people. So I'm probably going to be in a great position to do a tournement style 1:1 real time game of some sort this year. These kids all want the kinds of games I run. And not the alternative as presented by WotC.
I'm not going to say all kids are like this. I'm sure there will be kids who just stick with DnD as prescribed by WotC (for as long as WotC remain in business). But kids have access to the internet and even in this abominably anemic and myopic world can still find alternative opinions and ways of thinking. You'd be surprised how many kids use stuff like Telegram and even go on websites like 4chan. As much as I don't want them picking up bad ideas from the People of Gender who took over /tg/, Gen Alpha is out there. Interacting on the internet and absorbing knowledge so I'm really not worried about them.
Quote from: yosemitemike on January 09, 2024, 08:36:28 PM
Quote from: Jam The MF on January 08, 2024, 11:39:31 PM
Quote from: David Johansen on January 08, 2024, 09:33:08 PM
In my experience, kids pretty much never played by the book and seldom actualy read the book. They'll do fine.
They sure didn't play OD&D or AD&D by the book, at many tables.
I remember when I first saw people saying that D&D was sexist because of the cap on exceptional strength for female characters. My response was, "There was a cap?" I didn't even notice that at the time.
If I remember correctly, Powers & Perils had a lower roll on women's intelligence. If it were a game of the last ten years the outrage would be something to behold
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on January 08, 2024, 10:44:25 PM
Quote from: RPGPundit on January 08, 2024, 03:35:15 PM
WotC is trying to indoctrinate a whole generation of kids to play D&D wrong, by completely changing the text of "rule 0".
#dnd #dnd5e #osr #ttrpg
I'd rather see you do a "To Catch a D&D Predator" using D&D Beyond LFG Forums. That forum during covid and D&D was popular was a cess pool of posts like:
-Totally new to D&D, 14+, LGBTQ+ mandatory
posts. There is no way that child rape did not take place due to D&D Beyond's LFG forum. I kept reporting that shit when I saw it and they did nothing to stop it.
This is why I stopped playing TTRPGs altogether. No local groups around my area and the online scene has been awful. Laundry lists of trigger words and forbidden stuff and at the same time, mandatory demands.
So, there can be no bigotry or cultural tensions between any kind of civilization, every single sentient creature must love each other and sing holding hands around the campfire. But, everyone has to be bisexual at minimum if not overtly gay.
No living creature can be truly evil, it has to be misunderstood. But, all the churches in the setting have to be portrayed as corrupt and incompetent.
Every single settlement has to be a melting pot. Not just big capital cosmopolitan cities, even remote far off villages deep in the jungle or high up the mountains. Cultures must have some sort of reflection to modern american culture, so no slaves and no human or animal sacrifices or crazy superstitions.
Basically, every place is Hollywood's version of New York and every culture is the 2020 US.
After one too many terrible experiences I just gave up. Perhaps I am just too old at 38 but I loved when tabletop was allowed to have nuance and settings could have their own identity and didn't have to be "current day" in every single aspect.
Quote from: Cipher on January 17, 2024, 12:06:30 AM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on January 08, 2024, 10:44:25 PM
Quote from: RPGPundit on January 08, 2024, 03:35:15 PM
WotC is trying to indoctrinate a whole generation of kids to play D&D wrong, by completely changing the text of "rule 0".
#dnd #dnd5e #osr #ttrpg
I'd rather see you do a "To Catch a D&D Predator" using D&D Beyond LFG Forums. That forum during covid and D&D was popular was a cess pool of posts like:
-Totally new to D&D, 14+, LGBTQ+ mandatory
posts. There is no way that child rape did not take place due to D&D Beyond's LFG forum. I kept reporting that shit when I saw it and they did nothing to stop it.
This is why I stopped playing TTRPGs altogether. No local groups around my area and the online scene has been awful. Laundry lists of trigger words and forbidden stuff and at the same time, mandatory demands.
So, there can be no bigotry or cultural tensions between any kind of civilization, every single sentient creature must love each other and sing holding hands around the campfire. But, everyone has to be bisexual at minimum if not overtly gay.
No living creature can be truly evil, it has to be misunderstood. But, all the churches in the setting have to be portrayed as corrupt and incompetent.
Every single settlement has to be a melting pot. Not just big capital cosmopolitan cities, even remote far off villages deep in the jungle or high up the mountains. Cultures must have some sort of reflection to modern american culture, so no slaves and no human or animal sacrifices or crazy superstitions.
Basically, every place is Hollywood's version of New York and every culture is the 2020 US.
After one too many terrible experiences I just gave up. Perhaps I am just too old at 38 but I loved when tabletop was allowed to have nuance and settings could have their own identity and didn't have to be "current day" in every single aspect.
Facebook now is the boomer and gen x social media site, there will be D&D groups in your area there and you can use it to find groups. You can also use Fantasy Grounds to find normie D&D groups, they will be older there.
And at the rate of how D&D has pissed of its customer base, the flaketards will do just that flake on D&D. You'll be left with people who want to play D&D not use D&D as some kind of theraphy session for being uncle touched or their parents raised them gender neutral and they are now mentally damaged.
Quote from: Cipher on January 17, 2024, 12:06:30 AM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on January 08, 2024, 10:44:25 PM
Quote from: RPGPundit on January 08, 2024, 03:35:15 PM
WotC is trying to indoctrinate a whole generation of kids to play D&D wrong, by completely changing the text of "rule 0".
#dnd #dnd5e #osr #ttrpg
I'd rather see you do a "To Catch a D&D Predator" using D&D Beyond LFG Forums. That forum during covid and D&D was popular was a cess pool of posts like:
-Totally new to D&D, 14+, LGBTQ+ mandatory
posts. There is no way that child rape did not take place due to D&D Beyond's LFG forum. I kept reporting that shit when I saw it and they did nothing to stop it.
This is why I stopped playing TTRPGs altogether. No local groups around my area and the online scene has been awful. Laundry lists of trigger words and forbidden stuff and at the same time, mandatory demands.
So, there can be no bigotry or cultural tensions between any kind of civilization, every single sentient creature must love each other and sing holding hands around the campfire. But, everyone has to be bisexual at minimum if not overtly gay.
No living creature can be truly evil, it has to be misunderstood. But, all the churches in the setting have to be portrayed as corrupt and incompetent.
Every single settlement has to be a melting pot. Not just big capital cosmopolitan cities, even remote far off villages deep in the jungle or high up the mountains. Cultures must have some sort of reflection to modern american culture, so no slaves and no human or animal sacrifices or crazy superstitions.
Basically, every place is Hollywood's version of New York and every culture is the 2020 US.
After one too many terrible experiences I just gave up. Perhaps I am just too old at 38 but I loved when tabletop was allowed to have nuance and settings could have their own identity and didn't have to be "current day" in every single aspect.
There's not much you can do about the local scene, but maybe you're looking in the wrong places for Online players. If I was you, and you really wanted to play in or run a campaign, I'd try to find players from places where the pool of players wouldn't be woke. So, here on theRPGsite, the Mewe Inglorious OSR group (or most mewe groups for that matter), the couple of conserative RPG groups on facebook, and select discord servers. And if you're on X, advertising for non-woke players on there, maybe.