Your friendly neighborhood Remidiot

A lot of D&D5e defenders on here like to claim that asking someone to learn a new system is "gatekeeping" somehow, but I'd argue that acting like one game is emblematic of the entire medium to the exclusion of people who don't click with that one game is way more meaningfully a form of gatekeeping, even if it's fully unintentional.

Hasbro is fucking lying.

Their game does one very specific thing in an extremely specific way, and are exploiting unpaid game designers to sell the illusion otherwise.

(the song included in this trailer, sung in Finnish, has already been translated, if anyone is curious)

is dylan seeing the outside for the first time since he was a child.

Looking at it from that perspective, people who denigrate dungeons as not being real roleplaying or storytelling feel a lot like the gaming nerds of the mid 2000s, sneering at bros who play Gears of War and Halo, and insisting that they play real games.

Except that those nerds were, at least somewhat, responding to the state of the video games industry as it actually existed. And, notably, they were actually playing the non-shooter games that existed.

By contrast, the dungeons-aren't-roleplay 5e players feel like if those gamer nerds were on their "all shooters are brainless pablum" bullshit now, in a world where some of the most praised narrative games of all time are shooters, and where shooter mechanics have been used to make wildly inventive puzzle games, horror games, speedrunning games, roleplaying games, etc.

Control Resonant

Paranatural Manhattan Trailer

If you are playing a ttrpg as a simulation engine, it makes sense to ignore the rules and try to reason what would be the result instead of using the game systems.

But if you play ttrpgs as games instead, the way you overcome obstacles is meant to make players experience a specific experience. Going out of the ttrpg sphere for examples, Resident Evil makes makes inventory a puzzle because it wants you to focus on what items you carry, Mario Kart gives you better items in the worst positions because it wants everyone to be close together and not have people fall behind (in casual settings), Elden Ring places cool items all over the map because it wants you to engage with the open world.

All of those decissions didn't come from trying to be realistic, they came because the designer wanted a specific experience and those systems help achieve it. There are simulators (powerwash simulator, farming simulator, etc) but those aren't games as much as they are toys. Toys dont try to get the player to achieve an end goal, games do.

When reading a ttrpg, try to understand what experience the mechanics lead to. DnD 5e is a game about fighting monsters and running out of combat resources the longer you go without resting. Thirsty Sword Lesbians is a game about creating relationship drama and angst. Eureka is a game about investigation.

People can change. The past doesn't matter. Who are you today?

Control Resonant

Paranatural Manhattan Trailer

please

please please please

please stop putting crosses on literally everything.

"A fictional poet once said: beyond the shadow you settle for, there is a miracle, illuminated"