I love seeing new rulesets and TTRPGs with more specialized play when you know exactly what you want out of your game, and I understand that WotC isn't everyone's favorite corpo right now (and they shouldn't be) but it feels like all I see is negativity towards DnD these days and like...
If it's not for you, fine, but you don't have to compulsively convert people away from it who are perfectly happy playing it - and everyone doesn't quit DnD completely immediately after trying one (1) alternative system. If they complain that's one thing, but pretending its only usefulness is as a gateway or playing up its flaws and limitations that either wildly vary by edition/setting or don't even exist anymore feels reductive and reactionary.
I get that things becoming mainstream/commercialized triggers an exodus and that CR and TAZ fans can be annoying, but seeing DnD itself described as the "Harry Potter of TTRPGs" is so wildly off base that I legitimately had to make a post about it. What the fuck. Tell me without telling me your only experience is with "canon" Forgotten Realms lore in 5e with 0 homebrew.
There is so much more that you can accomplish in DnD than just combat and looting. And... people aren't sheep or normies for continuing to play it? Holy shit I can't believe I have to say that. There are loads of people who play older editions or whose campaigns don't resemble overly-referential CR/TAZ clones at all (not to mention the innovation and originality in those root media that gets ignored simply because they're popular but I'm not here to defend them) and people who pretend that's what DnD is, identically, for every group, and that's all it'll ever be, just punching goblins and collecting gold, are painting with too broad a brush.
