@kit that’s a really interesting point - I wonder if it really is because people are bringing their expectations of video games into the TTRPG world

I try to be generous sometimes and assume that D&D is trying to do something that I don’t understand - like it has goals and is filling a niche that I just don’t have a good grasp on. but yeah from the outside it really does look that way to me too

and I wonder if there’s a feedback loop where:

• folks who want to try TTRPGs try D&D, because of its cultural dominance, and if they bounce off of it they assume that all TTRPGs are like D&D and therefore that they won’t like any of them
• D&D players bounce off of other systems because they treat them like video games and get confused by the unspoken cultural assumptions that come from more imagination-focused systems

@kasdeya it’s even more annoying when you DO get the appeal, I think. I love RPGs and tactics games, they’re often among my favorites… but the thing is, if I wanted that experience, I’d be playing a video game, not a TTRPG, and that is a concept that is apparently too alien for certain people to understand

the ability to do anything you can imagine is literally the entire point of a TTRPG in my mind, because that is quite literally what a Role Playing Game is. video game genres have stupid names that make no sense unless you speak their language, so when people who mostly play video games then get into TTRPGs, that’s the definition they carry with them, not knowing that it could be more than that

video games are interactive play, role playing games are imaginative play, and imagination is apparently in short supply

someone tried to get me into a pokemon TTRPG session with them once and the first thing I asked was “do my pokemon have a maximum of four moves” because I figured that would be the best way to ask “are we just pretending to play a video game or not” without upsetting them, and yeah, it was literally just pokemon, the video game, but on a virtual table instead. that was especially annoying because I like just about everything about the pokemon universe except the video games

@kit yes omgg - that is such a good way to put it. it feels like they took a turn-based tactics RPG and then tried to retroactively turn it into a tabletop game (not even necessarily one where you roleplay)

I don’t get the appeal at all, but then again I don’t like RPGs or turn-based tactics games. and what excites me most about TTRPGs is being able to do anything that I can imagine - which D&D limits by necessity because its first priority is to be a turn-based tactics RPG

when most D&D players ask you about your character, they don’t actually want to hear about your character. what they care about is race and class, and if you tell them anything else they’ll just act confused. it’s like they want to stereotype the character first, and then learn about them later. I don’t understand this mentality at all but I find it pretty gross

D&D in general has a tendency to pigeonhole everything into neat little reductive categories and then add game mechanics to those categories. and I feel like so much is lost when doing this - not to mention that it forces players to follow mechanically-enforced stereotypes in order to play the game

avoid prejudice in D&D!

• just because someone is a half-orc, doesn’t mean that they’re aggressive or dangerous
• just because someone is an elf, doesn’t mean that they’re wise or spiritual
• not all rogues lie or steal
• not all barbarians are angry, violent, or unintelligent

remember that a person’s class and race are social constructs - labels that they’ve been given by society - and tell you nothing about them, except for the types of prejudice that they face

so instead of asking for someone’s race and class, try asking them about their hobbies or ambitions in life. and remember that race and class tell you nothing about them