Sorry by the way, that wasn’t directed at the quoted post. I got a little sidetracked by my tangent.
Oh good. Because I was going to point out that if you had read my entire post I was careful to point out that it’s not all optimizers who are ******bags, and that even all the ones who are aren’t necessarily ******bags on purpose either, but that the ******bag behavior of some optimizers has left such a strong impression on people that it reflects badly on the demographic as a whole.
Yes, I’m aware. I got a little upset while I was writing mine and forgot I had actually quoted yours.
Rather than go back and cherry pick a few posts, I will just ask this to all that care to answer.
If 5e is so flawed that you only play it to recruit for (insert your favorite non 5e TTRPG) otherwise it is bad. Why do you think so many play it that makes it the gateway to other TTRPG's? Furthermore why would you want to change (or limit things in) it if it is so effective at being such a great gateway?
This is off topic so I'll try to be concise. The short answer to your first question is brand recognition. D&D is the only TTRPG most people have ever heard of. Most new players don't come to a table wanting to play "a TTRPG" (if they even know what that is), they come wanting to play D&D.
I don't count myself a member of the 5e Hate Club; I think there's a few things it does well, a few things it does poorly, and a lot of things that depend heavily on the GM putting in a herculean amount of work. This is abnormal, by the way. I don't know any other system that works the GM as hard as D&D 5e does. That's one thing I'd like to change. The other thing is that there's just not much depth to it, especially outside of combat. I think both these things could be improved without making the game harder to introduce new players to.
Here's something to consider, though this thread isn't really the place for this discussion: why are so many people who have never played another game convinced 5e represents the ideal RPG? How could you possibly come to that conclusion without trying at least a handful of other games?
So, for everyone out there who’s an optimized but isn’t a bag of ******, instead of arguing about the relative merits of optimizing, instead try just actively not being ******bags. Because arguing the relative merits of optimization kind of just reinforces the ******bag stereotype for lots of people.
But we can't control the behavior of anyone you play with who is not ourselves. Therefore, arguing about the merits of optimization (including its merits when it comes to roleplay synergy and textured character concepts) is all we can do, as well as continuing to point out that there is no correlation (positive OR negative) between the two.
It’s astonishing that so many people have such vast experiences of what every optimiser is like. I’m glad to know it’s such a cohesive demographic that a significant chunk of are ********. This is quite surprising to me given the only person that fits this description I have ever met who even remotely tried to minmax barely understood the rules and just made stuff up, which is definitely not optimisation. Telling people that like number crunching and pushing systems they can’t use half the sourcebooks cause you don’t like it is gatekeeping. Saying optimisation is A Bad Thing is gatekeeping. Saying ‘I don’t dislike all optimisers, just those stuck up Mary Sues’ is frankly insulting - just say you don’t like ******* players, like the rest of us - and using anecdotal examples like they are hard evidence is equally insulting when you’re implying some egomaniac represents all optimisers, and that’s why optimisers are bad. That’s like saying a dog bit you once, all dogs bite, dogs should be put down
Okay, but you see that there's more than two positions here, right? Like, sticking with the metaphor, people who get bitten by dogs don't usually become anti-dog crusaders, but they might reasonably choose not to get dogs, choose not to spend their free time around dogs, maybe choose to live in a building (this is getting strained; "live in a building" here means "play a TTRPG system") that does not allow dogs. Avoidance is a normal response to a bad experience, and it's obviously a fairly common bad experience.
I say this as a chronic dog (er, optimizer) myself, for what it's worth.
There are entire fora and discords devoted to all sorts of games. If I wanted to run some non-5e game, and didn't have people in my own circles up for it, I'd join one of those, and I doubt it'd take me that long for anything with a player base. If I wanted to play, as I said, it'd be more work; I'd probably end up playing one-shots to find a group I vibe with. Maybe I'm wrong: I don't have direct experience with it, because I've got enough people in my circles that I could run anything I want to. The only reason I'm not running DIE in person at the moment is that I haven't got off my butt to do it, and I've still got like 60% of the players. If I really felt like running 4e, as opposed to having the occasional invasive "I could run 4e" thoughts, I could spin that game up, too, and it'd be a disjoint set of players.
The number of people who won't play anything but 5e is not that large, but a lot of them aren't looking for something else. When you have groups as deeply dissatisfied with 5e as we're told JustaFarmer has, it ought to be easy.
I highlighted the most pertinent part of your reply.
The short of my rejoinder: My experience is clearly different from yours.
Long answer: Most of my friends, historically, are not gamers, since I stopped gaming for well over a decade. While I have met some people using online forums and Discord, most are not interested in playing RPGs other those that are most popular for anything much longer than a one-shot. Of the friends I did know in high school who gamed, I have long ago lost touch with them, partly due to the usual circumstances of marriage and growing up/apart, but also b/c I am trans and was not aware of it until later in life, and society as a whole was significantly less welcoming to trans people back then than it is now. While I have made more "geek gamer" friends since then, I have found that there are still many people who would rather not play RPGs with a trans person who somehow offends them by caring more about character development and coherent backstory than they do while also matching them for understanding of the game's mechanics.
Something peculiar that I have observed as a trans person is that men (particularly straight ones) are more comfortable with having me around when they can assume that I am a person who needs their help than when I present myself as someone who is just as capable as they are at understanding how stuff works. Since this is DDB, I will refrain from attempting to label this phenomenon, but needless to say, your experience is quite far removed from my own. So please do not assume that just because something is simple for you, that it is simple for everyone else.
Min-maxing has been the bane of D&D since 1e allowed non-humans to multiclass. Of course back then non-humans couldn't progress like humans, since Cygax gave them innate magical abilities. Which meant they were already ahead of humans from the beginning. The new rules, IIRC, removes those innate magical abilities from races (now called Species), so that also reduces the amount of optimizing based on races. In addition, there have been changes to classes to also reduce the urge to min-max, such as applying the same bonuses for an ASI at the beginning for all races. It looks like no matter what you do, you will receive only modest increases to optimize.
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Yes, I’m aware. I got a little upset while I was writing mine and forgot I had actually quoted yours.
I can’t remember what’s supposed to go here.
This is off topic so I'll try to be concise. The short answer to your first question is brand recognition. D&D is the only TTRPG most people have ever heard of. Most new players don't come to a table wanting to play "a TTRPG" (if they even know what that is), they come wanting to play D&D.
I don't count myself a member of the 5e Hate Club; I think there's a few things it does well, a few things it does poorly, and a lot of things that depend heavily on the GM putting in a herculean amount of work. This is abnormal, by the way. I don't know any other system that works the GM as hard as D&D 5e does. That's one thing I'd like to change. The other thing is that there's just not much depth to it, especially outside of combat. I think both these things could be improved without making the game harder to introduce new players to.
Here's something to consider, though this thread isn't really the place for this discussion: why are so many people who have never played another game convinced 5e represents the ideal RPG? How could you possibly come to that conclusion without trying at least a handful of other games?
Technically it's French for "shower" - but its English meanings are the pertinent ones here 😛
But we can't control the behavior of anyone you play with who is not ourselves. Therefore, arguing about the merits of optimization (including its merits when it comes to roleplay synergy and textured character concepts) is all we can do, as well as continuing to point out that there is no correlation (positive OR negative) between the two.
Okay, but you see that there's more than two positions here, right? Like, sticking with the metaphor, people who get bitten by dogs don't usually become anti-dog crusaders, but they might reasonably choose not to get dogs, choose not to spend their free time around dogs, maybe choose to live in a building (this is getting strained; "live in a building" here means "play a TTRPG system") that does not allow dogs. Avoidance is a normal response to a bad experience, and it's obviously a fairly common bad experience.
I say this as a chronic dog (er, optimizer) myself, for what it's worth.
I highlighted the most pertinent part of your reply.
The short of my rejoinder: My experience is clearly different from yours.
Long answer: Most of my friends, historically, are not gamers, since I stopped gaming for well over a decade. While I have met some people using online forums and Discord, most are not interested in playing RPGs other those that are most popular for anything much longer than a one-shot. Of the friends I did know in high school who gamed, I have long ago lost touch with them, partly due to the usual circumstances of marriage and growing up/apart, but also b/c I am trans and was not aware of it until later in life, and society as a whole was significantly less welcoming to trans people back then than it is now. While I have made more "geek gamer" friends since then, I have found that there are still many people who would rather not play RPGs with a trans person who somehow offends them by caring more about character development and coherent backstory than they do while also matching them for understanding of the game's mechanics.
Something peculiar that I have observed as a trans person is that men (particularly straight ones) are more comfortable with having me around when they can assume that I am a person who needs their help than when I present myself as someone who is just as capable as they are at understanding how stuff works. Since this is DDB, I will refrain from attempting to label this phenomenon, but needless to say, your experience is quite far removed from my own. So please do not assume that just because something is simple for you, that it is simple for everyone else.
Min-maxing has been the bane of D&D since 1e allowed non-humans to multiclass. Of course back then non-humans couldn't progress like humans, since Cygax gave them innate magical abilities. Which meant they were already ahead of humans from the beginning. The new rules, IIRC, removes those innate magical abilities from races (now called Species), so that also reduces the amount of optimizing based on races. In addition, there have been changes to classes to also reduce the urge to min-max, such as applying the same bonuses for an ASI at the beginning for all races. It looks like no matter what you do, you will receive only modest increases to optimize.