I would really like to know the absolute numbers of the poll instead of the percentage...
If there were only 10 people voting the poll is probably useless, if it was 1000 people it might be representative of Dan's audience here on dndbeyond. :-)
I enjoy some portions of some of Dan's articles. A lot of the humor doesn't really land with me, and that's fine. Like others have expressed, though, my problem with the articles is their frequency. They are roughly a third of the front page's content, if not more. They're at least half of the front page's *written* content, since many front page posts are just links to live streams. I think having an occasional funny article on the front page is fine (and ideally those funny articles should cater to different types of humor), but it should be dedicated to useful material. Beyond represents itself as the "official toolset" of D&D, but Dan's articles provide no real tools. Jamie's articles are usually great, even if they're not something I in particular need. The occasional guest columns are usually great, too. However, with such a glut of non-useful articles on the front page, I rarely bother to look at it anymore.
I find some of his content humorous. So, I voted yes.
I would like to see more variety than ____-vs-Player trope, though - DM vs. Player, Rules vs. Player... Things made to suggest the game could/should be player-unfriendly.
I get that it's often a joke at what not to do, but that point isn't always made well if one is unfamiliar with his work and takes it all as suggestions instead of mostly just jibes.
A contrast with helpful suggestions to bring laughs or stories of some great times had with humo(u)r might help. He's told some stories. So if it I had any influence (and I don't), I would suggest shifting gears a bit and go into some stories of fun times he's had or D&D-set humorous fiction rather than focusing so much on bad things to (not) do to players.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I am a fairly recent join to this website, and the first couple of articles I read on the front page were these. After the 2nd or 3rd one, I just stopped looking at the front page and never went back. They are not my cup of tea, and the message I got was, there will not be enough useful content on the front page that I need to bother checking.
Is that the message DDB wants to send? If so, then they’ve been successful with me.
i fricking knew it! This was my whole point. The front page promotes Dan’s articles and new players come here for info, find Dan’s stuff and think the game is a massive meme joke.
Check anything else out by any other writer. James Haeck’s articles are amazing.
I absolutely understand how this is off putting for some new players. On the same hand, Dan's work has been one of the catalysts drawing me further into D&D. His first articles, the "Fantasy & Comedy" series was specifically about how D&D became a pathway for him to feel comfortable about liking fantasy and being silly about it in a world that shunned such attitudes. That spoke to me deeply and I think set the tone for his future work. Yes, most of his articles are straight-loony and not useful but I've also found a lot of value in them. "Pocket Mimics" are brilliantly diabolical and I've further tweaked it to give it to a Ranger as an animal companion. And the ones without useful content are still enjoyable to me because it's nice to break the tedium of constant raw data and reference tools in the other writer's work (not trying to demean those, they are also great pieces). Really, what I just want to say is that while it is putting off some new players, it's also encouraging others.
I feel like it's also worth mentioning that if you check the dates on Dan's pieces, he hasn't increased his frequency, it's stayed about the same which lends to the fact that it's probably more about the other writers not producing as much during the holiday season which is very understandable. I have a feeling come the new year the frequency will even itself out again.
Many of Telfer's jokes don't land for me. That said, I do appreciate somebody writing in a way that is intentionally absurd, ridiculous and over-the-top. It helps me think of D&D and fantasy writing in a different context and that means it can contribute to more DMs getting more creative with stuff that isn't in the Monster's Manual or in a pre-written module. I also agree with nPenn that Telfer's articles only seem more frequent because of the holidays and that this isn't D&D Beyond trying to foist more non-useful humor on us as a means of distracting us from faulty game mechanics or website features.
And since people keep bringing up James Haeck, I wish he would spend a little more time proofing his own work before publishing. Or DDB should hire more editors. His articles make frequent mistaken references to spells and some articles are just ridiculously biased towards certain interpretations of the rules. (See his first article about Beastmaster Rangers, for example.) I frankly don't find most of his articles helpful in and of themselves. The comments section to his articles are actually where the useful information is, from my perspective Anyway, if we have room on DDB for Haeck, we should also maintain room for Telfer's pieces.
discussing Dan's articles, and whether you like them or not, is absolutely ok with us!
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I like his jokes, I just don't think that they are good for new players that don't understand how D&D should work, as many of his articles suggest toxic advice. (I know it is satire, it just isn't obvious to new players)
I personally have played with young new players who already play or even DM with joking attitudes towards D&D, expecting the game to be a massive meme, and not taking it seriously. I understand this is good in certain scenarios, but this isn't my experience so far, and haven't witnessed a game like that executed correctly (I'm not saying it can't be done, it is just very difficult to do). I have found this joking way to play and run D&D to be a terrible and toxic way to play the game, and it often offends and angers people, especially other young players that are also new to the game, and can cause people to quit playing the game entirely.
His articles tend to support these themes, and I don't think it is a good thing to have multiple joking articles on the front page of a major D&D website that many new players come to to understand D&D.
Just my opinion, I don't want to offend anyone, not Dan, not all of his fans, because I love his comedic work as well, I just don't think this is a good place to have it.
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Truth be told, Dan isn't really my cup of tea, but I'd be lying if I said there wasn't at least one thing in each of his articles that made me chuckle a bit. Besides, if I'm truly honest, most of the writers here aren't really my style (though again, same as Dan, there's usually at least something for me to like).
Do I wish there was more serious content? Yeah, I do, but that's not Dan's fault, which honestly by reading some of the comments I think there's a couple people who lose sight of that, and that irks me a little. Besides, it's been a loooong holiday season, maybe Dan was the only writer really available (which *is* unlikely, and if that is the case then DDB needs to find some more writers to add more variety, but again: that's not Dan's fault)
I personally have played with young new players who already play or even DM with joking attitudes towards D&D, expecting the game to be a massive meme, and not taking it seriously. I understand this is good in certain scenarios, but this isn't my experience so far, and haven't witnessed a game like that executed correctly (I'm not saying it can't be done, it is just very difficult to do). I have found this joking way to play and run D&D to be a terrible and toxic way to play the game, and it often offends and angers people, especially other young players that are also new to the game, and can cause people to quit playing the game entirely.
I'm not sure I agree that playing the game humorously is necessarily toxic or even bad for D&D. It is absolutely not the way I would want to play, and I would be unhappy in, and would almost certainly quickly quit, any group that played the game as it if were a giant meme-fest or everything was a big joke. But that's my preference, and just because people don't play it my way doesn't mean they're "doing it wrong."
As I said, I don't even read Dan's articles after glancing through the first few -- I find them not to be at all funny and not worth my time to read. And their frequency together with the lack of anything useful on the "front page" has made me not even check it any more. But I am not a new player so that harms me not at all. I can get my advice on "running the game" from Colville's videos, which are way better than any content they have on here anyway. I would not shed a single tear if no new Telfer articles appeared ever from this day forward. But I don't think they're "harming D&D" as a whole.
Even if you argue that they are grooming a whole new crop of D&D players to play an an unserious manner, full of jokes and memes and laughing and goofing around and not taking the game seriously, as long as all the players and the DM are OK with it, why is that so wrong? If people are having fun, is that not the name of the game?
Again, it is not my cup of tea, but surely I can play my way, and let the meme-ers play their way, and we can all just have fun our own way... can't we?
I don't think there is a problem if all the players and the DM are okay with it...the problem is when people think that's just how D&D is, so they don't ask. And usually the others are not.
Even if you argue that they are grooming a whole new crop of D&D players to play an an unserious manner, full of jokes and memes and laughing and goofing around and not taking the game seriously, as long as all the players and the DM are OK with it, why is that so wrong? If people are having fun, is that not the name of the game?
Again, it is not my cup of tea, but surely I can play my way, and let the meme-ers play their way, and we can all just have fun our own way... can't we?
I'd agree with this as well. There has been a lot of commentary on how new players are being groomed the "wrong way" because they're not attuning to the sessions of dramatic, serious D&D. Why is a game of light-spirited humor, adventure, and joking "wrong"? If a group of players are looking to play a game of this nature and have fun doing so - it's the DM who's out of place, not the players.
We cannot expect nor demand players to adopt our belief and value systems because we don't agree with their outlook. This implies that new players don't have the capacity to realize that D&D can be taken more seriously or contain depth - they certainly have that ability. As has always been the case, DMs and players alike need to search out like-minded people, host a session 0, and get on the same page prior to committing to a group.
As for article content, there is so much diversity in the visitors to this site that it is impossible to make a claim on behalf of 'everyone'. Read the content you want to read and skip the content you don't. There's really no necessity to remove or diminish content which other people enjoy. One author posting does not limit the quantities in which other author's will post - it would be silly to limit our available options and choices. Having more content availability will always be beneficial - every day I'd make that choice. D&D Beyond is giving each of us the power to decide whether or not we find the articles valuable, rather than making that decision for us by not publishing them at all. That's a win.
Why is a game of light-spirited humor, adventure, and joking "wrong"? If a group of players are looking to play a game of this nature and have fun doing so - it's the DM who's out of place, not the players.
It is not wrong to play such a game.
But... I would have to disagree that the DM is "out of place" if the DM wants a serious game and the players want to goof around. Both the GM and the players need to be having fun. If the GM does all this work to make a heavy, serious campaign, because that's what he likes, and the players fool around, and make fun of all the interesting and thematic names he came up with, and this causes the GM to be miserable, what are our bets on the half-life of this campaign? The GM isn't some special being -- he/she is one of the players at the table. If we adopt the position that everyone should be having fun, then we cannot argue that the "DM is out of place" for not having fun, unless we make the same argument for every other player at the table.
Now, the GM does have special things to do, and in Champions they used to describe the GM as the "host at a party" in terms of role. Yes, you are at your party and yes, you want to have fun at your party, but unlike the other guests, it's the host's job to make sure all the other partiers are enjoying themselves, whereas the guests can just ignore that part of things. The host has to prepare the party, order the food, book the band, whatever... guests just have to show up and eat/listen. But if the host is miserable, it's not going to go well, and you can bet there won't be another party at the host's expense again. Everyone needs to be having a good time and that includes the GM.
So what we really need to do is have a conversation and talk about what we as GMs want to do and what we as players want to do, and see if we can find some common ground, a happy medium. But having a situation in which some people want a super-serious game (which is what I tend to prefer) and others want to goof around, is going to probably be untenable. It may be that we can't have a D&D campaign together, and sad though that might be, it's better that, than making each other miserable.
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Well, yes and no. Yes, the DM is also a player and they need and deserve to have fun. But, if everyone else is in agreement for how they want to play and that particular playstyle makes the DM feel miserable, then yes they are out of place and this particular table isn't for them, just the same as for any other player. Like you say, it sucks but it's better to recognize that and move on.
I never said that it is bad if players and the DM play joking games that are all massive memes. I was just saying that the way that the new generation of D&D has been playing things recently don't need to be encouraged, not by these articles (again, I know they aren't meant to be taken seriously, but they often are) or anyone else. People will find what is enjoyable for their group and create jokes on their own.
I'm not telling anyone how they should run their campaign, at least experienced players, but new players are still learning how to do D&D and have fun. They need help learning how to be good DMs and play D&D, and I don't think these articles are helping them.
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Now I am almost tempted to change my vote... his more recent articles aren't so much about "DM-vs-players" anymore... the critical success when investigating a door even made me smile. :-)
I really hope his articles continue to be like this. :D
Right now:
42 Votes-
I enjoy some portions of some of Dan's articles. A lot of the humor doesn't really land with me, and that's fine. Like others have expressed, though, my problem with the articles is their frequency. They are roughly a third of the front page's content, if not more. They're at least half of the front page's *written* content, since many front page posts are just links to live streams. I think having an occasional funny article on the front page is fine (and ideally those funny articles should cater to different types of humor), but it should be dedicated to useful material. Beyond represents itself as the "official toolset" of D&D, but Dan's articles provide no real tools. Jamie's articles are usually great, even if they're not something I in particular need. The occasional guest columns are usually great, too. However, with such a glut of non-useful articles on the front page, I rarely bother to look at it anymore.
I find some of his content humorous. So, I voted yes.
I would like to see more variety than ____-vs-Player trope, though - DM vs. Player, Rules vs. Player... Things made to suggest the game could/should be player-unfriendly.
I get that it's often a joke at what not to do, but that point isn't always made well if one is unfamiliar with his work and takes it all as suggestions instead of mostly just jibes.
A contrast with helpful suggestions to bring laughs or stories of some great times had with humo(u)r might help. He's told some stories. So if it I had any influence (and I don't), I would suggest shifting gears a bit and go into some stories of fun times he's had or D&D-set humorous fiction rather than focusing so much on bad things to (not) do to players.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I absolutely understand how this is off putting for some new players. On the same hand, Dan's work has been one of the catalysts drawing me further into D&D. His first articles, the "Fantasy & Comedy" series was specifically about how D&D became a pathway for him to feel comfortable about liking fantasy and being silly about it in a world that shunned such attitudes. That spoke to me deeply and I think set the tone for his future work. Yes, most of his articles are straight-loony and not useful but I've also found a lot of value in them. "Pocket Mimics" are brilliantly diabolical and I've further tweaked it to give it to a Ranger as an animal companion. And the ones without useful content are still enjoyable to me because it's nice to break the tedium of constant raw data and reference tools in the other writer's work (not trying to demean those, they are also great pieces). Really, what I just want to say is that while it is putting off some new players, it's also encouraging others.
I feel like it's also worth mentioning that if you check the dates on Dan's pieces, he hasn't increased his frequency, it's stayed about the same which lends to the fact that it's probably more about the other writers not producing as much during the holiday season which is very understandable. I have a feeling come the new year the frequency will even itself out again.
Many of Telfer's jokes don't land for me. That said, I do appreciate somebody writing in a way that is intentionally absurd, ridiculous and over-the-top. It helps me think of D&D and fantasy writing in a different context and that means it can contribute to more DMs getting more creative with stuff that isn't in the Monster's Manual or in a pre-written module. I also agree with nPenn that Telfer's articles only seem more frequent because of the holidays and that this isn't D&D Beyond trying to foist more non-useful humor on us as a means of distracting us from faulty game mechanics or website features.
And since people keep bringing up James Haeck, I wish he would spend a little more time proofing his own work before publishing. Or DDB should hire more editors. His articles make frequent mistaken references to spells and some articles are just ridiculously biased towards certain interpretations of the rules. (See his first article about Beastmaster Rangers, for example.) I frankly don't find most of his articles helpful in and of themselves. The comments section to his articles are actually where the useful information is, from my perspective Anyway, if we have room on DDB for Haeck, we should also maintain room for Telfer's pieces.
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D&D Beyond FoundersHey there everyone,
discussing Dan's articles, and whether you like them or not, is absolutely ok with us!
This thread had started to dive off-topic though, so I have removed some posts discussing moderator action.
The moderator team act in good faith to keep this community a safe and welcoming place. If anyone has issues with moderator action, please feel free to escalate to staff. Posting about it on the forums is not the way to resolve any differences of opinion however.
Many thanks.
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I like his jokes, I just don't think that they are good for new players that don't understand how D&D should work, as many of his articles suggest toxic advice. (I know it is satire, it just isn't obvious to new players)
I personally have played with young new players who already play or even DM with joking attitudes towards D&D, expecting the game to be a massive meme, and not taking it seriously. I understand this is good in certain scenarios, but this isn't my experience so far, and haven't witnessed a game like that executed correctly (I'm not saying it can't be done, it is just very difficult to do). I have found this joking way to play and run D&D to be a terrible and toxic way to play the game, and it often offends and angers people, especially other young players that are also new to the game, and can cause people to quit playing the game entirely.
His articles tend to support these themes, and I don't think it is a good thing to have multiple joking articles on the front page of a major D&D website that many new players come to to understand D&D.
Just my opinion, I don't want to offend anyone, not Dan, not all of his fans, because I love his comedic work as well, I just don't think this is a good place to have it.
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LeviRocks, that is perfectly said. I've had the same experience with younger, newer players, and I definitely agree!
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Truth be told, Dan isn't really my cup of tea, but I'd be lying if I said there wasn't at least one thing in each of his articles that made me chuckle a bit. Besides, if I'm truly honest, most of the writers here aren't really my style (though again, same as Dan, there's usually at least something for me to like).
Do I wish there was more serious content? Yeah, I do, but that's not Dan's fault, which honestly by reading some of the comments I think there's a couple people who lose sight of that, and that irks me a little. Besides, it's been a loooong holiday season, maybe Dan was the only writer really available (which *is* unlikely, and if that is the case then DDB needs to find some more writers to add more variety, but again: that's not Dan's fault)
I'm not sure I agree that playing the game humorously is necessarily toxic or even bad for D&D. It is absolutely not the way I would want to play, and I would be unhappy in, and would almost certainly quickly quit, any group that played the game as it if were a giant meme-fest or everything was a big joke. But that's my preference, and just because people don't play it my way doesn't mean they're "doing it wrong."
As I said, I don't even read Dan's articles after glancing through the first few -- I find them not to be at all funny and not worth my time to read. And their frequency together with the lack of anything useful on the "front page" has made me not even check it any more. But I am not a new player so that harms me not at all. I can get my advice on "running the game" from Colville's videos, which are way better than any content they have on here anyway. I would not shed a single tear if no new Telfer articles appeared ever from this day forward. But I don't think they're "harming D&D" as a whole.
Even if you argue that they are grooming a whole new crop of D&D players to play an an unserious manner, full of jokes and memes and laughing and goofing around and not taking the game seriously, as long as all the players and the DM are OK with it, why is that so wrong? If people are having fun, is that not the name of the game?
Again, it is not my cup of tea, but surely I can play my way, and let the meme-ers play their way, and we can all just have fun our own way... can't we?
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I don't think there is a problem if all the players and the DM are okay with it...the problem is when people think that's just how D&D is, so they don't ask. And usually the others are not.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
I'd agree with this as well. There has been a lot of commentary on how new players are being groomed the "wrong way" because they're not attuning to the sessions of dramatic, serious D&D. Why is a game of light-spirited humor, adventure, and joking "wrong"? If a group of players are looking to play a game of this nature and have fun doing so - it's the DM who's out of place, not the players.
We cannot expect nor demand players to adopt our belief and value systems because we don't agree with their outlook. This implies that new players don't have the capacity to realize that D&D can be taken more seriously or contain depth - they certainly have that ability. As has always been the case, DMs and players alike need to search out like-minded people, host a session 0, and get on the same page prior to committing to a group.
As for article content, there is so much diversity in the visitors to this site that it is impossible to make a claim on behalf of 'everyone'. Read the content you want to read and skip the content you don't. There's really no necessity to remove or diminish content which other people enjoy. One author posting does not limit the quantities in which other author's will post - it would be silly to limit our available options and choices. Having more content availability will always be beneficial - every day I'd make that choice. D&D Beyond is giving each of us the power to decide whether or not we find the articles valuable, rather than making that decision for us by not publishing them at all. That's a win.
It is not wrong to play such a game.
But... I would have to disagree that the DM is "out of place" if the DM wants a serious game and the players want to goof around. Both the GM and the players need to be having fun. If the GM does all this work to make a heavy, serious campaign, because that's what he likes, and the players fool around, and make fun of all the interesting and thematic names he came up with, and this causes the GM to be miserable, what are our bets on the half-life of this campaign? The GM isn't some special being -- he/she is one of the players at the table. If we adopt the position that everyone should be having fun, then we cannot argue that the "DM is out of place" for not having fun, unless we make the same argument for every other player at the table.
Now, the GM does have special things to do, and in Champions they used to describe the GM as the "host at a party" in terms of role. Yes, you are at your party and yes, you want to have fun at your party, but unlike the other guests, it's the host's job to make sure all the other partiers are enjoying themselves, whereas the guests can just ignore that part of things. The host has to prepare the party, order the food, book the band, whatever... guests just have to show up and eat/listen. But if the host is miserable, it's not going to go well, and you can bet there won't be another party at the host's expense again. Everyone needs to be having a good time and that includes the GM.
So what we really need to do is have a conversation and talk about what we as GMs want to do and what we as players want to do, and see if we can find some common ground, a happy medium. But having a situation in which some people want a super-serious game (which is what I tend to prefer) and others want to goof around, is going to probably be untenable. It may be that we can't have a D&D campaign together, and sad though that might be, it's better that, than making each other miserable.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Well, yes and no. Yes, the DM is also a player and they need and deserve to have fun. But, if everyone else is in agreement for how they want to play and that particular playstyle makes the DM feel miserable, then yes they are out of place and this particular table isn't for them, just the same as for any other player. Like you say, it sucks but it's better to recognize that and move on.
I never said that it is bad if players and the DM play joking games that are all massive memes. I was just saying that the way that the new generation of D&D has been playing things recently don't need to be encouraged, not by these articles (again, I know they aren't meant to be taken seriously, but they often are) or anyone else. People will find what is enjoyable for their group and create jokes on their own.
I'm not telling anyone how they should run their campaign, at least experienced players, but new players are still learning how to do D&D and have fun. They need help learning how to be good DMs and play D&D, and I don't think these articles are helping them.
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Eh, I guess that's just a point where some of us are going to have to disagree. *shrug*
I’m not a particular fan of them. I’m a bit funky when it comes to comedy tastes. If other people enjoy his work then there’s no problem in that.
Now I am almost tempted to change my vote... his more recent articles aren't so much about "DM-vs-players" anymore... the critical success when investigating a door even made me smile. :-)
I really hope his articles continue to be like this. :D
Yeah, I actually liked the last one! It's more just good ironic humor than the lolrandom meme humor that a lot of the other ones had.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
His more recent articles have been better. Do you think the input he got had anything to do with it?
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