MDGA

Oh, uhh, sure, I guess. I'll just be here

Quote from EJODM18604 >>

Oh, uhh, sure, I guess. I'll just be here

 Ejo! Good to see you again!

Are you recruiting?

Quote from cl0ud_master >>

Are you recruiting?

 Who are you asking? Wes?

Quote from EJODM18604 >>

Oh, uhh, sure, I guess. I'll just be here

Yo o7

Wsg, man

Quote from Wes__ >>

Quote from EJODM18604 >>

Oh, uhh, sure, I guess. I'll just be here

Yo o7

Wsg, man

 Doing pretty good

You?

Quote from LinkArcher >>

Quote from cl0ud_master >>

Are you recruiting?

 Who are you asking? Wes?

 Yes, So Wes can I join?

Quote from cl0ud_master >>

Quote from LinkArcher >>

Quote from cl0ud_master >>

Are you recruiting?

 Who are you asking? Wes?

 Yes, So Wes can I join?

I mean...it's not a club per se. That was our original plan, but, as you can clearly see, that's gone off the rails.

Everyone here is a member atp

Thank you anyway

Wouldn’t it be

MBGA

make beyond great again

Quote from cl0ud_master >>

Wouldn’t it be

MBGA

make beyond great again

MDGA: Make D&D Beyond Great Again

You'd have to specify which 'Beyond' you mean. We also thought about Make Adohand's Great Again...but...you see...there's an issue with that... 

Quote from Wes__ >>

Quote from Nothic3SeeHere >>

Quote from MonksAreGreat70 >>

Adohands is in a worse place now than it was 2 or 3 years ago. I don’t think anyone can argue with me on that. I think the beginning of the end for this one was, as much as I hate to say it, Onions. It was Sel’s (a new forum goer) first thread about some random dumb thought they had and we just ran with it and made it a new therapy/chat thread, and for a while there was nothing wrong with it. But with new people that weren’t around before it set an awful example that ddb was this casual internet void full of nerds that you can just talk to when it wasn’t back then and I sincerely hope it isn’t now. Back then the biggest thread was the DAO, which by itself was a lovely thread but also set a bad example. In the DAO we were rping as teens because that’s what the premise was, but to new kids it gave the false impression that Adohands is a place for teens to do teen things because DAO was the “face” of Adohands at the time. Skipping forwards a lot to the Baalze vs Cyno drama, a lot of the more experienced taverners who in the cycle would’ve explained how Adohands works to new people had either already left or were in the process of leaving, meaning the newer taverners didn’t really have a good example for how to act, which I ultimately believe led to the overflow of low effort, pointless threads that exist today. Taverners today don’t know what makes a good thread or why old ones succeeded while new ones aren’t. The difference is blatantly visible when you compare the taverns of today with those that I got my posts on. I had close to 400 days on Adohands before I posted my first Tavern (Demonweb), as taverns back then were big projects by experienced taverners with lots of lore explaining the world, even if it was a tavern based on an established ip, and a defined setting and set of rules to guide roleplayers. Respect is another one. The people Drummer reffered to as the 2022 crew had mutual respect between each other and defined hard rules, a big one being no pvp without consent and no killing others’ characters, no matter what. Even if you don’t like the person, even if the person is being annoying, both of you are mature and can storming figure it out without drama and bull**** and taking sides to try to divide all of adohands to either my side or their side.

I fully agree with all of this, and the damage Onions did cannot be overstated. I feel like standards for threads gradually dropped until the focus was no longer on writing or worldbuilding and Adohond's became a place almost entirely for socializing. Not to be some forum snob, but I doubt any of this new wave knows who Adohond even is. It's devolved into a big chatroom which is no longer interesting or all that funny.

Quote from Tana___ >>

Chris was gone long before I got here. So no. I mean people like Nothic, Ash (Although their back now), Baalze, Fry, EJO, Cyno, Tara, drummer, Vitus (Probably one of my favorite people on the forum games), Bard (The original.) Moon, Coro. The list goes on and on.

Aw man, Vitus is gone now? He was amazing. And don't forget Yondor. Yon, Drum, and I had some great times on the Twinkling Stars Tavern. That was probably my favorite era of DDB.

Vitus has disappeared

Good to see you around, Nothic (even if I barely met you)

 One of the experienced people who is still here should create a thread about taverns and how to make/use them. Also, I like to think everyone has an idea of who Adohand is.

Quote from Wes__ >>

Quote from cl0ud_master >>

Wouldn’t it be

MBGA

make beyond great again

MDGA: Make D&D Beyond Great Again

You'd have to specify which 'Beyond' you mean. We also thought about Make Adohand's Great Again...but...you see...there's an issue with that... 

 We could say MGGA! Make Gatorslayer Great Again.

Quote from AmberAundguard >>

Quote from Wes__ >>

Quote from Nothic3SeeHere >>

Quote from MonksAreGreat70 >>

Adohands is in a worse place now than it was 2 or 3 years ago. I don’t think anyone can argue with me on that. I think the beginning of the end for this one was, as much as I hate to say it, Onions. It was Sel’s (a new forum goer) first thread about some random dumb thought they had and we just ran with it and made it a new therapy/chat thread, and for a while there was nothing wrong with it. But with new people that weren’t around before it set an awful example that ddb was this casual internet void full of nerds that you can just talk to when it wasn’t back then and I sincerely hope it isn’t now. Back then the biggest thread was the DAO, which by itself was a lovely thread but also set a bad example. In the DAO we were rping as teens because that’s what the premise was, but to new kids it gave the false impression that Adohands is a place for teens to do teen things because DAO was the “face” of Adohands at the time. Skipping forwards a lot to the Baalze vs Cyno drama, a lot of the more experienced taverners who in the cycle would’ve explained how Adohands works to new people had either already left or were in the process of leaving, meaning the newer taverners didn’t really have a good example for how to act, which I ultimately believe led to the overflow of low effort, pointless threads that exist today. Taverners today don’t know what makes a good thread or why old ones succeeded while new ones aren’t. The difference is blatantly visible when you compare the taverns of today with those that I got my posts on. I had close to 400 days on Adohands before I posted my first Tavern (Demonweb), as taverns back then were big projects by experienced taverners with lots of lore explaining the world, even if it was a tavern based on an established ip, and a defined setting and set of rules to guide roleplayers. Respect is another one. The people Drummer reffered to as the 2022 crew had mutual respect between each other and defined hard rules, a big one being no pvp without consent and no killing others’ characters, no matter what. Even if you don’t like the person, even if the person is being annoying, both of you are mature and can storming figure it out without drama and bull**** and taking sides to try to divide all of adohands to either my side or their side.

I fully agree with all of this, and the damage Onions did cannot be overstated. I feel like standards for threads gradually dropped until the focus was no longer on writing or worldbuilding and Adohond's became a place almost entirely for socializing. Not to be some forum snob, but I doubt any of this new wave knows who Adohond even is. It's devolved into a big chatroom which is no longer interesting or all that funny.

Quote from Tana___ >>

Chris was gone long before I got here. So no. I mean people like Nothic, Ash (Although their back now), Baalze, Fry, EJO, Cyno, Tara, drummer, Vitus (Probably one of my favorite people on the forum games), Bard (The original.) Moon, Coro. The list goes on and on.

Aw man, Vitus is gone now? He was amazing. And don't forget Yondor. Yon, Drum, and I had some great times on the Twinkling Stars Tavern. That was probably my favorite era of DDB.

Vitus has disappeared

Good to see you around, Nothic (even if I barely met you)

 One of the experienced people who is still here should create a thread about taverns and how to make/use them. Also, I like to think everyone has an idea of who Adohand is.

I think they should leave us to figure it out for ourselves 

Not saying that they didn't influence the forums greatly, just that they aren't really here anymore. It'd be like a British citizen voting for the American president.  

Quote from Wes__ >>

Quote from AmberAundguard >>

Quote from Wes__ >>

Quote from Nothic3SeeHere >>

Quote from MonksAreGreat70 >>

Adohands is in a worse place now than it was 2 or 3 years ago. I don’t think anyone can argue with me on that. I think the beginning of the end for this one was, as much as I hate to say it, Onions. It was Sel’s (a new forum goer) first thread about some random dumb thought they had and we just ran with it and made it a new therapy/chat thread, and for a while there was nothing wrong with it. But with new people that weren’t around before it set an awful example that ddb was this casual internet void full of nerds that you can just talk to when it wasn’t back then and I sincerely hope it isn’t now. Back then the biggest thread was the DAO, which by itself was a lovely thread but also set a bad example. In the DAO we were rping as teens because that’s what the premise was, but to new kids it gave the false impression that Adohands is a place for teens to do teen things because DAO was the “face” of Adohands at the time. Skipping forwards a lot to the Baalze vs Cyno drama, a lot of the more experienced taverners who in the cycle would’ve explained how Adohands works to new people had either already left or were in the process of leaving, meaning the newer taverners didn’t really have a good example for how to act, which I ultimately believe led to the overflow of low effort, pointless threads that exist today. Taverners today don’t know what makes a good thread or why old ones succeeded while new ones aren’t. The difference is blatantly visible when you compare the taverns of today with those that I got my posts on. I had close to 400 days on Adohands before I posted my first Tavern (Demonweb), as taverns back then were big projects by experienced taverners with lots of lore explaining the world, even if it was a tavern based on an established ip, and a defined setting and set of rules to guide roleplayers. Respect is another one. The people Drummer reffered to as the 2022 crew had mutual respect between each other and defined hard rules, a big one being no pvp without consent and no killing others’ characters, no matter what. Even if you don’t like the person, even if the person is being annoying, both of you are mature and can storming figure it out without drama and bull**** and taking sides to try to divide all of adohands to either my side or their side.

I fully agree with all of this, and the damage Onions did cannot be overstated. I feel like standards for threads gradually dropped until the focus was no longer on writing or worldbuilding and Adohond's became a place almost entirely for socializing. Not to be some forum snob, but I doubt any of this new wave knows who Adohond even is. It's devolved into a big chatroom which is no longer interesting or all that funny.

Quote from Tana___ >>

Chris was gone long before I got here. So no. I mean people like Nothic, Ash (Although their back now), Baalze, Fry, EJO, Cyno, Tara, drummer, Vitus (Probably one of my favorite people on the forum games), Bard (The original.) Moon, Coro. The list goes on and on.

Aw man, Vitus is gone now? He was amazing. And don't forget Yondor. Yon, Drum, and I had some great times on the Twinkling Stars Tavern. That was probably my favorite era of DDB.

Vitus has disappeared

Good to see you around, Nothic (even if I barely met you)

 One of the experienced people who is still here should create a thread about taverns and how to make/use them. Also, I like to think everyone has an idea of who Adohand is.

I think they should leave us to figure it out for ourselves 

Not saying that they didn't influence the forums greatly, just that they aren't really here anymore. It'd be like a British citizen voting for the American president.  

 Which we would do a great job of btw!

Quote from 50thAltOfBananer >>

 Do y'all know what the intro to the og tavern was? Random question

 Appearing randomly because I did the Monks thing of muscle memory scrolling while waiting for my game to install.

The original tavern had next to 0 actual starting lore lol it was one of the more debated topics of the time (whether Lesta was a country, a continent, a world, or some other form of plane) and the main thing was that it was a kind of neutral ground, plus being the only tavern that existed at the time so everyone was sort of concentrated on one thread, which is why it ended up being so long and never died.

Here is the link to the original tavern's second version we moved to because the original got so long that Sedge locked it: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/off-topic/adohands-kitchen/120490-the-tales-of-adventurers-tavern-ii 
It has the same intro the original tavern had.

EDIT: Clicking the link doesnt work for some reason, you have to copy and paste it into your browser.

Quote from cynophobia_ >>

Quote from 50thAltOfBananer >>

 Do y'all know what the intro to the og tavern was? Random question

 Appearing randomly because I did the Monks thing of muscle memory scrolling while waiting for my game to install.

The original tavern had next to 0 actual starting lore lol it was one of the more debated topics of the time (whether Lesta was a country, a continent, a world, or some other form of plane) and the main thing was that it was a kind of neutral ground, plus being the only tavern that existed at the time so everyone was sort of concentrated on one thread, which is why it ended up being so long and never died.

Here is the link to the original tavern's second version we moved to because the original got so long that Sedge locked it: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/off-topic/adohands-kitchen/120490-the-tales-of-adventurers-tavern-ii 
It has the same intro the original tavern had.

EDIT: Clicking the link doesnt work for some reason, you have to copy and paste it into your browser.

 I think editing out the   fixes it, it got removed when I quoted it but it does have a history of causing issues like those

Quote from cynophobia_ >>

Quote from 50thAltOfBananer >>

 Do y'all know what the intro to the og tavern was? Random question

 Appearing randomly because I did the Monks thing of muscle memory scrolling while waiting for my game to install.

The original tavern had next to 0 actual starting lore lol it was one of the more debated topics of the time (whether Lesta was a country, a continent, a world, or some other form of plane) and the main thing was that it was a kind of neutral ground, plus being the only tavern that existed at the time so everyone was sort of concentrated on one thread, which is why it ended up being so long and never died.

Here is the link to the original tavern's second version we moved to because the original got so long that Sedge locked it: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/off-topic/adohands-kitchen/120490-the-tales-of-adventurers-tavern-ii 
It has the same intro the original tavern had.

EDIT: Clicking the link doesnt work for some reason, you have to copy and paste it into your browser.

 Ty Cyno! 

Idk if you’ve checked the discord server lately, but Wes, Gonz, and I are trying to make a general tavern where most things are okay so that we can try??? to foster a place of mutual respect and… stuff. I posted the doc I put the tavern in on the server and I’d love some input! Np if you can’t for some reason, I’m just nerding over making the forums a better place,

I've considered making taverns again, but I'm still unsure because I'm very rusty on my rp and a tavern that isn't used by its owner probably isn't going to do that well...

Since I do have time to post (I am not planning on being active, just wanted to give my two cents) but making Adohands "great again" implies there was a singular time it was great. Apologies in advance, I'm stating forum history like it's a class. There have been several eras, of which many people consider parts of it "The Golden Age" of Adohands or whatever that they enjoyed the most, but they've all been vastly different with very different cultures and circumstances. There was the first tavern, around 2020-2022 or so I believe, which was really fun and a product of isolation created by Covid. Then there was the post tavern sort of area where more people started making their own taverns (Yonstore and whatnot) which I was not a part of but heard from many people that was their golden age. Around that time is when most of the original posters (TTB, Bullethawk, Akanos, VTL, Mandos, Chris, Half, etc) sort of stopped getting on. Then after that, people continued to migrate and taverns continued to splinter, and more people got into chatting and quicker roleplay. 

Now, all of these periods had equally bad things about them. None of them were perfect by far, and trying to recreate the past instead of building off of it for a better future will just cause more stagnation. The original tavern fell into decline due to the veil of innocence slowly being stripped away in the sense that we were beginning to realize certain things were not okay, like strange romances from both original taverners (Penelope) and also an influx of new people. I'm not sure exactly how the second era ended because I also was offline, but Adohands has kind of been in decline since (relatively). When I say decline, I mean to classify it as activity, as Adohands had little to no activity in the forum itself up until the tavern took off, and even now in its decline, it still is more active than it was before the tavern existed. What I'm trying to say is that it's impossible to replicate the conditions from which the old taverns and ages were created from. We can't try to grow megafauna and expect dinosaurs to start to appear. 

All of the problems with modern Adohands are things I believe I can bullet point, and I apologize for any offense if I sound rude.

1. The average age of the tavern has only gone down a marginal amount and honestly I think plays less of a factor than people realize. A lot of the original taverners (Bullethawk is actually younger than me) and I were all teens. What's different though is that there is a really odd maturity gap. None of us were obviously adults at the time but I had genuinely believed for months that everyone in the tavern was at least in their 20s, which isn't a mistake I've ever made in modern Adohands. I'm not a grammar or spelling police, but each post felt like there was genuine thought put into it which pushed the immersion. No one likes roleplaying with someone who is just there for random small talk or gives one word answers, and those people were sort of naturally selected out of the tavern because people just...didn't want to talk to someone that wasn't going to have a full conversation. A lot of people here sort of post just for the sake of posting and I get the feeling of wanting someone to talk to but it just feels empty, both in the chatrooms and in the taverns.
2. There is a LOT of walking on eggshells. When I did used to post, it felt as if you have to word everything so unbelievably carefully or risk getting jumped by people saying "well you make a good point but that hurts my feelings so we're both in the wrong". Which, if you don't understand the issues with that, there's kind of no hope for any reform. Also the tendency to refer to any sort of argument as "drama" is mildly irritating, with actual issues like people getting doxxed to people getting groomed. That is something that should be handled in a mature way and preferably just handed off to actual moderators. Calling it "drama" also lowers the perceived age group of the forums overall, because the implication is that every disagreement is a petty argument and not something to be taken seriously. There is also a lot of misinformation spreading in general, I have seen posts saying blatantly untrue things both about each other and people that are not here to correct them.
3. One of the biggest things too is that people are no longer here for DND. It is a DND website at its core. In the original tavern, the general knowledge of DND was much, much higher than it was now, and oftentimes people here actually prefer to avoid the DND system as much as possible which baffles me due to this being, you know, DNDBeyond. Basic knowledge of the rules prevents powergaming, and a lot of people here are quick to shun anyone that even remotely knows the rules as "minmaxers" when the rules in question are things like, making your sorcerer a charisma caster instead of an intelligence caster. Because of that, the forums have degraded to a more playground style of interaction and freeform roleplay you would find on other various dedicated roleplaying websites. It encourages a style of interaction that is more like writing a book than actually playing a game together. 
4. Everything is incredibly spread out. There used to be 0 chatrooms, so people would mostly just speak to eachother on their roleplaying thread while actually roleplaying. Like the previous point, no one is really here for DND at all anymore, so everything has devolved into splitting between chatting and one off interactions. Back when there was only 1 tavern, then only a few taverns, things were concentrated and activity was much higher. 
5. Overall, in the attempt to be friendly to everyone, it maintains a status quo of a self perpetuating system that benefits people that are actively mean to others. In a system that punishes both the aggressor and the victim equally, the victim is the one getting the brunt of the hit every time. Neutrality is not an acceptable response to conflict. In the old tavern, we had several people cross the line repeatedly and instead of everyone agreeing to disagree, we all talked it out as a group and decided what to do about it, which made the space feel a lot safer than it was before. 

In honestly, I currently really dislike the state of the forums and have for some time, but it was sort of inevitable. During Covid, this place practically saved my life by giving me friends and connections despite being shut indoors. Adohands and the taverns have always been safe places for me. Caewyrn was right in a sense that people here seem to make threads at any sort of whim they get, restarting entire threads rather than working with what happened to form meaningful storylines, as well as the sort of "gatekeeping" that is related to the walking on eggshells point earlier. I disagree with them saying Adohands needs to be wiped (though it is technically a solution that would work) but I think there would need to be serious change not just in the general state of the forum, but with the people on it. Re-examining biases, being more open to listen to eachother without getting defensive at any sort of feeling of mild discomfort, and overall just kind of abandoning the chat threads and excess taverns to focus on one main story. If you feel the itch to talk to your friends, I suggest making a discord or using a genuine dedicated chatroom, and if you have the itch to roleplay in an existing franchise, there are thousands of roleplay websites/apps dedicated to those specific medias (if you want your friends to rp there with you too, you can just invite them). This is a place for DND based play, and everyone seems to be spreading themselves thin on what they want out of Adohands, when they can get those things in other places without killing that Adohands is actually good for-- talking about Dungeons and Dragons. 

I might have more to say but this is already getting long and I just wanted to maybe steer things back to where they once were, though I know it's impossible. Adohands brought me some of the best memories of my life. I wish it could be like that again.