New Waterin’ Hole
Hey, look at that! Another comic about me! (Hint: They’re all about me.)
I’m not exactly proud to say it, but I used to be this particular flavor of douche canoe. Despite my own experiences with gatekeeping, a younger me said some pretty obnoxious shit to my fellow hobbyists.
You still play Pokémon? No, of course I haven’t tried it. But you’re not twelve. Have you ever tried a better card game?
We get it. You like Powered by the Apocalypse. Just shut up about it for five seconds!
Eurogame? Naw dude. Where’s the fun if the most skilled player always wins? Why don’t you just play chess?
To some extent, these are still my (shitty) opinions. The big difference is that I no longer go around broadcasting them like a big glistening bag of turds (present case study notwithstanding). That’s not easy though. When you love something, you want to share it with the rest of the world. And all too often that drive to share comes at the cost of courtesy.
What do you mean you’ve never tried Magic / Pathfinder / Betrayal at House on the Hill? These things are awesome! You should be tripping over yourself to love all the same things I love! The fact that you aren’t plainly indicates a lack of character.
So take it from a recovering That Guy. Love your thing. Share it with others. But you’ll have a better chance of spreading the Good Word if your opening pitch is something besides, “The thing you love is dumb. Mine is better.”
So for today’s discussion, why don’t we try a confessional? ABSOLVE YOURSELVES! Tell us about the time your came off as judgy about somebody else’s hobby. Or if you’ve been so judged, tell us how it made you feel.
ADD SOME NSFW TO YOUR FANTASY! If you’ve ever been curious about that Handbook of Erotic Fantasy banner down at the bottom of the page, then you should check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. Thrice a month you’ll get to see what the Handbook cast get up to when the lights go out. Adults only, 18+ years of age, etc. etc.
Heh, that’s me about 5th edition D&D in a nutshell. I love the fact that its made D&D more popular than ever and that its far easier for new players to pick up. I just can’t enjoy it myself after 3rd, 4th, and Pathfinder. But like I said, it’s a great “gateway drug” for our hobby, and I will probably go back to it next year if I run another D&D campaign for my students (high school). There’s just too little time for them to pick up a more complicated system (tried 4th edition this past year… success was limited to say the least).
I’ve always liked the linguistic metaphor. 5e is fantastic as Esperanto. Pathfinder is closer to a good poetry language like English or Japanese.
The sudden shift to a western motif makes me feel like I missed something.
I’m not complaining just confused
Kinda hoping for this to be the start of a Deadlands arc.
I figured it’s just a way of invoking the old “this town ain’t big enough for the both of us” kind of tension.
We’ve done sci-fi, star wars, bird people, modern, Cthulhu… And Western is the one that throws you? 😛
Since the rant says that all of the comics are are about you then I’m just going to assume that you’re wearing a cowboy hat this week, and the hat it the entire motivation for the Western motif.
I may be rolling up a gunslinger in a new E6 West Marches Style PF1e game.
Also here’s me today: https://www.handbookofheroes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/PXL_20230726_2251301452-scaled.jpg
I’m very bad about keeping my disdain for 5e bottled.
Also, decades ago, I told my nephew “If you grind up the Magic Cards into a paste and inject it straight into your veins, you’ll get the high quicker.” Not proud, just a mea culpa.
Of course, the time I spammed him by snail-mailing him dozens and dozens of Chub Toads (dumped on me through a free promotion) was fun and arguably less evil, except that the postage due cost more than the cards were worth.
Be absolved. Now go forth, and sin no more!
I really, *really* loved Warhammer Fantasy Battles. I spent a very long time being, retrospectively, a dick to those of my friends who switched over when Age of Sigmar was released, which I think I’ve got better at as the latter setting has become its own setting rather than a cheap excuse to turn a game I love into 40k Mark II.
To some extent, though, I definitely retain my judgementality about more modern warhammer products (with the exception of some of the new RPGs, which are pretty great!) and I make a point of not buying anything GW puts out anymore; I just don’t trust then as opposed to the fan base as custodians of these settings.
I still play Mordheim whenever I get a chance. 🙂
Can we play Mordheim *together?*
I dooooo miss it, all the fun of Warhammer, 1/12th of the cost!
Depends. You gonna be a Gen Con or Pax Unplugged this year?
I still think Yu Gi Oh is a “made up” card game for a cartoon…
But everyone is entitled to enjoy the things they like.
… even if the things they like are bad and wrong!
(no seriously tho… Yu Gi Oh?! 😉
I honestly think I was weirdly lucky not to be a gate keeping gamer in my youth, mostly because I always wanted to try new things (and during my card gaming years I bought at least a deck and a pack of cards for every new TCG/CCG to hit the market), but I will say that in my 30’s, I became a bit of a snob towards 4th Edition D&D.
I HAD(have?) A REASON THO!
Having bought many many supplemental materials and books for 2nd Ed, I was actually looking forward to the new 3rd edition rules at the time they came out. They made more sense, were more “mathematical”, and some of the power combos you could make were amazing (yeah, I was a min/maxer in my 30’s too).
Then 3.5 came out, and while they said it was all compatible with everything you owned before, there was so much errata and alterations, you might as well have had to get everything new again anyway. And so I did, eventually even repurchasing the core 3 books under the new 3.5 rebrand.
And “a week later”, they were announcing and launching 4th Edition… It was all too fast, too much, and I was done supporting a company that was trying to drain me dry of my money releasing new editions every 3 to 5 years (that is what it felt like). But worse, was what 4th edition had changed and why.
World of Warcraft had taken the gaming industry by storm at the time (and oh I sunk many an hour into that game too). And to “stay trendy”, someone had the bright idea to make their next edition of a pen and paper game, “like an MMO”. At the time, they vehemently denied that is what they had done, tho years later in their own history of the game book, they would actively admit to having done exactly that.
I did not and do not ever want my tabletop experience to mimic a video game (despite having supported both the Darkest Dungeon and Elden Ring table top Kick Starters… I think I have proven at this point what a hypocrite I can be!), so I gave up on D&D and swore I would never return!
I currently own every 5th edition product on D&DBeyond and even now, I was at one point a gate keeper about using that tool/service for my game (it is a really good tool tho, seriously).
I guess we all just get very passionate about things we enjoy and even the way we enjoy things (I used to only care about the combat, now days I prefer the character interactions and story telling of my favorite hobby), but if we can all try and admit to ourselves that we have this failing (and try to “do it less” as well), then I think we can all try to enjoy each other’s hobbies at least a little and agree, we’re all nerds and geeks that enjoy us some make pretend time!
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unless it’s Yu Gi Oh. Why would you like that game/show?!
😉
I think your rant was better than mine. <3
I too came to the conclusion after 4e that new editions are a cash grab.
New versions of things in general are a cash grab at least 50% of the time.
And half of the remaining time they serve no discernable purpose whatsoever. The first thing I do whenever I get a new electronic device is turn off automatic updates to everything because I don’t want to have to learn a new interface every month just because the devs want to please Tzeentch.
I am rather judgemental of 5e players (Being a long time 5e player myself). Mainly because I haven´t met any other system where the players are so opposed to trying another system, or even just looking at it for inspiration. While at the same trying to change their own system to be something completely different.
Like, you can learn a lot from playing in other systems that you can then bring with you. For me as a GM playing, reading and GM´ing other systems have been a great boon. Call of Cthulhu have thought me a lot about how to make horror work and investigations interesting. Legend of 5 Rings really changed how I understand player rewards and how powerful in-game social conventions can be. Genesys showed me how fun the idea of letting your players fail forward can be, or how dramatic succeeding at a cost can be. And Ryuutama made me realize that you can do a lot with travel that isn´t just “Heres random encounter nr 5”.
But I have had several face-to-face conversations with 5e players where they thought just looking at other systems (Even free systems. Even one-page systems) was unnecessary, uninteresting and that I was kinda odd for even suggesting it. Not to mention the many people I see online who regularly try to reinvent other systems by totally changing 5e. Or people who would clearly prefer a more narrative game, as they barely engage with the rules of 5e, but who are so absorbed by the idea of “5e = TTRPG = Fun”, that they won´t even think about seeking out a game that might better facilitate the sort of story they want to play in.
Overall it gives me the impression that a lot of 5e players are extremely uneducated about the hobby they find themselves in, its history and often even the rules of their own game. And oddly unwilling to actually educate themselves.
It’s actually kind of funny, because as a 5e player/DM, while my experience is the same, my takeaway is the exact opposite.
I HAVE played other systems. I grew up on the original Baldur’s Gate, 2e(2.5?) up through NWN, played 3.5e, CoC, Bulldogs/Fate (I’ve seen games run on PbtA and the differences seem fairly superficial) and what I keep running into is that 5e is as close as a tabletop can be to the perfect game for everybody (just not “you” the individual)
3.5e/Pathfinder runs into the number/rule crunch issue and fun:investment ratio. These are great systems for video games where there are numbers for everything and that’s all handled by a computer in the background, but it only slows down tabletop, and there’s a massive disparity between the fun a player who doesn’t know every rule can have vs long-time players.
CoC runs into the problem of being weighted to fail, and forces personality stats “you are traumatized by this thing even though it’s far more banal than this other thing that you totally weren’t traumatized by before” (not denying this is probably necessary for a horror-themed game, but that still hobbles it for other genres)
Fate/PbtA is great for creating narratives that feel like actual TV shows, but that in itself is the problem; you feel like you’re making a TV show, not playing a game.
(I’ve also played B/X which was definitely nostalgic to that good old 2e Baldur’s Gate era, but in all the worst ways. Every class is its own table to memorize for everything, the balance seems completely weighted to not be able to do anything. I had fun, but it was 100% in spite of the system)
5e does everything it needs to do, does it fast without losing an important level of accuracy, and gets out of the way for everything that it needs to get out of the way of.
You can create and contribute to the narrative, even as a player, but still feel like you’re playing a game where you can “win” where you can reject the intended solution by inserting your own solution even if it doesn’t play nice with the expected narrative.
New players can quickly get into the game enough to be competent, because they don’t have to learn EVERY rule to be able to do their own thing properly. Knowing other rules just lets you be better informed about what to expect from everyone else. If they aren’t ready to learn a bunch of spells, they can pick a class like Fighter/Rogue/Barbarian that don’t leverage those options.
There are still enough numbers and synergy of abilities that long-time players can do some pretty wild stuff, but while there will be a difference, it wont typically be SO bad that the newbies can’t still have fun and make meaningful contributions alongside them.
Does 5e benefit from a boatload of homebrew? Absolutely. Does every game benefit from the same homebrew, such that the homebrew in question should have been official content? Absolutely not.
Any additional rule to 5e will either A) require a set of calculations that will slow down the game or B) gloss over enough information that the rule isn’t very balanced.
That’s why almost every piece of homebrew I use is optional, running on top of existing 5e and giving more flexibility to the players or more options to let them do things that aren’t explicitly stated in the PHB/DMG, but players who don’t specifically intend to use those rules can just ignore their existence and only focus on the rules that apply to their own character.
At the end of the day, 5e is a system that makes room for everyone. Yes, there are players who would be able to leverage their personal talents in a game of Fate or 3.5e, but in order to do that they would have to learn an entirely new system just to have fun when they can already have fun without needing to learn an entirely new system.
Furthermore, just as a party benefits from a variety of class abilities, 5e benefits from a variety of playstyles. It’s good to have a player who is number crunchy and technical, it’s good to have a power gamer*, it’s good to have a rules lawyer*, it’s good to have someone who is roleplay focused and fast and loose on the mechanics* (*providing they are leveraging their focus to the benefit of the game and not to the detriment of it)
When you play FATE/PbtA, is you’re not roleplay focused, you’re going to feel disconnected from it. When you’re in 3.5e/Pathfinder, if you’re not number focused, it will severely hamper your ability to even roleplay. When you’re playing CoC, if you’re not totally on board with a horror campaign where you’re not really capable of fighting back, then you just kinda end up constantly being frustrated.
With 5e, everyone has a way to contribute not just as their class, but as a player. And that variety actually creates something that goes beyond what any individual playstyle can provide.
Is there a lot in 5e that is undefined? Yes, because it’s only providing what is needed for games to be consistent, but all the “missing” rules are things that are almost 100% certain to change depending on player composition, the needs and focus of the players, and the overall theme of the campaign.
While I wont deny that many of the players are naive about other systems, I think that they are not being resistant to trying other games out of ignorance, but from a subconscious knowledge that your sales pitch doesn’t actually include enough of the things they REALLY want, even if they’re unable to consciously formulate what that thing they want actually is. (or it can provide those benefits only AFTER another period of learning and floundering that they really don’t want to go through again)
I mean, that is both 5es biggest strength and weakness. Its undefined. It has very lose social rules, which can be fine, through I do find the lack of support for more politically focused games to be a bit annoying. Its exploration rules are incredibly uninteresting, and a ranger can make them almost meaningless, and I find a lot of its attempts at role-playing options in spells and class abilities suffers from it always having combat at the forefront. At the same time, these can be boons. Because as you said, it lets you tailor the game to the group.
But I have met, as in met in real life, people who play 5e games that desperately try to turn it into stuff like a high-lethality horror game or a purely social focused regency drama. Now, I am not saying you can´t do all of those things in 5e, but I think you can do them a lot better in other games. And that even if you don´t wanna play those games, then you can learn a lot and get a lot of inspiration from reading them. It is great that 5e can have a little something for everyone, but I have seen way too many cases where it is clear that the group would likely be much better off trying another system and that they are only staying in 5e because its what they know and because in their mind TTRPG = D&D 5e or because they have made playing D&D such a big part of their identity that playing something else would feel like a betrayal of that.
I don´t think the people I spoke to were naive about other systems. Mostly the impression I got was that they were willfully ignorant. Like, with one I pretty much said what I just said here (Just a lot more diplomatic), that I think there is a lot of value in looking at other systems and that it can really affect how you look at the game and mentioned how other systems had inspired the way I GM, and his reply was that he thought that it was dumb and unneeded. And he isn´t really the only one I have met who have said something along those lines. I will also note that these are mostly conversations I have with other GMs.
When I have tried to get people most familiar with other systems (Such as Pathfinder, VTM or CoC) to try other systems, most have been at least interested in trying them out. But its only really with 5e players I have had them continually question why they would want to do that?
Overall it have given me the impression that some 5e people would rather reinvent the wheel from the bottom up in a system fully unfitting for it, rather than take a quick look at another system.
As for being hard to learn, in my experience a fair amount of 5e players don´t even learn the rules of their own games, and would likely be far better of with a more rules light game. Which can also be rather tiring, being the GM who have to constantly remind people of said rules.
Now, my main point is that I think there is a lot of value in trying other systems or just reading them. Because you can find a lot of inspiration and tools in them, that you can then bring with you to your 5e game. In the same vein I encourage people who want to write to read a lot of different books from many different genre, rather than just consume one form of media. I just think its healthy for your creativity and increase your toolbox.
As for my personal relationship with 5e, I have mostly GM´ed it. I am hoping to change to something else soon. Genesys looks interesting to me here, due to its mix between hard rules and strong story support. Because I can feel I am burning out GM´ing 5e, having done it for almost 8 years at this point. I have GM´ed rules hard systems, like Pathfinder 2e, and I have GM´ed rules lose systems like Troika. And I have enjoyed both. But I find that 5e too often falls awkwardly between those two, which ends up putting a lot of unwanted work and judgement calls on my shoulders as a GM. And I am just tired of constantly having to deal with that.
But 100% consider how the group you are going to play with will like the systems. I have players I would never ask to play Troika with me, because I know they want good, tactical, combat. And there are 100% players I would not let anywhere near Pathfinder 2e, because I know they start zoning out if they have to do anything more than adding the number on their sheet to a roll. And 5e does fall into a happy middle there, and I will likely return to it for one-off games or if I have to introduce roleplaying to someone new (Through I am increasingly thinking about using Ryuutama for that). But I am simply to tired of constantly having to work against the system, and deal with its many points of bullshit to want to GM it for longer campaigns.
Some of the best discussion I’ve seen on this perrenial favorite discussion. Well done all keeping it civil and useful. 🙂
I’m one of those lucky people who manages to mostly state that they have a preference but it’s fine if yours doesn’t match when it comes to TTRPGs, but I’m much less good at it when it comes to books. Especially people who like things like Twilight of 50 Shades of Grey.
Bro! Recommend me a fantasy book!
The Broken Well Trilogy is a world split into light and shadow, but avoids black and white morality. I don’t know how easy it will be to find it for you though. The author is Sam Bowring.
I’ma do a google. Cheers!
“We get it. You like Powered by the Apocalypse. Just shut up about it for five seconds!”
I don’t know… I think I’m on board with this one. There are a few PbtA superfans in the local area who will hone in on anyone they see pick another system off the shelves in a local game store and tell them how wrong they are to not be buying whatever PbtA game they thing would cover the same genre/themes.
That is the thing that irks me. But i will point out that other “one true game” types do this too.
I used to help a friend with his gaming store many, many years ago. We were excited when Magic the Gathering came out because, one it gave the store a new income generator and two, NEW GAME. We used it for times between playing actual TTRPGs like AD&D, waiting for everyone to show up for the game, etc.. The owner would even run short games, lending people his cards so they could see how to play.
The WOTC started running tournaments and more people started getting into it. His was the ONLY game store within a two hour radius and right by a military base. He had ONE table in the back of the store for gaming and the Magic players started squeezing out the regular TTRPG players. By the time he had to close the store (because he had gotten a job in another area) the TTRPGs were a thing of the past and every weekend and holiday was full of CCG players.
I had a lot of fun playing Magic, but not as much as regular roleplaying games and when I saw the way WOTC was releasing new sets, Magic was just too expensive for an every now and then hobby. Got a good price for my cards though!
Seems like there should have been more of a rotation. :/
We were way outnumbered by then, so it only made sense for him to assign the table to groups that were spending the most money. And Magic made him gobs of money (comparatively of course)
Fair. Still sad to see the loyal customer shunted aside for raw profit.
My initial concerns about the HERO system when my friends who have played it started to get more deeply into it would definitely be a that guy moment. I even have a list of things the system does so wrong the writer needs a whack to the back of the head over each one. And since then, climbing out of my pillow fort to try the game, several times with several characters…
That list has been both subtantiated and vindicated, and in fact is growing.
BUT like so much of our hobby, it’s on the GM. A strong GM can handle any imbalances and address them as they arise, no matter how they arise.
…but HECK does HERO have a lot of questionable design.
Never touched the stuff. What are the systems and concerns? Frankly curious now.
I have no gamer sins (least of all a lack of self-reflection), so I will instead use this opportunity to say that near the top of my list of Pathfinder 1e characters I want to play if I ever end up being a 1e player in something is a Witch with the Cartomancer archetype who specializes in summon spells and is literally just playing Yu-Gi-Oh with real monsters using their magic deck of cards.
“I summon Celestial Dolphin in attack mode!”
…Hard to think of proper spells for Trap Cards, though. Maybe that’s what the hexes are for.
I did something similar in a con LARP once, I played the “Cultist” whose powers was summoning various Cthulhu inspired creatures… so I played Ash Ketchum (I happened to have a bluejean vest and bought a red and white hat) and I had a bunch of pokemon plushies I’d just bought at the con for my (now) ex’s kid…
I think I broke the Storyteller team when I very seriously summoned a Growlth of Tinndalos and tossed a cute little fuzzy plushie Growlth into the “mass melee” they were adjudicating.
Well I hate that a bunch. I feel like you should get bonus XP.
Yu-Gi-Oh is too complicated… I prefer simple cars games like Magic the Gathering
Sometimes a friend will drag me into a game of Yu-Gi-Oh and I will barely understand what is happening
How is yugioh more complicated than MtG? Unless we’re talking about some of the newer mechanics, in which case I understand (I just completely ignore pendulum summoning or whatever it is).
Yeah, Pendulum summoning made no sense. Fusion, I got. Ritual, I got. Synchro, I got. Exceed, I got. Pendulum, I don’t got. I asked some people how to do it and they would always end up going “You’re doing it wrong even though it’s exactly the way I told you to do it.” I decided not to play pendulum monsters.
Ignorance is bliss. 😀
While I like to wear my “Hat of D&D” online all over, in person I’m a lot less of a Judgey McJudgerson. I even play non-GURPS rpgs, even (shock and alarum!) D&D with the right group.
As for Yu-gi-oh! all I can say is “Don’t kink shame me!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh1nqnZAKxw
DAMN YOU FOR MAKING ME GIGGLE SNORT!
I’ll admit that when D&D 4e came out, I was a big naysayer. “They broke the alignment compass! The classes are all messed up! Evil paladins! EVIL PALADINS!” Of course, I was barely into my teens then and a lot less mature. Recently I actually gave the game a try, and while there are aspects I still don’t agree with, I generally loved the experience. It helps that I found out one of my favourite aspects of 5e (the removal of species ability penalties) started out in 4e.
Aside from that, I usually don’t look down on others for their tastes unless they do it first. I’ve put up with all kinds of bullying, harassment, and abuse over my likes, particularly My Little Pony (even nowadays I still get an occasional insult flung my way), and I wouldn’t wish that kind of thing on anyone else, but it’s also made me get defensive at times. For instance, if I see a Pathfinder 2e fan dunking on D&D 5e, I may well give them a lecture on PF2e’s flaws in response. While I rarely start it, if people start getting judgemental about the things I like, I’m more than happy to return the favour.
It’s been an odd experience going from brony to pegasister. Suddenly I’m less of a creep for reasons? Mess feels hypocritical af.
I’m a PF2 player. So, you know.
No, but seriously, Pathfinder just encourages snobbiness by virtue of being less mainstream and more “ethical”, and PF2 confers the unique advantage of being able to both be snobby at 5e players and assume all PF1 players are crotchety and reactionary.