What do you think are the most damaging ideas in the hobby?

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Yeah, game store environments are very hit or miss. But if I understand you right, they were not allowing her at their table, not preventing her from playing in the store? I just don't agree (and here we may begin our disagreement rivalry) with that being gatekeeping. Regardless of whether the reasons have merit or not, no one is forced to accept anyone else at their table. The barriers to joining this hobby remain effectively nil even if you can't get a seat at whatever table you want to, especially when it's a table you really wouldn't want to be at.
My understanding - and I may be wrong - is that it was the "store game" and the game her boyfriend was already playing at (and yes, the fact that her boyfriend shrugged all this off should have been a huge red flag for her).

Me, personally, I ran my games at home. So I will gatekeep the fuck out of that. Because to play in my game, I need to be comfortable with you being in my house and around my kids. But if I were running in a public place, I would be cognizant of the fact that acting like a complete douche is now a reflection, fair or unfair, on everyone else at the table, the store we're gaming in, and the hobby as a whole. Same is if I'm running at a convention (which I don't do). Your mileage may vary on this.

Edit: I use past tense on where I ran my games because my home group now plays exclusively online. But I'm not advertising for players with a disclaimer that "No Girls Are Allowed". It's a private game that no one would ever know about if I didn't talk about it.
 
To me, the railroading play style looks horrid and my earliest most memorable memory of it was as a college freshman in 1981 observing some new upperclassmen friends playing. But it's clear that there are players who very much enjoy being part of a story that is being directed by the GM.

Quite. There are a lot of elements in RPGs that I dislike -- railroading, lack of verisimilitude, hack-n-slash, it's a long list. There are elements in RPGs that I despise -- alignment, PvP, a few others. But none of that is damaging to the hobby. They're elements of play many people don't mind, and many people appreciate.

Is that really still a thing? Who is stopping people from playing in this day and age (besides logistics)?

Idjits who go out of their way to keep their insular groups insular have been around every since Graak the Caveman brandished his club at the poor blokes from the next cave over. I don't expect that to change in anyone's lifetime.
 
The last few groups I've played with have mostly been women, and I'll say that all of them have stories about why they won't play in public games and generally buy their books online. And why they play only with very curated groups.

I hold that position as well. No vagina required
 
My understanding - and I may be wrong - is that it was the "store game" and the game her boyfriend was already playing at (and yes, the fact that her boyfriend shrugged all this off should have been a huge red flag for her).

Me, personally, I ran my games at home. So I will gatekeep the fuck out of that. Because to play in my game, I need to be comfortable with you being in my house and around my kids. But if I were running in a public place, I would be cognizant of the fact that acting like a complete douche is now a reflection, fair or unfair, on everyone else at the table, the store we're gaming in, and the hobby as a whole. Same is if I'm running at a convention (which I don't do). Your mileage may vary on this.
Well that's just weird. Game stores are hit or miss, I generally feel like the misses are losing business to the hits, but maybe that's just my area. We're kind of lucky here. Boyfriends sanctioning blocking their girlfriends from joining their games is an odd sort of problem, that I would probably see as more of a relationship issue than a damaging idea pervasive throughout the hobby.
 
Honest question: I hear about "gatekeeping" all the time like it's an insidious plague in the hobby. What does it actually mean?

99% of the time it means some rando online said something someone doesn't like.

I got accused of "gatekeeping" for not explaining a joke I posted in an RPG Facebook group.

Who is stopping people from playing in this day and age (besides logistics)?

Absolutely nothing, no one has the power to stop anyone else from gaming except themselves. That's why I say "there is no gate"
 
Let’s put it this way. If you couldn’t buy RPGs off Amazon or any other online retailer there wouldn’t be as many gamers as there are today. The internet is a huge relief for a lot of people because they can avoid ye old hobby shoppe. It was that way for the comic book community for a lot of years too.
 
Let’s put it this way. If you couldn’t buy RPGs off Amazon or any other online retailer there wouldn’t be as many gamers as there are today. The internet is a huge relief for a lot of people because they can avoid ye old hobby shop. It was that way for the comic book community for a lot of years too.
The number of people taking advantage of not having to lift their fat ass out of the computer chair I would imagine is *slightly* higher than the number of people freed from the tyranny of the gameshop gatekeepers. Slightly being like the population of China vs. Lichtenstein.
 
The number of people taking advantage of not having to lift their fat ass out of the computer chair I would imagine is *slightly* higher than the number of people freed from the tyranny of the gameshop gatekeepers. Slightly being like the population of China vs. Lichtenstein.
I just like it because PDFs are much better for me nowadays. While I love physical books I just don’t want stacks and stacks of them in the house.

That’s one of things that kind of irritated me about comic shops a few years back. They were getting upset about people buying digital comics online. Why would I go into your shop to buy a digital book? I don’t want the physical floppies as much anymore.
 
Most damaging idea? That D&D and its illegitimate red headed step children are any good.

So any ideas and licenses lost to that shite :cry:

Oh, holy crap that reminds me...

The idea that Dungeons & Dragons is a Universal System!

That almost bankrupted the RPG industry with the D20 glut, and now they seem to be repeating it with 5th edition (luckily not yet on that scale) because no one's learned from history apparently...

I take back my earlier post, I think that is the most damaging idea to the hobby (y'know, besides the idea that RPGs are Satanic)
 
I just like it because PDFs are much better for me nowadays. While I love physical books I just don’t want stacks and stacks of them in the house.

Yeah, PDF has been a godsend. My physical collection is down to two shelves, but I have hundreds upon hundreds of RPGs & supplements on PDF
 
The number of people taking advantage of not having to lift their fat ass out of the computer chair I would imagine is *slightly* higher than the number of people freed from the tyranny of the gameshop gatekeepers. Slightly being like the population of China vs. Lichtenstein.
In my experience, the fatasses are sitting in the game stores acting like they are part of some elite club and then quietly "adjusting" themselves while licking their lips when a woman makes the mistake of walking into the store.

But everyone has different experiences in life.
 
Boyfriends sanctioning blocking their girlfriends from joining their games is an odd sort of problem

In my last gaming group we had to deal with a controlling wife who, with one exception, refused to allow her husband to game with any females, be it in-person or online.

I was nearly persona non-grata for the sin of....BEING SINGLE.

i wish either of those things were a joke on my part.

Remember: No gaming is better than bad gaming.
 
I'd rather shop at my FLGS, but they don't carry everything I want, and don't seem interested in ordering what they don't already have. If I can buy local, I do. Barring that, I'll look for a deal on the secondary market. Amazon is a last resort, or, if they have an unbeatable deal.
 
Yeah, PDF has been a godsend. My physical collection is down to two shelves, but I have hundreds upon hundreds of RPGs & supplements on PDF
About the same. Two shelves behind my desk of physical books, mostly games I really really like, and then an embarrassing number of pdfs.

A few years back I remember I got rid of something like over a thousand books... and that was after I lost a ton when a storage room flooded (was a sad sad day)
 
I'd rather shop at my FLGS, but they don't carry everything I want, and don't seem interested in ordering what they don't already have. If I can buy local, I do. Barring that, I'll look for a deal on the secondary market. Amazon is a last resort, or, if they have an unbeatable deal.
Had a local shop owner who only wanted to carry the games he liked to play, and was offended that I would order stuff online instead of having him order it.

Sorry, but when I can get it with a discount in two days, and you're charging me full price to wait two weeks, I'm gonna help fund the Bezos Lex Luthor Supervillain Fund.
 
In my experience, the fatasses are sitting in the game stores acting like they are part of some elite club and then quietly "adjusting" themselves while licking their lips when a woman makes the mistake of walking into the store.

But everyone has different experiences in life.
Do your FLGS’s tend to be small, hole in the wall places or a place that has lots of boardgames, cardgames, and wargames stuff as well as place to play and hosts tournaments, has a gaming calendar, etc?
 
Gatekeeping is about not creating a welcoming environment for newbs. To put it bluntly, gatekeeping means acting shitty and elitist towards newcomers. Like I said upthread, in my experience the behavior is aimed at females disproportionately but males are hardly immune. First hand experience and a staggering amount of experiences related to me by others led me to believe (perhaps incorrectly) that this was a widely acknowledged problem in tabletop and video gaming.
 
Perhaps, but the original point going back to hawkeyefan hawkeyefan's reply to @Moonglum's post (and my reply along that chain) was about how in TTRPGs long textbooks can become a barrier of entry that doesn't exist in other activities, not whether or not long textbooks may also potentially exist for those other activities. Yes, other activities may have long written materials, but they are supplements that aren't required to engage in those activities at a basic level. So complex rules requiring long written material is usually not an impediment for most other recreational activities the way they can be for TTRPGs.
But you don't have to know all the rules or even read the rules to engage on a basic level. Just as someone might show you a kotogaeshi as a basic move when starting Aikido without you knowing the physiological reason why grasping the opponent's hand in such a way and twisting it directs their movement, you can talk someone through the beginnings in a TTRPG. I've had it done a few times when I hadn't had the opportunity to read and/or learn the rules.
 
Do your FLGS’s tend to be small, hole in the wall places or a place that has lots of boardgames, cardgames, and wargames stuff as well as place to play and hosts tournaments, has a gaming calendar, etc?
We have both. And my wife got the "weirdo" treatment when she went into the biggest of the bunch, not the smallest.
 
Gatekeeping is about not creating a welcoming environment for newbs. To put it bluntly, gatekeeping means acting shitty and elitist towards newcomers.


Oh, I totally support that. Newbs are the worst. Always eating their sour gummy candies and drinking their stupid fruit-flavoured energy drinks. Leaving a trail of glitter and sweat wherever they go.

And all that dancing!
 
I hold that position as well. No vagina required

Same here. I only game with 4 or 5 other players on a consistent basis (not counting the last shitty 18 months or so) and have done for many years so I'm no longer sure what ideas are most damaging to the hobby! I feel completely inept in contributing to this discussion but can sympathise and agree that social blockers and horridness are the real things damage the hobby rather than stuff like levels and hit points!
 
The geek social fallacies.
This one takes the cake. Seen it implode groups, my group even.
The most "damaging" idea overall that I can think of is the comparison of RPGs to storytelling and the likewise conceptualization of RPGs defined as "the joint creation of a story" and the promotion of GM as "auteur"
The comparison is fine. It’s the identification that fucked us up in the 90s.
That roleplaying games are technology like cars or software and that they have substantially improved since the 1980s.


To me, even worse than this is the idea of the GM as simply a mediator of someone else's story through the medium of adventure paths. An entire campaign all planned out in advance by someone who doesn't even know your table or the specifics thereof.
Both grind my gears but especially the first. Newer (or older) is not better. It’s never about publication date. (Though I admit to being susceptible to the nostalgic charm of 1980s-ish B&W art, layouts and fonts.)

The most damaging idea in Roleplaying is that you have to do it a particular way. I always hated the “traditional vs story game” arguments and that’s just a small part of the overall issue.
Hate this one too.
That all indie games are innovative--when nearly all their mechanics were already done, sometimes better elsewhere.
Damn, that’s a good one. Never would think of putting it this way, but you’re 100% right IMHO.
The number of people taking advantage of not having to lift their fat ass out of the computer chair I would imagine is *slightly* higher than the number of people freed from the tyranny of the gameshop gatekeepers. Slightly being like the population of China vs. Lichtenstein.
Guilty as charged.
Oh, holy crap that reminds me...

The idea that Dungeons & Dragons is a Universal System!

That almost bankrupted the RPG industry with the D20 glut, and now they seem to be repeating it with 5th edition (luckily not yet on that scale) because no one's learned from history apparently...

I take back my earlier post, I think that is the most damaging idea to the hobby (y'know, besides the idea that RPGs are Satanic)
To be fair that’s got nothing to do with the suitability (or lack thereof) of D&D as a generic game engine, but with (mis)perceptions about the market.

I believe any game can be hacked to do any setting with enough elbow grease. I don’t bother because I’m lazy and I like mixing it up, but some great things occasionally come out of these hacks.
 
Perhaps, but the original point going back to hawkeyefan hawkeyefan's reply to @Moonglum's post (and my reply along that chain) was about how in TTRPGs long textbooks can become a barrier of entry that doesn't exist in other activities, not whether or not long textbooks may also potentially exist for those other activities. Yes, other activities may have long written materials, but they are supplements that aren't required to engage in those activities at a basic level. So complex rules requiring long written material is usually not an impediment for most other recreational activities the way they can be for TTRPGs.

Is it your experience that most people who sit down to play an RPG for the first time have read all of its rules in their entirety? I think it's far more common that they would simply be trying out a game, and there would be others there to kind of guide them through the process. Or perhaps that a group of friends might be piecing things together as they learn, and maybe one player (usually the GM) has to have read more of the rules than anyone else.

That's purely anecdotal on my part, but I feel like it's anecdote with a lot of corroboration online. It seems like most, or at least a significant number of, players learn from others and only start researching rules and mechanics once they're more invested in the game.
 
Hey guys I want to be clear that I am not saying "you have to let anyone and everyone join your group or you're a gatekeeper". That would be ridiculous. Gatekeeping is being elitist and unwelcoming to newcomers.

Yeah, I think it's quite a different thing to say something like "I don't think this person would be a good fit for our game" compared to something like "Someone who learned about RPGs from YouTube videos doesn't know about roleplaying!" or some similar shit.
 
Which does, of course, place the people hating story games and the people proselytizing them effectively on the same side... vs everyone else who don’t care that it matters.

I think it is even more one-sided than that, while I do see some indie designers complaining about D&D (and really, who doesn't complain about one version or another of D&D?) on communities dedicated to storygames (e.g. The Gauntlet) I see a lot of discussion of more 'trad' games like Godbound, WFRP, 13th Age and OSE. Even Traveller!

Whereas on the more dogmatically trad forums discussions of newer games are ghettoized or outright banned.
 
We have both. And my wife got the "weirdo" treatment when she went into the biggest of the bunch, not the smallest.
Weird. The FLGS I went to in Sac was full of women. Same now that I’m in SoCal. Yeah, there’s some Embodied Gamer Stereotypes, but not the should-be-in-prison types. Hell, in Sac at the biggest FLGS, half of the people behind the counter are women and the smallest little hole in the wall shop is owned by a woman.
 
Weird. The FLGS I went to in Sac was full of women. Same now that I’m in SoCal. Yeah, there’s some Embodied Gamer Stereotypes, but not the should-be-in-prison types. Hell, in Sac at the biggest FLGS, half of the people behind the counter are women and the smallest little hole in the wall shop is owned by a woman.
FWIW, same here, on all accounts:thumbsup:.
 
Fair enough. But do they refuse because they don't know other games exist or because they like DnD?
IME, it's usually a case of "we've never ever tried anything but D&D", for like 80% of such cases (i.e. not counting the people who are playing D&D, but are willing to play/run other games as well).
 
I've found the key to getting only D&D people to play other games is knowing what they like outside of RPGs. I had a friend who was talking about running a D&D game and was just like, what edition should I use, and I just linked a bunch of lighter weeb trash games instead of D&D because I knew they were super weeby and were an RPG newbie and wanted something light. And they really liked the stuff I sent them.
 
Hey guys I want to be clear that I am not saying "you have to let anyone and everyone join your group or you're a gatekeeper". That would be ridiculous.

It is ridiculous, but I've heard about that very thing. From someone here at The Pub. My memory seems to think it was either Baulderstone or Tenbones.


Gatekeeping is being elitist and unwelcoming to newcomers.

I simply just don't think that's a big enough deal that the behaviour needs to be empowered or given undue weight by describing them as gatekeepers. The gate only exists in their mind, and there's no reason anyone else should believe there is a gate.

I mean, not to go all "Why, in my day...", but when I was growing up, admitting to playing RPGs meant at best social ostracization and at worst suspected of being a satanic cultist. And The LGS wasn't a "bad option", it was pretty much the ONLY option - it's not like you had access to any game you wanted at the tip of your fingers.

If anyone had let those things stop them from doing something they enjoy, there wouldn't be a hobby now.
 
Is it your experience that most people who sit down to play an RPG for the first time have read all of its rules in their entirety? I think it's far more common that they would simply be trying out a game, and there would be others there to kind of guide them through the process. Or perhaps that a group of friends might be piecing things together as they learn, and maybe one player (usually the GM) has to have read more of the rules than anyone else.

That's purely anecdotal on my part, but I feel like it's anecdote with a lot of corroboration online. It seems like most, or at least a significant number of, players learn from others and only start researching rules and mechanics once they're more invested in the game.

No, however, at least someone has to read most of the rules for play to take place. So even to the degree that reading the manuals can be outsourced to someone in the group, that barrier still has to be crossed at least by that person before play may take place. And then the group has to rely on that one person to know everything, which increases their workload, because then they have to tell everyone what to do, and be the ones doing all the bookkeeping looking stuff up every time a rules issue comes up, or a spell description needs to be read, etc. Which makes it less likely that they'll even have time learn another system on top of that one. And in my experience, shifting systems tends to put off casual players that don't bother reading the rules, because they get confused with the different terms and mechanics (I've even been asked why there have to be multiple rulesets, which newcomers often can't fathom), which can make it more complicated for them to learn either system.

None of this means that it can't be done. But it does mean that it's more difficult to jump from TTRPG system to system, than to simply plug and play a new video game with at least somewhat familiar controls, for example.
 
I’m going to have to agree with One True Wayism/BadWrongFun as the headliner idea here - because most other candidates for bad ideas are good ideas for the people they are in fact fun for. RPGs as storytelling? Not how I like it but there are people who do. Supplement treadmills with 5,000 character options? Not how I like it but etc.
 
It is ridiculous, but I've heard about that very thing. From someone here at The Pub. My memory seems to think it was either Baulderstone or Tenbones.
I struggle to imagine either of them saying that:thumbsup:.
 
I struggle to imagine either of them saying that:thumbsup:.


Possibly whoever it was will identify themselves when reading this thread (if they are still here at the Pub). This was, I think, 2 years ago now. The person mentioned online that they only only game with friends and don't run public games, and were promptly accused of "gatekeeping".

I've seen multiple instances of just as ridiculous uses of the term - not playing a current edition of a game , criticizing any RPG product, telling someone they don't have the right to make unreasonable demands of a DM (in this case they wanted them to get rid of ay Christian books in the house when the player came over for a game), not letting players use any supplement published for a game, not including NPCs a player want in their games (the overall trend seems to be anytime a GM doesn't act like a complete slave to player's whims they are 'gatekeeping'), and the aforementioned posting a joke on an RPG forum that someone doesn't get.
 
Possibly whoever it was will identify themselves when reading this thread (if they are still here at the Pub). This was, I think, 2 years ago now. The person mentioned online that they only only game with friends and don't run public games, and were promptly accused of "gatekeeping".

I've seen multiple instances of just as ridiculous uses of the term - not playing a current edition of a game , criticizing any RPG product, telling someone they don't have the right to make unreasonable demands of a DM (in this case they wanted them to get rid of ay Christian books in the house when the player came over for a game), not letting players use any supplement published for a game, not including NPCs a player want in their games (the overall trend seems to be anytime a GM doesn't act like a complete slave to player's whims they are 'gatekeeping'), and the aforementioned posting a joke on an RPG forum that someone doesn't get.
Yeah, those things are ridiculous, alright:thumbsup:!
 
I believe it was Baulderstone who shared the story of being accused of gatekeeping because he ran a homegame.

Thinking on the OP further I think the most damaging idea in the hobby is probably that all the internet drama around the hobby is actually important far beyond its real world impact.

Probably a result of so much of the hobby being very online, the general tendency on the net to dogmaticism, pedantry and adolescent tribalism combined with a lack of perspective and sophistication about the wider world.

Because the net acts as a bullhorn for extremists and just outright nuts it is always possible to find some outlandish statement from the other side of a debate to buttress claims that this or that side of an argument hold opinions that are not just most likely a tiny minority but sometimes just the rantings of someone seriously disconnected from reality.
 
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Thinking on the OP further I think the most damaging idea in the hobby is probably that all the internet drama around the hobby is actually important far beyond its real world impact.
Yup. A large amount of my cranky feelings toward various RPG things comes from encountering zealous degrees of friction online... whereas my reactions to in-person stuff is generally much milder and nuanced. I think this is a shared issue in many other realms of endeavor, people shouting online vs. talking things out face-to-face.
 
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