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Desolation Tries To Colonize You

@daxxglax / daxxglax.tumblr.com

Andrew, Chicago-based 29-year-old theatre-type. He/Him/His.

Every tabletop system I've ever played was better than D&D

D&Ds cultural niche is to get new people interested in tabletop. It's only upwards from here.

this is true but also D&D sucks as an introduction to tabletop. it's genuinely one of the worst possible games a player could start with. it:

  • is extremely expensive, expecting you to buy three separate $30 rulebooks and pay a subscription fee if you want the online bookkeeping service
  • offers no meaningful support to GMs whatsoever, giving them a huge workload and making everyone who starts with D&D permanently wary of any facilitator role in any other game ever.
  • has a horribe play culture stretching back decades that heavily discourages any frank out-of-character discussions about what the table wants from the game as 'metagaming'
  • as of 5e, straight-up lies about what it is and contains ('three pillars' is a crock of horseshit innit)

and all these things not only make D&D a bad game, but they make it an actively detrimental introduction to the hobby, because people who start with D&D interalize all this shit as being true about 'TTRPGS' and so either refuse to approach other TTRPGs or, when they do, approach it with the weight of all this hanging on them

everyone's got that one homie who zealously adheres to his inflexible code of honor even though it has long since become a burden to him

I don't think I'll ever be over Defunctland's last name being Perjurer. Mind-bogglingly intense and thorough research, and this fucker's name is Person Who Makes Shit Up.