Are fantasy games like Dungeons and Dragons a cure for US's loneliness epidemic?
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Now days, the entire world seems to have shifted to the view I had in the 7th grade, and I find myself more and more aligned with the views of my father. This is a depressing state of affairs, and I can't help but feel that it's mostly just sour grapes. Please everyone, adults and kids alike, enjoy playing D&D without the stigma and derision. Hail Satan!
But the issue today is that that kind of thing is more likely to happen from online gaming or tik tok or YouTube shorts or Netflix or Twitter and so on.
I would say that playing D&D in real life every now and then isn’t where that danger comes from nowadays
I could not disagree more
Play something else, Pathfinder, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, Castles and Crusades
Please stop giving Wizards of the Coast your money, please start supporting other options in the TTRPG space
D&D is so huge in the hobby that it makes it impossible to find other people to play with and there are so many other games that are more fun out there!
I've been playing 5E for awhile now, and recently joined a PF2E game as a cast member on a podcast. The rules are significantly more crunchy, building a character without assistance - both from people, and from software - is virtualy impossible, remembering all of the rules as a new-ish player is difficult, and I would not even want to try running a campaign with all of the rules, conditions, interactions, etc.
There are a lot of things that PF2E does that I really like, but as a whole system it's definitely geared at a person who liked 3E or 4E, but definitely not 5E.
The next campaign I run, I might try running in Wildsea, or maybe Spire or Heart, but I don't see myself joining or running a PF2E game ever again.
This is a mindblowing paragraph to read
Yes, I've been playing D&D a long time
Yes, I used to make 3e characters by hand without any software, which are much more complex than 5e or PF2E
From my perspective, 5e and PF2E are around the same level of complexity
I strongly suspect that if you think 5e doesn't have a similar amount of rule complexity, you are ignoring a ton of 5e rules without even realizing they exist, or playing them wrong
Here's a question:
In 5e, can you drink a potion as a bonus action?
In Baldur's Gate 3, you can
But no. Drinking a potion in 5e is an action
However, you can ready a potion from your pack or belt to drink, as a bonus action, as long as you have a free hand to hold it with
Bet you've been playing that wrong, most people do
But consider just the conditions between 5E and Pathfinder2 - 5E has 15 conditions, most of which are fairly understandable (although things like "is a grappled character also incapacitated?" is an annoying issue that comes up more often than I'd like.)
Pathfinder has 42, and a lot of them feel like gradations of a single condition. What's the difference between Hidden and Concealed? (I'm sure you know, and I'd know too if I spent the past decade playing Pathfinder.)
But PF2E is, I would say, and objectively crunchier and more mechanics-heavy ruleset than 5E, and to go back to conditions, a lot of player actions (spells, attacks) mechanically impose conditions on enemies, and you as a DM and a player had better know what they actually do to play the game effectively. 5E is much less dependent on conditions affecting gameplay.
I'd be fine with this part, my biggest motivation to switch systems is being able to have a decent online character builder without having to rebuy every book AND pay a subscription.
Unless you want to play with no book, no minis, no map, and a completely home-brewed campaign with all bespoke characters and stories.
At that point, you aren't playing the same game that everyone else is. Wizards has got their fingers in every slice of this pie. Even if you buy D&D stories written by someone else, you're still paying license to Wizards. When you buy a mini, you pay license to Wizards.
Maps - you can print them for free (minus ink & paper costs), you can draw your own, you can use maps from other games. Even if you're playing a published adventure, you can still find maps for free online.
Books - you can pick them up second-hand, you can pirate them, you can borrow them. I also never fully understood the stigma against home-brewed campaigns - I strongly prefer both playing & running homebrew.
I already owned a 5e players handbook but there's no reoccurring money going to wizards here and we run a biweekly 5e campaign.
If you aren't concerned about legality, all the books are readily available without paying wizards (heck, most of the recent ones and many of the older ones are also legally available that way in deas tree form in the secondhand market); you can buy miniatures that aren't specifically D&D licensed (lots of people use them in playing D&D, whether alone or mixed with licensed D&D minis; it has no effect one way or the other on the game), there are plenty of D&D-compatible maps with no licensing relationship to Wizards. Its very easy to play D&D without paying Wizards.
Honestly, with some of the books they've published for 5e, you're probably still half-way to homebrew if you do pay them. It's pretty frustrating that there's such huge holes in a lot of the first-party content. And we've been having a lot of fun drawing on dry-erase battle maps and paper minis.
No one, just starting out, should play Pathfinder.
The 5e ruleset sucks, actually. It's deceptively complicated and the books are organized very poorly.
Even Baldur's Gate 3 gets a bunch of 5e rules wrong, sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident, because the rulebooks are poorly written and sometimes contradictory
Pathfinder might not be any better as a starting game, but there are much easier beginner games out there. The only problem is no one has heard of them because D&D eats absolutely all of the oxygen in the TTRPG space
I haven't looked at the 2024 5E character creation part of PHB, but I can't imagine it's worse, lol.
> Pathfinder might not be any better as a starting game, but there are much easier beginner games out there. The only problem is no one has heard of them because D&D eats absolutely all of the oxygen in the TTRPG space
I couldn't agree more! Pathfinder is too crunchy for new players who don't already have experience playing TTRPGs, and are sure they want that level of mechanics in their game. There are so many RPGs out there, ranging from one-pagers that could probably be printed on an index card (The Witch Is Dead), to something on par with 5E's complexity that nevertheless has a lot of interesting mechanics and stories to tell (Wildsea, Spire).
That's kind if my point though. Society has not had a shifting attitude towards "fantasy role playing games", it has had a shifting attitude towards "Dungeons and Dragons"
Society has not at all heard of any of the alternative fantasy role playing games, which may as well not exist as far as society is concerned
I love ttrpgs. I want it to be a big hobby like board games are currently. You're right I don't like WOTC as a company, but my primary motivation is to see other titles become more know and played, because there are so many great games out there
My "disagreeing strongly" part was meant tongue in cheek by the way
I know it's common today to use the word "epidemic" as a hyperbolic way of referring to any phenomenon that seems to be increasing in occurrence, but its literal meaning refers to phenomena that propagate rapidly through networks of interaction between individuals.
So a literal interpretation of "loneliness epidemic" would describe a situation in which people are catching loneliness from their contact with each other.
EDIT: I'll also add that for myself, a lot of In Real Life events I used to host, like poker night and movie night, are slowly petering out and going away because people move away, or they aren't interested in coming, or they come but spend the whole time scrolling on their Instagram fantasy world. Yes, you can institute a no-phones rule but that just decreases attendance even more. People are more into their fantasy worlds than they are their actual (real life) friends.
The actual literal meaning of epidemic is, "affecting a group of people" (epi = among/upon, dēmos = people/district). It is only when referring to disease that it take on an infectious connotation.
Sort of how the literal meaning of "television" doesn't capture its specific meaning in modern usage, in that it doesn't generally refer to anything seen at a distance.
It’s strange but it’s true.
an activity which brings people together, including such which don't yet know each other, repeatedly, often but not required to be in person, where the people have to socially engage with each other, where there is peer pressure to not just skip it all the time because it will cause issues for others
that helps with loneliness
that it gives a framework of expected interactions and often a context where unusual but not mean actions do not or at lest much less lead to social embarrassment helps too
but here is the thing, to some degree this was/is true for a lot of traditional activities where you e.g. join club, association or similar. With the main difference being that such traditional clubs instead of being very lax/welcoming for people which are a bit socially awkward often had quite strict behavior codes. To some degree this helps people which are just not good at socializing and need some guidance to to fit in, but also often comes with all kinds of issues (like hazing rituals, or a much high chance of you not fitting in at all)
anyway my point is it doesn't have to be Pen and Paper and even less DnD, it can be all kinds of "meetup with soft peer pressure to show up" situations like
- a weekly board game meetup (especially for long running games like Gloomheaven)
- a wow guild
- some team sport clup thing (but not all, in some you just do thing alongside of others which means the extrinsic motivation to not skip it is much lower)
A main issue I see here is that a lot of the things can work over internet, but work easiest if there is a physical local close by meet up point. Like a board game store, game cafe, sport clup house, etc.
But not only has that gotten much harder due to the combo absurd high rent prices making new places hard and COVID having killed many existing places. But also the way the US seems to be doing zoning in many states (i.e. separation of where everyone lifes and where out of house life can happen) seems to be very hostile and many other things common for socializing in other countries
My recommendation is like yours, join a hiking group, or some other more structured activity in person where you don't have to worry about someone's halfling barbarian with agoraphobia spending your gaming session derailing the module. If you find a good group though, it's a lot of fun.
One issue I have seen a bit more specific to DnD is people over obsessing with the world building matching exactly the "generic DnD world" provided by wotc (or worse a specific module). And using this to remove agency from the DM to prevent them from tweaking things to e.g. stop a player from going completely rogue or accidental derailment of the campaign in not fun ways. It also means that people which play a ton of DnD have additional knowledge far beyond their in game character, which is rarely ever good. (DMs being similar inflexible is also not so helpful, but often based on inexperience, while for players it's often based on experience in combination with egoism).
But also to be clear some of the best complains did got derailed a lot, accidentally and not by a single person thinking their experience is more important than that of others.
Through the main reason I'm currently not joining a PnP group is that with the games I could have joined recently they require too much time in between meetings, at lest if you haven't played the system for docents or even hundreds of hours already :/
IMO this should be handled in the "session zero" expectations setting. Personally, I couldn't DM for someone like that, they should just read the official Forgotten Realms novels.
I started playing D&D in the 90s, before 3e even was out. For me, D&D and other TTRPGs are basically an excuse to hang out with friends. I treat it like a board game night. I've sometimes heard this called "Beer and Pretzels D&D"
I don't find many people who want to play Beer and Pretzels D&D anymore. When I go to public meetups or game stores meetups I find the groups are not casual at all. There is a heavy focus on staying in character and roleplaying over just having a good time.
The absolute worst version of this are people who seem to want to treat it like a therapy session. They genuinely seem to be trying to work through personal problems through their characters. I understand the desire to explore things in a "safe space" like an RPG but to me it's such an inappropriate venue for that sort of thing.
I would love to have an in-person RPG group again but as a hobby it really seems to have shifted from "mostly average people with slightly poor socialization" to "mostly the weirdest and most asocial people you have ever met"
For some people, that is having a good time! Most of the games I'm in, I'm significatnly more interested in the stor & characters than combat, etc. (Although, yeah, we do chat & have beers, etc.)
> The absolute worst version of this are people who seem to want to treat it like a therapy session. They genuinely seem to be trying to work through personal problems through their characters. I understand the desire to explore things in a "safe space" like an RPG but to me it's such an inappropriate venue for that sort of thing.
I think it's totally fine, as long as everyone at the table is fine with it. A session zero is definitely a requirement to play D&D, imo.
I'm not talking about "prefers roleplay over combat". I'm talking about "gets angry if you break character and make meta-comments about the game"
> A session zero is definitely a requirement to play D&D, imo.
It shouldn't be, but unfortunately we can't seem to trust the general RPG community to not be inappropriate weirdos without stating explicit rules and expectations for behavior
If someone comes to your house party and shits on the floor you don't invite them back. No need to create a rule saying "don't shit on the floor" that all guests need to agree to next time there is a party
Not sure why TTRPGs are different
Oh yeah, that's annoying. I'd leave that game.
> It shouldn't be, but unfortunately we can't seem to trust the general RPG community to not be inappropriate weirdos without stating explicit rules and expectations for behavior > If someone comes to your house party and shits on the floor you don't invite them back. No need to create a rule saying "don't shit on the floor" that all guests need to agree to next time there is a party
I don't think I agree with this characterization. Of course there are baseline rules for living in a society, but a session zero is for more than reminding players that they cannot fucking make sexual innuendos directed at the only woman at the table - it's for making sure everyone is aware of the style of game played, and to make sure it's the right game for them.
Some people might want a hack-and-slash through a dungeon, cycling through characters as they get fed into the meatgrinder. Some people might want a game of court intrigue. Some people want high-magic, some people want low-magic. Some people want to explore something from their personal life and treat the game seriously, while others want a light-hearted game.
To go back to the party analogy you brought up, of course nobody is allowed to shit on the floor, but if I'm being invited to a party, I would very much like to find out if it's a frat party, or fancy cocktails, or a child's 3rd birthday. I might bow out of an invitation if it's not something I want to attend.
At first we were talking about Session 0 as setting guidelines for what behavior is appropriate
Now you are saying that Session 0 is more about setting expectations of what kind of game is being run
These two topics really don't overlap much because it is equally inappropriate to shit on the floor at a frat party as it is a childs third birthday party
The problem in the RPG space is that there are a lot of weirdos in the community who really want to shit on the floor every chance they get
Edit: And yes of course session 0 can be for multiple things. It's where expectations are set about the sort of game being run, house rules, appropriate behavior, etc
My point is more about how tedious it is to constantly have to remind people that shitting on the floor is not appropriate, because somehow many people in the RPG community have the idea that everything is allowed in these sorts of games, rather than assuming a baseline of social contract is still at play even if we are playing an imaginary game
Essentially what I'm saying that players should assume most weird stuff is off limits unless explicitly allowed in the Session 0. What I see instead is often that players assume everything is allowed unless explicitly disallowed by the Session 0. I think that's the wrong attitude
Yes, because different behaviors are appropriate for some games, and not others.
> The problem in the RPG space is that there are a lot of weirdos in the community who really want to shit on the floor every chance they get
Won't argue with you there, and definitely agree with you that some people in the space just have no concept of a social contract - or at least, their concept is so warped that they're impossible to play with.
I agree with this. There is something different about in-person activities than online ones. (And I say this as someone who gets most of his socialization done online.)
Honestly, it makes me ridiculously happy to have friends like this.
I did this 10 years ago through meetup.com when I moved to a new city. I met my wife there and many friends that I still talk to today.
Maybe just scheduled outages for the internet to force people to unplug?
Rolling outages. As a feature.
But what about the specific interaction of playing a roleplaying game with total strangers? It’s a different kind of interaction than other social interactions.
It might even make somebody more lonely. Imagine the misfortune of trying Dungeons and Dragons to get less lonely and you join a hostile group that is antagonistic to you because they feel you are new to the game and don’t understand it as well as they do.
That could be a bad experience that would increase loneliness
We do everything we can to make new players feel welcome and have built a very warm and inclusive community that we can be proud of.
Playing with complete strangers can be scary, but I cannot describe the beauty of seeing a new face return every week and completely bloom open and make new friends. It's - pun not intended - magical.
I would argue that taking the dive and try it out is the best thing you can do. All we can do is make you as comfortable as possible.
All you need is a good community. Let's all make that possible!
We have several things that helps break the "core group" problem in our case:
- We have several tables playing the same part of the adventure just with different players. This helps our players try out different DMs and their specific style of DMing as well as different player groups.
Did you not like the social interaction you had with a specific group? Just ask to be seated at a different table and try out a different vibe.
- We also organize regular (special) events. But D&D related an non-D&D related. This breaks down the "we're just here to play D&D" barrier but creating an actual community. We sometimes go for drinks, bowling etc.
- We actually encourage players to form their own groups outside of our D&D organized plays. And this is actually what we see happening. Players come in and play the campaign for a year and when the campaign concludes they just start their own private group and continue to play because they really like the group they are playing with.
Everything depends on the person of course, but all we can do is facilitate a nice and welcoming community.
A big issue now is that people don't know how to meet other people. It involves risk taking, building confidence and yes enduring some rejection. And that's ok.
Cleric of Tyr falls in with group of Drow
(I run a biweekly game, and play in another, as well as a few other less regularly-scheduled campaigns.)
Also, a word of warning for people interested in getting in the hobby - if you watch D&D shows like Critical Role, or listen to podcasts like NADDPOD or Dungeons & Daddies, keep in mind that these people are literally professional actors, with budgets & a whole crew supporting them. Your game will still be fun, and will reflect the effort you and the other players put into it, but don't be disappointed if it's not as "cinematic" as the media you consume.
(Also don't be disappointed if your first table isn't a good fit, or if the game isn't fun - it might take you a few tries to find a group you click with. Remember - no D&D is better than bad D&D. There are plenty of TTRPG horror stories, and the best way to avoid being stuck in one is by just leaving a table and finding a better one.)
there's something for everyone - worldbuilding, improv, fiction writing, encounter design, mythology, poetry, mapmaking, mini painting, powergaming. all on a regular schedule with friends and in-person.
though i wish more people tried at least one other TTRPG. Chasing Adventure is my personal favourite, but there's so much going on in the indie scene to recreate any aesthetic or genre you'd like.
Of course, you can still play D&D without those services, but it sure seems like the paid model is becoming the norm and will be most peoples' first experience with role-playing: a bunch of online strangers logging into the Hasbro D&D app, forking over an extra $7.99 to unlock the good subclasses, and then giving the DM (who they are paying by the hour) a 2-star rating because he only has the free-tier battle maps unlocked.
> forking over an extra $7.99 to unlock the good subclasses
They would never let them be that affordable again. Beyond dropped the "a la carte" option a while ago, you need to pay for a full book to get one thing from it (and if you pay extra, you can get access to the book you've already paid for two weeks earlier!).
Reality is just so boomer...
Betteridge's law of headlines strikes again.
Is that what this is asking?