Comment by dathinab | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dathinab | Hacker News Reader

no and yes

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

Ive had a really good group of DnD/Pathfinder in the past, but I've tried several times to join games at the a local shop and it wasn't fun. D&D probably selects for a certain type of person that might already have some poor socialization skills to begin with. Moreover, it allows said person to absolutely dominate the game and make it no fun for anyone else.

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.

Honestly, this is my experience too

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"

> There is a heavy focus on staying in character and roleplaying over just having a good time.

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.

> Most of the games I'm in, I'm significatnly more interested in the stor & characters than combat

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

> 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"

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.

This honestly strikes me as a sort of motte and bailey argument

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

> Now you are saying that Session 0 is more about setting expectations of what kind of game is being run

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 had somewhat similar experiences before. A lot of PnP is a bit too much dependent on the DM and what they tolerate. And I had both DMs being absurd non cooperative and players being absurd non cooperative, neither groups lasted long if the person in question isn't willing to reflect a bit about this games being at the core cooperative games (not just between the players but also the DM, even if the story is literally pitching players against each other, which is rare as hard to do well).

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 :/

> 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)

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 honestly have had incredible luck finding good parties but no idea how I would ever find one again if my current one fell apart. It's such a difficult task and yet it manages to happen naturally.

> 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.

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.)

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