Why does d&d suck so bad...

amen brother

It's seriously the worst community I've ever seen. They don't talk to each other and complain when the games fall apart. They make random characters with no direction and the GM just expects them to follow some plot that has nothing to do with any of them and get confused when the players act out and murderhobo.

They just sit there and let creepy motherfuckers rp "nubile dark elf maidens" and scare away anyone who isn't ALSO a creepy motherfucker.

On the flip side I just decided to play with entirely normal people who usually have a HORRIBLE preconception of what ttrpgs are like, and they end up being fantastic players. Just got a group of my gym buddies together and we brainstormed a fun setting, gonna make characters in discord later and come up with the main plot and hooks and stuff.

So basically it's a non-casual game that is best played by casuals.

Yeah, but honestly it's not that the game itself is super hard or unappealing to well-adjusted people, it's that most people's idea of what the game is like is ruined by the fucked up weirdos. At its core it's just improv acting with dice rolls and some rules.

I usually just tell people that if they've ever been reading a book, or watching a movie and thought that a character should have done something different, or wondered what it would have been like if x y or z happened, that's basically just what ttrpgs are. You just get some friends together, come up with a cool idea for a game, make characters that compliment that game idea and go well together, and then play out a fun story.

But most people think it's a weird game where you hack goblins apart and yell about fireballs because you're too scared of real human interaction to just talk to people and do normal shit.

It's basically world of Warcraft but you have to make up the stories and do all the math yourself. While that might have passed the time in the 70s we have the internet now.

This man just got nonchalant trips wtf

Problem is it can actually be way better than that if you're willing to do shit other than just be rando adventurers looting shit in a generic fantasy world.

You can make all sorts of sick world/game concepts and do shit that you still can't do in videogames. Ironically though the vast majority of d&d players claim to hate "videogamey" ttrpgs, and play games that are exactly as you described. WoW but slow.

Not the worst community... try the Vampire: The Masquerade players. They are the worst, by far.

Until we have something like quantum computers, there is no way a compute game could offer the level of flexibility of a tabletop game. Pick up and interact with literally any object. Interact with any NPC. Attempt any tactic you can conceive of to solve your goals. A truly great Dungeon Master can build something epic and nuanced that computer games can't compete with.

Oh I was lumping all ttrpg communities together for the most part. They all attract some specific breed of socially maladjusted fuck as their core playerbase.

I feel like that point falls pretty flat when like 99% of d&d games are the exact same shit over and over. For a game all about creativity and infinite possibilities, the amount of actual variety in the games is laughable.

Try to get your average d&d group to do something that ISNT all being random adventurers killing shit going on "quests" in a vaguely medieval setting with half understood political intrigue and taverns as the key point of interest in every area.

Your DM is shit or your imagination is limiting your game play

GNParty here.

Pirate Diablo 2 and mod the fuck out of it with Hero Editor.

Thank me later.

Yeah, admittedly I think it's that every game has the potential to have all that. Admittedly, you don't have a team of professional writers and game designer to craft your game, so I can see how a lot of them end up as hot garbage
.

Most AAA tittles are pretty boring and repetitive too these days though.

That said, I think a lot of this can be helped with good communications. A DM and players being open about what they want and expect. Which admittedly is a big ask as people generally suck.

True...
So, the best thing is to continuously converting "normal" people to play and keeping the ones that like the game and are good in it.
Nice.

White wolf WoD games are worse m8. Way more cringey and terrible. Overall, PnP RPG players are terrible.

I think it's the approach. WotC and other ttrpg makers put out these godawful official settings and modules, and people just follow those. Coming up with a cool world concept with your friends is fucking easy. You just talk about a genre you like, figure out some cool hook or special thing or whatever that makes the setting unique, and keep improv yes anding from there.

Something like an ultra primitive setting with oldschool mysticism, bone readings and shit and megafauna. Take that as an aesthetic and come up with cool shit.

As is people sit down and make characters in a total bubble by just slapping race + class + backstory together, and then these randos just kinda appear in whatever world the gm is running, and are supposed to follow the plot.

Agreed. I think that the settings and modules are super useful--as a base. Something so that you don't have to craft every town, npc, and plot point by hand. That said, if you surrender too much to the base and don't add your own elaborations, character hooks, and interesting, flexible arrangement, you're likely to get something like a regular videogame RPG out of it, without the benefits of graphics and structure.

See I think that's actually a flawed mindset in terms of worldbuilding. You don't need to craft every town and blah blah blah. You start from the bottom and build up as needed. You don't need a crazy complicated world map or any of that shit, and you don't even necessarily need "towns". What if the setting doesn't have big organized civilizations? What if the setting is some sorta horror thing where the players are trapped in a relatively small area?

I don't even think modules are good as a base because they get people in this mindset that you need crazy amounts of detail to have a setting. Modules also don't let the players decide shit about the setting, which is the best shit.

Oh, on the contrary, I still agree with you. I just still think that it's handy, much in the same way of having a list of names so that when your players ask for an NPC name you don't just go "Uuuuuh..... Pea... Tear... Gryphon?"

You need a map, there's a map. You need a city, there's a city. If you don't need or want either of them, don't use them.

I started about 2 years ago after a coworker invited me. I always had an interest but most people before her that invited me were buzzkills. Dont get me wrong though, they are socially awkward capekino obsessed geeks, but most importantly they arent stuck up assholes. I usually get pretty drunk when i play and my coworkers husband likes to match me. So, for the most part DnD for me is like something fun to do while im drinking. Beats going to the bar definitely.

if you've never had a good group, you don't know what you're missing