D&D is the largest and most popular RPG in the world, and because of the critical nature of this blog, I get a lot of questions about my relationship with it. Here are some of the questions and their answers.
Why do you hate D&D?
I don’t, but by the same token, I don’t love it either. D&D, to me, is one of many games I’ve played and continue to play. I think this is hard for some people to grasp, especially today, where D&D is much more dominant than when I was younger and coming into the hobby.
Why do you pick on D&D so much?
D&D is a frequent target of mine because it is the largest, most wide spread, and influential RPG on the planet. Other games have issues, absolutely, but D&D is the largest and wields more influence than other games do. So it gets the brunt of hits.
If there’s so much wrong, why not write for the DM Guild?
I have considered and rejected this. The main reasons being that everything uploaded to the DM Guild becomes property of Wizards, so in the event of a shutdown of the service, it’s lost. The other is that writing for the DM Guild doesn’t solve the problems in the official materials that I’m often addressing here and on social media. Not to mention the raft of other complications this would bring in terms of time and effort.
All you do is complain, why don’t you actually do something?
I have done things. I’ve made videos, written posts, and put up threads of ideas in the game that are problematic and how they might be approached to resolve or at least lessened. I’ve also worked with Wizards of the Coast directly, doing consultation on a proposed project (NDA), and some freelance writing for a greenlit project (NDA). However, none of that means that the critiquing will or should end.
I don’t see the problem, why try to change the game?
You not seeing the problem isn’t something I can fix if you’ve read the blog and still don’t agree or accept that there’s problems. As for the game, well, D&D has been evolving since 1974, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be a better, less problematic game at this point. But complacency is a thing, so I will continue to push for change.