Of the various websites and social media apps that people use to talk about D&D, I make my pitch for what I think is the best one.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 11, 2024, 09:17:48 PMI make my pitch for what I think is the best one.

If you say so yourself

Actually, I agree.

You missed talking about Reddit. (It's not all sunshine and roses).

Reddit has objectively better organization than traditional forums because you have comment and reply trees sorted by upvotes. This works phenomenally in small to medium communities. However, problems emerge when you start venturing into larger subreddits. Upvotes naturally favor short comments with popular opinions, so unpopular truths go straight to the gutter and you see people disclaiming opinions as hot or unpopular when they...really aren't. And Reddit has that perennial hard left lean which infects everything, and bots are pervasive.

That said, my own personal project back when I was a mod of r/RPGDesign was to let members opt to mark their posts as difficult or high level content with a post flair, Skunkworks. This created a barely-hidden alternative feed called RPG Skunkworks

Obviously, I have some bias here, and admittedly RPG Skunkworks has very low participation. That said, in it's five year run, you have about 100 softly curated threads which have some of the best high level roleplaying game design discussion you will find anywhere on the internet.

But oldschool forums are, in fact, the best, and if I had the chance I would absolutely whisk RPG Skunkworks off to its own forum. Forums have problems, especially when it comes to organization, but these problems are obviously fixable.

Is theRPGSite the best forum? I'm torn. It's certainly not the worst (Think Purple), and I have certainly appreciated the free speech platform. There are very few of them left. But the strong OSR focus and general lack of a more all-purpose design community here means that a lot of discussions with more advanced or non-D&D discussions...just don't happen on this forum. And at the end of the day, how much of a difference is there between not being allowed to have a conversation and just no one having it? Because I hate to be blunt, but in this regard the dreaded Purple People Beaters actually have theRPGsite beat.

As far a what types of discussions there are, it is up to the forum members to create the discussions that they want to see. The purple place may have a wider variety of topics but what good are they if speaking your mind about them results in a ban if you don't chime in supporting the echo chamber?

Yes, in the main forum you can make threads about any RPG.

Quote from: Fheredin on December 13, 2024, 09:56:19 PMYou missed talking about Reddit. (It's not all sunshine and roses).

Reddit has objectively better organization than traditional forums because you have comment and reply trees sorted by upvotes. This works phenomenally in small to medium communities. However, problems emerge when you start venturing into larger subreddits. Upvotes naturally favor short comments with popular opinions, so unpopular truths go straight to the gutter and you see people disclaiming opinions as hot or unpopular when they...really aren't. And Reddit has that perennial hard left lean which infects everything, and bots are pervasive.

That said, my own personal project back when I was a mod of r/RPGDesign was to let members opt to mark their posts as difficult or high level content with a post flair, Skunkworks. This created a barely-hidden alternative feed called RPG Skunkworks

Obviously, I have some bias here, and admittedly RPG Skunkworks has very low participation. That said, in it's five year run, you have about 100 softly curated threads which have some of the best high level roleplaying game design discussion you will find anywhere on the internet.

But oldschool forums are, in fact, the best, and if I had the chance I would absolutely whisk RPG Skunkworks off to its own forum. Forums have problems, especially when it comes to organization, but these problems are obviously fixable.

Is theRPGSite the best forum? I'm torn. It's certainly not the worst (Think Purple), and I have certainly appreciated the free speech platform. There are very few of them left. But the strong OSR focus and general lack of a more all-purpose design community here means that a lot of discussions with more advanced or non-D&D discussions...just don't happen on this forum. And at the end of the day, how much of a difference is there between not being allowed to have a conversation and just no one having it? Because I hate to be blunt, but in this regard the dreaded Purple People Beaters actually have theRPGsite beat.

I left reddit a few weeks back. It is an absolute cesspool of propaganda, disinformation, and nonsense

it is partly owned by Tencent and there are CCP bots all over the site

I deleted my account as I'm not going to give that garbage dump any traffic, even if there are a few good subs in there

Quote from: MerrillWeathermay on December 14, 2024, 11:04:30 AM

Quote from: Fheredin on December 13, 2024, 09:56:19 PMYou missed talking about Reddit. (It's not all sunshine and roses).

Reddit has objectively better organization than traditional forums because you have comment and reply trees sorted by upvotes. This works phenomenally in small to medium communities. However, problems emerge when you start venturing into larger subreddits. Upvotes naturally favor short comments with popular opinions, so unpopular truths go straight to the gutter and you see people disclaiming opinions as hot or unpopular when they...really aren't. And Reddit has that perennial hard left lean which infects everything, and bots are pervasive.

That said, my own personal project back when I was a mod of r/RPGDesign was to let members opt to mark their posts as difficult or high level content with a post flair, Skunkworks. This created a barely-hidden alternative feed called RPG Skunkworks

Obviously, I have some bias here, and admittedly RPG Skunkworks has very low participation. That said, in it's five year run, you have about 100 softly curated threads which have some of the best high level roleplaying game design discussion you will find anywhere on the internet.

But oldschool forums are, in fact, the best, and if I had the chance I would absolutely whisk RPG Skunkworks off to its own forum. Forums have problems, especially when it comes to organization, but these problems are obviously fixable.

Is theRPGSite the best forum? I'm torn. It's certainly not the worst (Think Purple), and I have certainly appreciated the free speech platform. There are very few of them left. But the strong OSR focus and general lack of a more all-purpose design community here means that a lot of discussions with more advanced or non-D&D discussions...just don't happen on this forum. And at the end of the day, how much of a difference is there between not being allowed to have a conversation and just no one having it? Because I hate to be blunt, but in this regard the dreaded Purple People Beaters actually have theRPGsite beat.

I left reddit a few weeks back. It is an absolute cesspool of propaganda, disinformation, and nonsense

it is partly owned by Tencent and there are CCP bots all over the site

I deleted my account as I'm not going to give that garbage dump any traffic, even if there are a few good subs in there

But it also has a lot of good info/ ideas.
If I have to wade through muck to get it- could be worth it. I just try to limit exposure to overtly obnoxious people.

Quote from: MerrillWeathermay on December 14, 2024, 11:04:30 AM

Quote from: Fheredin on December 13, 2024, 09:56:19 PMYou missed talking about Reddit. (It's not all sunshine and roses).

Reddit has objectively better organization than traditional forums because you have comment and reply trees sorted by upvotes. This works phenomenally in small to medium communities. However, problems emerge when you start venturing into larger subreddits. Upvotes naturally favor short comments with popular opinions, so unpopular truths go straight to the gutter and you see people disclaiming opinions as hot or unpopular when they...really aren't. And Reddit has that perennial hard left lean which infects everything, and bots are pervasive.

That said, my own personal project back when I was a mod of r/RPGDesign was to let members opt to mark their posts as difficult or high level content with a post flair, Skunkworks. This created a barely-hidden alternative feed called RPG Skunkworks

Obviously, I have some bias here, and admittedly RPG Skunkworks has very low participation. That said, in it's five year run, you have about 100 softly curated threads which have some of the best high level roleplaying game design discussion you will find anywhere on the internet.

But oldschool forums are, in fact, the best, and if I had the chance I would absolutely whisk RPG Skunkworks off to its own forum. Forums have problems, especially when it comes to organization, but these problems are obviously fixable.

Is theRPGSite the best forum? I'm torn. It's certainly not the worst (Think Purple), and I have certainly appreciated the free speech platform. There are very few of them left. But the strong OSR focus and general lack of a more all-purpose design community here means that a lot of discussions with more advanced or non-D&D discussions...just don't happen on this forum. And at the end of the day, how much of a difference is there between not being allowed to have a conversation and just no one having it? Because I hate to be blunt, but in this regard the dreaded Purple People Beaters actually have theRPGsite beat.

I left reddit a few weeks back. It is an absolute cesspool of propaganda, disinformation, and nonsense

it is partly owned by Tencent and there are CCP bots all over the site

I deleted my account as I'm not going to give that garbage dump any traffic, even if there are a few good subs in there

Well, with a deleted account all we have is your word for any of this (aside from Tencent ownership, which is verifiable. However, I don't approve of most of the landlords of the internet.)

My blunt conclusion is that Pundit is probably not that far off in calling this the best place for RPG discussion...in theory. In practice there really aren't that many regularly posting members and most actual posts fall into the "intermediate" RPG Grognard bracket. They can be well informed and reasoned out, but their broader awareness for game design tropes outside of OSR leaves something to be desired. Even if you don't like the Forge (which I get; it's kind of a Freudian Psychology of RPG theory) things like board and card game mechanics crossing over into RPGs are discussions I have yet to see here.

And put bluntly the people here tend to be needlessly abrasive, and being abrasive is not actually conducive to high level critical thought. You do realize that the obscene internet edgelord of yesteryear is supposed to be obscene in a funny way, right? I think several members here missed the boat on that and have the personality of sandpaper soaked in battery acid just for the sake of it.

So yeah, Pundit is right in theory, but also wrong in practice. There isn't an actually good RPG discussion community; they are all bad for one reason or another. Whatever comes out of theRPGSite will probably not be a D&D killer which breaks TBP's hold on the internet; it will be yet another OSR product which the rest of the industry can successfully ignore. The culture war is locked in a stalemate.

Nothing personal, but I don't play for statlemates; I play for checkmate.


I'm not really convinced he did anything wrong or can do anything in particular to change things. But it is a lamentable state of affairs.

Quote from: Fheredin on December 15, 2024, 06:39:57 PMThey can be well informed and reasoned out, but their broader awareness for game design tropes outside of OSR leaves something to be desired. Even if you don't like the Forge (which I get; it's kind of a Freudian Psychology of RPG theory) things like board and card game mechanics crossing over into RPGs are discussions I have yet to see here.

You have made a fundamental error in your description.  You assume that many of the posters here "are not aware" of various design tropes.  We have, posting here, people who have designed for well-known games far outside the "OSR" community (you would be hard pressed to assert that MSH or Savage Worlds are OSR, or even OSR-adjacent, in design philosophy).  The fact that they do not discuss them to your liking is probably not based in ignorance, but some other reason.  Perhaps the alternatives are not brought up in a topic (Something you could rectify, instead of just complaining...); perhaps the principles have been weighed, measured, and found wanting.  There's no way to know... without asking.

The fact that you do hear what you want isn't necessarily an indictment of others...

Quote from: Fheredin on December 15, 2024, 06:39:57 PMMy blunt conclusion is that Pundit is probably not that far off in calling this the best place for RPG discussion...in theory. In practice there really aren't that many regularly posting members and most actual posts fall into the "intermediate" RPG Grognard bracket. They can be well informed and reasoned out, but their broader awareness for game design tropes outside of OSR leaves something to be desired. Even if you don't like the Forge (which I get; it's kind of a Freudian Psychology of RPG theory) things like board and card game mechanics crossing over into RPGs are discussions I have yet to see here.

And put bluntly the people here tend to be needlessly abrasive, and being abrasive is not actually conducive to high level critical thought. You do realize that the obscene internet edgelord of yesteryear is supposed to be obscene in a funny way, right? I think several members here missed the boat on that and have the personality of sandpaper soaked in battery acid just for the sake of it.

So yeah, Pundit is right in theory, but also wrong in practice. There isn't an actually good RPG discussion community; they are all bad for one reason or another. Whatever comes out of theRPGSite will probably not be a D&D killer which breaks TBP's hold on the internet; it will be yet another OSR product which the rest of the industry can successfully ignore. The culture war is locked in a stalemate.

100% agree

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 15, 2024, 07:16:03 PM

Quote from: Fheredin on December 15, 2024, 06:39:57 PMThey can be well informed and reasoned out, but their broader awareness for game design tropes outside of OSR leaves something to be desired. Even if you don't like the Forge (which I get; it's kind of a Freudian Psychology of RPG theory) things like board and card game mechanics crossing over into RPGs are discussions I have yet to see here.

You have made a fundamental error in your description.  You assume that many of the posters here "are not aware" of various design tropes.  We have, posting here, people who have designed for well-known games far outside the "OSR" community (you would be hard pressed to assert that MSH or Savage Worlds are OSR, or even OSR-adjacent, in design philosophy).  The fact that they do not discuss them to your liking is probably not based in ignorance, but some other reason.  Perhaps the alternatives are not brought up in a topic (Something you could rectify, instead of just complaining...); perhaps the principles have been weighed, measured, and found wanting.  There's no way to know... without asking.

The fact that you do hear what you want isn't necessarily an indictment of others...

Well, now, that's a testable hypothesis. I'll wait a bit and repost something I have already posted to r/RPGDesign and we'll actually see how the communities actually compare in terms of interactivity and discussion content level. 

The question which immediately comes to my mind is that it might be unfair to drop this in the middle of the Christmas season. But then again, if activity drops it should stay on the feed longer, right? Any firm opinions?

Quote from: Fheredin on December 16, 2024, 11:44:05 AM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 15, 2024, 07:16:03 PM

Quote from: Fheredin on December 15, 2024, 06:39:57 PMThey can be well informed and reasoned out, but their broader awareness for game design tropes outside of OSR leaves something to be desired. Even if you don't like the Forge (which I get; it's kind of a Freudian Psychology of RPG theory) things like board and card game mechanics crossing over into RPGs are discussions I have yet to see here.

You have made a fundamental error in your description.  You assume that many of the posters here "are not aware" of various design tropes.  We have, posting here, people who have designed for well-known games far outside the "OSR" community (you would be hard pressed to assert that MSH or Savage Worlds are OSR, or even OSR-adjacent, in design philosophy).  The fact that they do not discuss them to your liking is probably not based in ignorance, but some other reason.  Perhaps the alternatives are not brought up in a topic (Something you could rectify, instead of just complaining...); perhaps the principles have been weighed, measured, and found wanting.  There's no way to know... without asking.

The fact that you do hear what you want isn't necessarily an indictment of others...

Well, now, that's a testable hypothesis. I'll wait a bit and repost something I have already posted to r/RPGDesign and we'll actually see how the communities actually compare in terms of interactivity and discussion content level. 

The question which immediately comes to my mind is that it might be unfair to drop this in the middle of the Christmas season. But then again, if activity drops it should stay on the feed longer, right? Any firm opinions?

Don't think it matters.  You may get more engagement because people are off work, or less because they are celebrating Christmas.  No way to know...