The title sums it up pretty well. I don't hate d20, I just don't play it or like it.

Now why do people have to accuse me of hating d20 because of that? I do not HATE d20. I simply don't like it because mostly it doesn't use hit locations and it does mostly use classes and levels. I like hit locations and I do not like classes and levels. That doesn't mean I hate d20, it just means I don't like/play it.

I wonder why d20 players have to accuse everyone who doesn't like their system of 'hating' it? is it because they feel if they can make believe that anyone who doesn't like d20 "hates" it they can then dismiss their reasons for disliking it because they're based on "hate"?

JFTR, I do not hate d20 and have seen some d20 prods that made me wish that it was more to my liking. I've even given favorable reviews of d20 prods when they deserved it, so I do not hate d20, I just don't like it or play it because some of the mechanics are far from my liking.

I wish people who liked it would stop saying I "hated" it.

Hater!

I've never seen the problem with Hate.  It's a fine emotion and most useful when dealing with idiots.  After all, there are some films that I hate and there are loads of books and Tv programmes that I hate and surely I'm not alone in this sentiment.

What is weird though is that you can't hate a game.  Within the RPG community the term "hate" has come to be re-defined not as a strong negative reaction to something but a wholly inappropriate and irrational negative emotional reaction to something.

This is because RPGs don't have the same aesthetics as many other forms of media.  I think this is due to the fact that many gamers identify themselves closely with the games they play so while it's perfectly okay for me to talk about how much your favourite film or TV series sucks (though on RPGnet this is seen bizarrely as threadcrapping), it's unacceptable for me to say how much your favourite game sucks.

So instead we have these weird code phrases that we use when talking about games.

For example...

A game isn't ever "bungled by hacks masquerading as designers", it is simply "broken".

A game isn't "shit", it's "not for me".

I think this state of affairs has come about because there are no universal aesthetic criteria for RPGs.  With books it's undeniable that correct grammar and a large vocabulary are better than poor sentence construction and everyone being described as "nice", with films every film should be appropriately paced and it's pretty obvious when someone is acting well and when someone is acting poorly.

I think the main problem is that games, as written entities, aren't what the hobby is all about.  When it comes to actual RPG sessions then we can all agree on what makes for a good game; cool NPCs, interesting challenges, nice balancing of risk and return, having a laugh...

The truth is that when we attempt to criticise games as written entities, it's the same as trying to do art criticism on the basis of a series of notes written down by the artist.  All you can ever talk about is what you think about them because everyone will take something different away.

'Hate' is an awfully strong emotion to expend on a game. It seems to me that there are much more worthy targets: like landlords, politicians, and small, snappy dogs.

There isn't any music I hate, to make a tired analogy. There's music that bores me, there's music I'd never buy, there's music I wouldn't listen to by preference. I don't see the sense in hating Jessica Simpson because she makes hack music and sells it with sex. I just don't buy it. I'm indifferent to her career.

Well, FWIW, I never assume that anyone who starts a thread about recognizing what D&D has done for the hobby as a archetypal member of the D20-hatah club.

Now Texans, on the other hand...


But their is a body of reactionary D&D/d20 haters. RPGnet used to host a large number of them. But ever RPGnet came to mock and marginalize some of the most unreasonable frothers.

Seems to me there are different groups of naysayers.

- There's your old-school grogs who are still playing with their brown box books held together with tape, who think 3e is new-fangled crap.

- There's your fed-up-to-the-back-teeth campaigner who's been forced to play just a bit too much d20 and wants a change – violently.

- There's the fading remnants of the 80s and 90s gamers who looked down on D&D as 'unrealistic' or 'munchkiny'.


Have I missed any?

Quote from: droogHave I missed any?

The more significant group whose tastes run a different way and feel threatened by the fact that they are in the minority and go to extremes of bashing and rationalization to receive validation that the majority that plays D&D are somehow objectively wrong/foolish/stupid/uninformed/responsible for all their gaming ills.

I don't.  But I assume that those who threadcap in D&D related threads have either have issues with D&D or have issues.

I'm not talking about negative posts in threads discussing the pros and cons of D&D - that's to be expected.  But when someone has a thread about something they're doing with D&D (or some other game) and someone feels the need to jump in and say the game sucks, that demonstrates emotional involvement with the game in a bad way.

There's a group of people who say they don't like D20, but mean D&D. Quite understandable, as third-party products for the default D&D way of playing are sold under the label D20. That there are several game systems who severly modify both the rules and style of play, is beyond them. So the hate for D20 is hate for high fantasy, dungeon adventure or "gamism" itself. Most of those people have way too many cats and play Exalted.

QuoteMost of those people have way too many cats and play Exalted.

I don't know about the cats part, but I do think the Exalted thing is amusing (and possibly true). Ironic, because Exalted is pretty much D&D in a modified Storyteller system with Roman and East Asian aesthetic instead of a medieval/Tolkien one.

I don't make the assumption that anyone who says they don't like d20 actually hate it. I might make that assumption if the person consistently posts how they don't like d20 for one reason or the other. This is particularly true if such posts show up in any given discussion about d20 itself, time after time, as if the poster just can't countenance any discussion of d20 without chiming in about how they don't like it.

Put me in the "doesn't really give a fuck what anyone else thinks anymore because he knows what he likes" camp. :cool:

Hell, if you think d20 fans react that way, tell a Palladium fan that their system could use a little work.  Watch the vicious bile fly.

"If your hat know no limit, you must admit.. er.. it. "

-undead Johnny Cochran.

Quote from: SosthenesMost of those people have way too many cats and play Exalted.

  That's an interesting thought.

  If a woman owns loads of cats then it's "obviously" because she's a lonely spinster who desperately wants babies.  It's laughed about but it's widely accepted as a way to go.

  But a guy in his mid forties who lives alone and has like 6 cats?  I don't know about you but there's something incredibly unwholesome about that mental image.