this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2025
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If you lead with "Thing you like is actually bad", their immediate response will be to disagree with you and start defending the thing they like. And if you want someone to listen to your arguments, rather than just try to poke holes in them, you must avoid putting them on the defensive.
To get through to people, find common ground and build off that. "If you like FEATURE in GAME, you'll probably love SIMILAR FEATURE in OTHER GAME because..." is something that's actually going to get someone interested, rather than start a pointless argument :)
Why would you assume the critiques are of things they like? 5e has plenty of widely recognized flaws.
Often, simply catering to people's priors means never leaving their comfort zone.
If they play a system, they probably like that system and find its shortcomings acceptable. You can't convince someone that a system isn't enjoyable when they have first-hand evidence to the contrary.
Asking people to stop being comfortable doing something they like, so that they can be uncomfortable doing something you like, isn't a good value proposition.
Bingo. Especially when what they've done to trigger the comments telllimf them to "play something else" is ask how to extend the thing they already like, or to replace some subsystem that is so clealy not core to the game.
But with 5e, there are also just so many third party releases that you can also replace core systems, like magic, with little difficulty, and people know it.
They don't want to play something else. They're not ready to try something else. They want to keep their dragon ampersand and their dis/advantage rolls, and telling them they're doing something wrong by holding on to that isn't convincing. It just communicates that other games are played by fucking assholes with boundary issues.
I don't think you've ever actually gamed before.
Sute, but the thing they like is "D&D", and D&D isn't just a game anymore, it's an identity signifier. Pointing people to other games before establishing yourself as firmly not attacking their identity is going to trigger a fight.
It's not about identity as much as it's a very poor way to try to convince someone.
Don't base your line of argument on a statement you know the other person will likely disagree with.
For example "You should play Pathfinder because DnD sucks", holds no weight to people who don't think that DnD sucks. In fact if they happen to like DnD, it undermines your argument, because if you disagree about DnD, aren't you also likely to disagree about Pathfinder?
Which is part of the problem. Like talking to someone who only drinks Coca-Cola about trying a new bag of tea you brought over.
If you've wedded yourself so deeply to the brand that you feel attacked whenever someone levels a critique, you're probably not mature enough to be at my table.
Ok, but these discussions aren't happening at you're table. "Well, fuck them then" isn't exactly helpful.
Isn't what I said. But if that's what you've heard, you're illustrating my point.